If you visit this site with any regularity, then you know I recently wrote a piece listing the NBA’s top 10 point guards. The list includes some relative newbies such as John Wall and Kyrie Irving. It also does not include Deron Williams and Derrick Rose, who in my opinion have not done enough of late to merit inclusion among the best players at arguably the most talented position in the league. Apparently, the folks at Rip City Radio 620 in Portland
BARCELONA — Attack mode. Derrick Rose had lost it. Now, after a long one-on-one meeting with Coach Mike Krzyzewski, he has rediscovered it. And all that talk about how he was hurting rather than helping Team USA should disappear, too. It was a sight to behold Tuesday night in a 119-76 victory over Slovenia, the Derrick Rose we had grown accustomed to seeing a couple years ago before the two knee injuries. The guy who exploded to the basket and always was
If you’re wondering where Derrick Rose ranks among the NBA’s top 10 point guards, he doesn’t. Neither does Deron Williams. Or Kemba Walker. Or Kyle Lowry. Point guard is the most demanding position in the NBA. And in ranking the top floor generals, we have demanding criteria. Is your favorite point guard an All-Star? How long has he been at that level? Is his current career track pointing upward or downward? Where does he rank among scorers at the position? Assists? Does he
BARCELONA — If the gold medal match was being played Sunday, Team USA would not beat Spain. It wouldn’t even be close. But the gold medal game is not this Sunday. It is next Sunday. And a lot can change in a week. So the burden is on coach Mike Krzyzewski: Figure out who is going to give you the best chance to beat the host nation, start shortening up the rotation, and hope that in one week you can achieve what it
Team USA had nothing to play for, and it showed. The Americans already had clinched Group C at the FIBA World Cup by winning their first four games. While other countries jockeyed to get into the knockout stage – or avoid certain opponents – Team USA was on cruise control in Friday’s game vs. war-torn Ukraine. The United States was playing for the fifth time in six nights and had a start time four hours earlier than Thursday. The combination of apathy
The debate over whether Derrick Rose should be playing for Team USA is behind us. Clearly he is not yet himself, and clearly he is using the FIBA World Cup to get himself back into playing shape so he has a running start when the Chicago Bulls’ NBA season begins. A big test is coming Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday as Team USA plays on three consecutive nights. We will have a much bigger body of work to judge him on when those three days
We will spare you too many of the gory details of Team USA’s massacre of Finland. Here’s all you need to know: The Finns were 0-for-17 from the field in the second quarter. If you watched the entire game, congratulations. You have proven yourself worthy of throwing away two perfectly good summertime hours from your Labor Day weekend that could have been spent doing something more enjoyable, like watching paint dry. Day One of the 2014 FIBA World Cup is in the books,
The 2014 Basketball World Cup is finally here. And you need to take it seriously, because everyone else does. Thanks to NBC and the other fall-in-line media outlets, most Americans believe the Olympics is the premier international basketball event. Globally, nothing could be further from the truth. With 24 teams and no automatic bid for the host, the World Cup is twice the size of the Olympics. It doesn’t share the spotlight with track or swimming. And most of the players will