For those who gamble, the preseason over/under win projections are wondrous to pore over. It is the one point during the year when you can make an assessment of how the offseason went, and how it will translate into success — or lack hereof — on the court. Last season, two-thirds of the NBA teams failed to reach their projected win total. This season, nobody is projected to win 60 games by the oddsmakers in Las Vegas, which I find interesting. It
In case you missed it, Phoenix Suns forwards and twin brothers Markieff and Marcus Morris received contract extensions Monday. They joined Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star guard Kyrie Irving as the only players thus far from the 2011 NBA draft to receive extensions. Irving received a five-year maximum extension at the outset of the offseason and the Morris twins received four-year deals for $32 million and $20 million, respectively. There are as many as a dozen players from the 2011 draft whom you could
Will LeBron James return to Team USA for the 2016 Olympics? Here’s a better question: Will Team USA even need him? Team USA’s global dominance is recalling the days of the original Dream Teams of the 1990s. The Americans steamrolled Serbia, 129-92, in the gold medal game of the 2014 World Cup in Madrid on Sunday, capping a tournament that became a coming-out party for a handful of new international stars. There were questions about the quality of Team USA’s roster following the withdrawal
During one of Team USA’s exhibition games prior to the World Cup, international basketball aficionado Fran Fraschilla had a simplistic but telling observation. Fraschilla said that no team at the World Cup will have as many NBA players than Team USA. That is a big advantage. Another big advantage Team USA has it that it can afford to let down for brief stretches of games. Other teams cannot. Lithuania coach Jonas Kaslauskas had firsthand experience with that dynamic in Thursday’s semifinal. After playing
BARCELONA — Attack mode. Derrick Rose had lost it. Now, after a long one-on-one meeting with Coach Mike Krzyzewski, he has rediscovered it. And all that talk about how he was hurting rather than helping Team USA should disappear, too. It was a sight to behold Tuesday night in a 119-76 victory over Slovenia, the Derrick Rose we had grown accustomed to seeing a couple years ago before the two knee injuries. The guy who exploded to the basket and always was
The latest version of Team USA that is preparing to defend its title at the World Cup of Basketball in Spain is much bigger than previous editions. But is it better? Previous American squads were built around perimeter players such as Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Kevin Durant, none of whom are here this time around. The stud of this squad appears to be Anthony Davis, who was entering his senior year of high school when the last World Cup was
Kevin Durant is prohibited from endorsing any food or drink product that contains sugar or preservatives, under terms of an endorsement deal with Kind Foods that was negotiated by his latest agency, Jay Z’s Roc Nation, a source tells SheridanHoops.com. The rare contractual language is part of Durant’s deal with Kind Foods, which markets healthy snack foods. Durant signed an endorsement deal with them in March. For the next three years, because of the contract language, you will not see Durant
The new executive director of the NBA Players Association has a lot of work to catch up on. It has been 18 months since Billy Hunter was forced out of the job, and the process of choosing a successor was long, arduous and contentious. What should be prioritized? The unresolved situation with Donald Sterling’s ownership of the Clippers? Preparing to opt out of the collective bargaining agreement in 2017, then hunkering down for a battle to try to get the players a greater