Around the NBA: Second woman makes jump
The number of women working as assistant coaches in the NBA doubled this week when the Sacramento Kings added Jenny Boucek as an assistant player development coach. Boucek, who joins San Antonio’s Becky Hammon as active assistant coaches, was the head coach of the WNBA’s Seattle Storm, a former head coach of the WNBA Sacramento Monarchs and has long had ties to various NBA head coaches. She joins Dave Joerger’s staff in Sacramento, the same franchise that hired Nancy Lieberman as the first female assistant in league history.
GREEK PEAK
The unique skills of Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo are well known to Raptors fans after his play in last year’s playoff series. He’s picked up right where he left off this season. In his first four games, Antetokounmpo scored 147 points, one more than the team record held by the legendary Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1970. And in this era where shooting counts so much, Antetokounmpo piled up those scoring totals while making only one three-pointer.
SUPERMAN’S KRYPTONITE
Dwight Howard has never been a good free-throw shooter — he’s a career 56.5 per cent from the line over his 15 seasons in the league — but he hit a new low this week. The Charlotte Hornets centre missed all nine foul shots he took in a loss to Milwaukee and it was the second-most attempted without a make since the 1963-64 season. The only one worse was Shaquille O’Neal, who once missed 11 in one game.
TRIANO FACTOR
The bounce effect in Phoenix is real. After losing their first three games — two by more than 40 points — the Suns jetti- soned coach Earl Watson and elevated former Raptors head coach and Canadian national team coach Jay Triano to the top job. It’s had an immediate impact since Phoenix has won both its games since the change and a long-time Suns icon is happily looking on from afar. “You never want to see anyone get fired. I want to see the Suns organization and culture grow into something great, but when they did go in a new direction, I was really happy for Jay,” Steve Nash said this week.
STATE OF FULTZ
Even with rookie Ben Simmons shining in Philadelphia, the Sixers are in the throes of an odd injury-related controversy. They’ve shut down 2017 first overall draft pick Markelle Fultz for at least a week because of shoulder woes. The team can’t figure out if the problems, which are giving the guard a ghastly shooting form, came from a change they say he made in his shooting mechanics. His trainers and advisers say that wasn’t the case or the cause. “We are going to take a little bit of a different approach as we embrace this next week and try to get him 100-per-cent healthy and right,” Sixers president Bryan Colangelo said. “There’s been a lot of noise out there about the pain and the impact on his shot, and we’re just hopeful we can kind of get this resolved once and for all.” It’s landed the Sixers in another injury quandary that goes along with a decision to continue to limit the play of forward Joel Embiid. Doug Smith