Last season, the Atlanta Hawks were one of the NBA’s best regular-season stories, winning 60 games. This season, they needed almost 60 games to remember what winning is. After their best season since moving to Atlanta nearly 50 years ago, the Hawks have spent most of this season spurting and sputtering. They got off to a 7-1 start, which many took as a good sign considering they were a measly 7-6 out of the gate last season. There was a six-game
I hope Oscar Robertson was watching Saturday night. I hope he saw Stephen Curry answer his ridiculous, attention-starved musings as definitively as possible. I hope he wasn’t too jaded to see Curry handle the ball in a way Robertson only wished he could. I hope his eyesight still works well enough to see from where Curry was launching – and making – his shots. And I hope Robertson and a number of NBA stars from bygone eras will just shut up and
Back during the 2014 Eastern Conference semifinals, Dwyane Wade and a few of his Miami Heat teammates were in the visiting locker room at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center preparing to go up against the Nets. Inevitably, the conversation shifted to the player they feared the most on the opposing team, Joe Johnson. Wade talked about how strong Johnson was, and other teammates agreed about how tough he was to guard. While LeBron James and Miami dispatched Brooklyn in five quick games, the
In case you didn’t notice, the transition into a new era for the San Antonio Spurs hit a milestone of sorts this past weekend. For the first time in 1,360 career games, Tim Duncan did not score. Coming off a three-game absence – one for rest and two due to knee soreness – the no-brainer Hall of Famer played just 13 minutes Saturday, missing all three of his shots and failing to get to the line. And it was no coincidence that in
Talk is cheap. Just ask the slumping Houston Rockets, whose locker room is starting to resemble a presidential candidates’ debate. “We’ve been talking,” slumping superstar James Harden said. “We’ve been doing too much talking.” “We’ve had a lot of heart-to-hearts,” coach Kevin McHale said. “As a matter of fact, we talk too much. Talking doesn’t win basketball games.” Last season, the Rockets surprised more than a few folks by crashing the Western Conference finals, a spot thought to be reserved for the San
As a personnel man, Stan Van Gundy has broken a lot of the so-called contemporary rules. Since being lured back to the NBA by Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores in May 2014, Van Gundy has not exactly followed the usual NBA blueprint in rebuilding the once-proud franchise, which has not been to the playoffs in six years. Van Gundy has flat-out waived four veterans with fully guaranteed contracts, accumulating nearly $32 million in dead money to be paid over the next five
If you take a quick look at the contract extensions given to the 2012 NBA draft class, nothing seems extraordinary. Eight eligible players received extensions. While collusion conspiracy theorists might point out that it’s two less than the 2011 class, it also is one more than the 2010 class and the same number as the 2009 class. As in previous seasons, the top pick got a five-year max deal and at least one other lottery pick also received a max deal of
The familiar days of Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade leading the shooting guard rankings are over. In fact, Bryant, Wade and Monta Ellis are the only players over 30 to crack our top 10 rankings at the position. James Harden, Klay Thompson and Jimmy Butler are the new – and younger – top dogs at the position. DeMar DeRozan, Bradley Beal and Khris Middleton are three rising young stars listed that could vault within the top five by next season. Shooting guard is thin