The city of Portland is at a crossroads. With a new apartment complex on every block and thousands of new residents flocking to the land of fair trade coffee and cruelty-free, artisan baked goods, the battle between Old Portland and New Portland has Rip City searching for a new identity. In an ironic twist of fate, as the City of Roses undergoes an extended facelift, so too does its basketball team. Gone is four-fifths of the starting lineup that won 50-plus
For the first time in what seems like forever, the Washington Wizards are entering their second consecutive season with high expectations. Following another exit in the Eastern Conference semifinals, the Wizards believe that they are capable of competing against any team in the NBA. With a superstar point guard, a rising star at shooting guard and a veteran supporting cast, the Wizards have all the makings of a team that will compete for a top seed in the East. Believe it or
One couldn’t have imagined a worse outcome for the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2014-15 season. A massive plague of injuries kept the team below full strength for the entire campaign. Specifically, Kevin Durant missed 55 games, Serge Ibaka missed 18 games and Russell Westbrook missed 15 games. The other four rotation players who started and finished the season with OKC – Anthony Morrow, Steven Adams, Andre Roberson and Nick Collison – missed between eight and 16 games each. All those missed
After a summer in which the Dallas Mavericks thought they found their franchise centerpiece, they now enter the season with an unfinished roster and a litany of question marks. No more Monta Ellis. No more Tyson Chandler. No more Rajon Rondo. Dallas will start three newcomers in the 2015-2016 season. And, after falling out of the top 10 in the NBA in 3-point percentage last season, Dallas focused all summer on adding floor spacers and succeeded. Now, Rick Carlisle projects to start
It’s been quite the summer for the Chicago Bulls as they head into the 2015-2016 season. It began with another disappointing postseason exit when they were dispatched by their nemesis LeBron James and the eventual Eastern Conference champion Cleveland Cavaliers in May. From there, a whirlwind offseason began. After falling to James in the playoffs for the third time under Tom Thibodeau and failing to make it past the seccond round for the fourth consecutive year – compounded with other issues –
This is a really interesting season for the Boston Celtics. Fresh off an improbable – and for some fans, unforgivable – playoff run, the Celtics are looking at what might be a quicker-than-anticipated rebuild. Think of this Celtics team as a hurricane brewing in the Atlantic Ocean. They are at that early stage where the meteorologist tells us, “It’s trying to get its act together, and if it does, it could develop into a big storm.” Sometimes those become Category 5 monsters.
Superstars change everything for NBA teams. For any team without one, the goal becomes finding a way to get a hold of one, either via trades or in the draft. Once a team is able to land one, however, everything changes. For the New Orleans Pelicans, everything changed in the 2012 draft when they landed Anthony Davis. Last season, they watched him emerge as – at worst – the third best player in basketball, and everything changed again. Coming off their first playoff
Once again, to the dismay of GM Sam Hinkie and the rest of the folks running the Philadelphia 76ers,.the NBA will insist the franchise play all 82 games this season rather than just skip straight to the only part they seem to care about: the draft lottery. After all, no team has seemed to make less of what goes on between the lines from late October through mid-April than the team that has openly flaunted the rules, believing it is the