THE 69th renewal of the National Basketball Association unwraps tomorrow with a three-game bill. The tripleheader features Orlando at New Orleans, Dallas at San Antonio, and Houston at the LA Lakers.
All three Texas teams will be in action on opening night. The San Antonio Spurs, who defeated LeBron James and the then- back-to-back NBA titlist Miami Heat in five games last June to snare their first championship in seven years and fifth overall (including 1999-2003-2005-2007) in franchise history, will receive their rings during pre-game ceremonies at the AT&T Center.
The Spurs have retained their key players from last season, including ageless Tim Duncan, Tony parker, Manu Ginobili, Kawhi Leonard (2014 NBA Finals Most Valuable Player), Boris Diaw, Tiago Splitter and Danny Green, and are seeking a another crown under head coach Gregg Popovich, the architect of San Antonio’s five previous title finishes.
One interesting act by the Spurs this summer: In August, it signed controversial Rebecca Lynn (Becky Hammon, a former WNBA guard with the San Antonio Stars and New York Liberty, to become the second female assistant coach in NBA annals but the first to be a full-time, salaried assistant coach.
This also made her the first full-time female assistant coach in any of the four major professional sports leagues in North America. The 37-year-old Hammon was born and grew up in the U.S. but became a naturalized Russian citizen in 2008 that enabled her to represent the Russian national team in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.
The Dallas Mavericks, who last secured the Larry O”Brien championship trophy in 2011, have added a pair of Chandler to join forces with 34-year-old German-born Dirk Nowitzki, an erstwhile free agent who took a paycut last summer to enable 7-1 center Tyson Chandler and forward Chandler Parsons to come aboard billionaire owner Mark Cuban’s ship.
The 32-year-old Chandler is in his second tour of duty with Dallas. In his first season with the Mavs in 2011, he started for the club in its NBA title run. Thereafter, as an unrestricted free agent, he was part of a three-team sign-and-trade in December 2011 (a lockout-shortened season) after agreeing to a four-year, $58-million deal with the New York Knicks.
Last June, following a three-year stay in Gotham City, the Mavs reacquired Chandler along with Raymond Felton from New York in exchange for four veteran players, including Spanish guard Jose Calderon and Haitian center Samuel Dalembert, and two second-round picks in the 2014 NBA draft.
In July, Dallas secured the services of Parsons, then a restricted free agent, after the latter’s old employer, Houston, declined to match Dallas’ three-year, $46-million offer sheet to him.
Houston not only lost Parsons without any compensation but also shipped guard Jeremy Lin to the Los Angeles Lakers in a trade. Jeremy (Shu-How) Lin, whose rags-to-riches story in New York generated a global following known as “Linsanity” in January-March 2012, was peddled by the Rockets along with 2015 first- and second-round draft choices to the Lakers in July in exchange for the draft rights to Sergei Lishouk.
The 26-year-old Harvard University graduate, the first American of Chinese or Taiwanese descent to play in the league, had signed a three-year, $25-million offer sheet with Houston in the 2012 offseason as a restricted free agent.
After stating they would match any offer extended to Lin, the Knicks eventually declined to do so when the Rockets revised an earlier offer that was substantially less in amount.
The Lakers, who will pay Lin $15 million in 2014-15 in the final year of his three-year deal, also picked up Carlos Boozer, a bulky 6-8 forward-center, off waivers in July after the Chicago Bulls released him via the one-time amnesty clause.
Under the arrangement, El-Ay will pay only $3.25 million of Boozer’s $16.8-million stipend this season as Chicago will shell out the remaining $13.55 million.The Lakers’ fortunes nonetheless rests on the health of former NBA MVP Kobe Bryant.
The 36-year-old Bryant played just six games last campaign due to a torn Achilles tendon (sustained against visiting Golden State on April 12, 2013 or just two days after he became the first player in NBA history to collect 47 points, eight rebounds, five assists, four blocks and three steals against Portland) and a lateral tibial plateau fracture in his left knee that eventually shut down his 18th NBA season.