The biggest story line of the 2013 NBA Draft was supposed to be about who would go as the No. 1 pick and where Nerlens Noel would end up. It looked to lean that way when the Cleveland Cavaliers went with Anthony Bennett – a surprise to many – and Noel shockingly dropped all the way down to the New Orleans Pelicans at No. 6. The biggest bombshell of the night, however, came from Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports: [Read more…]
Let’s preface this scouting report with some harsh realities for Trey Burke: A point guard renaissance has taken over the NBA. The point guards whom we typically think of as “league average,” and who probably would have been considered league average several years ago, are actually something quite different these days. Take a player like Jrue Holiday as a prime example of how deep the position has become. I wrote a raving column about Holiday’s development in late March and prematurely anointed him as
Mark Jackson is the coach of the Golden State Warriors. If you ask him, though, he will probably tell you that he is, first and foremost, a pastor. Generally speaking, Jackson is a good man. He respects all of his players and treats them as equals. He would never speak ill towards any of them and never utters a curse word – not easy to do when you’re involved with the game of basketball. [Read more…]
Hey, how about those road teams in the playoffs, hunh? It was a lost weekend that would have made Ray Milland proud. I spent huge chunks of Saturday and Sunday at an AAU tournament and missed several games. When I finally got home and turned on the TV, I wished I was back at the AAU tournament. If you didn’t watch the NBA playoffs this weekend, you didn’t miss much. All eight road teams lost Game 1, the first time that has happened
They say all good things must come to an end. This is the final edition of the Most Improved Player Rankings and I— I’m sorry … I … told myself I wasn’t going to cry. (sniffle) It’s been an amazing run here at the Most Improved Player Rankings. We’ve talked about donut races, wildebeests, and Andy Enfield’s wife. We’ve made fun of just about every basketball announcer out there and also Jim Nantz. But now it’s finally time to get down to the business
Danilo Gallinari’s season-ending injury this week put the Denver Nuggets in a club whose membership seems to get larger every day. Playoff teams missing key players. There are very few teams who will be at full strength when the playoffs start two weekends from now. But two of those teams are last year’s NBA Finals combatants, which could make for a relatively mundane postseason. [Read more…]
There are less than three weeks left in the NBA season. Three weeks. And I’m having a breakdown. It’s up to me to rank the Most Improved Players in the league this season, but I might as well be tasked with coming up with the goofiest Lopez brother, the dumbest “Real World” contestant, or the craziest old lady on “The View.” Here’s the thing: I just can’t decide which of the candidates have risen above the rest. There are so many players
As the season winds down, writers and reporters will have a tendency to ask players about the future ahead of them. Some – like Andre Iguodala and Jose Calderon, as you’ll see below – may be asked how they’ll go about free agency, while others (see Ty Lawson) will be asked about how they may match up against certain teams when the playoffs come around. For Washington Wizards point guard John Wall, the main questions continue to be about his value to