Memo to Brad Stevens: You are the new Michael Dukakis in Massachusetts. For those too young to remember, a short history lesson: Before he got trampled in the 1988 U.S. presidential election, the former governor of Massachusetts tried to toughen up his softie image by doing a photo op with Army troops, riding on an Abrams M1 tank. The whole thing was so ludicrous, so obviously staged, that Dukakis riding a tank became a euphemism for anything that seemed so completely out
Adam Silver is a nice guy, or so I’ve come to believe. There are those who will tell you the exact is opposite, but they say so in a whisper. They are not what is known in NBA headquarters as an FOA (Friend of Adam), and thus they fear and loathe him the same way so many basketball fans fear, loathe … and hate, yes hate, outgoing commissioner David Stern. Fairly or unfairly, Stern has become a lightning rod for every grievance
Big game tonight for the Memphis Grizzlies, who you may recall went to the Western Conference finals last season despite hiring John Hollinger. 🙂 With a win, they crawl back within one game of .500 despite being without Marc Gasol for the past several weeks. With a loss, their uphill climb back to respectability gets a little tougher. It now appears the West is going to be an 11-team race for three spots, with the Pelicans falling out of the picture
The title of this post says it all: Is DeMarcus Cousins an All-Star? Well, I’ll say this — as I say below in my interview with Grant Napear of KHTK Radio in Sacramento — he is certainly an All-Star talent, and I have even given him an All-NBA third team vote in the past. But then I’ll also ask you this: Is Gordan Hayward an All-Star? Again, the Jazz shotmeister is certainly an All-Star talent, but an All-Star? I’ll leave that for the
Carmelo Anthony has 30 million reasons to remain with the New York Knicks after he becomes an unrestricted free agent this summer. But if the Knicks don’t have his word that he’ll re-sign with them for five years at a max salary, can they afford to take the risk that he might leave? That is the question owner Jim Dolan and his tight-lipped lieutenants are asking themselves as New York struggles through the first half of the season, entering tonight’s game against
Mitch Kupchak I have already made my thoughts known on the Luog Deng-Andrew Bynum trade in a column, the gist of whih is that the big loser in this deal was the Lakers. Go ahead and click through and give it a read as you listen to this audio from the NBA’s Sirius-XM radio channel, in which I go into further detail about why Mitch Kupchak blew a golden opportunity to set the Lakers up for having
Well, Lakers fans, you get to keep staring at Pau Gasol and watch him age before your eyes — until the trade deadline, that is. OK, maybe a couple months longer. And the rebuilding plan that coincides with Kobe Bryant’s two-year contract extension? Don’t expect the Lakers to be flooded with max players. They still need to stay under the luxury tax line for two seasons to avoid the dreaded repeater tax, and it doesn’t look like this season will be
The Pau Gasol-for-Andrew Bynum trade talks appear to be dormant but not dead. The Lakers would like to get another worthy asset thrown into in the deal … but so would the Cavs. And you know what? I have to side with the Cavs and general manager Chris Grant on this one. By taking Gasol’s $19.3 million salary off the Lakers’ books, they will drop Los Angels below the luxury tax threshold, saving the Buss family in the area of $20 million.