My assignment Tuesday night at Staples Center was to examine the Utah Jazz and figure out why they’re the playing the best basketball in the League. Utah has been running much of the same stuff since the Harding Administration through its flex offense. Aside from its cool name, the flex has a [...]

One of my closer friends is a musical conductor and through osmosis, I’ve learned a teeny bit about musicology. He once lent me composer/conductor Pierre Boulez’s “Orientations: Collected Writings” when we were stranded on a rainy beach in West Africa, both completely out of [...]

Kim Hughes is a delightfully candid man. Not Stan Van Gundy candid, or even Gregg Popovich candid. It’s more of a plain-spoken Midwestern brand of candor. As forthcoming as Hughes has been over the past 48 hours, his frank answer to the question, “Does the team have enough playmakers and[...]

Conclusion from a post of mine over at TrueHoop: For Davis, Hughes’ vision couldn’t be more inviting. When Davis is happy, he’s very politic with the media. He managed to heartily endorse Hughes’ goals without evoking any residual qualms he had with Dunleavy’s system (a[...]

The Isiah Thomas rumors are categorically false. Kim Hughes is all aboard the Baron Davis Express. “My style would be running,” Hughes said. “I think we can run.” Hughes drew some contrasts between himself and Mike Dunleavy. “[Dunleavy] called a lot of plays for our guy[...]

I agree with Kim Hughes that timeouts tend to be overvalued in last possession situations.  Transition and general chaos always favor the offense, especially when the ball is in the hands of someone as effective in the open court as Baron Davis. As Hughes points out in Ramona Shelburne’s item,[...]