In today’s Netlinked, we mention a recent interview with Deron Williams that doesn’t paint his picture of New York City in the brightest fashion. Also, some updates–good and bad–from the FIBA World Cup.
At this point in the offseason, the NBA media is grasping for stories and interesting tidbits to pass the time between now and when the season starts. Inevitably, this leads to innocuous comments and remarks from players being blown completely out of proportions. With Deron Williams, that happened in an interview with New York publication Resident Magazine.
According to ESPNNewYork’s Mike Mazzeo, what Deron said ranged from him “not feeling like a New Yorker” in addition to other things that don’t necessarily ring as big compliments for the Big Apple. He did say that he likes the subway and its convenience, which is probably a surprising choice of nice words for Deron.
Is that really that bad for a Texas native who spent years in Utah with the Jazz to say? D-Will still spends his summers in Utah and was just saying that during the season, he misses the free space that those two states offer that New York City is really abundant in. Just because he plays for the Nets doesn’t mean he has to love every thing about Brooklyn and the Greater New York Metropolitan area. Total non-story.
Moving on to FIBA updates, the heavily-favored Team USA is now 4-0 after their preliminary round slate of games ended today with a thrashing of the Ukrainian national team, coached by Mike Fratello. Mason Plumlee played four minutes at the end, scoring two points during garbage time (for the US, basically the entire second half is garbage time). The US rolled through it’s first four games and takes on Mexico (and Jorge Gutierrez) on Saturday.
Andray Blatche’s Filipino team didn’t fare as well, on the other hand. Last night, via a loss to Puerto Rico, Gilas Pilipinas was eliminated from the World Cup after losing its first four games. Blatche was actually decent for the Philippines, which salvaged its campaign with a win over Senegal earlier today. Still, a 1-4 record in five games isn’t what they were looking for.
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