Antonio Blakeney Rumors
All NBA Players
Position: G
Born: 10/04/96
Height: 6-4 / 1.93
Weight:197 lbs. / 89.4 kg.
Salary: $1,588,231
Born: 10/04/96
Height: 6-4 / 1.93
Weight:197 lbs. / 89.4 kg.
Salary: $1,588,231
Game-ifying in practices can produce clear results in game. This season, the Hawks rank second — behind the Houston Rockets — in corner 3 attempts. In Chicago, reserve guard Antonio Blakeney has made 14 3s from the left corner, tied for the fourth most in the NBA, despite playing just 16.6 minutes per game. Meanwhile, Budenholzer’s squares have helped propel Milwaukee to the highest-scoring team and the third-highest offensive rating in the league, and 7-foot center Brook Lopez is earning attention for his deep 3-point shooting while making a career-high 2.5 triples per game. The 76ers’ transition defense appears to be benefiting from their 12-foot arc, as Philly is allowing 1.05 points per chance (fifth best in the NBA) on transition plays this season, according to Second Spectrum data.
Allow me to start with a bit of housekeeping. I was unfair to Antonio Blakeney and former coach Fred Hoiberg. In my story last week about the Bulls’ waning faith in Hoiberg, I wrote that Blakeney directed some colorful language toward Hoiberg in asking why he was being removed from a game earlier this season. I cited team sources in the report — which The Athletic stands by. But I didn’t hear the comment myself, and while scrambling to report and write the piece I never gave Blakeney nor Hoiberg a chance to address the allegation. I’ve spent much of this hectic past week trying to make it right as best I can, and after careful consideration of a handful of ideas I settled on this format. Blakeney denies ever saying it. Hoiberg, who has chosen to not be quoted, said Blakeney didn’t say it either. Blakeney respectfully refuted the allegation on Twitter upon learning of the comments I attributed to him in my story. I immediately retweeted Blakeney’s response and realized then I had been unfair. To be fair to Blakeney, who has been professional and a stand-up guy since I began covering him last season, I circled back to him so that he could address the allegation.
Here, in full, is Blakeney’s side of it: “Obviously, I saw the report saying I cursed coach Fred asking him why I came out of the game. No, I didn’t say that. Obviously, me being a younger player in the league and a minimum (salary) guy who is just trying to make it, an undrafted guy, that’s nothing I would ever even think in my mind to say. I’ve never been that type of person. Even in high school. I was a McDonald’s All-American. I never cursed the coach or anything like that. So I don’t really know where that came from, but I kind of just wanted to clear the air on that because I don’t want that image out there of me. I don’t want anybody to think that of me. I don’t want any coach in the league or any coach anywhere to think that I would say that to them.
At one point during a mid-November game at Milwaukee, guard Antonio Blakeney took exception to Hoiberg subbing him out and asked, in what team sources say was a show of rebellion, “Why the fuck are you taking me out?” His query was posed loudly in front of the team bench. Hoiberg later re-inserted him without reproach, sources said. Two weeks later, Blakeney mysteriously was supplanted in the rotation by Cameron Payne, whose inconsistency caused him to slip from emergency starter to third-stringer.
