The defending champion Dallas Mavericks got booed off their home court – and that happened before halftime. The L.A. Lakers lost in Sacramento for the first time in more than three years. The Chicago Bulls, lost, too, while the Nets, Raptors and Bobcats opened what promises to be a weird, wild, compressed NBA season with victories that left them all 1-0. Scratching your head? That’s OK. It’s allowed after these first 48 hours of NBA basketball that we all waited so long for are
Day after Christmas a downer for Lakers, Celtics fans
// Did you get what you wanted? If you are a long-suffering Clippers or Knicks fan, you sure did. If you are a Mavericks fan, you sorta did (a banner), sorta didn’t (a shellacking). If you are a member of the tribes known as Lakers Nation and Celtics Nation, no you did not! Today dawned with a post-Christmas hangover in a lot of places where folks had been accustomed to having their wishes fulfilled and their dreams come true. The Lakers were up six
Nets acquire Okur from Utah after learning Lopez is out
Gotta hand it to Billy King. He moved fast on what had been a day of devastating news. The general manager of the New Jersey Nets reacted swiftly and may have gotten an unbelievable bargain by acquiring center Mehmet Okur from the Utah Jazz for the paltry price of a second-round draft pick. This came just a couple hours after the Nets announced that center Brook Lopez had suffered a stress fracture of the fifth metacarpal in his right foot that will
Wednesday night’s NBA highlights
By now you’ve probably heard that Kobe Bryant sat out last night’s game against the hallway rivals, the Clippers, because of a torn ligament in his right wrist. And surely y’all remember that cheap shot that Andrew Bynum delivered to J.J. Berea in last year’s playoff sweep, which resulted in a five-game suspension that Bynum will begin serving on Christmas Day. So the big guy is out until the new year, the Mamba is out until nobody knows when, and as Mark
Heisler Column: Taking LA’s other team seriously—the Lakers, we mean
LOS ANGELES — Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses… I know, it’s the inscription on the Statue of Liberty. They’re also thinking of inscribing it on the statue of Blake Griffin and Chris Paul going up outside Staples Center to welcome Laker fans fleeing the oppression of paying $2,700 to sit courtside for geriatric basketball. Wait a moment, am I sleeping? It was all just a dream! It looked so real! They had an exhibition game and the Clips, with five
Last night’s NBA highlights
From Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times: “The Clippers had plenty of fun, turning an exhibition game into an exhibition. Chris Paul wore a Clippers uniform for the first time and had 17 points, nine assists and seven rebounds, showing why the Lakers wanted him too. Chauncey Billups also looked like a great pickup, scoring 23 points in 20 minutes after being claimed off waivers from New York last week. “It was a little extra for me personally,” said Paul, acquired from New
Chris Paul to Lakers or Clippers? 50-50
The news of the afternoon was that the Magic have ceased all Dwight Howard trade talks. We shall see how long that lasts. As I said on the radio in Orlando this morning, the winds are constantly changing on that particular trade front. Earlier today, a four-team trade seemed possible. I also went on the radio this afternoon on Fox Sports Radio WIST-Am in New Orleans just as it was being announced that Chris Paul was being excused from media day, and host
Heisler Column: David Stern as Charlton Heston
OK, what was that all about? With the conductor striking up the band but no parade in sight, last week in the NBA was like “Planet of the Apes,” with the one of the lost astronauts escaping from the ruling species and gaining his freedom, only to find he’s on post-nuclear-holocaust Earth! Not that David Stern vetoing the trade sending Chris Paul to the Lakers was as dramatic as Charlton Heston ranting, “You maniacs. You blew it all up. Damn you all