Larry Brown Sports

There will be no possible way to make life easy for the residents of Moore, Oklahoma and the surrounding areas in the coming weeks, months and years, but athletes have already begun trying to do their part to help the state recover in the wake of the disastrous tornado that touched down on Monday. According to Royce Young of CBSSports.com, Kevin Durant has donated $1 million.

Durant made his donation to the Red Cross, matching the $1 million the Thunder’s primary sponsor Chesapeake Energy made on Monday.

The death toll is currently unclear, but various reports have the number climbing over 50 people with hundreds of others injured. Sure, Durant made over $17 million this year and will make nearly $20 million per season over the next two. But it’s still $1 million, and it will help more than a few people get back on their feet.

To give you some perspective, the Boston Red Sox donated $100,000 to the One Fund after the Boston Marathon bombings last month. That’s not to say the Red Sox’s donation was insignificant by any means, but it shows you the type of person Durant is that he was willing to donate 10 times that amount as a single player. As we told you earlier, Dodgers slugger Matt Kemp has also pledged $1,000 for every home run he hits this season. Hopefully the donations keep rolling in during this time of tremendous need.

The latest news surrounding Dwight Howard and the Los Angeles Lakers should come as a surprise to no one. While most people feel that Howard will return to LA next season if for no other reason than the Lakers can offer him over $30 million more than any other team, the decision may not be that simple.

According to ESPNLosAngeles.com’s Dave McMenamin, Howard is reportedly frustrated with Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni. Howard  was one of several Lakers to hold a personal meeting GM Mitch Kupchak after the season, during which sources say he discussed his relationship with D’Antoni.

According to sources with knowledge of the situation, part of the discussion between Howard and Kupchak centered around Howard’s frustration with D’Antoni — particularly how the center felt marginalized as the coach looked to (Kobe) Bryant and Steve Nash for leadership and suggestions and discounted Howard’s voice.

Kobe Bryant is obviously the leader of the Lakers, but apparently Howard felt that his influence over the team was undervalued. That could be one of many reasons he has decided to clear his head before making any decision about his future.

McMenamin also pointed out that Lakers assistant Steve Clifford, who spent five seasons with Howard in Orlando, could potentially leave to take a head coaching job with another team. One source said Clifford’s departure would “remove the buffers” between D’Antoni and Howard and could result in clashing.

The Lakers obviously want Howard to return and the max contract they can offer him gives them a major advantage, but a certain former NBA coach could tell you all about how difficult Howard can make things when he doesn’t get along with the people who are calling the shots. If Howard is planning on staying in LA, the best thing he could do is hammer out the contract before the media makes things ugly.

Philadelphia 76ers fans waited an entire season for their new All-Star center to make his debut with the team, and it never happened. Andrew Bynum has battled injuries throughout his entire career, and that continued in Philly this past season. The former Los Angeles Lakers star has yet to play a minute with the Sixers, but that did not stop him from making an impression on Jrue Holiday.

“He’s an awesome teammate even though he didn’t get the chance to play,” Holiday said during an interview with Hoops Hype. “He showed me a lot of perspective from the big men aspect of the game. I do think he’s one of the best big men in the league and having him on the bench and in the locker room helped me to improve my game.”

Holiday should probably have a word with Philadelphia DA Seth Williams, who made a crack a couple of months ago about investigating Bynum’s situation. The big man’s former high school has also decided to separate itself from him, with officials recently saying that they are no longer proud of his accomplishments.

None of the Sixers players know what it’s like to take the court with Bynum, but Holiday said he still wants him to be back in Philly next season.

“I’d love him to… obviously, if he’s healthy. If he’s healthy I think he’s the best big in the league, but like I said it’s tricky because of the knee injuries,” Holiday said, via CBS Philly. “They actually haven’t talked to me about [whether or not Bynum should return] so I don’t know. Again, it’s a tricky situation because of his knees, his injuries. You can’t really make the decision just yet.”

“I think he wants to play, he wants to win. He had a winning career playing with the Lakers, winning two rings… He’s a winner and he wants to play.”

We have no way of knowing if Bynum milked his injuries this season, but we do know his insane hairstyles made more headlines than anything having to do with basketball. If he cuts back on the bowling in the offseason, Sixers fans could finally get the chance to see why their team gave up so much to bring Bynum to town.

After an impressive showing against the Boston Celtics in the opening round of the NBA playoffs, the New York Knicks barely put up a fight against the Indiana Pacers. The team was ice cold offensively throughout most of the series and lost Game 6 on Saturday by a score of 106-99, despite Carmelo Anthony’s 39 points on 15 of 29 shooting.

Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim, who coached Anthony during the Orange’s national championship season in 2003, is not surprised the Knicks were bounced from the playoffs. Simply put, he feels that Carmelo was doing everything by himself.

“Not on that team,” Boeheim told the Syracuse Post-Standard when asked if Anthony can win an NBA title. “He did what he can do. He played very well the final game. Everybody’s killing him but Tyson Chandler just didn’t try to catch the ball. He threw him the ball and Tyson Chandler (dodged it). He was wide open. He should have been looking for the ball right here. Kenyon Martin should have been looking for the ball. They both went like this (Boeheim dodged his head). Carmelo gets turnovers and the announcers aren’t smart enough to even think, ‘Well, the guy should try to catch the ball.’”

Boeheim took most of the Knicks to task, adding that JR Smith (who is reportedly sticking around in New York for a while) and Raymond Felton “weren’t great players” on their former teams and now the Knicks are asking them to do too much. But he seemed particularly frustrated with Chandler.

“Tyson Chandler claims he never gets the ball,” Boeheim said.” He doesn’t try to get the ball. He had two points and (Roy) Hibbert had 21.”

He wasn’t done there.

“In Miami the second and third options are Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh,” Boeheim continued. “Your fourth option is Ray Allen, who is still in good shape. Your fifth option is Shane Battier, who is still a good player. The New York Knicks have who?”

Boeheim said he told his son during Game 6 that Anthony would have to score 50 for New York to win. He also blamed the Knicks’ offensive scheme, saying Carmelo has to run an isolation offense and go one-on-one too often. He’s right. Anthony is a great player, but he’s not Kobe Bryant or LeBron James. The Knicks aren’t going to win a title with him taking 30 shots a game.

H/T NY Post

Two brothers claim they were assaulted by members of Damian Lillard’s entouraged after taking a picture of Portland Trailblazers rookie, The Oregonian reports.

The brothers told KGW in Portland that they took a picture of Lillard as he was headed to a parking lot around 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning in the Old Town area of Portland. One of the brothers said Lillard was upset and asked, “Did you just take my picture?”

“And his entourage just turned around too and they’re like ‘did you just take a picture of Damian Lillard?’ And I was like –and I said ‘Yeah, I did.’ And so I saw that he was clearly upset, they were upset and I was like, ‘Can I apologize to him? Like I’ll go up right now and apologize to him,’” the brother told KGW.

The brother said the issue turned into an all-out fight within minutes. The second brother says his nose was broken and he needed stitches in his lip after he was repeatedly punched and kicked in the fight.

The brothers reportedly were treated at the scene by Portland Fire & Rescue for facial injuries.

Though Lillard, who won the NBA’s Rookie of the Year award, reportedly was not involved in the alleged assault and is not a suspect, one of the brothers blames him for instigating the fight.

“Damian Lillard basically instigated it because he actually looked like he was going to go up to my brother and start fighting him. And since he did that, the rest of the guys started getting riled up too and like they thought it was okay to just start fighting out of nowhere,” the second brother told KGW.

Lillard was the sixth overall pick by the Blazers and averaged 19 points and 6.5 assists per game in his rookie campaign.

As The Oregonian points out, Lillard won an NBA community assist award in March for his “commitment to anti-bullying and his ongoing support of local, regional and national organizations that share his passion for promoting respect for all.’’

We have heard of athletes hitting up Twitter to refute phony reports, but how many athletes respond via Twitter to refute fake reports started by phony Twitter accounts? Kobe Bryant is one of those guys. Why? Probably because he relishes the opportunity to put his doubters in place, even if his doubters are make believe.

The whole thing started on Sunday night when a fake Twitter account of someone pretending to be Yahoo! Sports reporter Adrian Wojnarowski tweeted that Kobe was supposedly retiring. Note that this fake account has three “O’s” in Yahoo! where there should be two:

Somehow that tweet managed to receive 288 retweets, including retweets from some pretty big sports figures on Twitter. It apparently made enough noise to prompt Kobe to respond:

Really?? Me. Retire?? Soon, but not yet Vino still has work to do #35 #OG #kbvff

— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) May 20, 2013

Did we really think Kobe was going to retire? Not a chance. There’s no way that guy would go out with a torn Achilles’ tendon injury. No way he’d let that be his last impression on the NBA.

JR Smith said after the New York Knicks lost to the Indiana Pacers in the playoffs on Saturday that he wants to retire as a Knick. We can’t say whether or not he’ll be able to fulfill that wish, but it does look like he’ll be able to remain with the team for a while.

The New York Post’s Marc Berman reports that Smith is expected to opt out of his current contract to sign a four-year extension with the team. Berman says that the team could offer Smith around $5 million per season because of their Early Bird rights to him, though we do not know if another team will be able to offer Smith more. Berman also says that Smith and his brother, Chris, who played at Louisville, will be a package deal. Chris Smith was undrafted but played on the Knicks’ Summer League team. He got hurt and was waived before training camp.

The Post also says that Chris Smith has changed agents to Carmelo Anthony’s agent, for what that’s worth.

Chris Smith seems pretty excited about the potential package deal:

I will be back next season along with my big brother @therealjrsmith … Will be a blessing to wear my Knicks uniform.. Prep for 2014 is now

— Chris Smith (@3_ChrisSmith) May 19, 2013

JR Smith played part of 2011-2012 in China after signing there during the lockout. He returned and played the remainder of the season with the Knicks, but he did not receive much free agent interest. He signed a two-year deal for worth around $2.8 million per season prior to this season, and he was named Sixth Man of the Year.

Chest bump to Eye on Basketball