Roundup

housgoldfried

Via TheUndefeated.com - In the early morning of March 14, 1986, John Lucas was found blacked out in downtown Houston. He was wearing a suit, athletic socks and no shoes. Cocaine and alcohol shut the then-Houston Rockets guard down before the Portland Trail Blazers’ defense had a chance to do it.

It was rock bottom for Lucas, who was released by the Rockets.

“I was looking for a car I left at home. And I missed the game that night,” Lucas, a Rockets assistant coach, told The Undefeated.

Before Rockets star James Harden was born, Lucas became a household name in Houston, known more for his heavy drug and alcohol use than his jumpers, steals and assists.

Lucas was the No. 1 pick by the Rockets out of the University of Maryland in the 1976 NBA draft. He had three stints with the Rockets in a 14-year career that included stops with the Golden State Warriors, Washington Bullets, San Antonio Spurs, Milwaukee Bucks and Seattle SuperSonics. Lucas’ battle with cocaine and alcohol nearly destroyed him and became public after he repeatedly was suspended. He submitted voluntarily to anti-drug and anti-alcohol treatment to stay in the NBA while others were banned for flunking tests in the 1980s.

“I wouldn’t recommend anybody to go through what I’ve gone through, because only one out of 10 of us make it back,” Lucas said. “I always say, ‘You don’t want to go where I’ve been.’ Not many of us get back. I’ve seen the devil and it ain’t pretty.”

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Lucas Helps Athletes Fight Addiction

Via USATODAY.COM - Mike D’Antoni had an announcement to make.

The pre-practice prep with his Houston Rockets staff was about over, this skull session coming inside his crowded Toyota Center office just hours after their Game 2 blowout loss in the Western Conference semifinals to the San Antonio Spurs. It started as a two-man meeting, just D’Antoni and his top offensive assistant, Brett Gunning, analyzing the loss from every angle on video at around 9:30 a.m. Eight other men piled in from there, everyone from defensive guru Jeff Bzdelik to young video coordinator Mitch Vanya sitting around a table and plotting ways to take down the Spurs machine that, as they say, never beats itself.

The tape was hard to watch, but D’Antoni’s background tunes helped soothe their frustrated basketball minds – James Taylor, Creedence, Adele, John Legend and others cutting through the chorus of critical hoops analysis. And as the clock ticked past 11 a.m., the gray-haired D’Antoni had a silver lining to share...

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Launch Codes

Via ESPN.COM - Mike D'Antoni is sitting at his desk in his windowless office in Houston's Toyota Center, eating baked salmon and grilled vegetables an hour before a game. There is a crossword ripped from a newspaper on the desk to his right, and he alternates between his food and his puzzle, from fork to pen, left to right, like a military exercise.

The Nuggets are in town, and D'Antoni's Rockets are a win away from clinching the third seed in the Western Conference with a week left in the regular season. Mike's wife, Laurel, is sitting at a long conference table about 10 feet away. She drives to the arena with Mike three hours before tip-off for home games, talks to him in his office before and after, listens to his complaints and tries to find solutions to the interpersonal concerns endemic to an NBA team.

For now, with his team heading for a 55-win season that precisely nobody predicted, D'Antoni is content to quietly feed his brain and his body as tip-off nears and the ever-present '70s music breathes through the room. James Taylor is going to Carolina in his mind, and Laurel is talking about the importance of good teammates and good general managers and star players who buy into the system. Mike, now 65 years old, is calm, measured, casually hilarious, the undisputed champion of self-deprecation. He prefers to adopt a coach's default forecast -- cloudy, chance of doom -- but Laurel is the type who sees links and not gaps.

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All Their Hoops and Dreams

Via TheUndefeated.com - A beardless James Harden once took long bus rides from the streets of Compton, California, to his high school gym as the sun came up. A focused teenager dreaming of the NBA was up early working on his hoop skills at 7 a.m. before his first class.

Today, the 2017 NBA MVP candidate is focused on trying to win a championship with the Houston Rockets. But when time permits, Harden is preaching the importance of using sports to help you succeed in life — just as he did — to teenage boys playing for his new AAU basketball programs in Houston and the Phoenix area.

“I know what these kids are going through now in Houston and Arizona,” Harden told The Undefeated. “I just give them something to be active and stay away from all the negatives. This is something that can help their families in the long run.

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Harden And His Mom On How Sports Shaped Him

Via ThePlayersTribune.com  - I’ve never been a writer before, but you know what?

Before this season I’d never really been a point guard, either. So let’s do this.

The other day Trevor showed me the article that he wrote and it really got me thinking about this team and our season and everything my teammates have done for me.

In a way, this whole ride started back last summer with Coach D’Antoni’s crazy idea.

After Coach took the job, we immediately got on the phone — talking about what went wrong last season, talking about our roster, talking about changes we could make. Normal intro-type stuff. It was clear he was smart as hell about basketball, but laid back, too. He was asking questions and listening, instead of acting like he already knew everything. I liked his vibe right away.

And then before we hung up, he stopped and just said straight up: “Honestly, we need you to be the point guard.”

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A New Obsession by James Harden

Via SI.COM - Clint Capela and John Lucas stepped out into the drizzle. The Rockets’ starting center may as well have been another New York skyscraper, his 6’10" frame shielding the Houston assistant coach while they awaited an Uber back from Barclays Center to the team’s hotel in downtown Manhattan. On this Sunday morning in January, Capela is still two days away from returning to the court following a small left fibula fracture that sidelined him for 15 games.

The team bus had long since departed following the Rockets’ morning shootaround. The duo lagged behind to loft extra jumpers and free throws. Rehab is a mere blip in Capela’s evolution into James Harden’s symbiotic lob partner. Lucas, after all, forfeited his day-to-day role in the John Lucas Wellness and Aftercare Program to lead the Rockets’ player development. With alcohol and substance abuse derailing his own NBA career—which the Rockets launched by selecting the Maryland product No. 1 overall in 1976—Lucas scripted a second act as a hybrid personal trainer and life coach, draft prospects and NBA stars alike seeking his gospel.

Capela’s the strapping specimen a development staffer dreams of: a reservoir of athleticism, a frame practically begging to be sculpted with muscle, an inherent understanding of the sport. Near 7-foot, 22 year-olds of that makeup are rarer than desert rain, and his recent history of rapid skill maturation only compounds the Rockets’ excitement. Lucas is the unique lifer equally qualified for hardwood tutelage and off-court inspiration. Capela might just be the pupil he was destined to mentor...

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The People And Places That Made Clint Capela

admin

Via ThePlayersTribune.com - I’m here to try to convince the entire basketball world that James Harden is this year’s MVP.

But before I get started, if it’s cool with you, I want to just address Houston Rockets fans for a second.

What’s up, Red Nation? It’s playoff time again, and I want to do some reminiscing.

We’d just finished the season 41–41. It had been a rocky year — with two different coaches and some ups and downs. We barely snuck into the playoffs as the 8 seed, then lost in the first round.

It wasn’t the type of season we’d hoped for after the year before, when we went to the Western Conference finals. Remember?

I know you remember. And we do, too — because the off-season came early last year, which gave us a lot of time to think … and to listen.

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Bearded Picasso by Trevor Ariza

Chad Shanks

Via SlamOnline.com - Everyone in the gym was confused. Who’s this little kid warming up with the seventh grade Panthers travel team? Someone’s younger brother? The waterboy? Mascot?

“They didn’t believe that he could play. In Indiana, seventh grade AAU basketball is pretty strong. So Eric being a fourth grader, they go, ‘Fourth grade, are you kidding me?’”

That’s how the boy’s father, Eric Gordon Sr, remembers the scene that day at North Central High in Indianapolis. “They only had him come off the bench because he was a fourth grader and everyone else was in seventh grade. They won the state AAU title that year, and Eric came off the bench, but he was the leading scorer on the team and he led them in steals. I guess they didn’t want a fourth grader to start over a seventh grader.”

And that, before this season—his first with the Houston Rockets—was the last time Eric Gordon Jr came off the bench as a basketball player. So forgive him if it’s taken some time to get used to calling himself a reserve.

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Brand New Guy

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