Let's Get It On

What’s up, everyone. This is Donyell, checking in on Opening Day.

It’s hard to believe the season is already here, even though you could say that was a long preseason …

Our record was not good, but I think if you look at last year, we were in the same boat. We had two wins and one of them was against a European team – Maccabi Tel Aviv – which is not really even a legit victory. And I think if you look at the situations – we were playing our third-string free agents late in the game, and teams made some runs on us.

We used the preseason games the way you’re supposed to: getting back in sync, learning to play as a team, getting in some conditioning and work on defensive and offensive stuff. And I think that’s what we did.

If you look at Miami, they were 0-7. There are a lot of teams that didn’t do well in preseason. Last year, Dallas didn’t do well in the preseason, lost their first four games and won 50 of their next 55. We know it’s going to be tough, but we can’t look at the preseason to tell us that.

We have the “X” on our back now and teams from the East are going to try to take what we have. There are teams out there thinking that what we did last year was a fluke.

We know it’s going it’s going to be a tough start to the season. We open up with Dallas and go right on the road for a six-game-in-eight-day road trip out West. A lot of people are thinking that’s going to be our season. But that’s not going to be our season.

It’ll be good to get that trip out of the way. It would be one thing if we started the season off poorly and looked at the schedule and saw that trip coming. If we start out slow, we know we have that trip out of the way and we have a good schedule the rest of the season.

It’s strange opening the season without Anderson and as far as how that will affect me in the rotation, I don’t know what’s going through Coach’s mind. I know I’m going to have to earn minutes. I’m going to have to go out there and play effectively every night. And I can’t think about Andy not being here. I have to go out and perform and play well.

I’m older now and the body’s not what it used to be. But I can still play this game. I know I’m going to be called on to do different things. My game’s not always to score 10 or 11 points. Sometimes, it’s going to be the little things. Rebounding, playing good, hard defense, showing on pick and rolls and knocking down some shots.

I hope to do a little of all of those on Wednesday night. This is my 14th opener, and this one’s probably a little different. This one, I’m actually excited about. I know the Eastern Conference Championship banner is going up – a first for the franchise and a team I was on.

This is as excited as I’ve been since my rookie season.