Who is crashing the playoff party in the East this season? Conventional wisdom says the two-time defending champion Miami Heat, Indiana Pacers, Chicago Bulls, New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets are head and shoulders above the rest of the Eastern Conference and – barring a disaster – will secure the top five spots. At the other end of the conference, you can probably toss out the Orlando Magic, Charlotte Bobcats and Philadelphia 76ers, who could pool their rosters to come up with
The Washington Wizards are the NBA’s Rorschach Test team. Coldly visualize last season’s 29-53 record. In the context of a fifth straight year without a postseason appearance, we’re talking demolition time. Yet others – most notably, the team’s ownership – warmed to the clear improvement over the second half of last season after ingloriously bottoming out early on. Washington kept its primary core of players and inked some – including point guard John Wall – to lucrative deals. Coach Randy Wittman and
It’s a simple, yet complex decision for the Washington Wizards. John Wall is the team’s unquestioned franchise player. It would be incredibly difficult to replace him and build around someone else. From that standpoint, it makes sense that Washington is locking him up for five years and the maximum $80 million it can give the former top overall pick. The problem? Wall is nowhere near as good as other point guards given max contracts in recent years. He has to sound confident when he
Tonight in Miami, LeBron James has another “Decision.” This one is not about where James is going to play, however. Tonight is about how he is going to play. And this decision is tougher, because he doesn’t have days to think about it. He has about an hour, tops. [Read more…]
The Los Angeles Lakers, although they finished the season on a very strong note, have greatly underachieved this season. We all know this. For that, most want to blame Mike D’Antoni for his inability to make better use of the talent he has. Any time you have four Hall of Fame-level players on the same team (which doesn’t happen very often), you have the responsibility of doing big things. If you don’t, the blame goes on you. It’s as simple as
(This is another in a series of 30 guest columns that will run in October, when optimism reigns supreme across the NBA. The theme will be “Five Reasons to Feel Positive About … ” We encourage you to follow the authors on Twitter and visit their sites. – CS) The Washington Wizards’ rebuild is now into year three as the plan remains to grow with a young roster. But the team sprinkled in veterans this summer, adding big man Emeka Okafor and
This was definitely not the start to the season the Washington Wizards were looking for. The Wizards were counting on growth and maturation from John Wall, their blindingly quick point guard whom they believe is destined for NBA stardom. But the team announced Friday that Wall has a stress injury in his left knee and will be out eight weeks. Wall felt pain in the knee and had an MRI on Thursday in New York that revealed the early stages of a