In the late 1970s I was a very impressionable teenager desperately trying to be cool. But I didn’t want the charm of James Bond or the street smarts of The Fonz or the dance moves of Tony Manero. Besides, they were all fictional characters from movies and TV shows. I wanted my cool to be real. I wanted to be Darryl Dawkins. Dawkins died Thursday, leaving us way too soon at the age of 58. He claimed to be from the planet Lovetron,
The silence following Jonas Valanciunas’ contract extension was deafening. When the Toronto Raptors gave a reported $64 million over four years to Valanciunas, there were no proclamations from pundits that the NBA’s financial sky was falling. Owners didn’t start forming plans of collusion. No one drew comparisons to Jim McIlvaine. On the other side, there have been no whispers that Raptors GM Masai Ujiri engineered another steal. Virtually no one has suggested that Valanciunas got fleeced. Agent Leon Rose – who days
The kinder, gentler NBA schedule is out. First, here’s the stuff you want. Opening Night is Tuesday, Oct. 27 and has a TNT doubleheader with LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers visiting the Chicago Bulls and the New Orleans Pelicans visiting MVP Stephen Curry and the defending champion Golden State Warriors, who will be handing out rings and hoisting their title banner. Both are rematches of playoff showdowns. The following night, it’s ESPN’s turn with Kevin Durant returning for the Oklahoma City Thunder
Does Markieff Morris want out of Phoenix? According to a tweet Thursday from The Burns and Gambo Show, who hold the Valley’s sports radio drive time slot, Morris wants nothing to do with the Suns and hasn’t talked to any team member – player or staff – since the season ended. The tweet doesn’t cite a source, either within the Suns or close to Morris. At the same time, Morris’ offseason silence would allow Suns staffers to easily draw some conclusion about
Amar’e Stoudemire moved into very exclusive company this summer. By accepting the veteran’s minimum of $1.5 million in signing as a free agent with the Miami Heat, Stoudemire became just the second player in NBA history to take a $20 million pay cut. Last season, Stoudemire was on the books for $23,410,000, the final season of the five-year deal worth about $100 million he signed with the New York Knicks in 2010. That was the summer that the Knicks tried to position
It takes a lot to make the NBA playoffs if you are in the Western Conference. The West is the grown-up table of the NBA. It has had at least one team finish above .500 and miss the postseason every year since 2007. There will be some shuffling in the West’s playoff picture this season. But who is in the frame, and who gets cropped out? And has any team improved enough to topple the defending champion Golden State Warriors? The staff of
The dust has pretty much settled on the NBA offseason. Sure, there’s still a player or two out there and a move or two some teams can make. But for the most part, teams have put together their rosters for the 2015-16 season. Have any teams in the Eastern Conference improved enough to climb out of the lottery and into the playoffs? And can any team threaten the Cleveland Cavaliers for conference supremacy? The Sheridan Hoops staff offers its take in this edition
After taking a look at the offseason activity of a handful of teams in the Eastern Conference, we turn our focus to the Western Conference. The Oklahoma City Thunder, Sacramento Kings and Portland Trail Blazers all made significant moves for different reasons. The Thunder want to remain title contenders. The Kings want to make the playoffs. And the Blazers want to rebuild. But did they make the right moves? In this edition of the Three-Man Weave, the Sheridan Hoops staff takes a look