OKLAHOMA CITY — I caught up with NBA commissioner David Stern today at an NBA Cares event held at the Oklahoma City rescue mission to press him on the proposal being discussed to limit the Olympic men’s basketball competition to players 23 and under — an item I first wrote about last week with a similar headline. Here’s the gist of what he said: _ A big part of the reason why the NBA is pushing this discussion is because they want
Right now, the Oklahoma City Thunder are trying to figure out how to get three more wins over the Miami Heat and claim the NBA championship. Whether they can do that remains to be seen. But once the Finals are over, the Thunder will have another issue on their hands – putting a coach in place for next season. Thunder coach Scott Brooks does not have a contract for next season. And while a trip to the NBA Finals makes it seem
// OKLAHOMA CITY — There comes a time in every viewer’s life when they experience a “Holy Shit” moment with Kevin Durant. Pardon the profanity. But damn, you know? For many of you, this was not the first time Durant made your jaw drop. The guy has been putting together games like this throughout the course of these playoffs (this was his seventh 30-point game), not to mention the past three regular seasons when the guy led the NBA in scoring. But there
OKLAHOMA CITY — There is an age-old truism pertaining to the NBA Finals that pertains to the question of old age. Young teams rarely, and we mean very rarely, win NBA championships. If the Oklahoma City Thunder somehow manage to emerge from the NBA Finals victorious, they’d be the first team with such a young nucleus to win the title since the Portland Trail Blazers in 1977 — a topic that our Hall of Fame columnist, Mark Heisler, addressed in his column
Now to let the Young Guns shoot it out. … If you’re going to hear that a lot the next week or two, some of these guns are a lot younger than others. By 2007, when LeBron James and Dwyane Wade had both been in NBA Finals, Kevin Durant had yet to be drafted; Russell Westbrook was an unheralded UCLA freshman who had played nine minutes a game; and James Harden was even less heralded as a high school sophomore. Durant, Westbrook and
At the beginning of the season, Chris Sheridan polled our writers and asked for their predictions on a number of things, including the NBA Finals matchup and eventual winner. Chris Perkins, Chris Silva, and I picked the Thunder and the Heat to represent their respective conferences, and all three of us picked the Heat to win the whole thing. See for yourself. In the interest of full disclosure, though, I’ll point out that along the way, I changed my East pick to
It is Chris Bosh’s lot in life to be the third member of the “Big Three.” In the Heat heirarchy, he always is placed behind LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, whose games are more captivating and awe-inspiring. He was mocked last season for crying after a string of tough losses. In this postseason, his nine-game absence due to an abdominal strain was somewhat minimized when James and Wade snapped out of their doldrums and put together an awesome two-pronged attack that obliterated
MIAMI – Crown him again. LeBron James, the most scrutinized athlete on the planet, is, indeed, The King. King of the Miami Heat, that is. He proved it again Saturday while leading his Miami Heat (yes, His Miami Heat) to a 101-88 Game 7 victory against Boston in the Eastern Conference finals. Step aside, Dwyane Wade. This is now LeBron’s team, and that’s not a bad thing. “He’s the best basketball player in the world,” Heat forward Chris Bosh said. James finished Game 7 with 31