When asked recently about the trade value of Brooklyn Nets guard Joe Johnson, one Western Conference scout summed it up in six brutally painful words: “He makes a lot of money.” After 15 NBA seasons and seven All-Star appearances, the 34-year-old Johnson has turned from a very good basketball player into just another contract a team can’t wait to get off its books. Mercifully for Brooklyn, Johnson’s contract expires at the end of this season. When it’s all said and done in Brooklyn—
PHILADELPHIA – For nearly five decades, Jerry Colangelo has been pro basketball’s version of Annie Sullivan: a miracle worker. No, he never taught a blind and deaf Helen Keller how to “read.” But he did take over the expansion Phoenix Suns in the late 1960s and build them into a legitimate NBA power, twice winning the Western Conference and coming close to a championship with a team that was almost always respectable. That made him an institution in the Valley of the
In the late 1970s I was a very impressionable teenager desperately trying to be cool. But I didn’t want the charm of James Bond or the street smarts of The Fonz or the dance moves of Tony Manero. Besides, they were all fictional characters from movies and TV shows. I wanted my cool to be real. I wanted to be Darryl Dawkins. Dawkins died Thursday, leaving us way too soon at the age of 58. He claimed to be from the planet Lovetron,
So the month of August begins with another head-scratcher award for Sam Hinkie. The mad scientist in Philadelphia had earned plenty of props on this site for his acquisition of three rotation players — Jason Thompson, Nik Stauskas and Carl Landry — along with a first-round pick and the right to swap two additional two first-round picks with Sacramento in the early-July deal that allowed the Kings to clear the cap space to sign Rajon Rondo, Marco Belinelli and Kosta Koufos. The
If Rajon Rondo is truly available, there is one team where he’d be such a good fit that it might make the Miami Heat the second choice among oddsmakers to win the NBA title. And if Larry Bird can get his hands on Rondo, the Indiana Pacers would be that team. Word was spreading on Twitter yesterday that Celtics GM Danny Ainge was seeking two unprotected first-round draft picks in any deal involving Rondo, and I tweeted my immediate reaction. If #Celtics truly
It didn’t necessarily have any marquee names, but a three-team trade that sent Jordan Crawford and MarShon Brooks to the Golden State Warriors was the talk around the league on Wednesday (before Nick Young threw some punches). See below for some insight and analysis on the who and the why: Chris Sheridan broke down what the trade does for each team involved. Bill Simmons shares his thoughts on the deal, from our Michael Brumagin. Members of Warriors World chime in on how Crawford
Something is wrong with Stephen Curry’s shot this season. When the Golden State Warriors guard shoots, it’s almost never considered a bad shot. The reason behind that logic is simple: it’s not considered a bad shot if you make it. In past years, Curry almost always made shots that would be considered a bad shot if anyone else took it, like this one, for example. This season, however, Curry has simply been off his shooting game. For the first time in his
It’s been well documented that the New York Knicks are an awful team this season. As it turns out, the Brooklyn Nets may be a notch worse than them after seeing the two teams duke it out on Thursday night. You know it’s bad when Andrea Bargnani is trash-talking to Kevin Garnett. Yes, that happened. The Knicks embarrassed the Nets on their own floor by 30 points and showed that they are at least capable of playing some semblance of team basketball.