Thanksgiving isn’t for another week or so, but NBA teams are jumping the gun when it comes to the best part about the holiday: the feast. The Cleveland Cavaliers and Detroit Pistons are two teams that hosted events featuring players and members of the organization. The food is great to have, but most would agree that being around family and friends celebrating Turkey Day is the best part. It’s important for those who don’t have the luxury of having a hot
Promoting one’s endeavors outside of the basketball arena is commonplace in the NBA. It happens all of the time. Whether it’s Dwyane Wade advertising for The Tie Bar, Chris Bosh hocking Mr. Nice Tie, Chandler Parsons pitching CP25 socks, Martell Webster championing his forthcoming rap album, LeBron James selling Beats by Dre or any athlete in the league selling their latest signature shoe, most players have things going on outside of basketball, and many use the success and popularity of
Unfortunately for the Oklahoma City Thunder, the basketball gods have decided to strike them in the worst possible way this season. It all started when rookie Mitch McGary suffered a broken left foot during the preseason. Soon followed a devastating injury to Kevin Durant, who similarly suffered a broken right foot during the preseason, forcing him to miss the next 6-8 weeks. Then came news that Reggie Jackson sprained his ankle and Jeremy Lamb tweaked his back during practice. Both have
After having missed the playoffs for the past four-straight seasons—ever since four-time NBA MVP LeBron James left home for the warm beaches of Miami to join Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade and the Heat, and after surprisingly good luck in the past two NBA draft lotteries gifted the Cleveland Cavaliers with back-to-back top-overall picks, there may have been little hope for any monumental improvement entering the summer of 2014. That was, of course, before James made the decision to go home, rejoining
Finally, we have real basketball action. Yeah, it’s just the preseason, but it’s better than nothing. There are plenty of new story lines throughout the league, and preseason basketball can be a spark to light the fire in some upcoming rivalries. For example, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat. They aren’t exactly rivals, but with the “Decision” and “I’m Coming Home” stories that effected both teams similarly, every time the two face off against each other they’ll be under a microscope.
CLEVELAND — Walking out of Quicken Loans Arena Sunday night, I had a chance to catch several fragments of conversation. “That place was nuts,” said one man. “I can’t wait for the season,” said a middle-aged woman. Most of the time, though, all I could catch was a name. “LeBron James.” “LeBron James.” “LeBron James.” It couldn’t have been more obvious who the fans came out to see. And, unlike most preseason games, this wasn’t just the diehards (or if it was, there are suddenly a lot
Nice how things change so drastically and so quickly in the NBA. In the season preview that I wrote about the Cleveland Cavaliers one year ago, the five things to watch included Andrew Bynum, Anthony Bennett and Mike Brown’s defensive schemes. Obviously, things have changed dramatically as the Cavs head into the 2014-15 season. With a mere 952 words in Sports Illustrated back in July after Chris Sheridan broke the story two days earlier, LeBron James single-handedly changed the direction – and
Training camps begin in a little over a week, the start of the regular season is 40 days away, and what awaits us this season is going to be special — a renaissance in Cleveland, Kobe’s return in L.A., a chance for the Spurs to chase that elusive repeat championship. But let’s be realistic here for a second. There are 15 teams in the Eastern Conference, and there is a very slim chance at best that anyone other than the Cleveland Cavaliers