There are few things that indicate futility more than when a coach loses the connection with his team. When that happens there is nothing to fix, nothing to do, nowhere to turn. It is over. The wonder of team sports is the coming together of a group of people willing to put personal agendas aside for the common goal of winning. When that happens you truly get a whole bigger than the sum of the parts, and magic happens. When people
Chris Bosh’s season may be slowing to a halt as doctors suspect he may have a pulmonary embolism. Just days after participating in his 10th NBA All-Star weekend, Miami Heat center Chris Bosh is now out indefinitely. Bosh was said to have been suffering some pain over the weekend while on vacation with teammate Dwyane Wade and their families. When the pain continued into the week, he saw team doctors who sent him to the hospital on Wednesday for tests. Initial
Several stars in the NBA have their own shoes made just for them. LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, Damian Lillard, Stephen Curry, and soon to be Russell Westbrook. The shoe deals seem to be plenty these days, and that’s due to the fact that several players are reaching stardom on new levels in the past couple of years that have warranted such privileges. [Read more…]
Why do doubts remain about the Atlanta Hawks? The Hawks are 40-8. They have lost twice since Thanksgiving. They have beaten Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Dallas, the LA Clippers, Cleveland again, Portland, the Clippers again, Memphis, Washington, Toronto, Chicago again, Oklahoma City and Portland again. The Hawks just completed the best undefeated month in NBA history, going 17-0 in January. They have won 19 consecutive games, the fifth-longest streak in league annals. They have won 12 straight road games. What seems to be the
LOS ANGELES – The numbers make the pro-side of the argument difficult, even for a determined apologist. Forty-one games played; 123 either missed or to be missed. A shooting percentage of .410. Exactly 865 points scored. For those two-year totals, the Lakers will have invested almost $55 million in salary on Kobe Bryant. They still owe him $25 million for next season. But if you believe the Lakers no longer think it was good business to sign Bryant to a two-year contract
Every team wants a player in the NBA All-Star Game. Just this week, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban complained that the voting system is “absolutely, positively broken” and lobbied for the NBA to provide additional roster spots for reserves who may have been overlooked by the fans. His reasoning was that leading vote-getter Stephen Curry received a mere 1.5 million votes, which is a miniscule total when you consider the global, electronic balloting process. As he often does, Cuban made some good
One is gone for the season;one is barely making a peep as his career closes in Memphis. Kobe Bryant and Vince Carter. Shall we compare them? Of course, there is no comparing anyone to Bryant as an equal … because there is no in in the NBA who is his equal. But when we talk about superstars and what they are, and what they might have been, there is a place for comparing Vince and Kobe. [Read more…]
There’s a moment in the classic 1997 episode of Seinfeld, “The Little Jerry,” when Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer are crammed into the back of Marcelino’s store, about to send Kramer’s rooster (which he named “Little Jerry Seinfeld”) into a cockfight. Elaine, meanwhile, has been dating a man she thinks is bald by choice before learning he’s actually losing his hair. He asks her to marry him, before the follicular end comes. “Well, it’ll be a couple of years before he’s completely