It’s time to start counting the weeks, not the months, until NBA season starts, and we’ve got a whole bunch of ways to help you get ready. Start with Chris Bernucca’s column to find out which NBA stars might not be playing on Opening Night, and also be sure to check out Kent Williams’ awesome NBA depth chart, whether as a cheat sheet for a fantasy draft or just because it’s really cool. And now let’s get to all the latest
When training camps open later this month, a handful of teams will be at less than full strength. And some of them may be that way for a while. The Los Angeles Lakers, a legitimate title contender, will be without the biggest prize of the offseason. The Chicago Bulls, who have the NBA’s best record over the last two seasons, will be without their best player. The New York Knicks, who claim to be contenders, will be without two of their three shooting guards.
Remember when Blake Griffin suffered a meniscus tear in his left knee over the summer? We really haven’t heard too much about it since, but he is apparently just fine now and and would be ready to play if training camp opened today. He didn’t get to work with Hakeem Olajuwon as originally planned, but appears to have been working on his jump shot and free throws – some of his biggest struggles from last season. See the current mindset
Having trumped up, er, written more intracity rivalry stories than I care to remember, there are three things I know. 1. They’re really no big deal. So what if the Clippers don’t like the Lakers, who don’t deign to notice the Clippers? The Clips don’t dislike the Lakes any more than the Suns or Warriors do, to say nothing of the Celtics. This isn’t high school. It’s not even USC-UCLA. This is the NBA, where only the Clips would remember if they swept the Lakers,
The 2012 NBA Champion Miami Heat won the second title in franchise history last month, and they aren’t doing what they did after the previous one — standing pat (or standing Pat, as in Riley, who felt he owed it to those players to give them a chance to defend their title.) Meanwhile, the team they defeated in the Eastern Conference finals — the Boston Celtics — have had a pretty productive summer of their own. In New York, two basketball teams
Blake Griffin, the human highlight film 2.0, is no longer with Team USA due to his knee injury. This means other amazing athletes on the team will have to step up their dunking games for our pleasure, and LeBron James provided a glimpse of it during Saturday’s scrimmage. We’ve seen James steal the ball, give it up to Dwyane Wade in transition, who then throws it back to James for an alley-oop a countless number of times. Now, we get to
