McPhee’s moves helped Knights reach Cup final
rant and Golden State’s Klay Thompson. The third-year Heat forward nonetheless finished ahead of such respected defensive players as Danny Green, Luc Mbah a Moute, Avery Bradley and LeBron James.
Spoelstra frequently cited Richardson as deserving All-Defensive recognition over the second half of this past season.
“Well that’s been his calling card since he came in. That’s what our scouting department and Chet Kammerer liked about him,” Spoelstra said last month of the Heat’s scouting work in advance of selecting Richardson out of Tennessee in the second round in 2015. “I think they projected him to be able to have this kind of potential. And on that side of the floor, I think he’s AllNBA defense. He is, night in and night out.”
Richardson closed the season as the lone NBA player with at least 121 steals and 75 blocked shots.
“He’s become a very disciplined, dynamic defender, one that can really take on multiple positions. But in a totally different way,” Spoelstra said. “He will challenge Dwyane [Wade] in terms of a shot-blocking two-guard if he is fortunate enough to play that many years down the line.
“He’s going to rack up a lot of blocks, a lot of steals. And, as we call ‘em, ‘one-onone kills.’ He’s a superb defender and his offense has been growing exponentially with the opportunities this year.”
The Heat last had an AllDefensive selection in 2016, when Hassan Whiteside was named to the second team. Whiteside did not receive any votes in this year’s balloting.
The lack of inclusion on Wednesday’s teams left the Heat with six players on AllDefensive teams over their 30 seasons.
Alonzo Mourning and LeBron James have been the team’s only first-team selections, Mourning in 1999 and 2000, with James in 2011, ‘12 and ‘13. AUTO RACING: Danica Patrick has lined up her first post-retirement gig: hosting the ESPYS. She will preside over the show honoring the past year’s top athletes and moments in sports on July 18. The show airs live on ABC from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. Patrick is set to retire from auto racing after competing in Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, where her fourth-place finish in 2005 is the highest by a woman.
COLLEGES: Alabama and USC will meet in Arlington, Texas to open the 2020 football season. The game will be a rematch of the 2016 AdvoCare Classic at AT&T Stadium . ... Clemson listed Kelly Bryant as its starting quarterback despite fans’ pining for freshman Trevor Lawrence to take the job . ... Former North Carolina point guard Phil Ford had surgery for prostate cancer. Team spokesman Steve Kirschner says Ford underwent the procedure Tuesday after he was diagnosed during his annual physical.
CYCLING: Elia Viviani sprinted to his fourth victory of this year’s Giro d’Italia and Simon Yates maintained his hold on the leader’s pink jersey after the 17th stage.
NBA: Doc Rivers and the Clippers have agreed to a contract extension that will keep him as coach beyond next season. Rivers had one year left on his deal, which pays him about $11 million. The Clippers didn’t announce the length of Rivers’ extension or how much he’s getting paid . ... Bucks G Sterling Brown said his experience with Milwaukee police was wrong and “shouldn’t happen to anybody.” Brown released a statement Wednesday after Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales
The Heat eight times have had representatives on the second team, P.J. Brown in 1997 and ‘99, Bruce Bowen in 2001, Wade in 2005, ‘09 and ‘10, James in ‘14 and Whiteside in ‘16.
The only Heat player to be named Defensive Player of the Year was Alonzo Mourning in 1999 and 2000. The NBA will announce the winner of that honor and the rest of the league’s individual awards on June 25 at the second-annual award show.
Richardson said late in the season he was braced for an All-Defensive omission.
“I think it would be awesome but I’m not going to be bent out of shape if I don’t,” he said. “I know how those things go sometimes. I’m not too worried about it. I think I’m a top-10 defender in this league. I know in my own head.”
iwinderman@ sunsentinel.com. Follow him at twitter.com/iraheatbeat or facebook.com/ ira.winderman apologized for how his department handled the January arrest of Brown. Officers used a stun gun on Brown after encountering him in a Walgreens parking lot.
NFL: League owners approved a new policy permitting players to stay in the locker room during the “The Star-Spangled Banner” but requiring them to stand if they come to the field . ... The NFL awarded Super Bowls to Arizona in 2023 and New Orleans in 2024. It will be New Orleans’ 11th game and Arizona’s fourth . ... The 2019 draft was awarded to Nashville, home of the Titans. It will be fifth consecutive year the draft will be held outside New York . ... The Browns, who were 0-16 last season, will be the subject of this summer’s HBO “Hard Knocks” series . ... Former Bills G Richie Incognito, who was once suspended for bullying a teammate, was taken into custody for psychiatric examination after an incident at a Florida gym.
NHL: The Rangers hired Boston University’s David Quinn as their new head coach. Quinn replaces Alain Vigneault, who was fired hours after the Rangers missed the playoffs for the first time since 2010. Quinn, 51, coached Boston University to four NCAA tournament appearances in five seasons, including a trip to the national title game in 2015.
TENNIS: Stan Wawrinka won his first match on tour for nearly four months, starting his Geneva Open defense with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Jared Donaldson . ... Yulia Putintseva rallied to defeat topseeded Sloane Stephens 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (3) in the first round of the Nuremberg Cup.
LAS VEGAS — George McPhee’s endgame has always been about making the Golden Knights contenders.
Strategic winning.
The veteran general manager has ridden his savvy all the way to the Stanley Cup Final, a stirring run by the first-year franchise and the first major sports team in Las Vegas. While the expansion draft gets most of the attention in attempts to explain the unusual success, the moves made by McPhee in late February, when the trade deadline came along, have proven just as important.
“I wanted to wait as long as we could to determine what we had as a team,” McPhee recalled. “At the trade deadline we felt it was a very good team. But it was getting thin, we were getting banged up, guys out of the lineup, we had other guys playing hurt. We wanted to do the very best we could for this team that was playing its guts out, to help it.”
He began moving pawns across the NHL chessboard, starting with the acquisition of forward Tomas Tatar from the Red Wings in exchange for three draft picks: a first-round pick in 2018, a second-round pick in 2019 and a third-round pick in 2021. Tatar brought with him a contract worth $15.9 million through the 2020-21 season.
While the Golden Knights did send Brendan Leipsic to the Canucks for Philip Holm, perhaps the moves to keep biggest trade was the one for bruising forward Ryan Reaves from the Penguins, a move that included the Golden Knights acquiring 40 percent of Derick Brassard’s contract. Brassard going to Penguins from the Senators meant the talented center would not be going to the Jets — the team Vegas just beat in a rugged Western Conference final.
McPhee and coach Gerard Gallant also wanted to make sure the chemistry built over the first five months of the inaugural season wasn’t disrupted. And that meant keeping most of the lineup intact.
That included unrestricted free agents David Perron and James Neal, who at the beginning of the season were perceived as rentals until the deadline when they could be moved to playoff contenders.
As it turned out, Perron and Neal were already on a playoff contender and on their way to stellar seasons. Perron tallied a career-high 66 points, while Neal piled up 25 goals, scoring at least 20 in each of his first 10 NHL seasons.
“We knew that we weren’t moving anybody out,” Gallant said. “We were happy with our lineup . ... We talked about adding players, to make our team better and we did that. But there was no thought about moving any players at that time. We had a great season, everything was going good and we wanted to make sure we had enough security for a playoff run and that’s what they did.” AP