Why Andre Iguodala is deserving of another NBA Finals MVP

Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) drives on Golden State Warriors forward Andre Iguodala. (Tony Dejak/AP)

TORONTO — The calling up of Scott Diamond on Monday morning could portend a couple of weeks of pitching flux for the Toronto Blue Jays, who have next Monday and Thursday off wrapped around a pair of inter-league games against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Diamond will go into the bullpen and give the Blue Jays another left-handed option as well as somebody capable of eating up multiple innings, a role that Jesse Chavez had been asked to fill until “graduating” to a more significant role as a result of Toronto’s tattered bullpen. Diamond has never been a major league reliever but has bounced back and forth between the bullpen and rotation throughout his minor league career.

The Blue Jays seem to be intent on reinventing their bullpen, although team sources say thoughts of moving Drew Hutchison into the bullpen have been shelved, for now. Jason Grilli was asked to tight-rope his way through a save opportunity Sunday because closer Roberto Osuna was down; Chavez and Pat Venditte set him up. Manager John Gibbons has been hamstrung without Brett Cecil, attempting to make hay with a veteran starter who is a fish out of water in the bullpen (Gavin Floyd) and Chavez, who admits he is learning all over again the “muscle memory,” it takes to be a reliever after being a starter last season.

On Sunday, Chavez may have given the most apt description yet of life as a reliever in the American League East: “Two things you need to do: throw first pitch strikes and don’t walk anybody with two outs,” he said. “Things can snowball quickly on you in this division.”

ANDRE THE GIANT

Andre Iguodala was the 2014-15 NBA Finals most valuable player. Could he do it again? Absolutely, especially if Golden State wraps up the NBA title Monday night with Draymond Green suspended for a game for kicking the King’s jewels.

Green would otherwise be the favourite. Iguodala is no Splash Brother — more like a Puddle Partner. He’s averaging nine points and 3.7 assists per game but his defence has made LeBron James expend a great deal of energy and he is plus-19.5, the highest on the team. Iguodala was plus-10.5 during last season’s Finals, although he’d scored more points per game (16.3) than he has in these Finals (9.0) and had almost a rebound per game more in 2015.

“You look for 14 guys to pick up the slack in little bits here and there,” Iguodala told reporters on Sunday when he was asked about the impact of Green’s absence. “I get a few more rebounds, Harrison (Barnes) gets a few more points. The responsibility for the play making, we’re going to do that collectively, Shaun Livingston and myself. There is an opportunity, here, for a guy to step in; the whole world is watching for (that person) to make a name for himself.”

Iguodala is one of the reasons the Warriors may be on the verge of becoming the new San Antonio Spurs: a team worthy of respect not just for its top-level talent but also for the complexity and texture of its team. They are so much more than Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.

QUIBBLES AND BITS

  • Hall of Famer Dickie Duff was a willing interviewee on my show Friday when we discussed the passing away of Gordie Howe. Duff, who knew Howe as an opponent, spoke about how difficult it was to strip away the puck from Howe, noting that he had a “seven lie stick” that he kept close to his body and that he could shoot either left-handed or right-handed – easy to do with a straight blade. The “seven lie” line created much discussion, since most modern hockey sticks have a 4.5 or 5.0 lie, with six being the most upright. Here is the link to the interview.

    • LISTEN: Dick Duff on The Jeff Blair Show

  • The Philadelphia Phillies will let 22-year-old Zach Eflin make his major league debut against the Blue Jays on Tuesday. At 22 years and 67 days, he will be the fourth-youngest starting pitcher to make his debut for the Phillies since 2000, trailing Aaron Nola (22 years, 47 days), Brett Myers (21 years, 341 days) and current Blue Jays reliever Gavin Floyd, whose MLB debut came at the age of 21 years, 220 days.

  • It took just one preliminary round match for UEFA to put Russia and England on notice that further violence from their fans could result in the teams being disqualified and sent home from France. I’d like to be in the meeting when that actually happens, but this is precisely the draconian approach the governing body should take to the situation: applying peer pressure on the hooligans and administering a shock to the system. As for Russia, its travelling fans and doped-up athletes continue to push the country towards international sports pariah status. Unfortunately, they have the 2018 World Cup, which is beginning to look like a worse decision than giving it to Qatar. Want to host a major sports event? Don’t have a functioning democracy.

    • THE ENDGAME

    It would have made for dandy sports talk fodder in this city had Phil Kessel won the Conn Smythe Trophy Sunday night, but we’ll just have to settle for The Thrill skating around with the Stanley Cup hoisted over his head. In the meantime, it’s hard not to like Sidney Crosby as the Smythe winner because of his strong two-way game.

    Several pundits have made the point that Crosby has added more intellectual substance to his game and has morphed from transcendent Sid The Kid into one of the game’s grand old men, capable of playing a supporting as well as starring role. We should have seen this coming after Sochi, the way players such as Crosby and Jonathan Toews subjugated themselves for the betterment of the system en route to winning a gold medal.

    That was the most dominant Canadian team I’ve ever seen – a grinding set of gears that simply engorged opponents and spit them out – and I’m beginning to think that, as opposed to toughness or whatever other beer commercial stereotypes you care to run out, that might be what separates us from the rest of the hockey world. We’ve become as much of a machine as the Russians were in the 1970s.

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