Does Danica have what it takes?

I wrote my most recent column from Daytona on Danica Patrick, who is beginning her sophomore NASCAR season in the second-tier Nationwide Series. She starts fourth in the Nationwide race Saturday -- she isn't racing in the Daytona 500 and has yet to race in one of the top-tier Cup events.

After listening to a couple of Danica's Daytona interviews over the past few days, I've come to the conclusion she's a relatively nice person who really wants to be liked but who is not at all sure of her capabilities in a stock car as of yet.

That's for good reason -- in her 12 races last year, she never finished better than 19th. Her average finish was 28.7. If she was your average white male race-car driver, those sorts of results wouldn't merit a paragraph in most auto-racing stories.

But that's not what she is. She's a pretty woman and a potential breakout star -- but she has to produce some results now, or she will simply end up as NASCAR's equivalent of tennis pinup Anna Kournikova.

Shortening the 600??

I spent my first day ever at Daytona International Speedway today. Somehow, in 17 years of employment at the Charlotte Observer, I've never been assigned to cover the Daytona 500. Generally, Tom Sorensen -- my friend and our other sports columnist -- takes this assignment but he's got other stuff to do this week. I'll be here the rest of the weekend, writing a number of columns, including one on Danica Patrick for Saturday's newspaper and one on the new style of "two-car tandem" racing at Daytona for Friday's newspaper.

One interesting thing that came out of today was a little debate about whether the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway is too long. Fox Sports chairman David Hill -- whose network televises the event -- thinks so.

Hill said in January that NASCAR races should be shortened to fit into a three-hour broadcast window. On a call with reporters Thursday, Hill was asked that. (The 600 -- the longest race on the NASCAR schedule, which is one of its claims to fame -- generally lasts over four hours).

Hill stood by his comments Thursday and said he was speaking specifically about the 600, which this season is scheduled for May 29. Hill said the 600-mile race at CMS “tends to go on and on.”

Later on Thursday came this counterpunch from Marcus Smith, the president and general manager of CMS: "Shortening the 600? We were actually considering adding a halftime show!"

Right move to extend Silas

Well, that didn't take long.

Paul Silas is now 2-for-2 in getting the "interim" tag removed as an NBA coach in Charlotte, as the Bobcats just extended him through the 2011-12 season and now officially consider him their "head coach" instead of their "interim head coach."

Silas took over for Larry Brown this season, and at this point, interestingly enough, they have each coached this Bobcats team for exactly 28 games. Brown went 9-19. Silas went 15-13 and has directed Charlotte to victories over Boston, the L.A. Lakers and Atlanta in the past 10 days.

This one-year extension was the right move for the Bobcats, to give a bit of stability at a spot where the team desperately needs it. The Bobcats are already on their fourth head coach in seven years, which speaks to the franchise's lack of continuity.

This sort of thing has happened to Silas before. He took over the Charlotte Hornets in midseason once, replacing Dave Cowens, and then did well enough to get the head job there, too.

Silas is a tough coach and also not as good an "X and O" man as Brown, but he's better than Brown at instilling confidence in players. He smiles more. Under Silas, D.J. Augustin and Gerald Henderson in particular have looked like different players.

And while Charlotte (24-32) still wouldn't make the playoffs if the NBA season ended today, at least the Bobcats now have a chance to do so. While Brown got them there in 2009-10 with a superb coaching job, the team stopped listening to him this season.

They are listening to Silas, and this was a good move for owner Michael Jordan to make. The timing is a bit curious -- couldn't this just as easily have been done at the end of the season? -- but Silas is a good man and a good coach, and I'm happy for him.

Talk about some sore Laker losers

NBA players -- and coaches -- have to get somewhat used to losing. Even the best NBA teams usually lose in the neighborhood of 15-20 times a season (while a great NFL team might lose only 3-4 times, or less). And an average NBA team loses at least 40 times.

So you get beat. You talk about it with the media. You move on.

That's not how it went with the Lakers' two biggest names Monday night, though, after Charlotte's 109-89 whipping of the Lakers. (Here's my column about the game).

Total time allocated by Lakers coach Phil Jackson and Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant to the media Monday after the loss: Ten seconds.

Those 10 seconds all came courtesy of Jackson, who took no questions at his "press conference." He walked out of the Lakers' locker room, looked at the assembled media (which included me) and said: “I just have one thing to say: I am very disappointed in our performance tonight. We are embarrassed about what we did and that’s it.” Then he walked off.

As I noted in my column about the game, Jackson's entire statement could have fit inside a standard, 140-character "tweet." It was apparently one of the shortest -- if not the shortest -- postgame press conference Jackson has ever held as Laker coach.

But that was 10 seconds more than Kobe, who ducked the media entirely, leaving the locker room before it officially opened to reporters and never reappearing.

Ah, well. The Lakers are a proud and talented bunch, and losing eight of their last 10 to the Bobcats must gnaw at them. And the way they lost was surprising, I'm sure -- the 2-time NBA defending champs hardly ever play that badly. (And the Bobcats rarely play that well).

But still, it struck me as a "sore loser" sort of thing. Doesn't Jackson owe the general NBA fan a better explanation for his team's performance than those 10 seconds? Shouldn't Kobe say something?

It happens. It's not a huge deal, I know. I also know I've lost some games in my own small-time sporting career in which I didn't want to talk to anybody afterward. I just wanted to sulk, or think, or something.

And it should be fairly noted that there were many Lakers -- Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, Ron Artest and Derek Fisher among them -- who addressed the media at length after the game.

But still... I thought Jackson and Kobe -- and I respect both of them greatly for all they've done in the NBA -- should have behaved better Monday.

3 thoughts on Duke-UNC

I wasn't at Cameron Indoor Stadium Wednesday night, but watched Duke-UNC on TV like a whole lot of other folks. A few postgame thoughts:

1) It's a pleasure listening to Mike Gminski as the color analyst. Gminski has such a history with this rivalry, but also stays neutral and incisive -- always. The G-man can also pull up arcane basketball knowledge, like the time he noted that Seth Curry looked like he was committing an "up-and-down violation" on his pump fake, but that in reality he always kept his toes on the ground. Dell Curry made that pump-fake move the exact same way, as Gminski noted. Raycom's telecast in general was very solid -- when you have Rob Reichley as the director, as this game did, you can count on that.

2) Can we please stop underrating anyone in the Curry family at this point? Surely Seth's 22 points in this rivalry game means that he won't go overlooked anymore. He is way past that now, just like Steph was about 4 years ago. I'm sorry Dell missed seeing this one in person -- his TV duties with the Bobcats keep getting in the way.

3) When the Tar Heels play Duke again in March at Chapel Hill, they have got to find someone who can stay in front of Nolan Smith (who was sensational with 34 points). That's where UNC missed Larry Drew II -- not on offense, where he's limited, but because of his defensive quickness. But Drew II quit on his team, so he wasn't available.

Coaching in 1 place, family in another

There has been an outcry in New Orleans the last 24 hours with the news that Saints coach Sean Payton's family is going to move back to the Dallas area while he stays in New Orleans with his job.

Payton has had to explain it -- he says he's not having marital problems, nor does he want to coach anywhere but New Orleans, nor will he be commuting in from Dallas. The Saints have had to present a united front, saying it's OK with them (although originally they made Payton's family move to New Orleans when he took the job).

Many Saints fans, however, have felt betrayed. There's a unique bond between the city and the team, particularly after Hurricane Katrina. What, is New Orleans not good enough for your family anymore? That's what many are asking. Or they're wondering if Payton is positioning himself to one day be the coach of the Cowboys, which he swears he's not.

So does all this matter? Would it matter if, say, Ron Rivera decided to leave his family in San Diego and move to Charlotte alone to coach the Panthers? (Not that he plans to do that; this is a hypothetical).

Perception-wise, sure it would matter. It doesn't feel quite like you are "all in" for a job if your family is somewhere else. But the reality? I don't think it matters one bit on the field.

It's even happened before in Charlotte. At least twice. Few folks probably remember that Sam Vincent didn't buy a house here, instead leaving his family in Dallas while he completed a short, unsuccessful one-year stay as head coach of the Bobcats. And Larry Brown did it, too, leaving his wife and two young children in Philadelphia while coaching here.

Was there a public outcry? No.
Did it change the Bobcats' win-loss record? No.
Of course, the Bobcats aren't the Saints, who are interwoven in the fabric of New Orleans. The Bobcats are more like a throw rug in one corner of Charlotte.

Tony Dungy has done this, too (leaving his family in Florida during the later part of his tenure in Indianapolis). Tony LaRussa. Avery Johnson -- the list goes on. The bottom line is that these guys are such workaholics that many times they barely see their family, anyway. That's sad, but it's true.

So this is a tempest in a teapot in New Orleans. Saints fans need to get over it.

Jackson's anger issues hurt Bobcats (again)

It turned out to be only a footnote in the Charlotte Bobcats' thoroughly amazing 94-89 win over Boston Monday night, but Stephen Jackson got tossed from the game in the second quarter for two straight technical fouls.

That gave Jackson 13 T's on the season and three in the past two games -- he's once again among the league leaders (along with Dwight Howard and Amare Stoudemire). Jack is only three techs away from an automatic one-game suspension, and he's already lost close to $180,000 this season for various offenses. He's averaging about one technical every four games, which means he will end the season with 20 if he stays at this pace. (Here's my column about this issue).

I'm tired of watching Jackson act out against the officials. Aren't you? Jackson wrote an open letter to Bobcat fans two months ago. It was contrite and in it he promised to change his behavior (after getting tossed out of a game in Milwaukee).

And it worked -- for about a month.

Now Jackson is back to his old ways. He wouldn't talk about his ejection against the Celtics Monday. As part of Jackson's interview with a group of reporters, I asked him several questions about his behavior. Here's a partial transcript:

Me: What is your explanation for last night's ejection?
Jackson: I don’t have one. It happened. I ain’t got nothing to say about it.

Me: With 13 technical fouls so far this season, are you confident you can avoid getting No.16 and an automatic one-game suspension?
Jackson: I’m just playing basketball. I don’t know. We’ll see.

Me: Is it time for another open letter to the fans?
Jackson: I think you’re being sarcastic.

Me: No, I'm not. I'm asking you realistically if it's time.
Jackson: I’m not answering that question.

OK, so you get the idea. Jackson doesn't want to talk about it. Which is his prerogative. If Jackson was silent the rest of the season in fact, that'd be fine. He's Charlotte's best pure scorer, an invaluable part of the team and a player who truly loves what he does.

But, as coach Paul Silas told me Tuesday about Jackson on-court: "He kind of loses it sometimes."

And the Bobcats just can't have that. As Silas went on to say about Jackson: "He does have to change. And I think he recognizes that now. He just can’t go after those guys [the officials].... Even though you might not swear at them, if you continue to talk to them in kind of a disrespectful manner, then they’re going to have to do something about it. That’s what happened last night."

Can Jackson really change, though? He did for awhile, but now he seems to be back where he started. He seems to think the officials are always out to get him. He makes it personal, over and over.

This shouldn't take away from Charlotte's win over Boston, which was pretty stunning (I was there, but in the stand as a fan). Because Jackson was out, some reserves got to play key roles in a huge win, and that will help the Bobcats down the line. I couldn't believe how good Shaun Livingston was, in particular.

So Jackson's ejection, ultimately, did not hurt Charlotte Monday in the win column. Might even have helped -- who knows? But it did show once again the path Jackson is on -- a path he must change if the Bobcats are going to be better long-term.