CHICAGO — Three headlining freshmen. Three spectacular performances. Julius Randle? All he did was take his youthful Kentucky Wildcats and rally them with a dominant second half performance of 23 points and eight rebounds against Michigan State, one of the more consistently well coached and talented teams in college basketball. [Read more…]
NEW YORK- One of the last things you want to hear from an NBA team is acknowledging a lack of effort, but that’s exactly what you got from the New York Knickerbockers on Saturday night. It came from the coach. It came from the players. The malodorous negativity wafted through the Knicks’ locker room after a 110-90 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday night. It was New York’s fifth straight loss at home as the Knicks fell to 3-6 overall. “We’re
Considering his background in the military, it should not be surprising that Gregg Popovich leads a unit that seems to always fly under the radar. Figuratively, of course. Popovich is a graduate of the Air Force Academy and stayed in the service long enough to serve a tour of duty in the Kurdish area in eastern Turkey near the border of Syria. It was a top secret assignment; obviously, the good military man has never elaborated on it, other than to
When Victor Oladipo was taken second overall in the 2013 draft by the Orlando Magic, everyone assumed he would play shooting guard in the NBA. His 6-4 frame and 214 pounds projected perfectly for the NBA’s new wave of shooting guards. However, over the summer, the Magic made it clear they would experiment with Oladipo by slotting him into a dynamic combo guard role. As a result, Oladipo has been featured more at the point than at any time in his basketball life.
Before the season began, Carmelo Anthony told the New York Observer he plans to become a free agent this summer. With every additional loss, that statement hovers over the Knicks like a dark cloud in a tornado zone, with the threat of the ultimate catastrophe – a lightning bolt and whirlwind that would destroy everything. “I think everybody in the NBA dreams to be a free agent at least one time in their career,” Anthony said at the time. “It’s like
The result of the game Thursday night was almost secondary to what happened behind the scenes in the cavernous tunnels of Madison Square Garden. Unhappy with his role and the lack of playing time, Omer Asik reportedly asked for a trade at some point before the Knicks and Rockets took the court, as broken by Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. [Read more…]
Is Andrew Wiggins still the top pick in the 2014 NBA draft? Wiggins certainly was good Tuesday night, when the Windy City was rocking for the State Farm Champions Classic. But so were Jabari Parker and Julius Randle, who may have closed the gap on Wiggins. The event pitted Kentucky vs. Michigan State and Duke vs. Kansas – traditional powers from major conferences meeting on the hardwood in an early season measuring stick. But while many fans were entertained by the games and
The first thing you notice watching the undefeated Indiana Pacers is their intensity. More than the other seven teams this writer has seen in person this season, Indiana plays hard and aggressive basketball for 48 minutes. Indiana remained unbeaten at 8-0 after Monday’s 95-79 home win over Memphis. “We are just trying to play our style of basketball,” Pacers forward David West said after Indiana’s hard-fought 96-91 win over the Nets on Saturday in Brooklyn. That tough, tenacious style includes going hard on every