With the news that Kansas’ Joel Embiid had surgery Friday to repair a stress fracture in his navicular bone, the NBA draft among lottery teams has become quite intriguing. It is rare to have a consensus No. 1 pick experience such untimely misfortune. The top pick will earn a rookie salary of $5.51 million. The No. 5 pick will earn $3.61 million. And that is just in Year 1 of a four-year rookie scale deal. Taken out over the full four years,
I’m kinda high on what the Charlotte Bobcats did with Ben Gordon. The Bobcats waived Gordon on Sunday, preventing him from appearing in the postseason should he sign with another team. While they may have alienated his agent – not a trifle thing in the business world of the NBA – two things should be pointed out. 1. When teams waive or buy out players at this time of the season, they are essentially establishing a price they are willing to pay
Australian basketball has received a much-needed shot in the arm over the last 12 months. And just wait and see what’s coming next. Former top overall draft pick Andrew Bogut has returned to full health and is again playing solid two-way basketball for the surging Golden State Warriors. Patty Mills has emerged from chief towel waver for the San Antonio Spurs to knockdown 3-point gunner. And undrafted rookie guard Matthew Dellavedova has worked his way into the rotation for the Cleveland Cavaliers. It
Since training camp opened, there have been five significant trades involving 10 teams, 19 players and seven draft picks. The big winners have been a team that got rid of the highest scorer among the traded players and a team that acquired a player who has yet to play. The big loser has been a team that swears by analytics. Another way to look at it is like this: The biggest trades thus far have been the ones that haven’t been made
Mitch Kupchak shouldn’t be playing hardball. In his desire to trade Pau Gasol, the GM of the Los Angeles Lakers should not have insisted on receiving Dion Waiters or a first-round pick from the Cleveland Cavaliers. Nobody has overpaid for a rental since Ernie Grunfeld sent Ray Allen to Seattle for Gary Payton — and that was a long time ago. Kupchak should have lowered his demands to match the team’s expectations. The Lakers are done for this season and should be
Counting down to the exciting 2013-14 season … And counting, and counting, and counting. The preseason may be on, but I’m holding the excitement until something happens. By that I mean something bigger than media day, where all involved tell us what they’d like most, as if sitting in Santa Claus’ lap, asking for a pony. The tipoff is they have media day in Charlotte, and everyone is just as optimistic there. Personally, I try to measure my (yawn) excitement level, according to the
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — What a weekend we had in New England at the National Prep Showcase, a top-of-the-line prep school tournament that primarily features some of the New England region’s premier basketball talent. This year was no different as the field at Albertus Magnus College was loaded with an array of talented players. There were an average of 2.5 committed D-I players per team — and we are going to spotlight three of them heading to Indiana, Memphis and Syracuse. [Read