Armor looks to continue success with roster full of new faces
Nov. 26,
2012 |
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By Chris Maza
chrism@thereminder.com
SPRINGFIELD – It didn't take long for the Springfield Armor and Brooklyn nets to figure out a winning formula in the City of Homes.
In just its third year in existence, the Armor made a tremendous jump from NBA D-League cellar dweller to Eastern Conference champions.
However, with the 2012-2013 season now underway and the team's home opener set for Nov. 30, the Armor must try to repeat last year's success with an almost completely re-done roster.
"The first difference [between this year's team and last year's] is we lost our five starters," Milton Lee, Brooklyn Nets general manager of Minor League Operations, said at the Armor's media day at the Basketball Hall of Fame on Nov. 14 "We also lost Lance Hurdle and Preston Knowles off the bench as well as Damian Johnson. At least eight out of our 10 faces will be new."
That's the nature of the D-League, Lee said, and it's not necessarily a bad thing.
"Coach [Bob] MacKinnon and I look at that as a positive," he said. "Obviously every player's dream here is to make it to the NBA, but Coach MacKinnon and I feel very strongly that if the NBA isn't your final destination and if higher level Europe or Asia or wherever else is, we'd like to help get you there as well and we feel we did that last year's class."
Lee said that he and MacKinnon were excited about this year's roster, which returns only Chas McFarland and Jonathan Thomas, calling it "a very talented group."
Lee said, "[The team] is probably more athletic at the 'bigs' positions [than last year], but maybe not as athletic in the backcourt, but that's more because LD [Williams] and Jerry [Smith] were elite athletes.
He added, "We still think we should be a very strong team. Part of that is because of coach MacKinnon and the consistency with which he coaches throughout the year, but we're really excited about the crop we have right now."
Among the newcomers on this year's squad is Carleton Scott, a 6-foot-8 forward out of Notre Dame who took part in the Nets' training camp earlier this year and was assigned to the Armor through the hybrid affiliation between Brooklyn and Springfield.
Scott, who played in Europe for a year after being bypassed in the NBA Draft in 2011, said he is catching on to MacKinnon's system, which calls for a fast-paced offense that puts a lot of pressure on defenses.
"[Taking part in the Nets' training camp] helped me get a head start on the offense. We run a similar system here, except it's kind of on steroids here. We're going to get up and down the floor a lot," he said. "We're going to get a lot of possessions. It's going to be a quick-hitting offense. We'll slow it down sometimes, but for the most part we're going to be operating at a fast pace with high intensity."
Scott added that he's relishing the opportunity to take on a new position and the new challenges associated with it.
"At Notre Dame, I played a lot of post in college. Being athletic and a long guy, I led the team in blocks," he said. "Here my role has changed tremendously. Now I'm a 2 or a 3, having to guard perimeter guys as opposed to being in the post guarding standup guys. My game has done a complete 180 and now I'm putting the ball on the floor and shooting the ball more. It's been a long year and I've made great strides and now I'm just hoping to continue to get better everyday.
Christian Polk, one of the Armor's three rookies, comes to the team as a guard from the Univserity of texas at El Paso (UTEP) after being drafted in the second round of the D-League draft and said that having the leadership of someone like MacKinnon has helped him make the transition to professional basketball.
"Whenever you have a good coach, it makes everything a lot easier," he said. "He makes his expectations clear and he's really motivating. I sense a lot of similarities in him and my other coach my senior year in El Paso Tim Floyd."
The offense is one thing that Polk said he didn't need much time adjusting to because of the high-paced offense he played in at UTEP.
"It relates pretty well. The college coaches I played for my last two years did similar things. They like to get it up and down the floor and score points and that's something I really like to do," he said. "This up-tempo style is really going to fit my game. Coach made it clear that as long as I'm open I have the opportunity to knock it down, so that's something I'm pretty excited for."
The is one thing Polk, an Arizona native who started his college career at Arizona State before transferring to UTEP, admitted he would have to get used to in Springfield – the weather.
"I've been in the heat my whole life," he said with a smile. "I'm going to have to get a different wardrobe."
The Armor's home opener against the Sioux Falls Skyforce on Nov. 30 starts with tip-off at 7 p.m. at the MassMutual Center. Tickets are available at the MassMutual Center box office or at TicketMaster.com. For more information, contact the Armor's office at 746-3263.
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