It seems like the Houston Rockets are willing to try nearly anything to get out of their early-season funk. As we approach the quarter pole of the NBA season, Houston has already replaced its head coach and is trying numerous different lineup combinations. To put it nicely, things are still a work in progress for the Rockets. After needing overtime to defeat the Knicks, who were without Carmelo Anthony because of an illness, on Sunday, Houston stumbled to a 116-105 loss to
Based on how the Boston Celtics’ roster is currently assembled, they need to be greater than the sum of their parts in order to succeed. The Celtics undeniably lack star power right now. According to ESPN’s preseason rankings of the league’s top 400 players, Isaiah Thomas is Boston’s best player at 65th overall. Only the Nuggets, Lakers and Sixers have their top player ranked lower. Yet through 13 games, Boston boasts a statistically elite defense thanks to coach Brad Stevens and
On Saturday, Oct. 24, three days before the start of the NBA regular season, 27-year-old guard Ish Smith was finishing up the Washington Wizards’ final preseason practice as he and his teammates prepared for Wednesday’s season opener in Orlando. Then, like he had five times before in his career, Smith got cut. Smith was one of five players on non-guaranteed contracts waived by Washington that day, an all-too-familiar occurrence for a player who spent his previous five seasons on eight different NBA
We’re now a little more than a week into the NBA season, so there’s been a bit of time for some statistical trends to emerge. Despite the sample sizes still being extremely small, here are several things that have jumped out when it comes to several of the league’s players. 1. It has been ugly for Kobe Bryant and the Lakers through four games. Bryant has missed 40 of his 62 shots overall, is just 7-for-34 from the arc, LA is
BROOKLYN — If there was such thing as NBA purgatory, that would be where the Brooklyn Nets franchise is currently situated. At 0-4 with no first round pick next June (and no control of any first round pick until 2019), no hope for a real superstar on the roster until at least the summer and a lack of talent to compete in the Eastern Conference, it looks more likely by the day that this will be a painful lost season for
Jeff Teague is continuing to improve his game. He was named an All-Star for the first time last season during Atlanta’s unexpected 60-win campaign. Now that he and the team will not be overlooked this season, Teague took some time to talk to SheridanHoops about his personal improvement on the court, the Hawks’ new jersey and the team’s new majority owner Grant Hill. Click on the box to watch. Shlomo Sprung is a national columnist for SheridanHoops who focuses on analytics, profiles and
One of the new secrets revealed over the first two days of the regular season was that Derrick Rose is experiencing double vision. Leave it to the Bulls to be the first team to keep things rather interesting. One of the NBA’s worst-kept secrets in 2015 was Chicago management’s dissatisfaction with head coach Tom Thibodeau. Thibs was dispatched from the position in late-May, two weeks after losing to Cleveland in the Eastern Conference semifinals. His replacement, as expected, was former NBA guard
What would it take for Kobe Bryant to win the 2015-2016 NBA MVP award? As we handicap the MVP race for the 2015-2016 season, we’ll take a look at last season’s top five finishers— Stephen Curry, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Anthony Davis and LeBron James— along with Kevin Durant. But a question many Angelenos and basketball fans around the world have is what kind of numbers would Bryant have to put up in his age-37 season to take home the crown? To