Le Basketbawl

Darko Milicic may have finally found an NBA coach who appreciates the talents he has; the question now becomes is it too late to save the European born player from leaving the NBA this summer? Back in December Darko said that he had grown too frustrated with life in the NBA after playing seven seasons and would head back to Europe next season. Milicic felt he had been deceived during his stint in the NBA starting with the Detroit Pistons who drafted him with the second pick in the 2003 NBA Draft.

This season Milicic started out the season with “MY BOYS” the New York Knicks and had once again become a forgotten man. “Mlive.com” sat down with the big man in December and asked him if he thought that the Pistons had lied to him during his time with the team. Milicic responded “Yes, they did. “They lie to everybody. It’s the NBA. The NBA, all around the league, same (stuff). ‘Your chance is going to come.’ All that kind of (stuff). (Forget) that! I’ve got enough of that kind of stuff, so I decided I’m going to Europe. I don’t know why they took me with the second pick if you’re not going to play me. I never understood that, you know. I was happy being the second pick and all that kind of stuff, but I never knew what I got myself into. I never knew I was coming here not to play. Nobody was telling me anything.”

He told reporters that he was resigned to going back home and playing next season in the Euro-League. Milicic said “I’ve got to be real. There is no team in the league that is going to give me the chance that I’m looking for. My only chance is back in Europe. I’m going to do that. I want to be happy. I want to play.”

Darko was traded from the Knicks on February 18, to the Minnesota Timberwolves in exchange for Brian Cardinal. New York waived Cardinal but T-Wolves head coach Kurt Rambis is quite impressed with Milicic. He thinks that the big man has a huge upside. Rambis told the “Star Tribune“ that Darko is a multi-talented guy. The Timberwolves bench boss said “We’re seeing glimpses of tremendous potential for him and for us. He made a pass to Ramon Sessions that Ramon wasn’t even looking for, probably assuming there was no way Darko was going to get him the basketball. He has such tremendous vision and passing capabilities. We really haven’t seen an exorbitant amount of what he can do scoring, but it’s there. It’s just starting to poke out. That’s why we’re doing things in practice to encourage him to not only pass the basketball but also look for his own opportunities.”

New York Vinnie believes that Milicic has gotten a raw deal by the NBA and hopes that the big man will change his mind about going back home. New York Vinnie thinks it would be a shame that just when Darko may have found the right situation he would still leave. Life works in mysterious ways; hopefully this will lead to a beneficial relationship for all involved.

Introducing a new feature for our readers here at “The House That New York Vinnie Built.” This will be the debut of “NEW YORK VINNIE’S PUD OF THE MONTH” a feature that unfortunately will have plenty of candidates every month in the current NBA. Even though February is our shortest month of the year there was no shortage of candidates to choose from. However the first winner of  ”NEW YORK VINNIE’S PUD OF THE MONTH” is Minnesota Timberwolves center Al Jefferson.

Sunday “ESPN.com” reported that the T-Wolves big man had been arrested and reportedly charged with a fourth degree driving while impaired early Sunday morning.  The reports indicate that Jefferson was arrested after he had been stopped by police while he was driving 56 MPH in a 40 MPH zone.  The reports also indicate that he was released by the Herepin County Jail in Minnesota at about 4:00 am. A spokesman for the police department stated they could not reveal Jefferson’s blood alcohol level however he did confirm that it was over the  legal limit of 0.08.

As far as New York Vinnie is concerned drinking or doing drugs in the privacy of your own home is up to the individual. If you want to snort Frickin Drano and drink Frickin Butane that is fine as long as you are home and in a place that you can not inflict harm on others. However if you get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle now you have changed the Frickin equation. You are now dealing with a deadly weapon when you have no Frickin right to; now you put innocent people into the picture.

New York Vinnie is aware of how badly the Frickin T-Wolves have played this season and of the rumors that Jefferson was on the block before the NBA Trading Deadline. However that still is no excuse for getting behind the wheel of a car after you have been drinking. Send for a Frickin cab or a limo Al; you can afford it! Thankfully no one was hurt this time. You may not be that fortunate if it happens again.

New York Vinnie was about to come out here and tell you that Minnesota Timberwolves Team President is possibly the stupidest most incompetent man in this Great Nation of ours and possibly the entire Free World. However New York Vinnie then realized that there is a man that is even more stupid and more incompetent than Kahn and that would be the man who hired him Minnesota Timberwolves Majority Team Owner Glen Taylor.

Maybe New York Vinnie watched too many medical TV shows growing up but this phrase keeps running through my head. David Kahn is just a Frickin Symptom it is Glen Taylor that is the Frickin Disease. Glen Taylor has taken a team that once captured the hearts of people from the state of Minnesota and burned it to the Frickin ground. David Kahn is just doing a whole bunch of nothing in trying to rebuild the team.

The “Associated Press” reported Monday night that a deal that the Timberwolves sent out a press release on never went down. The T-Wolves had issued a press release that they had acquired veteran shooting guard Devin Brown from the New Orleans Hornets in exchange for journeyman point guard Jason Hart.

There was only one problem; the Frickin trade was never made! So Minnesota then had to Frickin scramble and worked  out a trade with the Phoenix Suns and got forward Alando Tucker  and a second round pick in next June’s NBA Draft for Hart.

Here is the press release that the Timberwolves sent out on the trade that never happened. Kahn wrote “Jason has been the consummate professional during his time with us, but it was a rare opportunity to add a proven player with 3-point shooting capabilities that will help our offense. Devin should be a nice addition to our team defensively, as well. He has a reputation as a tough kid and hard-nosed defender.”

Brown would have been a nice addition to the Timberwolves as the veteran has played in 24 games for the Hornets and is averaging 10 points per  game and is shooting 41% from three point range. Now Tucker has played in 11 games for the Suns this season and has averaged 3.9 points per game and is shooting 14% from three point range. Just a tad different in the bottom line.

Here is the press release that Kahn issued after picking up Tucker. Kahn wrote “I want to thank Jason Hart for being a consummate professional with us. This was a very hard trade to make precisely because Jason has been so helpful to our team both on and off the court. We wish him well. We are eager to have Alando join us this week. Everything we know about him is that he is a hardworking young man who has not had the opportunity for significant playing time. Finally, this was an opportunity for us to acquire a second-round pick in next year’s draft which is another asset for our team.”

What a Frickin bunch of Crapolla and this Frickin moron still has a Frickin job! The reason that he does is the PUD he works for is a bigger Frickin Imbecile! Kahn is like Frickin the Bizarro version of King Midas; everything he touches turns to Crapolla.

T-Wolves fans New York Vinnie feels your pain all too Frickin well as we have our own Frickin Einstein in “El Douche” James Dolan that owns the Knicks. So you may be Frickin miserable but you are not alone and it could be worse! You could be a Nets fan.

On Monday night the NBA careers of Chauncey Billups and Allen Iverson once again intersected as the Denver Nuggets took on the Philadelphia 76ers. And once again as has been the case over the last couple of seasons Billups came up on the top end of the exchange as he scored 31 points and led the Nuggets past Iverson and the 76ers 93-83.

The loss dampened the enthusiasm of the Philadelphia crowd who were Frickin Stoked to have Iverson back on the Sixers. This was just the most recent time over the last couple of years that Billups has ended up the on the better end of the exchange between the two players. However it was not always like this with Billups being the Frickin Hero and Iverson being the Frickin Goat. In fact at one time it was completely the opposite.

Allen Iverson came into the NBA during the 1996-1997 season after being selected with the number one pick in the 1996 NBA Draft by the 76ers. He would take the league by Frickin storm winning NBA Rookie Of The Year as he averaged  23.5 points, 7.1 assists and 4.1 rebounds per game. “The Answer” would win the NBA Scoring Title in 1998–99, 2000–01, 2001–02 and 2004–05. He was named the NBA MVP for the 2000-2001 season taking the Sixers to the Finals that year. He has been named the NBA All-Star MVP two different times. The only thing that A.I. does not have is that NBA Championship Ring.

Chauncey Billups came into the NBA the following season as his career started in 1997-1998 season after being taken with the third pick by the Boston Celtics in the 1997 NBA Draft. Now Billups was not the sensation that Iverson had been the year before with Philadelphia. In fact Billups did not even last one season with the Frickin Celtics. Rick Pitino who was calling all the Frickin shots back then for Boston and most likely took 10 years off Red Auerbach’s life traded Billups to the Toronto Raptors.

Billups became a vagabond, a journeyman; going from team to team and never really making that much of an impact in the early years of his career. He played with Denver for a couple of years and then with the T-Wolves for a couple more and was Frickin inconsistent at best. It was not until he signed with the Detroit Pistons in the Summer of 2002 that he found himself a home and took his career to the next Frickin level. Now Billups has never won a scoring title and has never been named the MVP of the NBA. However he does have that NBA Championship ring.

It was last season that the trade would happen that would effect both Iverson and Billups and the Detroit Pistons and Denver Nuggets as well. Billups was sent to Denver while Iverson went to Detroit; the deal would work out great for the Nuggets and put the Pistons on a Frickin downward spiral. Billups was the Frickin spark-plug that got the Nuggets engine roaring as they made it all the way to the Western Conference Finals when they lost to the Lakers.

Iverson had just the opposite effect on Detroit as one the elite teams of the decade fell apart at the Frickin seams. They ended up the number eight seed in the NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs and were sent home after the first round. Iverson did not even show up for the games and he was onto try finding greener pastures this past summer.

New York Vinnie is sick and tired of writing about the Frickin trials and tribulations of he failed NBA marriage with the Memphis Grizzlies. You most likely are just as sick of reading them so we will skip talking about it other than to say that Iverson after being released by Memphis signed a deal to return to the Sixers last week. And Billups and the Nuggets were the first team he faced.

New York Vinnie has already written that I believe that Iverson will be a big help to the Sixers for the rest of the season but the only way we will find out is one game at a time. Will he have the kind of effect that Billups had with the Nuggets last year? When Allen feels needed and wanted there is not a better Frickin teammate to have; so he just might pull it off.

Try to imagine being born and raised in the lap of luxury; you live in a palatial mansion, you have maids and butlers and your life is sheer heaven on earth. But as we all do you reach a certain age and you want to go off and make it on your own. So you get a job and your first apartment; a tenement on Skid Row! All of a sudden all those luxuries you took for granted your entire life are no longer there. You now live in the real Frickin world and you have to deal with all the Crappola that the rest of us put up with.

New York Vinnie believes that those are the kind of thoughts that are running right now through Minnesota Timberwolves rookie head coach Kurt Rambis’s mind right about now a little less than a month into the  regular season. The only view Rambis has ever had of the NBA was from his perch with one of the elite teams in all of basketball the Los Angeles Lakers.

Rambis was a reserve player back in the eighties when the team was going through its “ShowTime” period. The last few years Rambis has been assistant coach on Phil Jackson’s staff going to the NBA Finals the last two years and winning the NBA Title last June. Now however Rambis has a totally different perspective on the NBA; instead of looking from the penthouse and looking down on the rest of the league Rambis is now in the basement.

Rambis for years has wanted to be the head coach of his own NBA team. Unfortunately he had to settle for something close being head coach of the T-Wolves. The Timberwolves are more like a pretty talented NBDL team rather than a true NBA squad. There is not an awful of of talent on the team to begin with and if you add in the injuries this team has had this year you end up with a blow mediocre team.

Right about now the rookie head coach is pretty ticked off at his team. Not because of the juries or the lack of talent; however he is upset about the lack of effort he is seeing from his squad.  The club lost its eleventh straight game Wednesday night to the Houston Rockets by a 97-84 margin.

After the game Rambis told the “St. Paul Pioneer Press” “We had chances to really jump on them in the first half, but we kept them in the game. There was no thrust to what we were doing offensively. A true professional brings it every night. It’s not my job to provide them with a Knute Rockne speech every game. It gets old. On a day like this, it was their job … their responsibility to be ready to play.”

Yo Kurt; New York Vinnie agrees with some of what you are saying but I also disagree with one thing you said. Yes by all means it is the players job and responsibility to be prepared and give everything they have while they they are out on the hardwood. But Kurt it is your job to give that motivating speech before every game. This is not a veteran team that knows what it is doing as the Lakers are. You My Man have a project on your hands.

New York Vinnie realizes there are two schools of thought on how to handle pro players. There is the camp that says that the pros are getting paid and that should be all the motivation they need. That once you reach the level of the NBA you should not need a head coach to get you pumped before a game. New York Vinnie is from  the other school of thought; in my mind that is the main job of a NBA head coach to get his team in the right frame of mind to give their utmost effort on the floor.

If all you are looking for is someone to diagram plays then there would not be a need for a head coach. You could have an offensive assistant and a defensive assistant do that. It is the job of the head coach to set the tone for the team, to motivate. The head coach is supposed to be the guy who knows who needs the kick in the behind and who needs the pat on the back. With a veteran team like the Lakers, the Celtics and the Spurs a head coach can let the team run itself. But not with a glorified expansion team like Minnesota.

So welcome to the real world Kurt and realize this is how it is for many teams in the NBA. But Kurt it is up to you this season to set the tone so next season they will not need a Knute Rockne  speech before every game

If the Minnesota Timberwolves began the NBA season next week with a roster at full strength in New York Vinnie’s opinion they would still be a pretty Frickin lousy team. However with starting center Kevin Love already out at least 6-8 weeks after having surgery on his broken left hand and the club possibly without their star forward Al Jefferson this team could be one of the worst teams in the Frickin history of the NBA.

The “Minneapolis Star Tribune“ reported on Tuesday that Jefferson is suffering from a sore Achilles tendon which has him on the shelf indefinitely. Jefferson missed a major part of last season after tearing his ACL in his right leg and had seemed to be recovered after having surgery.  Jefferson played just six minutes in the second half of the T-Wolves game against the Milwaukee Bucks Saturday night because of the pain.

Minnesota rookie head coach Kurt Rambis told reporters that the team really does not have a timetable on Jefferson’s return. Rambis said “It all depends on … the treatments and the medication and whatever they’re doing for him. It all depends how quickly it affects it.”

Rambis who was hired during the summer to take over the bench after the team fired Kevin McHale told the media he can not focus on the players who are injured. He said “I just deal with the players that are out there on the floor. If they’re not out there, then that’s the trainer and the medical staff’s responsibility.”

The former assistant coach with the NBA Champs the Los Angeles Lakers was asked who he was counting on while his two big men were out. Rambis responded “Everybody. Whoever’s left. Whether they are (prepared) or they’re not, they’re going to be out there. We can try bigger lineups, we can roll smaller lineups or a combination thereof. Guys are just going to have to get up there, get their time, stand in there and play.”

Fans of the T-Wolves have gone through some pretty rough times over the last few seasons. However if they are without Love and Jefferson for an extended period this could be the longest and coldest winter that Minnesota Fans have ever gone through.

Just when you think things could not get any Frickin worse in “Upper Slobovia” they have done exactly that. The “Minneapolis Star Tribune” has reported that the Minnesota Timberwolves will be without the services of one of the few legitimate talents they have on their roster.  T-Wolves starting center Kevin Love will miss at least the next six to eight weeks after breaking a bone in his left hand.

Love suffered the injury Friday night against the Chicago Bulls in a preseason game. Reports state that that the big man heading into his second season in the NBA broke the fourth metacarpal bone during the third quarter of the game. Love will be seen by a hand specialist this Monday to find out if he will need surgery; if so the time out could end up being much longer.

The T-Wolves take a severe drop in quality with Love out of the rotation as the back-ups are Ryan Hollins, Mark Blount and Brian Cardinal. Minnesota had earlier in the preseason told the agent for Blount to see if he could find a team that would be interested in his client in a trade. So that tells you his value is not too high with the club. The Timberwolves with the combination of Love and their best player Al Jefferson thought that their front line could be a strong point for the team this season. That changes drastically if Love is out for an extended period of time.