The Denver Nuggets head into the 2014-15 season with ambitious goals. The Nuggets are built around a young core that won a franchise-record 57 games only two seasons ago, only to be derailed by injuries and eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. That early exit precipitated the departure of their GM and coach. Last season, the injuries kept coming and the Nuggets missed the playoffs for the first time since 2003, the year they drafted Carmelo Anthony. The core is
Scandal, scandal everywhere. If it’s not Donald Sterling, it’s Mark Jackson feuding with the Warriors’ front office. Or maybe it’s the Grizzlies’ management structure suddenly collapsing. It seems everywhere you turn, you get smacked with another piece of dirty laundry. And if you just want to watch the games? Get ready for controversy after controversy over flops, out-of-bounds calls, arguments between teammates. Anything people can complain about, they will. With all that – combined with louder than usual cries of fixing at
Nothing in the NBA playoffs is going like it’s supposed to. The Pacers look like they’re all done, the Spurs struggled to get past the Mavs, the Warriors-Clippers game was a mess of missed free throws and turnovers, the Wizards are winning games… yeah, it’s a little weird. Of course, we’re only one game in. There’s going to be lots more. But right now, if I were a Pacers fan, I’d be worried. Losing to a Hawks team without Al Horford,
I had boatloads of schoolwork to finish (one more week!), so I didn’t get to watch any of the NCAA tournament games before the last one of the night, which hasn’t been a great contest. [Read more…]
Not that anybody should care, but my bracket is looking pretty good. Not only did I manage to get through the first round without losing a Final Four team (one year I lost two on the first day), but I haven’t even lost an Elite Eight team yet. Of course, four of them still haven’t played their second game yet, but things are looking pretty good. Not as good as last year, when I called Louisville over Michigan in the
Phil Jackson won’t be awful as president of the New York Knicks. He certainly won’t be as bad as Isiah Thomas was in running the club. And he will almost certainly be better than David Kahn, Bryan Colangelo, Joe Dumars, Otis Smith and Geoff Petrie have been in recent years. But Phil Jackson isn’t Isiah Thomas, or David Kahn, or Bryan Colangelo. He’s Phil Jackson, with a reputation of all things basketball that he touches turning to gold. And that’s exactly what
All season, the Indiana Pacers have maintained that homecourt advantage for the Eastern Conference playoffs, and their chemistry will give them a great chance to dethrone the two-time NBA champion Miami Heat. Are both slipping away? In the last two weeks, Indiana’s grip on the East’s best record has loosened considerably. And the Pacers’ big move at Thursday’s trading deadline, acquiring Evan Turner, illustrated that their belief in chemistry may have been overstated. [Read more…]
This past week, NBA TV released excerpts of an extended interview with LeBron James (airing in its entirety Monday night) in which Steve Smith asked “The King” to name his Mount Rushmore of basketball. James offered a quartet of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Oscar Robertson. But it’s really an unfair question, because in addition to those four players, there are at least three more – centers Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Russell – who are in the