When I first sat down to write this piece, I immediately knew I had a battle between the player and the coach in me. The player in me wants a high motor, energy guy that takes no prisoners and would bite their own grandmother in the neck to win. The coach/general manager side of me wants guys that compete and play the right way, partly by making their teammates better. After 20 years of coaching, I learned rather early that I
The NBA season got started in a big way last night. Anthony Davis absolutely dominated the Orlando Magic, putting up 26 points, 17 rebounds, two assists, nine blocks and three steals, in which the New Orleans Pelicans defeated the Magic 101-84. The San Antonio Spurs hung their fifth title banner since 1999 and flashed their championship rings as they took on Dallas at home. The Spurs, playing without Tiago Splitter and Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard, outlasted the visiting Mavericks by a
The Denver Nuggets head into the 2014-15 season with ambitious goals. The Nuggets are built around a young core that won a franchise-record 57 games only two seasons ago, only to be derailed by injuries and eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. That early exit precipitated the departure of their GM and coach. Last season, the injuries kept coming and the Nuggets missed the playoffs for the first time since 2003, the year they drafted Carmelo Anthony. The core is
As our own Max Ogden reported in Monday night’s SH Blog, the Denver Nuggets and forward Kenneth Faried recently agreed on a five-year, $60 million extension that guarantees him no less than $52M. Thursday, in lieu of said extension and in response to #TBT (Throwback Thursday), he reminisced on his first contract in the NBA by sharing a 2011 draft photo on Twitter. [Read more…]
The Utah Jazz may not have many highlights this season, but they had one Monday night. The team signed five-year-old cancer patient JP Gibson to a one-day contract for the team’s scrimmage at EnergySolutions Arena in Salt Lake. He was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2012. It was mid-way through the third quarter when the crowd started to cheer. If you wanted to know why, you looked down. Rocking his full uniform and wristband, JP trotted on the court like
In case you missed it, Phoenix Suns forwards and twin brothers Markieff and Marcus Morris received contract extensions Monday. They joined Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star guard Kyrie Irving as the only players thus far from the 2011 NBA draft to receive extensions. Irving received a five-year maximum extension at the outset of the offseason and the Morris twins received four-year deals for $32 million and $20 million, respectively. There are as many as a dozen players from the 2011 draft whom you could
The week that doesn’t seem to be getting any better for the Atlanta Hawks continues on. [Read more…]
September 11th. It is a day that carries a lot of meaning in America. 13 years ago two hijacked airplanes crashed into the North and South Towers of the Word Trade Center in New York City, a third plane crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and a fourth plane crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. All told, the nearly 3,000 people died as a result of the attacks. In the years since, the area where the Twin Towers collapsed, known