Ya’ll got any more of them…scarves?
Raptors’ Serge Ibaka gifts massive scarves to city of Toronto for charity – Sportsnet.ca
Ibaka gifted three massive scarves that will be auctioned off for charity to Toronto mayor John Tory, Matthew Pegg — Toronto’s fire chief who is leading the city’s response team for the COVID-19 pandemic — and Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city’s Medical Officer of Health.
“Thank you Serge Ibaka for your generosity and being a role model by staying home to reduce the spread of COVID-19,” Dr. de Villa tweeted. “The scarf is more than art. We can use it when keeping six feet from others is difficult, like grocery shopping.”
The scarves will be auctioned off to raise funds for Greater Toronto United Way, a network of 270 community agencies that delivers local services and supports to help tackle poverty and related issues like hunger, homelessness, social isolation and mental health.
“Joined Matthew Pegg and Dr. Eileen de Villa in trying on these scarves courtesy of the great Serge Ibaka,” Tory tweeted. “Appreciate his support and the Raptors support in helping us get the message out that people need to #StayHomeTO to #FlattenTheCurve and save lives.”
It’s the latest instance of Ibaka finding ways to give back in these challenging times.
Earlier this month, Ibaka announced will be hosting a live talent show on Instagram called “How Talented Are You?” to provide a platform for fans to showcase their talents, with the winning contestant’s city receiving $20,000 for COVID-19 relief efforts — a sum that ex-Raptor DeMar DeRozan committed to matching during an Instagram Live chat with Ibaka.
Booker sweeps Ayton in all-Suns ‘NBA 2K’ final | National Post
Booker played as the Clippers in the first game and cruised past Harrell, who played as the Rockets, capping the win with a dunk by Harrell’s virtual character. In the second game, Booker (playing as the Toronto Raptors) came up with a steal off Harrell (Milwaukee Bucks) with a two-point lead in the final minute.
Ayton took the first game from Beverley playing as the Brooklyn Nets against Beverley’s Boston Celtics, hitting a 3-pointer in the final minute to put the game out of reach. In the second game, Ayton played as his own team, the Suns, and used a few big plays from his virtual character to handle Beverley’s Nuggets.
Fertitta not only owns the Houston Rockets of the NBA, his $4.8 billion portfolio also includes ownership of the Golden Nugget Casinos and a vast amount of restaurants.
According to Forbes magazine, Fertitta is the No. 414 among the richest people in the world, and was ranked No. 140 on the Forbes 400 in 2019. The 62-year-old billionaire, who also owns Texas-based Landry’s Seafood House, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and Saltgrass Steak House, told Fox News guest host Brian Kilmeade that he has been through financial difficulties before, and that laying off employees was for the betterment of the employees themselves.
“You know, Brian, I went through the ’87 crisis, the 2000, the 2008,” Fertitta said on FOX News’ Ingraham Angle show Saturday while speaking to Kilmeade, according to the Houston Chronicle.”You’re doing the people a favor if you get them furloughed first, because you have them first to unemployment line after the severance that you give them. It’s a trick that I’ve learned many years ago.”
Fertitta added that worldwide layoffs and the sweeping pandemic that shutdown business around the country left him no choice.
“It’s just unimaginable,” Fertitta said. “We’ve all had to do little layoffs over the year. But you have to basically shut down the whole company. When you think of having amusement parks, aquariums, a basketball team, casinos all over the world—and nothing is open. It’s just like a sci-fi movie you’d never believe.”
Fertitta said that with even as his much wealth, it might be hard for people to understand why he had to swing the axe on so many jobs at one time.
“This is what people don’t understand, is that we all pay today, yesterday’s bills with today’s money,” Fertitta said. “And when we just got shut down in a 48-hour period, you still have a payroll and severance, $100 million for me because my payroll is $1.5 billion a year.”
Fertitta agrees with trying to open business back up by the beginning of May for both the mental and economic health of Houston and the country.
“They were 100 percent right, and we’ve got to do this to the end of this month, and we’ve got to start opening up in May, not only on the financial side, but on the mental health side is huge.”
Gobert had reportedly ignored a pamphlet and presentation giving crucial health guidance around the virus that had been given to the players in the days before his press conference stunt.
The national anthem had been sung before Utah Jazz’s subsequent game at Oklahoma City Thunder when both sets of players were ordered back to their locker rooms for the tests that would reveal Mitchell was also infected and lead to an enforced mass quarantine.
“We were all kind of sitting in a circle getting the swab up our nose, and every guy when they finished was like teary-eyed, because it’s just that feeling,” said teammate Joe Ingles.
In the aftermath of the canceled game, the two key players had to be flown home on private planes – and they are not thought to be back on good terms yet.
“I’m just really happy, to be honest, that it’s just — I hate to say just two of us, but it wasn’t the whole [traveling] party,” said Mitchell.
“At the end of the day, neither him nor I have children at home. I know I have teammates that have children, have some staff that have children at home, so I’m glad that we were able to kind of contain it as much as possible.”
Lakers forward Jared Dudley talks coronavirus pandemic, quarantine – Sports Illustrated
hris Mannix: Jared, how are you holding up, man?
Jared Dudley: I’m pretty good. I mean, you know, obviously, when everybody’s in a tough situation, staying home, doing some family things that you normally don’t get to do during seasons so that’s been cool. But I just think it’s just been tough, man. You’re eager to have a season, stay in some kind of conditioning. The only thing to do is run, but still no basketball court, still nowhere to shoot, nowhere to lift. And so we’re really, really limited. But obviously our country is dealing with something bigger. So I’m trying to balance both and it’s difficult.
Mannix: You have been an athlete for a long time? Have you ever been this inactive?
Dudley: Never. I can honestly say never a month, because even when you’re done with the season and your season’s over, you do your exit interview, even if you don’t pick a basketball up for a week or two, you’re doing some sort of cardio, maybe play a little pickup and then maybe not do a workout. This has been tough because from a weightlifting standpoint, unless you own weights. Now, the Lakers did send a care package here that had a couple of dumbbells of different sizes, a mat, a foam roll, jump rope bands, but that’s just the bare minimum. So from a weightlifting standpoint and then a basketball one, man. Every hooper just loves to play basketball. So not to be able to do any basketball work for a month. That’s never happened for me since I can remember, since junior high or elementary school.
Mannix: So, you know, what are you trying to do? I mean, you mentioned some of the equipment the Lakers sent over. I mean, how do you do your best to stay in condition?
Dudley: So, I mean, one thing I did was right when I had it, I ordered a woodway. It was a refurbished one. Woodways are basically the best cardio machine that you can have when you’re running. It’s basically best for your knees. I think brand new it’s like $10,000. I think I did a refurbished one for $5,500. Usually every practice facility has one or two, some have three, and I bought one of those. So you try to do your sprint workouts. I had the different trainers send me different workouts, for a long run or choose what speed you want to do or try to do game simulated [speed].
Marco Belinelli says what Utah’s Rudy Gobert did was ‘terrible’ | WOAI
In an interview with Italy’s Corriere della Sera (via Sportando), San Antonio Spurs’ Marco Belinelli expressed his thoughts on Gobert’s behavior saying what he did was “terrible.”
“Terrible. I prefer not to express myself because I don’t want to say things that then seem offensive or too serious, but what he did was yes, terrible,” Belinelli said.
The coronavirus hit Belinelli’s home country of Italy hard. Many died, were hospitalized and the situation impacted Belinelli. He’s been urging everyone to remain indoors, and keeping 6-feet apart. He also gave financial assistance to an Italian hospital at the peak of the virus’ impact in Italy.
“From a distance I see how all our doctors, our nurses, all those who are on the front line against the virus are giving 150% to heal people,” Belinelli said.
Reporting with @DraftExpress: As information gathering on draft-eligible prospects remains limited in a pandemic, many NBA teams are united in hopes of encouraging the league office to push the date of the June 25 draft until no sooner than August 1. Story soon on ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) April 10, 2020
Why NBA games won’t start immediately if the season is cleared to resume
While it’s unclear how much time will elapse before play resumes in the 2019-20 NBA season, if it does at all, there are concerns among the league’s general managers and athletic training staffers that games might begin again before players are physically ready.
“If you tell us two weeks in advance, and all we have is a two-week training camp to [get] guys back to work that have been out of work eight weeks, that’s a mess,” one NBA general manager said.
Teams are encouraging players to work out at their respective homes — including providing daily exercise programs, Zoom workout sessions and equipment. But a long layoff will mean that virtually every player will not be in game shape, with some being much further from that benchmark than others.
“You’ll have [players] from one extreme to the other,” said one athletic training staff official involved with numerous NBA players. “So you’ve sort of just got to go with the mindset, ‘No one’s been training how they should be [and] everyone’s very out of shape.'”
In anticipation of this issue, many team officials said there needs to be at least a month-long period to help players physically acclimate and prepare after the layoff to avoid a potential spate of injuries that could follow, according to interviews with athletic training staffers and general managers across the league.
The hope for this length of prep time comes as several athletic training staffers acknowledge that the longer the season remains suspended, the more financial losses the league will accrue, leading to a greater sense of urgency to expedite a return to play.
An Eastern Conference general manager wondered, “I don’t know where the line in the sand is, or where the threshold of pain is. Nobody’s missed a check yet, but you miss a couple checks, the NBA starts laying people off, those things will start to propel [us forward].
Tyrell Terry and four more sleeper prospects from the 2020 NBA Draft to follow – The Athletic
Paul Reed | 6-9 forward | 21 years old, junior | DePaul
The NCAA’s byzantine rules probably preclude me from using new footage of the DePaul big man. You’re free to read what I wrote back in December about Reed, one of my favorite prospects. Just know that he’s averaging 15.1 points, 10.7 boards, 2.6 blocks and 1.9 steals as a junior. As our Sam Vecenie pointed out on his recent podcast with (also our) John Hollinger, when Reed was off the court, DePaul was a -22 team over 40 minutes. When Reed was on the floor, they were +7. He essentially is DePaul’s entire defense and, as much as he’s offensively limited, Reed shot 73.9 percent from the foul line and 33 percent from 3-point distance in his college career. Those numbers aren’t great, but are just fine for a rangy big man who inhales offensive rebounds and guards multiple positions.Kessler Edwards | 6-8 forward | 19 years old, sophomore | Pepperdine
Speaking of defensively able bigs, look at how Edwards (No. 15 in white) guards four players on one possession and finishes the play off with a block.His defensive versatility stands out, but what initially drew me to Kessler’s game was his jumper. It goes in a lot, from range, at a line drive trajectory. I wonder if the odd form has undermined Kessler’s deserved hype. From what I can see, not only did he hit 43.7 percent of his 3-point attempts, but he did so through a lot of heavy contests.
His form might be a little funny, but I love how quickly Edwards releases the ball and how perpetually ready he is to shoot. Some guys wait for the ball to arrive and other guys actively seek out the shot. Edwards is of the latter category.
