Howard Beck Boards Flight 750
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Howard Beck covers the NBA for the New York Times and he is one of the best NBA writers on the planet. He is also Mr. Know-everything when it comes to Brooklyn Nets basketball. He joined Chad on Flight 750 Friday to discuss the Nets and to weigh in on the Blazers’ first half of the season.
Beck insists that P.J. Carlesimo has come a long way since his days in Portland and Golden State and that if you’re a Brooklyn fan, you really can’t expect any more than what he has been able to do with the team this season.
“He benefitted a lot from those years he spent in San Antonio, working next to Pop obviously. And I think he also knows that these opportunities don’t come along very often…This is definitely looking like a team that should finish in the top half of the bracket in the East and maybe they’ve got a chance to win a playoff series which would be the first time in many many years.
Beck also talked about what he thinks of Blazers’ rookie point guard Damian Lillard.
“Obviously he’s looked fantastic. I mean it really looks like it’s going to be a two-way race for Rookie of the Year between him and Davis…They got themselves a great player and obviously out here Nets fans have that kind of little twinge of regret that that’s the pick the Nets sent to Portland for Gerald Wallace.”
And finally, Beck talked about the job that Terry Stotts has done with the Blazers so far this season.
“He’s a guy who every year when he was on somebody else’s bench – wherever he was an assistant coach, you always hear about how smart Terry Stotts is, how great of a basketball mind he has. So he’s one of those guys you knew when he got another chance, if it was in the right situation, he was going to make the most of it.”
Take a listen to the interview and be sure to look for Beck’s columns every week in the New York Times.