In an NBA season marked by unprecedented dominance, has the bar measuring success been raised too high? Are we too quick to criticize teams that are not playing at the level of the Golden State Warriors? Have we forgotten where the Cleveland Cavaliers were a year ago? Sure seems that way sometimes, and never more so than it has since Christmas as the Cavaliers followed up their NBA Finals rematch with a ghastly loss to the reeling Portland Trail Blazers, then struggled to
If you are like many Americans – middle-class, middle-aged males not unlike myself – and watched your first NBA games this season on Christmas, then you probably think the Chicago Bulls are just fine. If you have watched at any other time this season, then you know otherwise. On Christmas, the Bulls played perhaps their best game of the season. They went into Loud City without injured emotional leader Joakim Noah and never trailed against the Thunder, leaving with a convincing 105-96
For most players, posting 25 points and 9 rebounds would qualify as a good night. Then again, LeBron James isn’t most players. As a future Hall of Famer who remains the most talented basketball player on the planet, his standard is far higher. [Read more…]
If you’ve noticed that this year’s rookie class is being talked about and praised around the league and in the media, there’s good reason for that. This year’s top five picks— Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns, the Lakers’ D’Angelo Russell, Philadelphia’s Jahlil Okafor, New York’s Kristaps Porzingis and Orlando’s Mario Hezonja— are making a larger early impact than any top-five group in at least a half decade. A detailed statistical analysis of top five picks over the last five years shows that over the first two
Is the NBA inching toward parity? Or slowly sinking into mediocrity? Those may seem like strange questions during a season in which the Golden State Warriors have imposed their dominance over the rest of the league in unprecedented fashion. Yes, at 22-0 the Warriors have obliterated the best start in NBA history and have looked downright unbeatable while the clock was ticking during a vast majority of those 22 games. In that sense, they present a very strong argument against the notion
We’re a quarter of the way through the regular season and the NBA landscape has shifted dramatically. Kobe Bryant is retiring after this season and wants to be remembered as a “talented overachiever” when it’s all said and done. Meanwhile, Bryant’s Los Angeles Lakers (3-15) trail only the Philadelphia 76ers (1-19) for the league’s worst record. With every loss, the Lakers grow closer to keeping their top-three protected draft pick and potentially land top prospect Ben Simmons. On the flip side, the Golden
The NBA’s hottest game of the week is about to tip off, and Miami Heat at Cleveland Cavaliers tickets are incredibly hot. Similar to past seasons, everyone in the NBA seems to be gunning for LeBron James. Even former teammate and good friend Dwyane Wade acknowledged that everyone is trying to take down King James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Wade had stated, “LeBron knows we’re coming for him. They’re at the top of the Eastern Conference. Everybody’s going for him.” But the Miami
One of the new secrets revealed over the first two days of the regular season was that Derrick Rose is experiencing double vision. Leave it to the Bulls to be the first team to keep things rather interesting. One of the NBA’s worst-kept secrets in 2015 was Chicago management’s dissatisfaction with head coach Tom Thibodeau. Thibs was dispatched from the position in late-May, two weeks after losing to Cleveland in the Eastern Conference semifinals. His replacement, as expected, was former NBA guard