New Year’s Day brought the latest round of All-Star balloting returns, and it’s a safe bet that the five leading vote-getters in each conference will remain there. Stephen Curry and Kobe Bryant lead the West backcourt, with James Harden trailing Kobe by about 180,000 votes. In the West frontcourt, Anthony Davis is a shoo-in, with Blake Griffin and Marc Gasol second and third, and Tim Duncan trailing Gasol by 55,000 votes. In the East, John Wall and Dwyane Wade are No. 1
As you all know, LeBron James turned 30 on December 30th. He’s also played a considerably larger amount of minutes at his 30th birthday than Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan. So what does it all mean? His body is starting to feel the toll of all those minutes, as documented by him missing the Cavs’ past two games with leg and back soreness, as well as Friday night’s matchup against the Charlotte Hornets. [Read more…]
Every time someone summons up the nerve to ask, “What’s wrong with the Spurs?” the defending NBA champions have provided an emphatic response: Nothing. They did it in November, beating the Clippers and Warriors on the road on consecutive nights after losses to Houston and New Orleans. They did it again in December, beating the Clippers to end a four-game losing streak that included back-to-back excruciating triple-overtime losses. And they did it again last night, beating the Rockets for the first time
The Cleveland Cavaliers hosted the Detroit Pistons on Sunday evening and were blown out of the water. The Cavs lacked emotion, effort and chemistry throughout the entire game. Detroit went on to set a franchise record for three pointers made in a game in the 103-80 victory. They knocked down 17 of their 31 attempts from deep, a ridiculous 55% shooting. [Read more…]
Here is something no one thought would happen on Tuesday night: the Golden State Warriors – the best team in the league – lost to the bottom-feeding Los Angeles Lakers. Despite the fact that the Warriors were playing on the second night of a back-to-back on the road, the loss was simply inexplicable, given the fact that the Lakers were playing without their star Kobe Bryant. There had been much talk about Bryant feeling fatigued in recent games, so the shooting guard
I started on this mission to dig into One and Done with two main goals in mind. The first was to shed light on the issues in a fact-based way, free from rhetoric and bias. For years the entire policy has been discussed in a way that obscures the facts, not clarifies them. The second is to have the policy viewed as more than an argument over what age to draw the line restricting players from entering the league. While I
After going on an eight-game tear through the early parts of December, it looked as though the Cleveland Cavaliers were finally starting to figure things out. LeBron James took on more of a point forward’s role, Kyrie Irving became the go-to scorer, and Kevin Love was seemingly the third option on most nights. But just as things began to look much better, the tides have turned again recently, with the Cavaliers losing three of their last four contests, including Wednesday’s 127-98
Are NBA players likely to be better if they stay in college longer? Do NBA executives know the difference between a stud and a dud based on how long the player stays in school? There is anecdotal data everywhere, from Kobe Bryant to Korleone Young. But former NBA player and current SheridanHoops columnist Danny Schayes works for Intensity Corporation, a firm that did its own exhaustive study on early entry candidates for the NBA draft. Schayes has written a three-part series explaining the