u/sewsgup

> OVER THE PAST three decades, Ndiaye has represented some of the best players to come from France: Rudy Gobert, Nicolas Batum, Evan Fournier. He has known Wembanyama's family for almost as long. Wembanyama's mother, Elodie, even coached Ndiaye's son when he was just 5 years old.

> He always has understood the responsibility in representing a player with Wembanyama's natural athletic and mental gifts. But as Wembanyama has grown into his extraordinary talent, Ndiaye has also come to see it as a privilege.

> "I am always trying to think ahead and see how we can train this kid differently, because he's different," Ndiaye said. "We have to do something for him, not just do something with him."

> Last April, he called Los Angeles Lakers general manager and president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka, who represented Kobe Bryant for much of his career, and scheduled a lunch.

> The reason was simple.

> "The way they think is different," Ndiaye told ESPN. "The way they play, the way they stretch themselves. Just their curiosity. How they study and watch things. They're both very creative on how to solve a problem."

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> Wembanyama's problem to solve last spring, Ndiaye said, was how to be more physical on the court without bulking up. How to get stronger without losing the flexibility and athleticism that make his body so unique. How to move differently so he could impose his will and his length and his prodigious skill set inside the 3-point line, where his opponents usually choose a player 30 to 50 pounds heavier to rough him up.

> "Basically he wanted to have a physical transformation so he can run forever and use his physical tools to get closer to the basket," Ndiaye said. "And then he wanted to be challenged."

> Mentally, physically, spiritually. Challenged in every way a supremely conditioned athlete who already pushes himself harder than most humans can be challenged.

> Pelinka listened while Ndiaye talked. He knew the type.

> Bryant used to do that, too, he told him. One summer Bryant had become obsessed with studying how great white sharks hunt and attack their prey. So it became Pelinka's job to find him the best place in the world to do that -- which is apparently Guadalupe, an island 150 miles off the coast of Baja, Mexico, where you can go cage diving in the crystal clear waters.

> Bryant would later write in The Players' Tribune in 2017 that his study of great whites helped him defend Allen Iverson.

> Then there was Bryant's obsession with the Sistine Chapel. Pelinka arranged for him to travel there one summer for a private tour guided by an art historian.

> Bryant was fascinated by how Michelangelo had painted a three-dimensional masterpiece while lying on scaffolding in a space without abundant natural light, Pelinka told Ndiaye.

> The lesson was not about the techniques used but the vision and perseverance to create something extraordinary under impossible conditions.

> Ndiaye nodded along as Pelinka recounted these stories, both men delighting in the intellectual curiosity each of their star clients brought to their craft.

> "I wanted to understand how Kobe did things," Ndiaye told ESPN. "So that we could learn from him. Victor is not like anybody else. We have to be creative to build programs that are unique to him."

> Although the NBA play-by-play data estimates the shot distance at 28 feet, the league’s official player-tracking system tagged the shot distance at 32.3 feet, the longest make of his career

from his latest youtube upload: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYOnpdi7tX4

fun video, there's clips of him getting a RMR (resting metabolic rate) assessment done to figure out what his calorie goal/diet should be going forward (heavy on smoothies, meals, desserts, says later in the video he's gained 2 pounds).

says NBA vets have told him to try and get a place really close to the team's practice facility. he talks about trying ice baths, sleeping with special boots on as well that help with recovery.

and there's a clip of him and his trainer appearing to laugh at Kobe for shooting a contested jumper over 3 defenders instead of passing

timestamp for when he comes on

really great talk, making my way through it still but some notes:

• seems to share an organizational refrain/pitch they've landed on that "players have their best years in Utah". later on talks about how great it is to see players like Jokic/Shai have no qualms about playing for their respective markets
• on how Danny came to work for the Jazz (after he stepped away from the Celtics). said has a 15+ year relationship with Danny. they played golf together all the time, and he found out Danny was still watching 5 games a night with his computer, tablet, etc. even after leaving his Celtics job, and suggested Danny actually get paid for that
• Danny didnt want to leave as Celtics President of Basketball to just pick up the same title as before. and only wanted to scout and be involved in player management. so thats the role that got carved out for Danny
• only hired Austin bc his wife asked him, worst case scenario, what she should do if Danny and him both [died]. he said immediately call Austin to run the team. she said she saw a report Austin was interviewing at other teams for the President position, so that night he realized he had to call Austin and tell him that he was their "designated survivor" (Bill's term that Ryan agreed on). Austin said if he would take that role and leave, it had to be now. so that night he signed Austin as President. then told Danny later who had no idea through that entire process (and told Danny he had to figure out how to work for his son).
• talks ab how he got the call that he could buy the Jazz, says the previous owners asked him for a bid, and he pulled up the Forbes evaluation article to go off of that
• says it got really close actually with buying the Timberwolves before that. admitted the Twolves prev owner was weird about will he/wont he sell. but still got really close to the finish line. but his wife seemed really upset, knowing he'd go all in as a team owner, and their family being Jazz fans— he called Adam Silver and said he wouldnt proceed. called the Jazz owners then ab being interested and got a call 6 months later.
• directly states "our fanbase shouldn't want me drafting this person" (re: the #2 pick). says of course he will opine and share his thoughts but that it's Austin and Danny and the team making the call that should give the fan base confidence.

excerpt:

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It all started last fall when a researcher named Tariq Jabbar alerted Lynch to a finding, a revelation tucked into an old newspaper clipping that would soon take over Lynch’s free time. Jabbar got his hands on full season block totals for the Portland Trail Blazers for the 1970-71 through 1972-73 seasons, published locally in The Oregonian. That is, before the NBA began tracking the stat officially in 1973-74.

Nestled in those newspaper clippings, the tallies of Blazers blocks, steals, turnovers and fastbreak baskets were printed. Remarkably, the same figures were tabulated for opponents. None of which has been published on official channels before.

To Lynch, the implication was astonishing: someone was secretly tracking blocks and other secondary stats on NBA games for years before it became “official” league wide. In all his years researching the NBA and compiling databases — including the all-time list of every game-winning buzzer beater in NBA history — Lynch had never come across such comprehensive numbers.

Lynch prefers the term “pre-official” as opposed to “unofficial,” which implies inaccuracy. It was not uncommon for player turnovers to be recorded pre-officially on scorer’s reports years before it became “official.” Before 1970, team trainers and other employees were tracking these numbers by hand and many were shared to reporters to allow the public to receive a more full account of the game. But a season-long tracking of blocks, steals and turnovers? That was new.

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There was only one way to find out. In September, Lynch took to a Reddit forum called “VintageNBA” with Jabbar’s discovery and asked if anyone had gotten their hands on anything similar.

“Would love to gather as much as possible,” he typed to the group.

Within minutes, Lynch got a hit. A user named “OldandSlow4326” posted that the Long Beach Independent published Chamberlain’s season block totals on April 1, 1973.

“It blew my mind,” Lynch told Yahoo Sports.

Replying to the post, another VintageNBA user chimed in: “I've never seen a season total given for any NBA player pre official before.”

---

Lynch looked it up in the online newspapers archives, and there it was. On Page “S-6” in the Sunday edition of the Long Beach Independent, above an auto painting ad promising discounted jobs for $39, was an article written by Doug Ives, a staff writer for the paper, detailing the Lakers’ season.

After sharing Chamberlain’s scoring and rebounding stats, Ives printed the following revelation: “Unofficially, Wilt had 446 blocks, an average of 5 ½ per game.”

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In a basketball sense, the figure was astounding. Officially, the most blocks registered in a single season is Mark Eaton’s 456 in 1984-85 for the Utah Jazz, which means that Chamberlain possibly held the unofficial record without anyone knowing it for over a decade, with 446 or 5.4 per game. (Ives rounded 5.439 up to a tidy 5.5 for Chamberlain’s blocks per game figure.) But Lynch couldn’t know that for sure, because it is within the realm of possibility that Chamberlain had blocked more shots in a season than the one reported in the Long Beach Independent.

Here’s the thing: By that point, in 1972-73, Chamberlain was 36 years old, many years past his prime. If Chamberlain’s body aged like most players, his shot-blocking powers would have peaked much earlier. Based on age curves, it wasn’t out of the question that Chamberlain blocked more than 500 shots in a season. Or even multiple seasons.

“I decided,” Lynch said, “I needed to research this as much as possible.”

---

Fans who visit Basketball-Reference.com and use its Player Index tool to look up the most blocked shots in an NBA playoff game won’t find Wembanyama’s name leading the list. Instead, they’ll see Chamberlain’s 16-block effort in that April 1969 playoff game.

Not only that, there’s former San Francisco Warriors big man Nate Thurmond, who registered a 14-block outing against Wilt’s Lakers in that same playoff run. Lynch found that one, too. The Blazers figures are now on the site as well along with many of Bill Russell’s stats, including a 12-block outing in the playoffs in The Spectrum against Philadelphia.

In fact, according to Basketball Reference tracking as of Thursday, Wembanyama is in a six-way tie for fourth place on the known single-game playoff block list. Chamberlain also recorded 13 blocks in a Game 1 win during the 1969 NBA Finals against Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics, following his 16-block performance to close out the Hawks the series before.

An NBA Finals game, yes, but not official.

Lowe kinda words it weird if you listen to the timestamp, but seems to say some candidates who didnt ultimately interview with the Lakers (but might have been initially approached by the Lakers), have this wariness of whether Pelinka is interested in them, or the Dodgers are interested. which might affect their interest in pursuing the asst GM opening.

excerpt from today's ESPN profile on Steve Kerr:

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WE LANDED IN PHOENIX and checked into the Biltmore. Steve was Elway Ozzie Smith Jack Lambert. I was in Willie McGee John Elway. Kerr read a history book by the pool. He took a nap. Q took a nap. Terry took a nap. Khalid took a nap. Nick worked out. They all felt confident. That night the coaches went to dinner at Pizzeria Bianco. Fellow diners eyed the enemy team walking through the loud, dim room. We sat three across at a long table in the corner. We ordered course after course and laughed and told stories. They served skewers of baked cheese wrapped in prosciutto. We ordered two plates of those. The chef who runs the place, Chris Bianco, is Steve's old friend. They met in the draft room of the Phoenix Suns after Kerr had been hired as a consultant. Bianco brought lunch that day, stacks of pizza boxes. He delivered them personally, wearing an apron, with flour on his cheeks. Around him the war room hummed. With each name on the board, all the basketball ops guys got to vote by raising their hands. After one player's name was announced, Bianco raised his hand. Kerr, who'd retired the year before, had never been in a draft room before. He leaned towards the guy next to him and nodded at Bianco.

"Who is that?" he asked.

"The pizza guy," the executive said.

"The pizza guy gets a vote?!" Kerr asked.

"You haven't tried the pizza," the executive shot back.

https://official.nba.com/rule-no-7-24-second-clock/

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> The shot clock shall be reset to 14 seconds anytime the following occurs:

> The offensive team is the first to gain possession after an unsuccessful free throw that remains in play, or an unsuccessful field goal attempt that contacts the basket ring

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h/t to @LawMurrayTheNU for noting this

> Not only did Pistons screw up the rebound but they didn't need to foul!!! They had a short shot clock and they smoked it!

clipped this while watching the combine scrimmages. guess Presti is media-savvy enough to know there's always a chance he's getting filmed