Remember when Andrei Kirilenko was young, precocious and was a nightly threat to produce one of those statistical anomalies known as a 5X5 — reaching at least five in five statistical categories? The old AK-47 was back in the Olympic quarterfinals on Wednesday, producing a beastly line of 19 points, 13 rebounds, three assists, three steals and three blocks as Russia defeated a Lithuania team that would not quit, 83-74. Timofey Mozgov also had a very strong game with 17 points, and
With Brazil up 74-72 and six seconds remaining, it seemed as though Russia wouldn’t waltz into their meeting with Spain undefeated after all. Then Vitaly Fridzon took a pass from Alexey Shved in the corner and heaved up a prayer. Russia: still perfect. All Spain had to was dispose of the fledgling hosts and our heavyweights would meet in the ring as planned. But threes from Dan Clark, Nate Reinking and Luol Deng in the final 28 seconds cut the Spanish lead
Andrei Kirilenko makes Russia scary. Luis Scola is the craftiest big man in London. Let Pau Gasol catch the ball inside of seven feet and you’re toast. Yi Jianlian is a better player for China than he is in the NBA. And you should probably get a hand in Kevin Durant’s face. Long before Durant circled Olympic Stadium with his newly shaved head underneath a Ralph Lauren beret on Friday night, we knew this about him. We knew all of these things
The Olympics is fully underway, which means you’ll be reading plenty of news about NBA players involved in the special event for the foreseeable future. In today’s news, you’ll find LeBron James’ take on Kevin Durant’s role on a team full of superstars, Nicolas Batum’s thoughts on Team USA, Kobe Bryant’s trackback on Dream Team comment along with some player movements. Kevin Durant has tried his best to not be a ball hog on a team full of dominant scorers, but
Everyone’s still focused in on London, where Team USA took on France earlier today. I’m not going to spoil the result for you if you somehow don’t know it yet, so if you’re living a few hours in the past, be sure to check out our preview of that USA-France game. If you’re in the present with the rest of us, go ahead and read Chris Sheridan’s newest Diary of the Uncredentialed, where he describes watching that USA-France game in
The Minnesota Timberwolves have been very active thus far in the offseason as they remodel their roster to satisfy the needs of their franchise power forward Kevin Love. They have already gotten some “bad blood” out of the locker room with players such as Darko “Mana from Heaven” Milicic and Michael “Tito Jackson” Beasley, while acquiring a great player and character in Brandon Roy. The team loaded itself with another major piece today, as you will see in today’s news
Guess what folks? We have an update on Dwight Howard (surprise!), and the news is not good if you were hoping to see a trade this summer. According to a source, the Howard saga may drag on until next summer as the Orlando Magic continue to search for the absolute best scenario. If there is one good news to take from this, it’s the fact that we no longer have to expect a trade to happen on a daily basis.
We are three-plus weeks into free agency, and the cupboard is not quite bare. There are still some good players out there, whose choices are narrowed to two primary options: (a) go for the money and play for a loser, or (b) pass on the money and play for a winner. More than two-thirds of NBA teams have no cap room remaining. The ones that do mostly are those in rebuilding mode – Sacramento, Charlotte, Cleveland, Houston, Toronto and Minnesota. There are