BROOKLYN – How many NBA teams could survive the loss of their starting backcourt for nearly a quarter of the season? How many NBA teams could survive that loss when those two players are future Hall of Famers like Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash? Through 17 games, you can count the upstart Los Angeles Lakers among those teams. Thanks to an unlikely effective backcourt rotation quartet of Steve Blake, Jodie Meeks, Jordan Farmar and Nick Young, the Lakers are 9-8 and
Kobe Bryant deserved every penny, if not more, of his two-year, $48.5 million contract extension. And I’ll say this: Bryant doesn’t deserve to be criticized as selfish for the amount of money he will make, and any subsequent cap space the Lakers lose as a result. Two of Bryant’s teammates, Chris Kaman and Xavier Henry, strongly agree. “I personally think he deserved more,” Kaman told SheridanHoops. “I know the only exception with that comment is that it can be hard for teams to
Thanks to the off day yesterday, no team will be traveling to play the second of back-to-back games, and so fatigue should not be a factor in the minutes key players get tonight. Because of injury uncertainties, notably in Los Angeles (Chris Paul), Houson (Jeremy Lin and James Harden), and Brooklyn (Andray Blatche, Brook Lopez), there are some potentially valuable cheap plays in DraftStreet leagues tonight. Be ready to switch one or two bargain plays into your lineup as game
The guards are still surging in our latest Sixth Man Rankings. After another week of Western Conference dominance, it makes sense that the top five candidates for Sixth Man are coming from West teams. The role of sixth man continues to evolve from the longstanding “super scorer” stereotype into one better designed for all-around contributors. Of the top five players in the rankings, only Jamal Crawford is considered a pure scorer. Three of the other candidates are in the top five in distributing.
Thanksgiving Day. A day that many people assess their lives and give thanks for whatever — whether it is to the god of their faith or to other people in their lives — they may be grateful for. Studies have actually shown that expression of gratitude can lead to a longer and happier life. There is a lot to be grateful for in life, regardless of what is going on in yours. Simply having life is something to be grateful for. NBA athletes have
Welcome to the Thanksgiving edition of the Sheridan Hoops blog. I’m Dan Malone, coming to you from the land of October Thanksgiving. That would be Canada. Still, even up here, Jason Kidd’s cup trick made the news. Here’s a gif of the incident: [Read more…]
That was an expensive drink Brooklyn Nets coach Jason Kidd spilled on the court Friday night. The NBA fined Kidd $50,000 on Thursday after determining that Kidd intentionally spilled his cup onto the floor to delay the game and buy his team some huddle time. [Read more…]
We’ve come up with a well-deserved nickname for the Class of 2013. The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. The perpetual clanging coming from this group makes an auto body shop sound like a library. Among rookies averaging 10 minutes per game, Brooklyn big man Mason Plumlee is the only one making more shots than he misses. Cody Zeller, who is 7 feet tall, has gone 11 straight games making less than half his shots. Not one of the top eight scorers is shooting