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Lakers.com’s Mike Trudell sat down with forward Matt Barnes following Super Bowl XLVI to talk about the team watching the game together and what positions each guy might play if they had chosen football over basketball.
Category : Blog
Kevin Durant was named a starter on the 2012 Western Conference All-Star team after receiving 1,345,566 votes, second most in the Western Conference, the NBA announced today.
This will mark KD’s third career All-Star appearance and his second as a starter. During last year’s game played at STAPLES Center in Los Angeles, KD was the game’s second leading scorer after recording 34 points to go along with three rebounds and two assists in 30 minutes.
This season, KD has helped lead the Thunder to a NBA-best 17-4 record while averaging 26.6 points (3rd in the NBA), a team-high 8.1 rebounds and 3.1 assists in 37.1 minutes. Through the first six weeks of the season, Durant has recorded eight double-doubles and he became the first player in franchise history to open the season with four consecutive 30-point scoring efforts.
The 2012 NBA All-Star Game, which will air live at 8 p.m. ET on TNT and ESPN Radio in the U.S., and reach fans in more than 200 countries and territories in more than 40 languages, will be played at Amway Center in Orlando – on Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012.
Category : Blog
After being bought out of the last year of his contract by the Oklahoma City Thunder, Nate Robinson landed with the Golden State Warriors. The 5-9 guard, playing for his fourth team in seven seasons, is finally a significant contributor again, averaging 11 points and five assists in 26 minutes, his best statistical season since 2008-09 with the New York Knicks.
Robinson talked with USA TODAY’s J. Michael Falgoust:
Are you always the team prankster?
When we have timeouts, water breaks, it’s good to crack a laugh because you don’t know what teammates are having a bad day. You got to pick their spirits up. For me to always be positive, I try to have that energy bounce off to them in the best positive light.
Being small by basketball standards, you have taken joy in challenging and dominating big guys?
I just love to succeed. I love to be the best. I love to win at everything. As a kid, going against the big guys and playing a big man’s game, it was fun to embarrass them and be better at their sport. I’ve played three sports my whole life. I never played just one sport, and there’s so many guys in the NBA who have only played basketball. I started playing basketball only when I was a sophomore in college. That’s the only time I wasn’t playing three sports. I made it pretty far. I did pretty good.
Category : Blog
OKLAHOMA CITY — Kevin Durant wasn’t sure at first that he wanted to be a movie star and a basketball star.
It took some peer pressure and some encouragement from his mother, but now Durant is bringing Hollywood to Oklahoma City for a few days. The two-time NBA scoring champion filmed scenes from the upcoming movie “Thunderstruck” Tuesday at the team’s home arena, including the pivotal sequence when his basketball skills are magically switched with a clumsy teenager to throw the Thunder’s playoff hopes into question.
Durant plays himself in the movie. Nickelodeon star Taylor Gray misses a halfcourt shot so badly that it hits Oklahoma City’s mascot, Rumble, in the arena tunnel and he tracks down the ball at the same time as Durant. He says he wishes he could play as well as Durant, and the Thunder superstar says he wishes he could help.
The wish magically gets granted, with the downside being that Durant suddenly has the skills of a kid who couldn’t make his own high school basketball team.
“It was pretty cool. I’m going to be nervous about how people view the movie and how they think my performance was,” Durant said. “I really don’t care now. I did it, it was fun, I enjoyed myself, I made some friends along the way, so I think it was a success.”
Category : Blog
Nate Robinson, the Warriors’ 5-foot-9 (maybe) backup guard, sat out Monday’s fourth-quarter meltdown against the Memphis Grizzlies. Earlier he played nearly 12 minutes and had six assists, five points and three rebounds. But…
“Nate made a couple of careless plays, which is why I took him out,” coach Mark Jackson said Tuesday. “In hindsight, Nate is probably the one guy I should have kept in, whether for Steph or in there with Steph, because of Nate’s energy and the way he was competing.”
Before Wednesday’s game against Portland, Coach Mark Jackson was asked if he would have put Robinson in that fourth quarter for Ellis or for Curry.
“I don’t know,” Jackson said. “I told Nate, ‘It might have been at the five (center).’ ”
Of course you were kidding, someone said. “No, I wasn’t,” Jackson said, adding, “I liked his fight, I liked his commitment, I liked his no-back-down approach. That’s what he is and that’s what he gives us.”
Wednesday, Robinson played a relatively minor but useful role in the Warriors’ 101-93 win over the Trail Blazers.
Robinson played the entire third quarter, and 14:46 in all, including the last 47 seconds of the game, when he hit two game-clinching free throws. For the game: four points, four assists, no turnovers.
For a few minutes of the third quarter, Robinson, Ellis and Curry played together in the all-mighty mite package. A small package, but efficient and, on this night, not soft.
Category : Blog
