The Miami Heat could very well be in the draft lottery this season, which really wasn’t what they were thinking going into the season, eh? But Chris Bosh’s reported blot clot problem, along with a general problem with underperforming, has left the Heat in the fight for the eighth and final playoff spot in the East as we head into the final six weeks of the season. What exactly has gone wrong in Miami? How can it be fixed? And if Pat
This is the time of the year for the earliest Mock Drafts, and I am subbing myself in for our regular guru, Joe Kotoch, who has been writing Mocks for this site for four years. Kotoch will be back … I am a one-and-done guy in this particular category. As I sat down to write this column, I was consumed with one thought: If you are in the business of finding great players and you want to stay employed, you
I’ve learned a ton of things in over 25 years in the game, studying players at every level. First when it comes to projecting a player’s ability and potential and how he will translate to the next level, it’s never an exact science. That’s probably the biggest challenge of all when it comes to evaluating talent. Nowadays, there are many high-tech methods to track a player’s every move. Along with the current analytics movement, there are also countless player workout and
“Even without a team. I’m still a coach.” That’s how Bobby Gonzalez opened this interview with Tamara Holder on Sports Court on FOX, and that is the truth. Yes, Gonzo is spending a season as a columnist, video analyst and radio guest for this site, but the endgame here is for Gonzo to land a job in the NBA, helping lead the team that is smart enough to hire him to an NBA championship. I like to tell people that Gonzo has
The NCAA Tournament field is set. The favorite is Kentucky. My best first-round game to watch is SMU-UCLA, Larry Brown’s present against Larry Brown’s past. My favorite player is D’Angelo Russell of Ohio State. My old team, the Manhattan Jaspers, have a chance to earn a head-on collision with John Calipari’s SuperTeam. The best point guard not named Emmanuel Mudiay is … I’ll get to that. I promise: It’s here in this column, which runs a little long. My apologies, but I’ve got a lot
H.G. Wells once said, “success is to be measured not by wealth, power, or fame, but by the ratio of what a man is, and what he can be.” Well, I know this to be true. The late Dean Smith was a giant of a man, a giant of a coach and lived a life that can be called unparalleled because he meant so much to so many. He built and sustained a legacy and a fraternity of players and coaches that
As a young college coach, I had the great fortune to meet and become extremely close to one of the most powerful figures in basketball, sneaker kingpin Sonny Vaccaro. Like many coaches, Sonny gave me my first adidas sneaker contract. But it was a story Sonny once shared with me as a young high school coach working his Nike All-American camp that has stayed with me for over 25 years. The story still resonates with me today as I reflect on
I have 1,000 stories about coach Mike Krzyzewski, one for each of his 1,000 wins, but I promise to only tell a few of them. I was a Division 1 coach for 18 years and won 200 games, and winning 1,000 games at the highest level of college basketball is an accomplishment that can only be summed up as unthinkable, unimaginable and something coaches, including myself, can only dream of. I have always felt that the best coaches are the ones who can