Heard It Through the Weekend Grapevine

Posted by Rob Mahoney on July 4, 2010 under The Grapevine | 2 Comments to Read

• Kevin Arnovitz on the ongoing Clipper coaching interviews, which haven’t wrapped as quickly as anticipated: “[Dwane] Casey was thought to be the initial favorite, but a strong performance by Del Negro in the interview process tightened the horse race. According to sources, Del Negro surprised the Clippers with the blueprint he presented to management, specifically his level of organization and his plans for player development. Casey, who has long been on the Clippers’ radar, delivered precisely what the brass expected from a sharp, serious tactician. Despite his best efforts, Casey’s firm grasp of the game and his strong schematic vision for the Clippers weren’t enough to separate him from Del Negro.”
• From the fine creator of “The ‘Bron ‘Bron Song (C’mon LeBron)”, Ben Rogers, comes a new chart-topping number: “DFW Digs Dirk.” If you dig DFW digging Dirk, be sure to let him know @benandskin.
• Omar Samhan dispenses some Twitter wisdom.
• A flimsy suggestion that the Mavs’ pre and post-game shows on TXA21 could change for next season.
• Though Joe Johnson was seriously weighing offers from the Knicks and the Bulls before accepting a max deal with the Hawks, he apparently didn’t give the Mavs serious consideration. Even if Joe wasn’t your personal choice for an off-season score, this is not a good thing.
• Chris Forsberg of ESPN Boston grades Michael Finley’s short season with the Celtics.
• Mike Miller has been thrown around as a potential MLE target, but such a signing would be very ill-advised. Though Dallas does need to clean up the shooting guard position in a general sense, signing Miller to a sizable deal makes very little sense at this point in his career. Not necessarily because he’s aging, but simply because Mike has elected to take his most beneficial skill, douse it in gasoline, and set it on fire. Tom Ziller explains: “For the first eight seasons of his NBA career, he was a great scorer, able to fill the bucket from range consistently. If you had a guard taking 10 or 15 shots a night, you wanted it to be someone as deadly efficient as Miller. But that was, essentially, Miller’s only elite skill. He was an average rebounder, an efforted but often overmatched defender and an only slightly effective passer. He shot, and well, and that’s all you really wanted. Everything changed when Miller was traded to Minnesota in 2008. He went from a deadly gunner to a … wannabe Scottie Pippen? A performance artist protesting the commodization of his pure stroke? I just don’t know.”