There are six high-salaried superstars to consider on an eight-game Saturday. DeMarcus Cousins $10100 will have easier situations than a back-to-back on the road against the 29-0 Spurs. Kawhi Leonard $7900 and LaMarcus Aldridge $6800 are excellent value. [Read more…]
As an NBA coach, Scott Skiles has always had a definitive modus operandi. In his three previous jobs, Skiles has dramatically improved his team’s defense, in some cases taking it from near the bottom of the league to near the top. That improvement helps the team become an absolute pain in the neck to play and make a quantum leap from the lottery to the playoffs. Then at some point, Skiles and his hypercompetitive nature become a bit overbearing for some players,
The familiar days of Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade leading the shooting guard rankings are over. In fact, Bryant, Wade and Monta Ellis are the only players over 30 to crack our top 10 rankings at the position. James Harden, Klay Thompson and Jimmy Butler are the new – and younger – top dogs at the position. DeMar DeRozan, Bradley Beal and Khris Middleton are three rising young stars listed that could vault within the top five by next season. Shooting guard is thin
Superstars change everything for NBA teams. For any team without one, the goal becomes finding a way to get a hold of one, either via trades or in the draft. Once a team is able to land one, however, everything changes. For the New Orleans Pelicans, everything changed in the 2012 draft when they landed Anthony Davis. Last season, they watched him emerge as – at worst – the third best player in basketball, and everything changed again. Coming off their first playoff
Eric Gordon remains a great shooter and is key to spacing the floor. Among all players (min. 150 FGA), Gordon had the second-best effective field goal percentage in the NBA (69.5%) on catch-and-shoots. That ranked behind Kyle Korver (72.2%) and ahead of Stephen Curry (65.5%). [Read more…]
BROOKLYN – You know the MVP race is something special when the player leading the NBA in PER (31.4), blocks per game (2.8) and field goals made per game (9.5) isn’t running away with the award. In fact, Anthony Davis is in a five-man cluster on the MVP leaderboard along with – in no particular order – Stephen Curry, LeBron James, James Harden and Russell Westbrook. But when most people are forced to pick one and only one name, you rarely hear
The Madison Square crowd was in a frenzy. New Orleans Pelicans head coach Monty Williams had just called a meaningless timeout with 8.1 seconds left and his team down 99-92 to a New York Knicks team that had lost 16 straight games dating back to Dec. 12. New Orleans failed to score after the timeout, and the Knicks won at home for the first time since Nov. 22. A 2-3 road trip against Eastern opponents looks bad enough for a New Orleans Pelicans
After last week’s loss in Atlanta, Memphis Grizzlies coach Dave Joerger – whose team has the fifth-best record in the NBA – lamented his roster’s shortcomings. “We have to get another playmaker on the floor,” Joerger said. “We’re going to have to start playing multiple point guards (at the same time). We’ve got to be able to get inside of defenses.” It doesn’t matter that the Grizzlies have been at or near the top of the league for most of the season.