If Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin wins the NBA's rookie of the year award, apparently it will not be a unanimous vote.
View full sizeBlake Griffin's first healthy year in the NBA is impressing observers around the league. But should someone who missed his entire debut season be eligible as a rookie of the year candidate this year?HOUSTON, Texas -- If Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin wins the NBA's rookie of the year award, apparently it will not be a unanimous vote.
Speaking on TNT's broadcast Thursday night, Charles Barkley said he didn't think Griffin, who was the No. 1 pick overall in the 2009 NBA Draft, should win the award even though injuries kept him out all of last season.
"He is the best rookie by far, technically," Barkley said of Griffin, who leads all rookies averaging about 20 points and 12 rebounds a game. "But even though he didn't play last year, he was around, he got to watch. He got a chance to grow. His body got a chance to mature. You can learn sitting on the bench. Clearly, his body is better than most rookies. His body is better than most people's. But I don't believe guys who were drafted the year before should be eligible for rookie of the year."
Barkley said he was penalizing Griffin for being hurt.
"If a quarterback gets drafted and doesn't get to play and he starts the next season, he's not technically a rookie even though it's his first year playing," he said. "The main thing for Blake Griffin was he got a chance to get bigger, stronger. He got a chance to watch NBA players every day. That's something you can't teach."
Said TNT's Kenny Smith of Griffin, "Regardless of if he is the Rookie of the Year or not ... [Griffin] is must-see TV. He's the guy that will change the face of what the power forward looks like and does in basketball. Not too many guys can do that."
Coast to coast: New York Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni was a regular comedian as a guest on ESPN's popular show "Pardon The Interruption" on Friday with hosts Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon.
"Haven't seen you guys in a couple years," he joked as he was introduced. "Where you been?"
D'Antoni, of course, left the sunshine, Steve Nash and the 50-win seasons in Phoenix and took over the New York Knicks in 2008-09. The former NBA coach of the year promptly fell off the NBA radar, losing 50 and 53 games in his first two seasons.
Asked by Kornheiser about coping with that kind of losing, D'Antoni continued the jokes, saying he adopted a bunker mentality.
"And my bunker didn't have cable," he said, explaining his absence from PTI.
But the Knicks have rebounded in a big way, thanks to the addition of free agents Amar'e Stoudemire and Raymond Felton and the development of rookie Landry Fields. Stoudemire played for D'Antoni in Phoenix, and the coach says Stoudemire and Felton are running the pick and roll as efficiently as Stoudemire and Nash did in Phoenix.
Stoudemire, in fact, has played so well he's in the early MVP conversations. As of Friday, he had scored 30 or more points in seven straight games, was third in the league in scoring at 25.7 points, was the league's leading scorer in the 10 games before Friday night's and in the fourth quarter.
Critics point to the Knicks' soft schedule -- of their first 15 victories, only two came against winning teams -- Chicago and New Orleans. But with games against Denver, Boston and Miami coming up before next Saturday's game at Cleveland, we should have a better idea what kind of team the Knicks really are.
Is it a bird? San Antonio's Manu Ginobili was signing some autographs for fans outside the San Antonio Spurs hotel in Santa Monica, Calif., on the night of Dec. 1 when he saw a flash in the sky and thought he was about to see a small plane crash.
He tweeted about it and posted video, and he was surprised when there was nothing in the news about the incident the next day.
Recently, TMZ.com posted some video shot by fans waiting for autographs near the team's bus. The video shows a strange light in the California sky. TMZ.com posted the video under the headline, "Nanu, Manu." It's a play off the old TV series, "Mork and Mindy," staring Robin Williams as Mork, from the planet Ork.
"The good thing is I'm not the only one that saw it," Ginobili told reporters after hearing about he video. "I'm not totally crazy.
"It was a pretty strange flight pattern. I thought it was falling, not landing. I thought it was like a plane crash. We were expecting to see it on the news the following day, and there was nothing. That's when we got a little curious, 'What the hell was that?'
"I just wanted to know what it was, if somebody else saw it and if I saw what I think I saw."
Ginobili apparently has been convinced that what he saw was military exercises at a nearby Air Force base, but he doesn't rule out the possibility of life on other planets."There's got to be something," he said. "So many planets around, one of them's got to be something."
Rose in bloom: Lakers guard Kobe Bryant has been impressed by the development of Bulls guard Derrick Rose."I think the sky's the limit for him," Bryant told reporters in Chicago after the Lakers' shootaround on Friday. "You see now with the improvement he's made on his jump shot from last year to this year how much his game has really gone to another level.
"I think he's just scratched the surface. I think he's realizing now what a jump shot can do. Hopefully, he'll continue to work on it and he'll become a pure shooter."
Bryant also likes the killer instinct Rose has displayed.
"I don't think you can develop that," Bryant said. "I think you either have it or you don't and I think he's had it since he was in high school. That's what separates players of equal ability. It's about the engine you have inside. It certainly gives him an edge."
Reporters asked Bryant if Rose was a worthy candidate to be passed the torch.
"Oh, sure," Bryant said. "[But] I'm not passing [expletive]."