NEW YORK — You won’t find either of these items in the box scores this morning: _ Waiting for Dwyane Wade outside the visitors’ locker room at Madison Square Garden yesterday afternoon was Vogue editor Anna Wintour, who had her family with her, her trademark sunglasses in her hands, was wearing a 10,000 watt smile and showing off bright eyes that could melt a glacier. Who knew? She made small talk with Wade about a book he is finishing writing, and he
Dwight Howard’s decision to stay another season didn’t turn out to be such good news for the Magic, after all? Gosh, who’d have thunk it? Before zeroing in on the Magic, I should note, in fairness, it’s hardly the NBA’s only dysfunctional organization. Actually, as a former GM noted the other day, dysfunction is the rule, not the exception. Take the Lakers. They’ve been as sharp as anyone despite a sibling rivalry between Jim and Jeannie Buss, with father Jerry supporting Jim and former coach
Shall the focus be on the individuals or the teams this morning? Well, the individual part takes less explanation, so let’s start there: Andrew Bynum grabbed 30 rebounds, yes, 30, in San Antonio on Wednesday night as the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Spurs 98-84 to become only the fifth visiting team to win at the At&T Center this season. The 30 boards were the most in an NBA game this season, shattering the mark of 25 shared by Dwight Howard and
The D-League had a record 50 players called up to the NBA this season, the league announced Tuesday. The D-League also set a record with 64 NBA player assignments. The records are pleasant news for the D-League but not surprising given the abbreviated NBA training camps and the proliferation of injuries in this truncated 66-game season. The previous records were 40 call-ups in the 2009-10 season and 56 assignments in the 2010-11 campaign. All 30 NBA teams currently have at least one player
A quick check of history reveals the saying “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” came from a 1785 Scottish poem by Robert Burns. Before translation, however, the original makes English sound like a foreign language: “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy!” After reading that, I was sure I had found the perfect introduction for a treatise on Lamar Odom’s career in Dallas. He may have
Lamar Odom is no longer with the Dallas Mavericks, according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com, who is always on top of all the latest news concerning the defending champions. The Mavericks and Odom spent Easter Sunday working out a separation that frees the struggling Odom to leave the team immediately without actually being released, Stein is reporting this morning. “The Mavericks and I have mutually agreed that it’s in the best interest of both parties for me to step away from the
Let’s go down the checklist, shall we? The Miami Heat are a team that suffers too many letdowns too consistently. Check. The Los Angeles Lakers cannot thrive when Andrew Bynum is a hothead. Check. The Oklahoma City Thunder scare the wits out of nobody. Check. The San Antonio Spurs are a machine. Check. Well, that was quite a Friday night in the NBA wasn’t it? And for different reasons than those that made Thursday such a special night. That’s the thing about this truncated, squished-together
LOS ANGELES — If we’ve yet to see if the road to the Finals still leads through Los Angeles, the road to Los Angeles still leads through the Lakers. The once-and-perhaps-future local kingpins beat their new local rivals, the Clippers, 113-108, moving 2 1/2 games ahead of them in the Pacific Division, locking up the season series, 2-1. Even if it was a Clipper home game, one-third of the crowd was rooting for the Lakers, greeting Andrew Bynum’s put-back for a 2-0