Tuesday is all about the Golden State Warriors attempting to win a 16th straight game to set a new NBA record. Stephen Curry $10900, Klay Thompson $6300 and Draymond Green $7500 can do whatever they want against the Lakers. [Read more…]
It’s time for the Los Angeles Lakers to get serious about rebuilding. The Lakers aren’t making the playoffs this season. They are 2-9, with losses already to Minnesota, Sacramento, Denver, New York and Dallas twice. One of their wins came against Brooklyn. The only thing between the Lakers and the bottom of the Western Conference is the New Orleans Pelicans, who have almost as many injuries as the 3rd Ranger Battalion. This is uncharted territory for the Lakers, who already have missed
If you take a quick look at the contract extensions given to the 2012 NBA draft class, nothing seems extraordinary. Eight eligible players received extensions. While collusion conspiracy theorists might point out that it’s two less than the 2011 class, it also is one more than the 2010 class and the same number as the 2009 class. As in previous seasons, the top pick got a five-year max deal and at least one other lottery pick also received a max deal of
What did we learn from the first night of the regular season? The Warriors are still great and the Pistons aren’t bad. After an impressive road win over the Hawks, Detroit is one of four teams to open with a back-to-back. [Read more…]
Point guard is the most important and deepest position in the NBA. How deep? Take a look at some of the players not featured in our top 10 rankings at the position. You won’t find Derrick Rose, the league’s youngest MVP four years ago. Over the past three seasons, Rose has missed 185 of a possible 246 games. Asking Rose to return to his MVP form is out of the question. Asking Rose to return to his All-Star form appears bleak, too. How about
The city of Portland is at a crossroads. With a new apartment complex on every block and thousands of new residents flocking to the land of fair trade coffee and cruelty-free, artisan baked goods, the battle between Old Portland and New Portland has Rip City searching for a new identity. In an ironic twist of fate, as the City of Roses undergoes an extended facelift, so too does its basketball team. Gone is four-fifths of the starting lineup that won 50-plus
It pays to be patient. That is the financial lesson of the NBA’s offseason, which saw the biggest pay raises go to players who turned down contract extensions and gambled on themselves. Among the top 11 pay increases this summer, five went to players who felt like they were being lowballed by their teams — and proved it when they cashed in with bigger deals as restricted free agents this summer. Chicago’s Jimmy Butler, Orlando’s Tobias Harris, Detroit’s Reggie Jackson, Oklahoma City’s Enes
The silence following Jonas Valanciunas’ contract extension was deafening. When the Toronto Raptors gave a reported $64 million over four years to Valanciunas, there were no proclamations from pundits that the NBA’s financial sky was falling. Owners didn’t start forming plans of collusion. No one drew comparisons to Jim McIlvaine. On the other side, there have been no whispers that Raptors GM Masai Ujiri engineered another steal. Virtually no one has suggested that Valanciunas got fleeced. Agent Leon Rose – who days