Word on the street today is louder than ever that Carmelo Anthony wants out of New York. How do we know this? Marc Berman and Frank Isola are writing it hard in the New York tabloids, and both of those fellas are as plugged into their team as any beat writers in North America. You can bristle at Isola’s anti-Berman’s tweets – a constant source of amusement for anyone who follows the Knicks – and you can bristle at Berman’s wardrobe, which
How good are the Phoenix Suns? Coming into the season, most wondered if they could win 19 games this year. After their 107-88 blowout victory over the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday, they are an impressive 19-11 – just one game behind the Clippers for the Pacific division lead. In comparison, they didn’t get to 19 wins until February 26 last season. [Read more…]
The NBA admitted Thursday that Blake Griffin should not have been ejected from Wednesday’s LA Clippers-Golden State game. “After a league review of the Clippers-Warriors game, we have come to the conclusion that Blake Griffin should not have been ejected from the game,” NBA president of basketball operations Rod Thorn said in a statement. “A common foul should have been called on Griffin for initially attempting to dislodge the Warriors’ Andrew Bogut and a technical foul should have been assessed to Bogut
In his stated effort to upstage Knicks owner James Dolan, Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov has become him. Like Dolan, Prokhorov desperately wants an NBA championship. Like Dolan, he has pursued that desperation with financial abandon, giving his GM an open checkbook. Like Dolan, he has overspent on overvalued big names. Like Dolan, he has mortgaged his team’s future by giving away multiple draft picks. And like Dolan, he appears headed down the abyss. In two months, the Nets have gone from contenders with
In Kobe Bryant’s fourth game back from an injured achilles, the Los Angeles Lakers played against the Charlotte Bobcats on the road in the Time Warner Arena and escaped with an 88-85 win—their first since his return. The win will, perhaps, allow Pau Gasol to continue their road trip with his pride intact. At least, that might be the impression you’d get from Golden State Warriors center Festus Ezeli’s reaction to a Josh McRoberts dunk Saturday night. [Read more…]
Every now and then I appear on the BBC World Service, which is broadcast in about 1,800 different countries — or something just short of that number. I aways enjoy explaining the NBA to the Brits, because their knowledge of basketball still trails their knowledge of cricket by something like 1,800 percent. In this appearance, we discussed the lack of rivalries in today’s NBA — which is astonishing to the British because teams can play each other as many as 11 times
Kevin Garnett accurately described what everyone thought after he and Paul Pierce battled his former coach, Doc Rivers. “It was a bit weird,” said Garnett. You know what’s even more weird? Watching Pierce come off the bench in back-to-back games for the first time in his career and Garnett on a minutes restriction comparable to a role player. [Read more…]
When the Los Angeles Clippers acquired J.J. Redick and Jared Dudley over the summer via trade, many around the league felt that the team surrounded Chris Paul and Blake Griffin with the perfect pieces: solid role players with exceptional touch from the outside to provide great spacing for both stars. Paul would pick defenses apart with so many options to choose from, while Griffin would have all the room he could ask for to operate in the low block. For the