Friday Bullets

LeBron, Kyrie, Ayesha, Laker protests, Rodney Hood, finding a good coach.

By Henry Abbott

• Damian Lillard says wing Rodney Hood, who had 25 points on 12 shots in Game 6, has been the Blazers’ best player in the series against the Nuggets. Stats guru Dean Oliver agrees. How to understand that Hood is only a Blazer because he was recently on the NBA’s “scratch and dent” pile, after fizzling in Cleveland? Here’s a tweet saying Hood was “always this good.” Those three words open a massive and important conversation. Is it true? Tricky. Running any workplace well—including an NBA team—means getting the very best out of people. Some players, David Thorpe explains, can deliver in any situation. Others need the right care to really flourish. Is this the real Hood, or is this series a good circumstance for him? How many “bad” NBA players out there have this kind of potential?

• Building an environment where many different kinds of players can succeed is a theme of TrueHoop’s LeBron series. Amazing player, mostly interested in exploring excellence with a limited pool of c…