In Sunday night’s preseason game between the Lakers and the Warriors, we witnessed something that may take a while to get used to: Steve Nash was running the floor alongside Kobe Bryant in a Lakers uniform. If you’re not a Lakers fan, what we saw was bad news because Nash – as he always does – made the game look so darned easy for everyone else. The Warriors actually blew the game open for a 110-83 victory and showed promising
Flopping has been a major issue in the NBA for quite some time, especially when the playoffs are in session. Players like Manu Ginobili, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Paul Pierce and a countless number of others have lived off of faking out the officials with sneaky tactics that have gone unpaid for, but that could all change as soon as the upcoming season. See what rules the NBA may implement in order to cut down on flopping as much as
Moments after the Los Angeles Lakers were ejected from the 2012 playoffs by the Oklahoma City Thunder, Kobe Bryant talked calmly with reporters. No doubt the competitive anger within Bryant was hissing and steaming, but he was suppressing it because he was confident history would repeat itself. “I’m sure we’ll figure it out,” he said of the Lakers’ second consecutive ouster in the second round of the playoffs. “We always have and I’m sure we will again.” Yes, the Lakers always figure it out. What is
Illustration from orangejuiceblog.com At a certain point, word will leak out about what exactly went down when President Barack Obama played basketball with a group of current and former NBA players. It happened after a fundraising dinner last night in New York, and the media was not allowed to watch, film or gawk. In attendance were Carmelo Anthony and Chris Bosh, NBA commissioner David Stern, Charlotte Bobcats owner and closet Republican Michael Jordan, and retired players Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning,
NEW YORK — Former NBA Deputy Commissioner and Players Association executive director Simon Gourdine has passed away at the age of 72. Gourdine joined the NBA in 1970, and was named deputy commissioner in 1974, becoming the highest ranking African- American executive in sports at the time. In 1976, Gourdine was part of the landmark collective bargaining negotiations that created the NBA’s first free agency system, an agreement that also saw the NBA absorb four ABA franchises — the Spurs, Pacers, Nuggets and Nets. NBA
FIBA Secretary General Patrick Baumann FIBA has spoken. And their message to NBA Commissioner David Stern is this: We’re not changing the Olympics, bub. In an in-house interview with FIBA.com, secretary general Patrick Baumann took a strong stance against changing to a 23-and-under rule, which Stern and NBA owners are pushing for. Baumann said such a change would actually give the United States an unfair advantage because of the advanced developmental system in the U.S. compared to other countries. “There is
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,
Commissioner David Stern Olympic Tower Fifth Avenue New York, NY, USA, 10020 Hey, Dave: Some gold medal game, eh? Guess what happened back here in the States? They showed the whole USA-Spain match (pardon my FIBAism) on NBC Sports Channel without any commercials. That’s right, without any commercials! Who had that in the office pool? Nobody, right? It would have been like picking Tunisia. That’s the thing about the Olympics, Dave … you never quite know what’s going to happen by the time the final day of the whole