(Readers: This post originally ran April 18, shortly after I cast my NBA award ballot. It is relevant today because I was the only voter to put LeBron James on the Second Team, behind Kevin Durant and Blake Griffin.-CS) Wow, you sure can catch a lot of grief when you tell folks you voted LeBron James to 2nd Team All-NBA. I put that word out on Twitter at midweek, and I have been fending off venom ever since. Hey folks: Here’s the
It’s a good thing NBA media members voted for Gregg Popovich as Coach of the Year. Because if the San Antonio Spurs win the championship, we won’t want to look back at the voting 20 years from now and wonder how the man who pulled off perhaps the greatest single-season coaching job in league history didn’t win the award. I didn’t believe Popovich was the Coach of the Year. I thought the award should have gone to Jeff Hornacek of Phoenix, who
I have always pondered the challenge of being an NBA coach, so here’s my attempt at coming up with three different key strategies for both coaches and teams to implement if they are going to win the championship. I personally feel that San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich is not only the premier coach in the game today, I actually believe he is one of the greatest leaders of any sport in the history of our country. On the other side you have Miami’s
When the NBA Finals tip off Thursday night, each team will have one member of the All-NBA Teams announced Wednesday. The Miami Heat will have forward LeBron James, who was joined on the All-NBA First Team by forward Kevin Durant of Oklahoma City, center Joakim Noah and guards James Harden of Houston and Chris Paul of the LA Clippers. Durant, the NBA MVP, was the lone unanimous choice with 125 votes. James came up one vote shy. The San Antonio Spurs will
Lance Stephenson is a free agent enigma and a polarizing topic amongst league executives. Stephenson, a tantalizing talent who led the league in triple-doubles (5), showed signs of immaturity during the playoffs with his antics toward LeBron James, leaving several executives split on his free agency value. The general consensus is Stephenson could command a yearly salary ranging from the $5.3 million non-taxpayer mid-level exception to as high as $10 million. The mid-level exception indicates concern over Stephenson’s maturity level, while the $10
Will this be the third time NBA fans are treated to this scene? Home Court Advantage? Some in the media are falling too much in love with the regular season standings and statistics, as if the regular season really mattered to either of the teams in the NBA Finals. Some pundits are touting the San Antonio Spurs as being a superior road team because they had the best road record (30-11) during the regular season. That is bunk. First of
OK, folks. We are going to have some fun with this column. About a million different NBA prop bets are out, and I am going to run through a bunch them and make picks on each of them. Some of these props will be easier to find at offshore sites rather than in Vegas, but we are writing for a worldwide audience here, and those of us in America are slightly jealous that our brethren in other countries who can make wagers
A rematch between the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals seemed questionable before the playoffs began with the West looking so unpredictable and the Miami Heat not looking quite like the consistent championship team they’re supposed to be with Dwyane Wade’s health in question once again. When the Spurs struggled mightily against the Dallas Mavericks in the first round, it made it that much harder to figure out who might come out of the West. Once they got