Thanks to all those who voted in our poll last week asking whether Kevin Durant or LeBron James is the stronger MVP candidate. The final results were astonishingly close, with Durant taking over Tuesday night as he was scoring 42 points against Houston and winning the poll with 47.10 percent of the vote to James’ 46.33. Is this a preview of what the actual voting will be like? It probably was, and the challenge for the NBA front office in late April and
It was a day of surprises in the NBA. The Chicago Bulls beat a healthy Miami Heat team, the Oklahoma City Thunder fell to the Los Angeles Lakers but most surprising of all: Jodie Meeks scored 42. Yes, you read that correctly. The Lakers guard made 11-of-18 field goals and was red-hot from the free-throw line, hitting all 14 of his attempts. Somewhere near the bottom of all the game reports will be mention of Kevin Durant, he had a pretty good game,
It’s a two-man race. We all can agree on that, right? But who is the more worthy candidate: LeBron James? Or Kevin Durant? This week, we let y’all have your say as we post a poll within this post. You can even vote for somebody else if you so choose, but the majority of folks will vote for the player who leads the league in scoring or the player who went off for 61 points on Monday night. Once you cast your ballot,
Most around the league believe that the conversation for this season’s MVP is already over: It’s Kevin Durant’s award to lose. While that’s probably true, it appears LeBron James may be interested in making a big run in the second half to make things more interesting for the voters. James has been dominant this season as usual, shooting an unheard-of 58 percent from the field. His true shooting percentage is at 65.8 percent – better than Durant’s 63.6 percent – despite the
If you are looking for someone to bail on the Thunder because of their recent three-game losing streak, you are looking in the wrong place. The temptation around the country is to couple the return of Russell Westbrook and the three-game loss streak, and to draw a correlation between the two. And the other temptation when it comes to the Thunder is to bash Kendrick Perkins, the least-productive starting center, in terms of offense, in the entire Western Conference. Well, sorry to be
The Oklahoma City seem to be back on track after a rocky start when Russell Westbrook returned to the lineup after the All-Star break. [Read more…]
We asked this question in our last edition of the Rookie Rankings: Can a player from a 65-loss team win Rookie of the Year? The answer: One already has. In the 1999-2000 season, the Chicago Bulls were continuing their rebuilding following the second retirement of Michael Jordan and went 17-65. One of their few bright spots was a young power forward named Elton Brand, who averaged 20.1 points and 10.1 rebounds and shared Rookie of the Year honors with Houston’s Steve Francis. But
This keeps happening: I watch the Knicks lose, then I switch the channel and marvel at an ex-Knick leading his team. It happened again Monday night, when New York was losing to Dallas on Dirk Nowitzki’s lucky bounce at the buzzer, and one click of the remote control brought me to Clippers-Pelicans, where Jamal Crawford was burying another seven 3-pointers. Crawford was once a Knick. So was David Lee. And Zach Randolph. And Channing Frye. Any of those guys might make a nice