BROOKLYN – You know the MVP race is something special when the player leading the NBA in PER (31.4), blocks per game (2.8) and field goals made per game (9.5) isn’t running away with the award. In fact, Anthony Davis is in a five-man cluster on the MVP leaderboard along with – in no particular order – Stephen Curry, LeBron James, James Harden and Russell Westbrook. But when most people are forced to pick one and only one name, you rarely hear
Earlier this week, we ran a blog post that led with the fact that Andrew Wiggins is running away with the Rookie of the Year race. What the post did not fully explain is how far ahead Wiggins is when compared to the rest of his classmates. It’s more than the injuries to fellow 2014 draft picks such as Jabari Parker, Joel Embiid, Aaron Gordon and Julius Randle which propelled Wiggins to the head of the class almost by default. It’s more than Wiggins
There was a lot of shade in the Valley of the Sun this week. It all started with Goran Dragic, who is far from blameless in this mess. But because the Phoenix Suns sent Dragic packing in a trade, president Lon Babby and GM Ryan McDonough got to write the epilogue and spin it in intelligence-insulting fashion. Dragic is an unrestricted free agent this summer. At 28, it’s his first and last chance at a max contract. And while the idea of
All-Star Weekend didn’t start out too well for my son, Andrew. On Friday morning, he had an argument with his first serious girlfriend a day before his first serious Valentine’s Day. With that hanging over his head, he had to go to work, where his primary job is to kick mallrats out of the store. And it was the last work day before the All-Star Game and we still hadn’t heard from someone who had said that maybe, just maybe, he
For the last three months, Emmanuel Mudiay hasn’t been able to cross the Guangdong Tigers’ locker room without first passing the cubicle of the team’s starting small forward, Zhu Fangyu. Zhu is the Chinese Basketball Association’s all-time leading scorer and a fixture on China’s national team for over a decade. He is also known as the authority figure within the Guangdong roster that sizes up new arrivals and decides if they are serious enough about playing for China’s most successful team. The
In a summer marred by racial controversy, the NBA community has managed to keep its focus on the usual topics of conversation. Few debates have captured the imagination of the masses as much as the oldest question in the book: Who is the best player of all-time? The answers have varied, but not as much as people may think. From Kevin Durant to Brandon Jennings, multiple big-name players have made the claim that Kobe Bryant is the greatest of all time. Some have
The Oklahoma City Thunder were supposed to come out in Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals against the San Antonio Spurs and show that they’ve made adjustments since getting blown out in their first meeting in Game 1. Instead, they tried to go one-on-one possession after possession, failed to complete defensive plays by allowing offensive rebounds, and ultimately suffered an embarrassing 112-77 loss – their most lopsided defeat of the season. The Thunder had only lost two games this season
Beats Electronics enthusiast LeBron James seen with co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Andre (Dr. Dre) Young. Hip Hop has had a longstanding relationship with basketball dating back to the 90s. Between the fashion trends, music and relationships often forged between the two industries, the two seem to go hand-in-hand culturally. Many NBA athletes have tried their hands at making rap albums: Chris Webber, Allen Iverson, Kobe Bryant, Ron Artest, Tony Parker, Stephen Jackson, Troy Hudson, Joe Smith and Iman