For some reason, the Phoenix Suns have put themselves in quite the vulnerable situation. With innovative coach Jeff Hornacek at the helm, the Suns were truly one of the biggest surprise teams of last season. No one expected them to be in a dog fight to be a playoff team in April. Hell, not many expected them to win even 30 games. Yet, they won 48 games and became one of the most dynamic offensive teams in the league (eighth-best offensive
The growth of analytics in the NBA has been nothing short of phenomenal. It started with a deeper look at numbers that already were available and produced new and useful statistics such as true shooting percentage, defensive rebound percentage, offensive rating and win shares. With the use of a grid or a matrix, we now have the ability to determine a player’s offensive tendencies and hot spots. For some players, it is quite revealing. For others, such as DeAndre Jordan, it pretty
Brazil entered Tuesday’s World Cup semifinal match against Germany facing extreme obstacles. Their captain, Thiago Silva was due to miss the match having accumulated two yellow cards, and star forward Neymar had suffered a fractured vertebra in their quarterfinal match against Colombia. Even with such losses, they were still expected to play well, perhaps carrying out the role of underdog to move on to the finals. The match was highly anticipated and was garnering a lot of media attention and hype.
Over the past season with the Brooklyn Nets, Shaun Livingston surprisingly proved to be a very valuable commodity as a combo-guard on both ends of the floor. He had the unique ability to see plays develop with the ball in his hands – something he always had coming into the league as an 18-year-old – but perhaps more importantly, showed that he is a little too tall (6’7″) and long (wingspan of 6’11”) for most guards in the NBA to handle.
Everyone likes a good movie, and most movies serve as great distractions from life. They invite us into a new world where we are engrossed in the lives of fictional characters that have some linear story in which they experience various plot turns and twists before finding a resolution. It’s storytelling 101, and it captivates us all. NBA athletes are no less human and enjoy movies all the same. After suffering severe leg cramps and incapable of helping his team as the
2014 NBA Defensive Player of the Year Joakim Noah led all vote getters for the NBA All-Defensive First Team. The NBA released the 2014 All-Defensive teams Monday afternoon. Leading the charge was the 2014 Kia NBA Defensive Player of the Year and Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah, who led all vote getters. He was the only player to get triple-digit votes for the First Team, tallying 105 such votes as well as another 13 Second Team votes
LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard figure to be seeing a lot of each other over the next two weeks. That will be the small forward matchup in the NBA Finals. Just like last year, it should be a good one, because both players were named to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team on Monday. Neither the Miami Heat nor the San Antonio Spurs have anyone on the All-Defensive First Team, which was voted on by the media and has Defensive Player of the
While many around the league were either expressing sheer amazement for a Russell Westbrook dunk in Oklahoma City’s 117-89 loss to San Antonio. Others were expressing surprise over the obscene amount of money—$2 billion—that former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has agreed to pay in order to become the new Los Angeles Clippers owner. While all of these things are both entertaining and informative, in the midst of it all was the Scripps National Spelling Bee, a yearly contest to determine the