It was a beautiful Saturday today, at least in the Northeast, and if you spent the day enjoying it, you might have missed one of the craziest days in recent NBA history. We got the entire life cycle of a rumor. It was great. It’s a good argument for staying in the house all day endlessly refreshing every basketball news site. Not that I do that myself or anything. And oh yeah, the Finals are still happening, and they’re shaping up
It’s a bad time to be a coach in the NBA. Six of the sixteen coaches whose teams made the playoffs just a couple months ago are no longer with their teams, and the future of a seventh is still in question. Is that really how it’s supposed to go? Jim Boylan in Milwaukee is one thing, the Bucks had a losing record and only made the playoffs because the rest of the East was miserable, but George Karl? Vinny
When the Denver Nuggets shockingly fired George Karl soon after their first-round exit from the playoffs, many around the league questioned the hasty decision. How can you fire a coach that just won Coach of the Year? It was reported by various reporters that some of the reasons for letting him go after winning 57 games in the regular season included the following: Karl’s demand for a new long-term contract became unbearable, they blamed him for losing to the Golden State
Not long ago, Jason Kidd still had two seasons left on his contract with the Knicks. Now it looks like he’ll still be in New York, but not with the Knicks, and not as a player. News came seemingly non-stop over the last 48 hours with Kidd going from a long-shot pipe dream to a potential candidate to an actual candidate to a clear-frontrunner. That’s the way things go in the NBA sometimes. If you take a day off, you could miss
A week ago, one of the best floor generals in the history of the NBA in Jason Kidd decided to hang it up after realizing his limitations at the age of 40. When you retire from a career you’ve held onto for 19 years, you’d think some kind of nice vacation to a fancy island is in order. Instead, news has broken that Kidd has become a real candidate to become the next head coach of the Brooklyn Nets. Does
Brian Shaw won five championships in Los Angeles with the Lakers, three as a player and two as an assistant coach. Clippers general manager Gary Sacks likes him, and Lamar Odom has endorsed his hiring. Makes sense, right? Well, nothing ever completely makes sense with the Clippers, where Donald Sterling rules the roost. [Read more…]
While the Rockets have made their intentions to pursue Dwight Howard loud and clear, one other superstar should also expect to get a call from Houston on July 1. Jonathan Fiegen of the Houston Chronicle reports that the Rockets have made detailed preparations to pursue Chris Paul in free agency. Howard has long been the presumed top target for Houston but one source familiar with the team’s plans insists that Paul is just as much in play for Houston as Howard
Every professional sport lives by the famous adage, “Coaches are hired to be fired.” It is well known that when things go south, it is the coach and not the players who get the blame and the ax. In the NBA, with 15 players collectively making somewhere north of $60 million in salary and being almost impossible to replace, it is no wonder that the coach and his assistants are the usual fall guys for poor performance. Few jobs carry so