It’s time for people to start taking notice of the rejuvenated Manu Ginobili and his impressive start to the season. San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich had good reason to rest Ginobili on Thursday night in Golden State. After all, through eight December games, Ginobili has averaged 14 points, 5.4 assists and 4.0 rebounds. Those numbers are impressive for any bench player. When you consider that Ginobili has put them up in just 22.6 minutes per game, it ranks him among the
Trade season is officially upon us. Of course, don’t tell the Kings: they’ve already gone out and gotten Rudy Gay and Derrick Williams. And the Raptors have dealt Gay and been very involved in discussions around Kyle Lowry. One thing we do know: Omer Asik should be on the move any day now. But nobody knows where to. The Knicks were interested in dealing for Lowry, but that may have fizzled out. So what will they do next? Peter May has a few
One year ago, the Knicks had the best record in the East and the second-best in the NBA. Today, they’re fighting to stay above the absolute bottom-feeders. So where do they go from here? Up is the only answer, right? Well, probably not too far up. Of the 16 teams that were in playoff position on December 14th last year, 14 made the playoffs. The only teams to crash the party were the Lakers and Rockets, who got the bottom two seeds in
I’m not saying “pity the weekend blogger,” but yesterday we got the announcement of Kobe Bryant’s return. Today? That’s, as they say, yesterday’s news. Sometimes big news breaks on the weekend, and this is certainly by no means a slow news day, but Kobe was only going to announce his return once, and of course he couldn’t do it on one of my blogging days. Regardless, that’s news we all saw coming. [Read more…]
Earlier tonight, I managed to catch a good deal of the Warriors-Kings game. It was a tough one to pick a rooting interest in: the Warriors have been “my team” since my family left Toronto in 1999 (for Baltimore, and I’m not going to root for a team from DC), but Greivis Vasquez is my favorite basketball player by a pretty wide distance, and I’ve grown accustomed to always rooting for Greivis’ team. Also, their new coach has a great
New York Knicks guard JR Smith has a nefarious history of staying up late at parties and clubs. [Previous TOTD: JR Smith Accused of Partying Too Much] That very history makes his recent Footlocker commercial appearance all the more humorous and lighthearted. [Read more…]
Coming into this season, I had the New York Knicks taking a step backward in my Sheridan Hoops preview column. But not this far back. New York is tied for the second-worst record in the Eastern Conference with a 3-8 mark and J.R. Smith, arguably the team’s second best player, is in crisis mode. “They say it’s too early to panic,” Smith said after Wednesday’s hard-fought overtime loss to Indiana, the team’s sixth straight home setback. “Me personally, I panic. I don’t
NEW YORK- One of the last things you want to hear from an NBA team is acknowledging a lack of effort, but that’s exactly what you got from the New York Knickerbockers on Saturday night. It came from the coach. It came from the players. The malodorous negativity wafted through the Knicks’ locker room after a 110-90 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday night. It was New York’s fifth straight loss at home as the Knicks fell to 3-6 overall. “We’re