With a few dribbles, a recomposed Irving freed himself from a Lopez/Lonzo Ball double team then split Lopez and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope before finishing a left-handed layup — much to the delight of teammate Shane Larkin, who spilled off the bench in jubilation. “He’s literally going horizontally across the court, and he’s tapping [the ball] so guys can’t get it,” Larkin said. “Then when he finally has that opening, he gets back in control, and he makes another move and another move, and he’s at the basket laying it up. “It’s nothing I’ve seen before, and it’s something that you can’t really teach.”
Shane Larkin Rumors
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Shane Larkin
Position: -
Born: 10/02/92
Height: 5-11 / 1.80
Weight:171 lbs. / 77.6 kg.
Earnings: $6,167,345 ($6,508,659*)
Born: 10/02/92
Height: 5-11 / 1.80
Weight:171 lbs. / 77.6 kg.
Earnings: $6,167,345 ($6,508,659*)
Shane Larkin opens his eyes, sits up and embarks on his own tortured version of “Groundhog Day.” He grabs the remote, clicks on SportsCenter and hops out of bed to wait for his “number.” He is 8 years old, and every morning presents a new set of unpredictable parameters that are purely arbitrary. As he starts to get dressed for school — a ritual that can last a few minutes or sometimes hours, depending on the number for the day — he notices an image of Ray Allen flickering on his television screen. Allen, it seems, hit eight 3-pointers in a game the night before. Suddenly, a sensory message makes a beeline for Shane’s brain and informs him of the number for the day: eight. “And then I know,” Larkin tells ESPN, “that I have to wash my hands eight times.”
Larkin’s condition, later diagnosed as obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, afflicts just 2.3 percent of the population and just 1 out of 100 children. For a little boy who didn’t understand why he was held captive by his own random regimen, it was exhausting, frustrating — and incredibly frightening. “You don’t know what’s going on,” Larkin says. “You see your friends wash their hands once, or not wash them at all, and you say, ‘What’s wrong with me?”’
Shane Larking back to Europe
David Pick: Celtics free agent guard Shane Larkin confirms to me that he is leaving the NBA to sign a $1.8M, one-year offer sheet with Anadolu Efes.
Orazio Cauchi: Efes has always been the frontrunner to sign Larkin, he just took his time to evaluate if some NBA deals might have surfaced but the market was too tight at this point. Almost 2 mln it’s good money for one season and he can try the NBA route again next summer.
What factors are you considering in free agency? What things are most important to you as look at potential destinations? Shane Larkin: The most important thing for me is playing time. I’ve been in a lot of different situations throughout my career thus far. Sometimes I’ve played a lot of minutes, sometimes I haven’t gotten many minutes, sometimes the minutes have been very inconsistent. I’m just trying to find a team that wants me to play good minutes so that I can continue to grow and develop for their team.
Shane Larkin: To be clear, I have no problem going back to the Celtics. I loved it there this year. I loved the role I had and they have a great, up-and-coming team that’s going to be outstanding for many years. This was the most fun year I had in the NBA, the most fun I’ve had since I left college. Boston is always an option that I would be interested in, but whichever team offers me the best chance go out there and continue to grow will be my main focus in free agency. I’d love to be back in Boston, given the right circumstances, though.
