Courtesy NBA.com and Getty Images One week from today I’ll be filing these rankings from Houston, and next Sunday night we’ll see if LeBron takes the biggest shot of the game … or instead chooses to inbound it. “You’re inbounding?” Kobe Bryant asked LeBron incredulously as the East had the ball for the final shot and the win in last year’s game in Orlando … back when The Haters ruled the LeBron James universe and a majority of
A slow start for Moneyball, NBA style. With 34-year-old Grizzlies owner Robert Pera shocked – shocked! – to learn the team he paid $377 million for in June was in financial peril, they began shopping Rudy Gay, even if moving him would break up the group that had risen from No. 15-14-11 finishes from 2007-2009 to within one win of the Western Conference finals in 2010. [Read more…]
Today’s art comes from a buddy in France. My question is: Do they serve the Royale with Cheese? Cuz I damn sure ain’t putting no bleu cheese on no burger, you hear me? [Read more…]
Heaven knows how many takeouts I did on sunrises and sunsets in the Phoenix Suns’ heyday from Steve Nash’s return in 2004 to their last hurrah in 2010, when they revolutionized NBA offense. Their heyday really ended in 2008, when coach Mike D’Antoni left, to be succeeded – for 41 games, anyway – by Terry Porter, fired over the All-Star break in an exciting development for the whole league since the Suns were the host team. [Read more…]
Before the season began, I chose Kyrie Irving as my MVP pick. Not many were with me, and when Kyrie went down for more than a month with an injury, he was toast. Or was he? What transpired over the past week has me thinking this kid could made a second-half run that gets him into the Top 5 — or maybe even higher. [Read more…]
R.I.P., Lakers. You can’t kick dirt in their grave if they’re not dead yet, but in your modern sportswriting biz, we like to cover all eventualities just in case, starting with the most spectacular. It doesn’t come more spectacular than the Lakers, who now resemble a centuries-old redwood toppling over, picking up speed as it goes. I’ve been fortunate to have covered these guys for the better part of 20 years. Aside from being great most of the time, they were gourds most of
I could start by telling you a very interesting story about someone trying to register my domain name in a bunch of foreign countries, but that is not why you are here. It is, however, the reason the time stamp does not say 12:00 as it does every other Sunday. [Read more…]
Moneyball NBA style hit Memphis as new Grizzlies management started moving and shaking in modern fashion, shopping Rudy Gay before pulling him back when no one offered anyone like Anthony Davis while several teams offered someone like Tyreke Evans. The new owner, internet billionaire-or-not Robert Pera, is shifting power from GM Chris Wallace, who built a contender in the NBA equivalent of a trailer park, to former player agent Jason Levien, who brought in former ESPN stat maven John Hollinger. Talk about