It pays to be patient. That is the financial lesson of the NBA’s offseason, which saw the biggest pay raises go to players who turned down contract extensions and gambled on themselves. Among the top 11 pay increases this summer, five went to players who felt like they were being lowballed by their teams — and proved it when they cashed in with bigger deals as restricted free agents this summer. Chicago’s Jimmy Butler, Orlando’s Tobias Harris, Detroit’s Reggie Jackson, Oklahoma City’s Enes
What if I told you your favorite team could land a power forward that has never averaged less than 10 points per game in any of his 13 NBA seasons? He won a gold medal for Team USA. He is widely viewed as a good locker room guy. His basketball IQ is just south of MENSA territory. Who is the mystery free agent forward? It’s Carlos Boozer. In a statistically down season, Boozer averaged 11.8 points and 6.8 rebounds per game and
PHILADELPHIA — This cruel joke someone’s been playing on the Philadelphia 76ers these past few years–especially lately–has got to stop. It’s one thing screwing around with the production on the court, resulting in just 71 victories over the past three years while the franchise has been stockpiling draft picks and injured big men. That’s rebuilding basketball, Sam Hinkie style. But what’s happened off the court in the last year alone isn’t just heartbreaking, it is downright tragic. One-by-one, Philadelphia’s most iconic big men have
This year’s European Championship, the Eurobasket, will be kicking off this weekend with group play taking place in France, Croatia, Germany and Latvia, with 24 teams fighting for two automatic bids for the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Both the champion and the runner-up will automatically qualify for the prestigious competition next summer, with the 3rd-7th place teams earning the right to fight for one of the three final bids for the Olympics in next summer’s three pre-Olympic qualifying tournaments. Team USA is
Aiming for a 2016 Olympic medal next summer in Rio (and dreaming of gold in 2020) the Canadian team began its FIBA Americas tournament with an ugly loss to Argentina. Canada could not stop 35-year-old forward Luis Scola was unstoppable, who scored 35 points and grabbed 13 rebounds in a 94-87 upset. [Read more…]
It is hard to find a team in the Western Conference that made as many changes in the offseason as the Sacramento Kings. Yes, you could make the case that the Portland Trail Blazers underwent an even bigger overhaul, but that team is in a rebuilding mode, whereas the Kings are trying to crack the league’s elite. Will they be successful after a 2014-2015 season that produced just 29 wins along with two head coaching changes? Hey, that’s why they play 82
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,
PHILADELPHIA– Like Peter Pan, Darryl Dawkins never wanted to grow up. And by definition, when you’re 6-11 and listed 251 lbs.—but probably bigger–and strong as an ox, that’s not easy. Everyone always wanted him to stop acting like a kid; to take the game, take himself, more seriously. They could see the raw talent was there—and every once in a while he’d put it on display, but only once in a while. For the most part the big guy from Maynard Evans