If you’re wondering where Derrick Rose ranks among the NBA’s top 10 point guards, he doesn’t. Neither does Deron Williams. Or Kemba Walker. Or Kyle Lowry. Point guard is the most demanding position in the NBA. And in ranking the top floor generals, we have demanding criteria. Is your favorite point guard an All-Star? How long has he been at that level? Is his current career track pointing upward or downward? Where does he rank among scorers at the position? Assists? Does he
BARCELONA — A reporter from Slovenia asked DeMarcus Cousins a question Monday: “Do you know where Slovenia is?” Cousins snapped back: “Do you know where Alabama is?” Touche. The reporter was undoubtedly pursuing the storyline of “They don’t respect us, they don’t know us, they don’t even know where our country is located.” It is as predictable of a storyline as you could imagine, but Cousins was not taking the bait. So make that two big days in a row for the big man
For the second time in less than a year, an NBA owner is being forced to resolve a situation connected to their own offensive remarks. [Read more…]
Houston Rockets guard James Harden has a notorious reputation for being a lousy individual defensive player. Though there aren’t any statistics that perfectly measure a player’s actual impact on the defensive end of the court, there are a few that help paint the picture a bit more clearly. One such stat, which weighed heavily in San Jose Mercury News sports writer Tim Kawakami listing Harden on his 2014 NBA No-Defense Team, is Defensive Real Plus-Minus (DRPM). DRPM, as defined by ESPN, measures a player’s
BARCELONA — You know, we really have no business debating whether Spain can beat Team USA, or whether Team USA can beat Spain. It is disrespectful to Serbia, which whacked unbeaten Greece out of the tournament Sunday with an 18-point beatdown, and Brazil, which took down Argentina by 20. And it does a disservice to the four other teams that will begin the new workweek with a chance to be World Champions seven days from now. But you know what? It
Throughout the FIBA World Cup, most of the attention was on Team USA and Spain and their anticipated matchup in the gold medal game a week from today. And while the Americans and Spaniards both stormed through their groups undefeated, so did Greece, running the table in Group B. The Greens, as they are known, won their first four games by double digits before dismissing Argentina, 79-71, to clinch the group. As the last team to defeat the United States – winning the semifinals
It can be tough to compare teams based on nothing but dominant victories. Danny Ainge’s scouting method is often cited: the best game, the worst game, and somewhere in between. At their best, Team USA demolished Finland, winning by a ridiculous margin and throwing down ridiculous dunks. At their worst, they struggled to get anything going against Turkey’s slow-it-down strategy. At Spain’s best, they have two of the world’s best bigs in the Gasol brothers, and an ultra-canny backcourt led by Ricky Rubio,
BARCELONA — If the gold medal match was being played Sunday, Team USA would not beat Spain. It wouldn’t even be close. But the gold medal game is not this Sunday. It is next Sunday. And a lot can change in a week. So the burden is on coach Mike Krzyzewski: Figure out who is going to give you the best chance to beat the host nation, start shortening up the rotation, and hope that in one week you can achieve what it