Kawhi Leonard is back to form, and so are the defending champion San Antonio Spurs. And if Leonard and legendary head coach Gregg Popovich have their way, it’ll remain that way for quite a while as the franchise moves forward. [Read more…]
There was a lot of attention on the Pacific Division this past weekend. People were wondering when the Golden State Warriors would finally lose and when the Los Angeles Lakers would finally win. Both happened Sunday, with the Warriors – playing without Klay Thompson and David Lee – finally falling at Phoenix and the Lakers – getting production from someone other than Kobe Bryant – knocking off the Charlotte Hornets. But if you ask me, the attention was misplaced. With consecutive playoff
There were two pieces of bad news coming out of Loud City this weekend. And there was a disproportionate reaction to the wrong one. There was far too much hand-wringing to the news that Russell Westbrook will be joining fellow Oklahoma City Thunder superstar Kevin Durant on the sidelines after undergoing surgery on his broken right hand. The Thunder are going to survive November without Durant and Westbrook. They have 14 games between now and Dec. 1, the projected earliest return for
One of the common complaints about the NBA – and a somewhat legitimate one at that – is that there are only a half-dozen teams or so that can truly win the championship. Think about it: Who do you have winning it all this season? Chances are it’s one of the “Fab Five” – Cleveland, Chicago, San Antonio, Oklahoma City or the Los Angeles Clippers. And you’re not off base, either. One of those teams is my pick – our staff’s
All the San Antonio Spurs could talk about last season was avenging their 2013 NBA Finals loss to the Miami Heat, especially the heartbreaking loss in Game 6. The Spurs made sure it didn’t get to a Game 6 in 2014 as they dominated the Heat in five games to win their fifth championship. Tim Duncan, who many assumed would retire after his fifth title, now enters the 2014-15 season looking for a ring for his other hand now. The Spurs brought
The return of LeBron James to the Cleveland Cavaliers has been lauded enough in terms of the impact that it means for the franchise for the upcoming NBA season. What has been lost in this is exactly how much this means for the Northeast Ohio community, specifically that in his hometown of Akron, OH. [Read more…]
The NBA has been considering, or at least entertaining the idea of finding ways for the regular season to be shorter in some way to help prevent its valuable players from being too worn out. So in Sunday’s upcoming preseason contest between the Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets, the league will try out a 44-minute game for the first time ever just as a simple sample to evaluate. Here are the details, from ESPN: The contest will be four minutes shorter than
Four months have passed since the masterpiece was finished with a throwback flourish that had purists spouting superlatives and invoking sacred basketball institutions like the Red Holzman Knicks, the Jack Ramsay Blazers . . . Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, James Naismith. The Spurs joined the pantheon of great teams when they mutilated the Heat dynasty in the 2014 NBA Finals, playing a brand of team basketball that Naismith would have found ideal, even if it was unimaginable when he invented the