When LeBron James made his move to the power forward position last season, things changed drastically – in a championship winning way – for the Heat. There aren’t too many small forwards that are versatile enough to play both small forward and the power forward positions: the difference in physicality is simply too significant to handle for most. Another three that is capable of playing the four – and creating havoc in the process – is New York Knicks forward Carmelo
When we wrote last month that the Western Conference playoff picture would be filled in by the Dallas Mavericks and Minnesota Timberwolves, it was assumed that both teams would have their alpha dogs at power forward. Now that Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Love are both out until at least December, that picture could be changing. Nowitzki and Love both are top-10 players whose presence instantly legitimizes their teams as playoff-worthy, regardless of the other 14 players sharing a locker room and airplane with them.
Even for hoops addicts, watching NBA preseason games presents a challenge. The baseball playoffs are under way, the college football and NFL seasons are in full swing, and there is this small matter of a presidential election. There is no subscription package for the preseason. League Pass takes a pass until the regular season starts later this month. So the only way you can watch games right now is on NBA TV, which isn’t part of the basic package of a number
An NBA game in Fargo? You’re darn tootin’! The Timberwolves played like a home team, even in North Dakota. J.J. Barea started at PG; Luke Ridnour has been battling back spasms and of course, the return date of Ricky Rubio (knee) is indefinite. The Russian Connection of Andrei Kirilenko and rookie Alexey Shved contributed very little but the big news was Brandon Roy playing 23:40 and scoring 13 points in his first game in 18 months. That wasn’t really the
Sunday Games GSW @ LAL: Way past my bedtime, the Warriors poured it on in the second half to trounce the Lakers. Festus Ezeli got the starting C assignment for Andrew Bogut, who is being brought along slowly. The Nigerian, by way of Vanderbilt, played 22:25 and while he didn’t fill the stat sheet, appears to be ahead of Jeremy Tyler (13:17) and Andris Biedrins (11:24) in the pecking order. Round 1 in the SF “battle” went as expected. Brandon Rush started,
The Minnesota Timberwolves made some serious roster adjustments over the summer, all for the better. The most notable move was the acquisition of a revitalized Brandon Roy, but they also got a huge upgrade at small forward by obtaining Andrei Kirilenko and signed the likes of Chase Budinger, Alexey Shved, Greg Stiemsma and Dante Cunningham. As Kevin Love would tell you though, the real best part may have been “cleaning out the bad blood in the locker room”, and he
Friday night marked the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics, which means Team USA will soon be in action. They will play the first game against Tony Parker and France on Sunday and will face plenty of challenges, according to our Chris Sheridan, who is in Europe and witnessing everything as it happens. Check out his predictions for the Olympics here. Today’s news includes some coverage of players involved with the Olympics, along with all the other relevant happenings around
