Rajon Rondo is now in his ninth NBA season. He has led the league in steals once and in assists twice. He is second among active players in triple-doubles. He has made the All-Defensive Team twice and the All-Defensive Second Team twice more. He is a four-time All-Star. And he has a championship ring from 2008 with the Boston Celtics. And he still can’t shoot. That’s the biggest gripe with Rondo, other than the fact that he can be more than a
Following a recent game at Memphis, Los Angeles Lakers rookie guard Jordan Clarkson left quite an impression on Grizzlies forward Zach Randolph. Clarkson scored a season-high 25 points on 12-of-18 shooting and added six assists. He kept the Lakers in the game until the fourth quarter, when the Grizzlies put their defense and talent to work and pulled out a 97-90 win. Afterward, Randolph was blown away. “That young fellow, he’s going to be good,” he said. “I didn’t even know who
When Derrick Rose suffered a torn meniscus late last month, you could forgive Chicago Bulls fans if their reaction was, “Yeah, we’ve seen this movie before.” It was Rose’s third serious knee injury in less than three years, and in the grand scheme of things actually contained some good news: It wasn’t a season-ending injury. Four to six weeks? Hey, fantastic! Usually when Derrick gets hurt, it’s four to six months! We can deal with four to six weeks! And they can.
Earlier this week, we ran a blog post that led with the fact that Andrew Wiggins is running away with the Rookie of the Year race. What the post did not fully explain is how far ahead Wiggins is when compared to the rest of his classmates. It’s more than the injuries to fellow 2014 draft picks such as Jabari Parker, Joel Embiid, Aaron Gordon and Julius Randle which propelled Wiggins to the head of the class almost by default. It’s more than Wiggins
Rebuilding franchises conjure up a wide spectrum of emotions. They prompt hope for a brighter future, frustration that wins will likely be hard to come by in the immediate future and, sometimes, disappointment that tangible progress isn’t being seen quite quickly enough for increasingly rabid fan bases — specially in this instant gratfication digital era. Orlando is an interesting case study. The Magic have what seems like a decent enough young core in shooting guard Victor Oladipo, double-double machine Nikola Vucevic,
The NBA trade deadline usually brings a lot of activity with it each year. Thursday, however, there was a surplus of trade activity. It almost seemed as if, if there was a deal to be done, it was done. If you’re looking for the details of the trades, our own Chris Sheridan broke down the trade deadline activity earlier this afternoon.. [Sheridan: Analyzing Thursday’s Trade Deadline Deals — Sixers Win] If you want to know what the players were thinking as the deals
Mitch McGary was unexpectedly thrown into the spotlight this week. He’s going to be there a while. The burly rookie forward of the Oklahoma City Thunder had spent most of his first NBA season recovering from injuries while toiling in the D-League. Prior to Sunday, he had played just eight minutes over two games this season while averaging 14.7 points and 7.8 rebounds in eight games for the Blue, Oklahoma City’s affiliate. But on Sunday, the Thunder were hosting the Los Angeles
Everything you need to know about Andrew Wiggins became evident about a week ago. The league-worst Minnesota Timberwolves were hosting the Cleveland Cavaliers, who were riding a winning streak. LeBron James, the NBA’s best player, was making his lone visit to the frozen tundra. And the game marked the return to Minnesota of Kevin Love, who was unable to lift the Timberwolves out of mediocrity before forcing a trade last summer. Love was dealt to Cleveland, and Wiggins – the top overall