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Al Thornton

Talking About Practice: Episode 4

by Jared Wade on December 4, 2009 at 1:40 pm

Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN’s TrueHoop and ClipperBlog talks Western Conference NBA with us today for the long-awaited Talking About Practice: Episode 4.

Kevin just saw his Clippers get smacked around by the Rockets on Wednesday night, so we start with Houston and that inevitably leads into some talk about efficiency and advanced stats. But we get back to talking about more general Western Conference stuff before long, focusing on the Lakers, Nuggets, Mavs and, of course, the Clippers. The stylistic reconstruction that has revived Al Thornton’s career is discussed and we analyze this as something that may fit into the ad-hoc termed “Josh Smith Corollary” that centers around a player forgoing the things on the court that he doesn’t do well and, instead, increasing his utility and efficiency to the team by concentrating on the things he does do well. Josh Smith has famously sworn off of three-point shots this season, and Kevin has seen a similar change in Thornton. We speculate as to whether other guys like Carlos Boozer are or can benefit from such self-realization.

We also chat about ESPN’s TrueHoop Network. Given my involvement in that whole thing via Eight Points, Nine Seconds, I’m admittedly not the best person to be asking Kevin about this stuff. But it is a big topic and an intriguing development in not just NBA circles but in the evolution of the sports blogosphere at large, as anyone who attended either of the Blogs With Balls sports blogging conferences this year can attest to.

And for all you 80s sitcom fans, we also talk for a solid 10 minutes about Benson. Not sure how that happened, but we were able to come to at least one thrilling revelation. I’m not going to spoil the amazing payoff that will surely be sweeping the collective mind of America come this afternoon, but let’s just say that one of the world’s great mysteries has been solved.

I would also be remiss if I failed to give a shout out to our boy AI. (That’s what it’s called in “radio,” right? A “shout out”?) There would be no Talking About Practice without you, Mr. Answer, and, frankly, I wasn’t ready for an NBA without you either.

Welcome back.

And as always, you can subscribe to Talking About Practice on iTunes, where rankings and reviews are appreciated.

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Known Associates: Al Thornton, Benson, Blogs With Balls, Carlos Boozer, Clippers, ESPN, Josh Smith, Kevin Arnovitz, Lakers, Mavs, Nuggets, Rockets, Talking About Practice, The Answer, TrueHoop Network

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All the News Fit to Six: November 24, 2009

by Jared Wade on November 24, 2009 at 1:36 pm

al thornton

Known Associates: Al Thornton, All the News Fit to Six, Clippers, Wolves

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The NBA’s Chex Mix Renaissance

by Jared Wade on June 21, 2009 at 4:24 pm

chex-mix1

Yet another NBA season is complete and the Los Angeles Lakers proved kings of the mountain. Congratulations and coronations are certainly in order for the team and its King of Kings Kobe Bryant, but, to me, the best part of the 2008-09 season was watching how immense the actual mountain itself has become. The depth of talent across the League and the new generation’s approach to the game is as refreshing as it is impressive, and a new Golden Age of the NBA now seems imminent.

Depending on your individual outlook, the Association’s renaissance began anywhere from two to six years ago, but after yet another great season, there is no denying the fact that the NBA is in a better place now than it has been at any time since MJ stuck that iconic pull-back jumper over Bryon Russell in 1998. Kobe is unquestionably among the all-time elite. LeBron is Haley’s Comet. Chris Paul is the best point guard since Magic. Dwyane is a combination of relentless and universally appealing that we haven’t seen since Jordan. Dwight is an athlete rivaled only by cartoon characters. Duncan is a sage old man. KG is a warrior hoping for one last battle. And dozens of other All-Star caliber players are putting on spectacular shows across the League every night of the season.

Much larger than any individual’s effect on the NBA, however, is that the fact that, not only do these future legends play the game the right way, but the concept that the only style of basketball that can win is team basketball is again paramount. The Jordan Era mythos that great individual players can will their teams to victory has evaporated. Whether that revelation came before LeBron’s highly favored Cavs lost in the Eastern Conference Finals a few weeks ago or back when Kobe’s 35 ppg average earned him little more than awe and a first-round Playoff exit is irrelevant; all that matters now is that every competent GM and, more importantly, every competent fan now knows that no team can contend for a title without a solid four- or five-player nucleus that knows how to play together — and is willing to do so. The days of getting excited when a franchise pairs a few mercurial mercenaries and just rolls the ball out on the court hoping for the best are over. If your team is serious about competing for a title you need a core of talented players who complement each other like Kobe, Pau, Lamar and Ariza just did for the past two months. You need KG, Pierce and Ray Allen. You need Dwight, Hedo and Rashard. You need Carmelo, Chauncey, Nene and KMart. And you need them all on the same page with a focused agenda on winning.

The successful teams in 2009 were built around depth, defense and details. There are very few players remaining on the elite teams in the League who ever seem to put their personal play above the team’s mission. The players who now matter in the League — almost to a man — have learned from the Ghosts of Failure’s past like Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis and Antoine Walker. The other teams and other players in the NBA have gotten too good to beat any of them by going two on five. An indifferent, lethargic tandem of Baron Davis and Zach Randolph can’t even get you 20 wins in this League anymore. And after a decade of watching half the teams in the NBA flounder directly after making high-profile acquisitions — as the 2009 Clippers just did — we now have a League where the Los Angeles junior varsity club is the exception as opposed to the rule.

In many ways, the current Clipper incarnation is like Frito Lay’s failed attempt at putting together a party mix. (Bear with me; I’m not even high.)

I still remember the first time I saw a bag of Frito’s new product “Munchies” when it first came out a few years back. Four of the company’s flagship chips were together in a single bag: Doritos, Cheetos, Rold Gold pretzels and Sun Chips. As a college student who adored three of the four (does anyone really like Cheetos?), this seemed like the best idea in culinary history. (Yes, I considered this cuisine.) Why hadn’t they thought of this sooner?

I eagerly opened the bag and dug in, pulling out a Dorito. Since it was a Dorito — the best chip in the history of chip-makingkind — it was excellent. Next, I grabbed a handful that included a few of the others. Even though each one is a little too big to allow you to shovel multiple pieces into your mouth at once, it’s hard to be disappointed when you can follow up a Sun Chip with a Rold Gold pretzel. It wasn’t long before the whole bag was gone. A handful here and then a handful there gets you through an 8-ounce bag pretty quickly.

But the more I ate, the less impressed I became. Ultimately, these chips didn’t go together. It was just two really cheesy chips and two really bland chips. So between everything having the same tongue-numbing, fake cheese flavor and the fact that they’re all too big to pop three or four pieces into your mouth at once anyway, it was just like eating four different things in an arbitrary order. It wasn’t a party “mix,” but merely a collection of pretty good chips.

If we’re going to compare players to chips (and don’t worry, folks, we are about to) Baron Davis is the Dorito. Both are universally beloved and both have inimitable flavor, but, deep down, you know neither is good for you. Marcus Camby is the pretzel: simple, reliable and underrated. Zach Randolph is the Cheeto; like the chip’s cheese, Zebo’s 20/10 is clearly artificial. Still, like the fond memories we all have of the Chester Cheetah cartoon, Zach’s steady post moves create a ruse that makes you think he’s a throwback low-post scorer who will exceed your initial aversion. Al Thornton is the Sun Chip: solid, yet ultimately nondescript and bland.

Just like Frito’s failed attempt at a party mix (I hope the irony of the name “Munchies” isn’t lost on anyone), these guys do not fit together. They’re just a mismatched group of guys with individual strengths.

The 2009 Magic and the 2004 Pistons, on the other hand, were built like Chex Mix.

Neither team had a flashy superstar whose job it is to “take over” a game. Individually, none of Rasheed, Chauncey, Rip, Tayshaun or Ben Wallace stand out as superstars. The fact that they could not only upset the 2004 Lakers but get to another Finals and make it to six straight Eastern Conference Finals without an alpha-dog seemed preposterous when compared with any other NBA champion since the 1979 Supersonics. Who did these guys think they were? You needed at least one Hall of Famer to run the show or, better still, a dynamic duo.

Much like surprising, enduring appeal of Chex Mix, it turns out that putting together five or six reliable, if unspectacular, players who complement each other’s contributions perfectly might be all you need to do to create a winning combination.

Everyone has always liked Chex, just as they always liked Rasheed Wallace, but no one really thought you could make a great snack out of it — just like no one thought you could win a championship if Sheed was your best player. Rip is as solid as a mini-bread stick, but no one is really getting too excited about either one. And as with a rye chip, no one even knew they liked Chauncey Billups or Ben Wallace — but it turns out all three were great. Throw in a few well-considered spices (Larry Brown, Tay, Memo Okur) and you have the making of one of the more underrated yet universally appealing and highly successful combinations that the world has ever seen.

For years, most teams spent all their energy looking for Doritos. Like Michael and Scottie, it was presumed that any team could contend for a title if it just added some Rold Golds to a bag of Doritos and tossed in whatever other filler it could find. But that paradigm has shifted. No longer does anyone expect a single world-class contributor and one complementary piece to seamlessly mesh together into a winning mix.

The Post-Jordan Era, during which the landscape was dominated by temperamental “stars” whose varying commitment to playing basketball properly left even supposedly good teams running rudderless, is over. With a team focused on two highly paid players, all it took was one sensitive ego or one guy with a limited understanding of how to execute consistently and the whole thing became mediocre at best — or a five-year train wreck at worst. Of course, similar situations still arose this season (see the “Munchies” Clippers) and this will always go on to some degree, but, for the most part, even struggling teams like the Knicks, Wolves and Kings were derailed more so by their talent deficiencies than anything else. And a team like Miami showed that banding together behind an unselfish leader and sticking to a unified concept can allow even a very flawed team to overachieve.

Sure, expansion has led to a more watered-down NBA than the one that existed in the 1980s. We may never see powerhouse teams with as potent starting lineups as the Celtics had with DJ, Danny Ainge, Bird, McHale and Parish or the Lakers rolled out with Magic, Byron Scott, Big Game James, AC Green and Kareem. But teams today, even the middling ones, are mostly back to at least trying to build their foundations around the right combination of players playing good basketball again. The Pacers and the Nets aren’t setting any worlds on fire, but they also haven’t been hijacked by players who take the court just trying to look good first and win second. And Portland, through some astute talent recognition and acquisition, has set itself up to follow the Orlando and Detroit model.

Ultimately, it is unlikely that any of Brandon Roy, Danny Granger or Devin Harris will win an NBA MVP. None of them are Doritos. But their GMs and coaches seem to be fine with that. They seem content to build around these guys and bring in other complementary contributors, who while maybe unable to generate a ton of excitement on paper, will come together well enough to get the job done.

Can it work as well for these middling teams of today as it did for the 2004 Pistons and the 2009 Magic? Who knows. It’s difficult to see any team that doesn’t have LeBron, Kobe, Dwyane, Dwight, KG, Duncan or Melo winning a title in the next several years; ultimately, Doritos will always be the best chip.

But last season, we saw Brandon Roy drop 50 in a game and hit a miraculous walk-off three. We saw Danny Granger make nearly as many game-winning shots as his former teammate who donned number #31. We saw Devin Harris become unstoppable with a full head of steam and learn to pump ice through his veins in the clutch.

Sure, it seems unlikely that teams built around guys like this could make a run at the title. Then again, it will certainly be more enjoyable to see teams try a new strategy. And, who knows, I never thought an unmemorable cereal could be the foundation of one of the best snack foods of all time either.

Magic Chex Mix

(Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

Known Associates: Al Thornton, Big Ben, Brandon Roy, Celtics, Chauncey, Chex Mix, Danny Granger, Devin, Flash, Groundhog Day, KG, Lakers, Larry Brown, LeBron, Magic, Mamba, Marcus Camby, Melo, MJ, Pistons, Rip, Sheed, Superman, Tayshaun, The Beard, Z-Bo

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Watching…Al Thornton

by Jared Wade on November 15, 2008 at 4:15 pm

Al Thornton is a player to which those in Clipperland have attached great promise. While he certainly proved to be a capable contributor in his rookie campaign last year, it’s always a little difficult to discern true potential from hopeful delusion when the source is a fanbase as beleaguered, beaten and broken as the face of the person who has become the face of Staples Center’s JV squad: Penny Marshall. (No disrespect intended to Billy Crystal. You’re ugly too.)

So to get a better look at whether the kid’s future is more Caron Butler or more Jarvis Hayes, let’s focus on him and him alone while watching today’s 12:30 PST tip-off game between the Clipps and the Dubs.

And if Al becomes boring, we still have the dual-revenge game thing going for both Baron Davis and Corey Maggette, who somehow managed to change teams this summers without being traded for each other. Essentially, there’s no downside to this game (presuming, ya know, we ignore the fact that both of these teams are terrible).

Let’s get after it.

(Photo by Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images)

1st Quarter

10:54 – Thornton misses a catch-and-shoot three after a swing pass. The Clipper announcers mention that he’s been shooting very well so far the year. After checking some stats, I learn that he’s sitting at 47% from the field while taking 13.3 shots per night (including 5/10 from three) thus far through eight games. In those eight, he also impressively has games of 30, 22, 20 and 17 points scored. Pretty good start.

10:18 – Thornton catches the ball on the wing and faces up. After a few head and ball fakes, he settles for a pull-up, no-dribble jumper. It rims out.

7:32 – After several minutes of sluggish, ineffectual play by the Clippers, coach Mike Dunleavy is forced to get a time-out after Golden State goes up 13-2. It’s tough to get much of a read on any of the Clipps right now.

7:14 – Maggette drills a three.

6:49 – After a Cuttino three, Maggette gets to the line. He’s clearly out for vengeance against the team he had played for for eight years. He has six points.

6:03 – Aside from a few times catching it and giving the ball up without doing anything, Thornton is fairly unnoticeable on offense so far. He isn’t moving much without the ball or looking like a big part of what the Clipps are trying to do. Although to be fair, I’m not sure anyone on the Clips knows what they are trying to do right now.

4:42 – The Beard is getting things going though. He hits a three and has LAC’s last 7 points.

3:38 – Thornton is guarding Corey as he gets the ball on the block. Maggette hits a very difficult fadeaway with Al all over him. Good D. Better O. Golden State leads 26-18.

3:18 – Maggette picks up his third foul and has to sit. See you in about a half-hour, Corey. Thanks for coming out.

2:44 – Al gets the ball at the high-post and after facing up and dribbling, he turns and backs down his defender with some herky-jerky, back-and-forth cork-screw action. He then turns and fires a 17-foot fadeaway that barely draws iron. Withholding my own personal comment, I’ll just let you know what the announcers had to say. “That’s about as ugly a possession as you’re going to see…dribbled away the shot-clock and took a bad shot.” Pretty much.

1:18 – Al heads to the bench. He’s 0/3 with 0 boards and 1 assist, which I must not have seen. (Swing pass on one of Baron’s jumpers, me guesses.)

0:20: Boom Dizzle drills another three. He has 10 on 4/5 shooting including 2 treys. The Clippers have cut the Warrior lead to 36-30.

0:06 – Cpt. Jack picks up a T for using mucho curse words in heated conversation with with a not-so-appreciative official to argue a horrible, horrible back-court call that went against him. (Baron clearly knocked away his dribble near half-court, but Jack was whistled for back-court violation when he ran over to pick the ball back up.) Meanwhile, Jack has 8 points and 5 assists. The way he’s been running this offense and sacrificing his own game in this early season has been as impressive as it has been improbable.

2nd Quarter: Golden State 36 – Clippers 31

8:09 – The Warriors are so bad that they can’t even keep Corey Maggette on the bench. He’s back in the game. And back at the line

8:03 – Baron picks up an off-the-ball foul and we get a highly audible, Mic’d Up sound of him yelling “What the fuck, man?!?!” Mothers nationwide change the channel.

7:15 – Al checks back in for Chris Kaman, who looks as sexy as ever this afternoon. Meanwhile, Thornton is now sans-headband — something not really appreciated by us game-bloggers, Mr. Thornton.

6:35 – Al faces up from the left wing with the ball and makes a nice move into a pull-up J, which gives him his first points of the game. Golden State is now only up by two: 42-40.

6:10 – Al picks up a foul as Maggette beats him off the dribble.

5:55 – Clipps go back to Al on the mid-left post. He kicks it out to Baron who drives, but kicks it back to a since-retreated-to-the-three-point-line Thornton. Al shot-fakes, dribbles left, crosses over right and dribbles once more before taking a nice, open pull-up jumper from the left elbow. He misses off the front iron, but it was a good shot and a good move that was deceptive with it’s erratic direction-changing

5:55 – Al gets a nice steal as he picks Cpt. Jack’s pocket. It leads to a sloppy two points in transition by Eric Gordon at the other end.

5:28 – Al gets a fairly easy defensive board.

3:46 – Some dude named “Anthony Morrow” (who has looked pretty damn good all game) takes Al off the bounce and hits a 8-foot pull up in the lane.

3:03 – Thornton is way off on an in-rhythm three.

2:33 – Al scores after he makes a great cut to two feet in front of the hoop and receives a very nice pass from Cuttino. Clippers trail 53-47.

2:06 – Thornton attacks the rim ferociously in transition and gets to the line after being violently undercut by Ronny Turiaf. Al’s athleticism isn’t overtly standout-ish, but he certainly has it in spades, as illustrated by the fact that he just leapt off two feet from outside the lane in attempt to dunk over a 6′10 guy. He knocks down 1 of 2 free throws.

1:46 – Not Al-related, but this Morrow dude just scored on another nice move. My fantasy team may have to take notice. Soon after, we learn that the Warriors have already started four guys this year who were never drafted: Morrow, Azubiuke, CJ Watson and DeMarcus Nelson. Sorry to disappoint you Dubs fans so early into this season, but I don’t believe any NBA Championship winners have done that.

1:35 – Al doesn’t do much on this possession, but generally — and on this play — it seems his role in the Clippers offense is to mainloy play the weak-side wing guy. And while he stands over there, he continually appears to be assessing the seams in the interior D while he sort of crouches as he drifts around like he’s about to pounce and start sprinting in a cut to the basket at any time. Cuttino may be the Clipper perimeter player they call “The Cat,” but it’s Al that looks like a puma stalking from the trees.

1:21- Al checks out as Tyree Ricardo Davis enters for the Clipps. (You probably know him as Ricky. But we’re really close so I call him by three names.)

This game reeks of nostalgia.

3rd Quarter: Golden State 58 – Clippers 50

12:00 – Al Thornton starts the 2nd Half in a head-band. Urgh.

11:35 – In more Thornton-unrelatedness, Andris Biedrins gets a wide-open dunk after a breakdown in Clipper D. AB has been a statistical beast this season.

10:45 – Al gets the ball after a swing pass on the wing. He fakes a swing to the corner and pulls the trigger on the three. It’s all back rim.

10:04 – Thornton gets into great position for an offensive board after Camby misses a drive/lay-in. Kaman is near the hoop too, however, and snatches the ball right above Al’s head. Kaman misses the one-foot, unguarded lay-up. Sweet work, Captain Caveman.

9:15 – Maggette stupidly fouls Baron Davis on a “clear path foul” after a TO, which not only sends Corey to the bench with his 4th foul, but gives Baron two free-throws (both makes) and the ball back. Baron scores on a nice drive, and after a GState miss on the other end, Baron again takes it to the rack and gets to the line, where he makes two free-throws and cuts the lead to two. GState up 62-60.

8:33 – After another miss by the Warriors, Baron grabs the board and takes off down-court. He makes a nice bounce pass to Al, who has beaten everybody down court. Thornton unleashes an uncontested, two hand dunk with authority. The game is tied. Nelson calls a timeout.

7:10 – After another nice cut into the lane, Al gets the ball. He knifes his way between two guys and slips across to the other side of the hoop with precision. He blows the lay-up as it rims in-and-out, but regardless, it was an impressive display of dexterity in the paint.

5:55 – Anthony Morrow drills a three in front of a slow-to-rotate-back Thornton. Morrow has 21 and will be joining the Yahoo! NBA Fantasy team “Starbury Fields 4Eva” as soon as this game is over.

4:22 – Al Thornton grabs a deflected ball on defense and takes off. He can’t get complete separation, but he gets all the way to the hoop and puts up a contested bank-lay up that doesn’t quite go down. But he was also fouled and he makes two from the line. Clipps lead 74-73.

3:37 – Thornton gets a loose-ball foul in rebounding action. Warriors retain possession and score.

3:02 – Al gets caught “ball-watching” on D and his man, Kelenna Azubuike, cuts wide open in front of him into the lane. Buike mishandles the ball, however, and the Clips grab it and sprint off in transition. As the trailer, Al gets a pass from Cuttino and looks poised for a marginally-contested, yet fairly easy lay-in — until the pass bounces directly off his hands. Nice hands on both ends of the court.

2:59 – Al heads to the bench. Each time he’s checked out has come at a time when it seems like he would be headed off for a rest anyway, but it has also always come right after he made a shitty play. Coincidence? He plays worse when tired? Mike Dunleavy is only reminded that he should be monitoring his rotation after someone does something dumb? I choose C.

1:33 – What is going on here? This dude Anthony Morrow just hit a three directly after scoring on the previous possession. He now has 26 on 10/13. Al also checks back in either right before or right after this.

4th Quarter: GState 90 – Clippers 83

10:31 – Morrow has hit two more buckets this quarter — now has 30. I’m guessing that this was not in Mike Dunleavy’s game plan.

9:41 – After Thornton is again slow to recover out to a jump-shooter, the shooter fortuitously misses anyway so no one will ever notice his poor rotation. Less fortuitously, the Dubs get the board and Jack snaps a quick pass to Corey Maggette for what appears to be a wide-open lay-in. But in a move that many people will certainly notice, Thornton flies into the picture and blocks the utter shit out of Maggette’s shot with two hands and takes the ball away. Wow. That was electric. Also, the first real display of good defense by the kid all night.

8:35 – Thornton posts hard in the high post, but doesn’t get the ball. He moves out, then reposts in the mid-post and gets it. He pivots away from the hoop, faces up and badly clangs a 14-foot jumper off the front iron. The Clips have only scored two points in the 4th Quarter.

8:10 – Morrow scores plus the foul. He, of course, makes it and now has 33 points.

7:36 – With Al now on the bench, we’re focusing on the unknown scoring wonder Anthony Morrow, who just now sticks a 18-footer. He’s 14/17 with 35 points and 8 boards. Why didn’t I think to do a “Watching…Anthony Morrow”?

6:10 – Morrow grabs a board and passes off. He gets the ball back and after passing up a three, takes two dribbles and pulls-up from 20 feet. It’s good. 37 points.

5:38 – In a return to this planet, Morrow tries to take Eric Gordon off the dribble, but can’t. And then Gordon easily blocks his pull-up J.

4:05 – Azubuike drives by an apathetic Tim Thomas for a foul and a bucket. GState is up 108-94. It’s interesting that Eric Gordon and Ricky Davis are both getting perimeter crunch-time minutes over Thornton. So too now is Cuttino, who just checked in for Thomas. Maybe this is due to Al’s poor outside shooting this game and the fact that Dunleavy is hoping for some threes to get back in t this thing, but it’s worth noting regardless.

0:00 – Nothing else notable happens and GState wins 121 – 103 in the Clippers Lakers gym.

Today’s Line

33 minutes, 11 points (3/13 FG, 0/2 3PT, 5/6 FT), 2 rebounds, 2 blocks, 1 assist

After Thoughts

We obviously caught Al Thornton on an off-night shooting. Honestly, the entire Clippers teams looked off, something that I’m sure won’t be unfamiliar this season, but also is wont to happen when teams play at 12:30 in the afternoon.

Regardless, Al left plenty to be desired. His defense — something I expected to be a strong point — was lackluster at best and he looked lost out there and slow to rotate on many occasions. He’s only a second-year guy, so some inconsistency is to be expected, but he is 25 years old already so he will need to accelerate his court awareness in order to be the guy I was expecting to become a high-level defender. And given his athleticism, foot-speed and strength, it will be a fairly disappointing development if he can’t get there.

Offensively, he showed much more. His cutting ability is already veteran-level. He knows where to go and although it didn’t amount to much in terms of production, he seemed to know exactly where the defensive weaknesses were on the occasions when he was able to slash from the weakside. Relatedly, he flourishes in transition. He’s got the speed and size that make him a mini-freight train, so defenders are going to be watching him go by them in the open-court for years, and if they bother to try to stop him, there will be plenty of and-ones in their futures. He’s also got good handle in the off-court and an array of cross-overs, stop-and-gos and pull-up moves that put him squarely in the “too quick for bigs, too strong for littles” club that guys like Maggette have been exploiting off the dribble for years.

Despite this, his decision-making with the ball was questionable at times. Even though it was probably the result of him pressing to make up for his poor shooting, he did force some things and displayed a little “black hole” syndrome a few times when it was evident as soon as he caught the ball that it was going to go up.

While this, and other things I’ve seen out of him in the past, have lead me to believe that he might ultimately just be a player who is better offensively off the ball guy, I’ll just leave it at that and not speculate any further since I still like the kid a lot and this was clearly a bad game for Al Thornton. Bottom line is that he’s a dynamic player in every facet of the game and has the physical tools to become a borderline All-Star someday.

Known Associates: Al Thornton, Anthony Morrow, Azubuike, Chris Kaman, CJ Watson, Clippers, Cpt. Jack, Cuttino, DeMarcus Nelson, Eric Gordon, Maggette, Mike Dunleavy, Nellie, The Beard, Tyree Ricardo Davis, Warriors, Watching...

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