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Over the All-Star break, news broke that longtime Los Angeles Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss had been hospitalized and was battling cancer.
Monday, Dr. Buss passed away.
[Heisler on Buss: As owners go, he stands alone]
Many NBA players (former and current), owners and personnel sent their regards via Twitter.
“Second free-throw, my goodness!”
“I’m not sure what that was…Good Lord.”
Not the most reassuring assessment of one’s free-throw shooting skills. Unfortunately for Appalachian State center Brian Okam, that is what happens when your shot falls 10 or so feet short of the basket.
His shot made waves and is now viral. That wasn’t the case when New York Knicks guard JR Smith first sent out this tweet.
The tragedy is seeing something that you think is hilarious and having no one to share it with because nobody saw what you was.
Now you’ve seen it—if you hadn’t before.
Our own Chris Bernucca wrote about the free throw early Monday afternoon.
Golden State Warriors Brandon Rush and Anthony Tolliver of the Atlanta Hawks were also talking about Okam’s free throw (as seen below).
Hopefully, Okam can find his stroke and improve on his .400 percent shooting from the line.
He’s not yet as old as Dwight Howard, so he still has time to get it together.
NBA players react to Marquez’s knockout of Pacquiao on Twitter
Tweet of the Night: Stephen Jackson
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Michael Brumagin is the “Tweet of the Day” columnist for Sheridan Hoops and a sports correspondent for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter.
You can point to a handful of reasons why the Los Angeles Lakers are on the verge of panic. 
Dwight Howard missed all of training camp and most of preseason recovering from back surgery. Kobe Bryant has a sprained foot that requires him to wear a walking boot. Steve Nash is out for a while with a fracture in his fibula.
That lack of continuity led to 11 straight losses – all eight in the preseason, which the Lakers dismissed as games that don’t count, and the first three of the regular season, which counted very much.
Asked after that third loss when it was time to press the panic button, Bryant said somewhat sarcastically, ”Now.”
Lakers fans are looking for a different button – the one for the ejection seat for coach Mike Brown.
Virtually every team is dealing with injuries and incorporating new players. The Mavericks are without Dirk Nowitzki – and beat the Lakers. The Trail Blazers have a rookie point guard – and beat the Lakers. The Clippers have five new players in their rotation – and beat the Lakers.
Those teams aren’t trying to install a new offense, however. In the offseason, the Lakers hired Eddie Jordan as an assistant coach with the express purpose of having him put in the Princeton offense, his calling card as an NBA coach. The idea was to have Jordan complement Brown, whose principles are in defense.
All the attention in the NBA right now is on the Lakers, who lost again last night. Unlike the first two losses, to the Dirk Nowitzki-less Mavericks and the projected also-ran Blazers, this one was to the Clippers, who are a likely playoff team and potential title contender.
But that’s not a whole lot of consolation to the Lakers, who are now 0-11 including preseason games. And amidst all the discussion of Mike Brown and the Princeton offense, the Lakers got even more bad news: Steve Nash has a small fibula fracture, and will miss at least a week. We’re wondering around here: How long will Brown last as head coach?
We’ve got a whole boatload of links to the latest news from around the NBA, but first — especially among our growing legion of fantasy players — you should check out Kent Williams’ roundup of last night’s games and Jeff Nichols’ review of the last week and look ahead to the rest of the season.
Now, on to the news:
(This is another in a series of 30 guest columns that will run in October, when optimism reigns supreme across the NBA. The theme will be “Five Reasons to Feel Positive About … ” We encourage you to follow the authors on Twitter and visit their sites. – CS)
For fans of Golden State Warriors, the “We Believe” playoff run seems like it happened about 12 years ago and not five. One of the biggest upsets in NBA history against the Dallas Mavericks was slowly wiped away and replaced by the same frustration and losing culture that had haunted the team for the 13 years before 2007.
From ‘07 on, the start of every season had been filled with a lot of blind optimism and hope, only for it to be derailed by mo-peds, injuries or just an overall lack of talent.
Now here we are, with the 2012-13 season quickly approaching and that same sense of optimism and hope is creeping back towards Oracle Arena. Two key players are set to return this season – Stephen Curry and Andrew Bogut – and they are going to be surrounded with one of the most talented groups of players Golden State has assembled in years.
So while that cloud of optimism and hope is nice and fresh, let’s take a look at some reasons to feel positive about the Golden State Warriors.
1. Depth
After going through season after season of injury-plagued rosters and being forced to play players that were either out of position or simply not good enough, the Warriors have gathered a bunch of players that resemble an actual NBA team.
At point guard, they have the talented Curry, who seemed to be on the precipice of stardom after his rookie season before ankle problems halted his progress. Behind him there is the newly acquired and very solid Jarrett Jack. He has spent the majority of his career as a backup to the likes of Chris Paul and Jose Calderon but last season as a starter with the Hornets he showed his true value.
Jack will be asked to back up Curry this season but also provides insurance for the Warriors as a reliable starter should Curry’s ankle troubles resurface. They also have a quality third point guard in Hofstra product Charles Jenkins, who can shoot the mid-range jumper with the best of them.
At shooting guard and small forward, the Warriors have a number of options with which they can mix and match. The three main ones are Klay Thompson (whom the majority of NBA GMs picked most likely to have a breakout year), Brandon Rush and rookie Harrison Barnes.
Behind that trio are rookie Draymond Green and veteran Richard Jefferson. Yes, Golden State has almost too many options at the wings, and the latter two probably won’t get a whole lot of playing time. But at the very least, everyone in this group could contribute in some fashion if called upon.
In the frontcourt, Bogut and David Lee will start with Carl Landry, rookie Festus Ezeli and (gulp) Andris Biedrins backing them up. Although there are a lot of question marks surrounding this frontcourt group – Bogut’s health, the defense of Lee and Landry, Ezeli’s lack of experience, Biedrins’ overall Biedrins-ness – the fact that the Warriors even have options here shows how determined they are to prove they are not the same Warriors of old.
2. Andrew Bogut
Bogut has yet to play a single game in a Warriors uniform but is one of the biggest reasons to feel good about this team. He is a defensive-minded big man that Golden State has coveted for years, and the team took a positive step in the direction of changing its identity by swapping him for fan favorite Monta Ellis last season. When Bogut is on the court, he makes life tough for not only opposing big men, but for those pesky perimeter players who like to take it to the rim.
