basketball

Looks like the Hornets have given Mitch McGary a promise to take him 24th overall, according to Chad Ford of ESPN.  This should help explain him being unwilling to take a physical prior to the draft.  It's not an official, binding guarantee the Hornets will select him if available.  Although teams usually stick by draft promises, assuming he's still on the board when they pick, which he should be.

Here's the LINK for that story.

In other NBA news, the Pistons and Kings have had talks about a Josh Smith trade, with Derrick Williams and either Jason Thompson or Jason Terry coming back to Detroit.  Hope that one pans out.

LINK

Beilein has been ranked as the 9th best college basketball coach by ESPN.  There is a full page story giving background info about Beilein (which, we Michigan fans are already well aware and fond of) and which also discusses the recent string of continued success.  Hail to Beilein!

[Link: http://espn.go.com/ncb/notebook/_/page/top50coaches9/no-9-michigan-john-beilein]

The meaty part is below:

Then the breakthrough came. In 2011-12, Beilein inserted a little-known point guard named Trey Burke into his starting lineup. Burke had played with Jared Sullinger at his Columbus, Ohio, high school, so he got plenty of recruiting looks. When he signed with Michigan, he ranked outside the top 100 players in the country.

Burke was brilliant from the start of his freshman year. In 2012-13, he was even better, and at that point he was surrounded by the kind of talent Beilein had never coached before -- a top-10 center in Mitch McGary, Glenn Robinson's and Tim Hardaway's highly touted progeny, a sweet-shooting and joyously cocky 6-6 Canadian (Nik Stauskas). Beilein's system had never been as rigid as the popular impression; it just looked that way because it was different. But last season, Beilein adapted brilliantly. Isolations, pick-and-rolls, simple stuff -- the stuff you do when your team is better than the opponent -- joined forces with the system you use when you have ground to make up. The result was a few plays shy of a national title.

Michigan wasn't supposed to be as good this past season. Not before the season, after Burke and Hardaway had left for the NBA. Not during the season, when McGary, who could have done the same, was hobbled and then sidelined by back surgery. But Michigan was so, so good: The Wolverines ranked No. 1 in the nation in adjusted offensive efficiency. Stauskas was unleashed onto a role -- angle-exploiting pull-up combo sharpshooter -- that Beilein practically invented just for him. But for Aaron Harrison's repeat buzzer-beater, Michigan might have been back in the Final Four again.

It took Beilein a lifetime to get to where he is now: indubitably successful, at the head of a well-funded high-major program, in charge of a tenacious group of assistant coaches and recruiters. And now, finally, the rest of us are getting to see just how good he really is.

And the best line is:

It's a strange thing to say about a 61-year-old man, but it feels like his career has only just begun.

OK, I'll admit it.  I'm a Kenny Mayne slappy and I enjoy his offbeat take on sports.  A couple days ago he had a segment on Canada's influence on this years NBA draft which spotlights, of course, our own Nik Stauskus.  I never knew that Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, was born in Canada.

LINK

Prepare yourselves. Turn off ESPN (except for live sports programming), mute Twitter, and in general expect to be innundated with obscure, ridiculous, over the top media coverage.

LeBron has opted out of his heat contract. This may just be a way to restructure it to get the Heat more cap space, but he's now a free agent. With Carmelo Anthony opting out too this may just break the HOT TAKES engine.

Seth Davis' wrote an amalgamation of six anonymous NBA scouts evaluations. Fifty-four prospects are covered. Here are a couple of the most interesting.

Nik Stauskas, 6-6 guard, Michigan. "Cannot say enough good things about that kid. He's a big-time shooter, good size. More athletic than people think. Big fan. The guy is bouncier than you think and he can really pass. I think he can come in and play right away. I like his cockiness."

Aaron Craft, 6-2 point guard, Ohio State. "Great college career, wonderful human being, but OK, end of story. He's not an NBA player."

The entire article is here. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-basketball/news/20140623/nba-dr...