BROOKLYN — Not so long ago, what defined a tumultuous day for the Atlanta Hawks would have had something to do with ownership. Or management. Not a perp walk. So for the Hawks to do what they did Wednesday night — a gutsy road win over a probable playoff team — speaks to their fortitude as a team, a darned good team. Just hours after reserves Thabo Sefolosha and Pero Antic were released from police custody – the pair was arrested outside a
What do James Harden, Stephen Curry, Russell Westbrook and LeBron James have in common? They’re all legitimate MVP candidates, of course. But what else does that Awesome Foursome have in common? In a potential playoff series against the defending NBA champion San Antonio Spurs, they can all expect to see an individual matchup with Kawhi Leonard. In case you’ve been transfixed by March Madness, the Spurs are looking like a championship contender. Again. If you want some perspective, my son Andrew was born
There’s only one NBA game on Monday, not originally scheduled. The Blazers are in Brooklyn to make up for the Jan. 26 blizzard cancellation. LaMarcus Aldridge, Nicolas Batum and Chris Kaman did not even make the trip. [Read more…]
If you were to browse through the list of NBA champions since 1980, you’d find that there is just one notable outlier to the rule that suggests title contenders need a superstar to win it all — the 2003-04 Pistons. While that Detroit team featured four players who were either already multi-time All-Stars or went on to become multi-time All-Stars later in their careers, no one would have mistaken any of those Pistons players as the prototypical “superstars” entering the 2004 postseason. [Read more…]
The Atlanta Hawks’ loss to the New Orleans Pelicans may have ended their 19-game winning streak, but the loss didn’t negate their January of historic proportions. The Hawks finished the month of January with an NBA record 17 wins and zero losses. The accomplishment was honored Wednesday evening as the NBA announced its conference players of the month. [Read more…]
The All-Star reserve selections were finally announced on Thursday and as expected, there were predictable picks to go with inevitable omissions. The selected are as follows: West: Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul, Klay Thompson, LaMarcus Aldridge, Tim Duncan and James Harden. East: Jimmy Butler, Al Horford, Paul Millsap, Jeff Teague, Kyrie Irving, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. [Read more…]
On Thursday night, Al Horford was named as a reserve for the Eastern Conference All-Star team. Also chosen as reserves were teammates Jeff Teague and Paul Millsap. But, instead of being with those teammates to celebrate their selections, Horford was hanging out with another teammate at a movie premiere. [Read more…]
Every team wants a player in the NBA All-Star Game. Just this week, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban complained that the voting system is “absolutely, positively broken” and lobbied for the NBA to provide additional roster spots for reserves who may have been overlooked by the fans. His reasoning was that leading vote-getter Stephen Curry received a mere 1.5 million votes, which is a miniscule total when you consider the global, electronic balloting process. As he often does, Cuban made some good