By now, the Golden State Warriors should be accustomed to the scrutiny produced by their championship last season and their pursuit of 73 victories this season. Everything they do is magnified, which was evident again on Sunday. Their bizarre loss to the woeful Los Angeles Lakers generated great debate throughout the sports world. On ABC, it was announced that no NBA team with 55 victories had ever lost to a team with 51 losses. So that is the biggest regular season upset
In fantasy basketball, the “silly season” is almost upon us. Over the final month, NBA teams that are out of the playoff picture will rest (or even shut down) veterans, audition youngsters and lengthen the bench. [Read more…]
Many of the brightest NBA stars are out on Wednesday — eight players cost $9700 or more at DraftKings. Theoretically, you could construct an extreme lineup using three of them. Building around even two leaves an average of $5000 or less for six other spots. Choosing only one is not easy. [Read more…]
Dearly Beloved: As we gather together once more in this special column space, we can’t help but daydream about the beautiful matrimony between man and award. It’s wedding season (I don’t know if that’s true or not), so we thought it would be interesting to explore some of the similarities between “sixth men” and best men. It’s not just because they both have the word “man” in them. OK, maybe it is. But still, there are a lot of similarities. [Read more…]
You probably know Kyrie Irving as LeBron James’ sidekick point guard on the Cleveland Cavaliers and a former No. 1 overall draft pick out of Duke, but there’s far more than meets the eye when it comes to the New Jersey native. In honor of a new colorway of his Nike Kyrie 2 having been unveiled this past Saturday, the Champs Sports blog put together a really cool slideshow list of 10 things you didn’t know about Irving. Did you know that
There are only six NBA games tonight, with the highest scoring potential in the two late starts. Damian Lillard $9600 and John Wall $9400 clash head-on, then the Magic visit the Lakers in a “meaningless” tilt that has more significance in fantasy hoops. [Read more…]
Small forward Sam Dekker has still yet to score his first points in an NBA game, with the first-round draft pick of the Houston Rockets (No. 18 overall) having missed most of his rookie season due to an unfortunately-timed back injury. Nonetheless, the former Wisconsin star scored thousands of retweets after posting this picture on Monday night from teammate Dwight Howard’s iPad: [Read more…]
In the brave new world of basketball analytics, trends and modules, a simpler stat surfaced this week that was utterly inexplicable. Two teams have lost 10 games this season in which they led after three quarters. One is the league-worst Philadelphia 76ers, who have no one on their roster who knows how to win a game. The other is the Oklahoma City Thunder, who have two of the supposed best closers in the game in Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. [Read more…]