LAS VEGAS- At the Las Vegas Summer League, wins and losses are as important as the Sacramento’s 2014 championship banner hanging near the players’ tunnel at the Thomas & Mack Center. Summer League is more about learning, development and progression. For D’Angelo Russell and Julius Randle, the Los Angeles Lakers’ top two young players, Monday’s 76-66 loss to the Knicks was a struggle to say the least. The lower bowl was packed with fans clad in purple and gold, excited to
LAS VEGAS– The people at the NBA who make the schedule for its annual Summer League don’t do anything by accident. For the second year in a row, the featured game on the first day of action pitted this year’s top two draft picks against one another. So Sunday afternoon’s matchup between the Denver Nuggets and Sacramento Kings was meant to be an awkward, bittersweet affair. In the middle of it all was Mike Malone. Fired in the middle of last
LAS VEGAS– In a free agency period where LaMarcus Aldridge took what seemed like two dozen meetings and DeAndre Jordan’s recruiting process turned into the most bizarre sequences in years, the Toronto Raptors lured prized wing DeMarre Carroll away from the Atlanta Hawks before he left to meet with anyone else. So how did they do it? Well, $60 million over four years certainly helped. But it was more than that. SheridanHoops conducted one-on-one interviews with Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri, coach Dwane
LAS VEGAS– Thousands of Knicks fans filled the bottom half of the lower bowl inside the Thomas & Mack Center at 1:30 in the afternoon, desperate for something to be optimistic about. Sadly, the Summer League New York Knicks squad had a lot of familiar faces from the 17-win squad, the team’s worst season ever. The one major change was a 7-1 teenage Latvian named Kristaps Porzingis, the fourth overall pick in this year’s draft. After a rude reception on draft night,
BROOKLYN — It’s incredible how a building’s mood can change so drastically every five minutes. From the roaring approval for Karl-Anthony Towns and D’Angelo Russell to the acidic, vitriol for the Knicks’ pick of Kristaps Porzingis, nothing satisfies a sports fan’s need for instant gratification like reacting to an NBA draft pick. But there were great moments behind the scenes that you could not see. A proud multi-generational basketball family sharing a special moment in a back room. A fashion statement that added to
Stephen Curry has a legitimate chance to go down as the greatest shooter in NBA playoff history. With just two days before the Golden State-Cleveland NBA Finals finally begins, an appreciation of Curry’s shooting stroke — and the changing landscape of how offenses emphasize the three — point to Curry having a chance to at least be part of an elite playoff performance list. The 27-year-old MVP ideally will be playing in many more postseasons over the course of his career and should be
It would be fitting if the man who helped lead the Sacramento Kings during their most prosperous years could help guide them back after a decade of mediocre irrelevance. You may recognize Vlade Divac’s smooth European voice from your Waze navigation system, but most know Divac— aside from being traded for Kobe Bryant— for being the center of the turn-of-the-millenium Kings team that nearly reached the NBA Finals and turned Arco Arena into the loudest building in sports. With a new arena
For the fifth straight year, LeBron James is going to the NBA Finals. How do his numbers stack up this season versus the past four seasons? It’s quite interesting. James is deserving of all the praise he’s getting after becoming the first player to reach five consecutive NBA Finals since the dynastic Boston Celtics of decades ago. James has been asked to do more for the Cleveland Cavaliers on offense than even in his early-career Cavs days, and it’s taken a toll