Fandom has to hurt for the joy to be most fulfilling — you have to care, you have to risk suffering — and LeBron James has now pushed all of South Florida and Northeast Ohio right to the edge of that cliff. Exactly four years after The Decision, the basketball world still awaits The Decision II. And with LeBron James finally set to meet face-to-face with Pat Riley and the Miami Heat on Wednesday in Las Vegas, we finally may be close to
There is no time to waste after the NBA Finals. Despite the brilliance of the San Antonio Spurs, just minutes after the NBA Finals concluded Sunday night began the talk of the Decision II. To credit the NBA, the league has always done a marvelous job of trimming the fat. The NBA draft is just eight days away, with free agency beginning just a week after that. There’s no time to waste, and thus never a shortage of headlines. Well, until
It took the San Antonio Spurs just five games to find redemption against the Miami Heat. After suffering an improbable, heartbreaking and well-documented defeat in the 2013 Finals, the Spurs returned with a vengeance, bludgeoning the Heat 4-1 to claim the 2014 title. The Spurs capped off the series with an exclamation point: three straight blowout victories, finishing with a 104-87 victory of the Heat in San Antonio Sunday night. [Read more…]
There were times during this long, entertaining and unpredictable NBA season that the possibility of something other than a Heat/Spurs Finals was real. But that does not mean it’s not the result that we were hoping for all along. Last years NBA Finals deserved this rematch. And that is what we are going to get starting Thursday. And for the San Antonio Spurs, this is their one chance at redemption. [Read more…]
As great as these NBA playoffs have been, two characters seem to keep finding ways to steal the show. The first culprit? Donald Sterling. NBA commissioner Adam Silver has been doing his best to sweep this mess under the rug as quickly as possible. In fact, he’s made greater strides to accomplish that than I think any of us could have originally anticipated. Less than a month later, the team is already in the process of being sold. [Read more…]
The NBA conference finals normally bring out the best that the game of basketball has to offer. More often than not, the four best teams remain, and if we’re lucky, the best players on the planet. We are treated to some combination of LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Dwyane Wade, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu and Paul George every night. These players give us performances to praise night in and night out. And sometimes they don’t. And it’s when they don’t that we
Tuesday night is one of the few night’s during the NBA calendar year that is equal parts about the present as it is about the future. What more could we ask for? The Miami Heat have their backs against the wall as they try to even up their Eastern Conference Finals series in Indianapolis. But just before the Heat and Pacers tip, the NBA will hold its annual Draft Lottery to determine the first 14 picks in this June’s draft. Unlike the 2013
As we prepare for the NBA conference finals to begin on Sunday, between the four teams most expected to make it this far, one team was served some devastating news on Friday. That would be the Oklahoma City Thunder, who will be without Serge Ibaka, likely for the rest of the playoffs. While Ibaka has not produced on the offensive end as most thought he would this postseason — he averaged 15 points and just under nine rebounds per game in the