When asked about specifics of what happened on the trip to Las Vegas, Terry played coy somewhat. “What goes on in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” the former player joked. But, he quickly added that nothing nefarious happened, and that the trip was “just a bunch of guys talking basketball, enjoying themselves.” “We had a good time. It was good because you got to bond,” Terry says.
When asked about specifics of what happened on the trip…
March 5, 2021 | 11:12 am EST Update
Brian Scalabrine: The Celtics want Harrison Barnes
Chris Forsberg: “The Celtics want Harrison Barnes …. Don’t listen to all the smoke and mirrors about all these other guys.” Sorting through trade rumors with @Abby Chin + @Brian Scalabrine, and why Barnes is more realistic than Grant or Vucevic. pic.twitter.com/QPLDXURyj2
Those numbers made Beal an All-Star Game starter for the first time in his career. It’s a great accomplishment, one that only 10 players receive each year. So, does that mean he has reached his peak? “I feel like I can get a whole lot better,” Beal told NBC Sports Washington. “I still feel like I haven’t really tapped into that elite, elite, elite level. I feel like I’m still on the way there. I wouldn’t say I’m crazy far off, but I feel like I’m pretty good and it’s picking up.”
Clearly, it is not money that motivates him. “I think it’s just who I am. I’m always my toughest critic. I always just push myself to be better than what I was before. It’s kind of like I’m just competing against myself in a way. I don’t have that enemy or guy around the league that I look up to and I want to be better than. Like, ‘oh, his numbers…’ I don’t have that,” he said. “I kind of go up against myself on a nightly basis, on a yearly basis. How can I be better than what I was before? What do I need to improve on? I have just kind of always had that since I was younger. That’s always kind of stuck with me.”
There are also Beal’s free throw numbers. He’s averaging career-high attempts (8.2/g) and shooting a career-best percentage (90.2%). Just three years ago, Beal was averaging 4.5 attempts and shooting 79.1 percent. “My goal coming into this year was to be 90 [percent],” Beal said. “I tell myself every time I step up to the line, I say 90. I just say 90 to myself. I’m shooting with confidence, stepping up and then knocking them down. They’re free points.”
In the earliest days of a decorated and illustrious career, before the 17 consecutive All-Star Games, the MVP honors in three of them, and before he became as much a fixture of the midseason extravaganza as the ball itself, LeBron James fell victim to the most plebian of NBA slights. He was an All-Star snub. “Still kinda irks me a little bit,” James said this week. “But I got over it.”
Coaches in the East voted on the rest of the roster. In later years, the league would give coaches the authority to fill out the roster as they saw fit, but in those days, they were still obligated to meet positional needs. Jamaal Magloire, who was averaging a double-double with New Orleans, made the one All-Star team of his career. Same for Metta Sandiford Artest (then Ron Artest) and Milwaukee guard Michael Redd. “Jamaal Magloire is an All-Star. LeBron James is not,” Hall of Fame basketball writer Marc Stein opined in a column for ESPN.com. “Nah, there’s nothing wrong with the rules the NBA uses for voting in its All-Star reserves.”
Reached by phone this week, Sandiford Artest said, “you could have made an argument for LeBron,” but the fact that he was a rookie and the Cavaliers were not in playoff contention made it tough. “I’m not going to say he didn’t deserve it,” Sandiford Artest told The Athletic, “because his first game against me he had 25 points. That was a lot of points against me. Nobody was scoring 25, let alone a rookie. When he did that to me, I’m like, this is insane. You literally gave 25 points to the best wing defender in the league.”
