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Despite leading the NBA in rebounding with a beastly 15.0 rpg, Andre Drummond was snubbed from the All Star game, and had a humorous response on his Twitter:

 
bullshit
i know i’m biased but come on...AD’s #’s, if u assume the same production throughout the entire year would be in a ratified company of 3. dude averages 4 assists per game. never mind his bounds
 
I guess the question we should be asking is when was the last time an active NBA rebounding leader failed to make an All Star team. I also note that 15 boards a game is very high even for an NBA rebounding leader. Dennis Rodman is the only player I can remember in the last 25-30 years who averaged more than 15 boards a game.
 
Crazy stat of the year for Drummond is he's still at 63% on his FT's, 44 games into the season. I thought he would have tailed off by now, especially consider his career 41% mark.

PS. I guess he wanted an exclamation to his point about the snub...30 pts, 24 Rebs, 6 blocks and ( 8-12 Ft's)... last night
 
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NBA teams like guys with big bodies that can defend. One would think Rodney could be as good as Marcus Smart of the Celtics defensively and maybe a lot better on offense because he can make some 3s. Smart has the worst shooting % of any guard in the NBA but gets major minutes due to the D he plays. Rodney has a very similar body type.

Rodney has two appealing attributes, which are his defensive abilities and he can stroke the 3 a little. As Michael Cooper proved, one can fashion a long and stellar career with those two things being all that you can do as a player.
 
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Perhaps Rodney has finally gotten the coaching he so desperately needed on his decision making, or they have told him to concentrate on the 2 things he does well, shooting and defending, and avoid doing the things he does not do well, which is trying to create anything with more than one dribble.
 
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KhalidShockedTheWorld said:
With Magic going nowhere and Rodney likely to be handed minutes now that tanking is de rigeur in the NBA, it’s a great opportunity for him.
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I just saw this story, similar to what you mentioned about tanking........ I guess if he gets some PT...he's got to play within' his himself/ to his strengths and maybe they pick up his option next year...

CBS: Magic's Rodney Purvis: Goes for game-high 19 points
"In just his sixth NBA game, Purvis secured what was easily his best game so far as his 19 points marked a game high during Friday's blowout loss. It is unlikely he will continue the scoring, as his previous high before this game was six points. But with the team tanking, Purvis may see some minutes down the stretch. "
 
One of my coworkers who is a big Knicks/NBA fan is so upset with the tanking that he is sending an email to Adam Silver urging him to adopt a random lottery system for all the teams missing the playoffs. Tanking has gotten out of hand in the NBA and to a lesser extent in the NHL. I tend to agree with him. For Rodney Purvis and those like him, tanking represents an opportunity to get a foot in the door and hold it open.
 
Andre Drummond is not only reaching a career high in FT% this year at 61.5%, but he is at a career high with 16 rebounds per game and has almost tripled his assists average, which was about 1 a game coming into this season, and 3.1 assists per game this year. This is a remarkable improvement also including his scoring being up over his career norm to around 15 ppg.
 
KhalidShockedTheWorld said:
Andre Drummond is not only reaching a career high in FT% this year at 61.5%, but he is at a career high with 16 rebounds per game and has almost tripled his assists average, which was about 1 a game coming into this season, and 3.1 assists per game this year. This is a remarkable improvement also including his scoring being up over his career norm to around 15 ppg.
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I guess the old saying is that bigs can take longer to develop, even though he was an NBA all-star at 22 years old. But it's also amazing how young he was at Uconn. Andre who's finishing up his 6th season in the league is just 24 ....for comparison Terry Larrier will be 23 this summer and still could play one more year in college........Andre Drummond Stats

Also noticed homeboy is getting paid huge money at a young age,.... he should blow away Ray as Uconn's all-time earner by the time he's 30:

($32.7 mil first 5 years).......2017-18.............2018-19......... 2019-20.......... 2020-21
Andre's Salary................. $23,775,506... $25,434,263... $27,093,019..... $28,751,775

Some others:
Ray Allen.................$184 mil
Rudy Gay.................$127
Richard Hamilton.....$109
Emeka Okafor..........$89.5
Ben Gordon..............$84.6
Caron Butler.............$83
Donyell Marshall......$72
Clifford Robinson ....$61.5
Charlie Villanueva....$51.5
Kemba Walker.........$46.7
Jeremy Lamb...........$22.8
Hilton Armstrong.....$22.6
Kevin Ollie................$20.1
Hasheem Thabeet...$16.7
Jake Voskuhl............$12.3
Shabazz Napier........$6.1

 
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Most impressive is the strides he has made in his FT shooting and his assists. The substantial increase in his FT% and the near tripling of his career assist average are very impressive. There have been poor FT shooting bigs who were better FT shooters coming into the league than Andre, who never had that type of substantial improvement in their entire careers. And because of the Hack-A-Drummond strategies that were being used against Detroit it was essential that he improve to stay on the floor late in games. They can probably live with low 60s FT% now with everything else he does.
 
the Blades said:
I guess the old saying is that bigs can take longer to develop, even though he was an NBA all-star at 22 years old. But it's also amazing how young he was at Uconn. Andre who's finishing up his 6th season in the league is just 24 ....for comparison Terry Larrier will be 23 this summer and still could play one more year in college........Andre Drummond Stats

Also noticed homeboy is getting paid huge money at a young age,.... he should blow away Ray as Uconn's all-time earner by the time he's 30:

($32.7 mil first 5 years).......2017-18.............2018-19......... 2019-20.......... 2020-21
Andre's Salary................. $23,775,506... $25,434,263... $27,093,019..... $28,751,775

Some others:
Ray Allen.................$184 mil
Rudy Gay.................$127
Richard Hamilton.....$109
Emeka Okafor..........$89.5
Ben Gordon..............$84.6
Caron Butler.............$83
Donyell Marshall......$72
Clifford Robinson ....$61.5
Charlie Villanueva....$51.5
Kemba Walker.........$46.7
Jeremy Lamb...........$22.8
Hilton Armstrong.....$22.6
Kevin Ollie................$20.1
Hasheem Thabeet...$16.7
Jake Voskuhl............$12.3
Shabazz Napier........$6.1
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great stuff Blades, thx. Amazing how players like Thayer & Voskuhl (and Knight, Ollie) made a solid living. i’m guessing AJ Price did ok as well, but boy no wonder they all love JC. Even guys like Donnie & Boone made a living...Donnie not as much but it’s crazy to think of how many UC players played pro at one time or another during Calhoun’s reign. Guys we can argue prob shouldn’t have gotten drafted or were not highly rated coming into college. Crazy
 
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Travis Knight was not very good in the NBA, although his one season with the Celtics was his most productive of 7 NBA seasons, disappointing though it was. He fooled teams into thinking he was better than he was due to his mobility. However he still holds the NBA record for fastest DQ on fouls- 6 minutes. He was accused by Celtics fans of not being interested in basketball, just as UConn fans similarly questioned the desire of Jonathan Mandeldove. Although Knight's NBA career was more productive than Mandeldove's UConn career.
 
As I said above...Knight's whole NBA career was based on a mistake by one guy, Pitino. He was a late 1st round pick by Chicago but they renounced his rights making him a free agent. The Lakers signed him to a 1 year deal ( a season Shaq was hurt) and he was a free agent after that. Then Pitino thought he was stealing something, when he ran the C's...... and screwed up by giving him a 7 year/ $22 mil deal. But nothing new for Pitino, he screwed up alot while he was in the NBA.
 
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Pitino was sold a bill of goods by Knight’s agent, who fooled him into thinking that Knight was perfect for Pitino’s system. Pitino had some prior NBA coaching experience so its a bit of a mystery but it seems like his personnel decisions were very bad and he really needed to stick to coaching. He later learned this and went back to college coaching which is where he enjoyed his greatest success.
 
I read it the other way ....that Pitino had to sell Knight ... " he had reluctantly left the Lakers to get in on the ground floor of Pitino's rebuilding of the Celtics ".....and the Lakers wanted Knight to stay as a back up for Shaq .....But Pitino sucked "goat balls" as an NBA coach too . Just one winning season out of six. I think it was the Celtics who got sold a bill of goods by the snake oil salesman when they hired him...then he resigned and whimpered back to college ball again and he's still looking for work.... By the way was this an April fools joke: NEW: President Dooley Kills Hiring of Pitino at URI
 
for a guy who i think averaged like 10 ppg in Utah HS ball (think he transferred from CA?) not a bad living.
 
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Blades, how is it that Pitino had to sell Knight? That was an extraordinary amount of money at that time for a guy who wasn’t even a starting player in the NBA. If LA wanted Knight to back up Shaq they wouldn’t have offered anywhere near that much money. Knight saw a chance to start, but he didn’t have to be offered that much money and it’s not like he had competing financial offers. Once that contract offer was put on the table it was an absolute no brainer that did not require any selling by Pitino. At the time nobody could believe he was offered that much money based on an NBA career that up until that time consisted of zero. In fact the one season Knight played in Boston was the only time he averaged as many as 5 points per game. Obviously it proved to be one of multiple bad personnel decisions by Pitino but I do believe he was bamboozled by the agent and not the other way around.
 
KhalidShockedTheWorld said:
Pitino was sold a bill of goods by Knight’s agent, who fooled him into thinking that Knight was perfect for Pitino’s system.
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No you got the entire thing wrong...Neither Travis or his agent ever claimed to be anything they weren't.....I use to follow the Celtics before Pitino, when they played in Hartford, plus TK was a Uconn guy. Pitino was the guy selling everyone that Knight was gonna be the perfect fit for his new version of the Celtics. Including Travis, who was almost apologetic right from his first Celtics press conference..So I can't fault Travis for signing when Pitino "made him an offer he couldn't refuse "

Knight's Out - Hartford Courant(1999)``I sold my soul to the devil,'' Knight said. ``For money.''- from the article:

"At Knight's welcome- to-Boston press conference on a hot July night, the new Celtics coach described a Travis Knight no one who had watched UConn had ever seen -- a lean, mean scoring/rebounding machine. And oh yeah, said Pitino, Knight, with his quickness, was also going to be a key to the Celtics' trapping defense. ``Travis Knight,'' Pitino said, ``is going to be a great, great player in this league.''

"To his credit, Knight, who averaged 6.5 points, 4.9 rebounds and 20 minutes a game for the Celtics, never claimed to be something he wasn't. When the Celtics were courting him, Knight said, he reminded Pitino that he was a finesse-type center who lacked the strength and offensive moves to excel playing the low post in a conventional half- court NBA offense. Knight said Pitino assured him that he was comfortable with the type of player Knight was. "

But either way hooray for Travis he got paid....especially since he was honest about not being ready for the roll ... that dumb ass Pitino sold him on...
 
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It’s been 8 days since Shabazz Napier became a UFA due to no QO from Portland. Has anyone made an offer? It seems like lots of guy have been getting contracts in the past 8 days but not Shabazz. What’s up with that? He seems like an ideal backup point guard who can really shoot the ball. I would think lots of teams could use him?
 
KhalidShockedTheWorld said:
It’s been 8 days since Shabazz Napier became a UFA due to no QO from Portland. Has anyone made an offer? It seems like lots of guy have been getting contracts in the past 8 days but not Shabazz. What’s up with that? He seems like an ideal backup point guard who can really shoot the ball. I would think lots of teams could use him?
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The next wave of free agency is on the way and several marquee players are still without an NBA team to call home. The Crossover considers the best of what remains: the players that are unsigned for a variety of reasons.

12. SHABAZZ NAPIER
The fact that Portland declined to even give Napier a qualifying offer registered as a mild surprise, given that he played the sixth-most minutes among Trail Blazers last season. Any lingering chance for Napier's return on a new deal extinguished once Portland struck agreements with two other guards (Seth Curry and Nik Stauskas) in his stead. That makes Napier one of the best available ball handlers, ready and able to shore up the rotation as a backup. The 26-year-old has settled in as a solid pro: a functional creator out of the pick-and-roll and a decent three-point shooter who has shown he can contribute without always having the ball in his hands.

https://www.si.com/nba/2018/07/09/nba-free-agency-clint-capela-marcus-smart-isaiah-thomas
 
I read a rumor about the Hornets, but they just signed Tony Parker who is at this stage of his career a backup point guard. Shabazz may need to see what happens with some other guys and who has a need for what he brings. I am surprised the Trail Blazers let him become a UFA. They obviously think Seth Curry is better for what they want.
 
Rodney's been bouncing around in trades (ORL to OKC now BOS) this summer. Looks like he was traded to the Celtics for the purpose of waiving for cap space:

Report: Celtics trade Abdel Nader to Thunder for Rodney Purvis

" That cash will undoubtedly cover Nader’s $1.4 million salary, plus some more to help offset the crazy tax bill the Thunder still have coming. The Celtics will waive Purvis, who does not have a guaranteed deal. All of this will save the Celtics about $450,000, getting them closer to going under the luxury tax line, they are about $2.5 million over it currently "
 
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