We don’t get many seasons like this in the NBA, with so many trades happening so early before the deadline. It used to be that GMs would hold out until the last minute, and then the trade queue at NBA headquarters would get jammed at 2:59 p.m. on deadline day. But this year? Chances are it’ll be more quiet than usual. Rajon Rondo has already be traded. Jameer Nelson has already been traded twice. The Cleveland Cavaliers solved their problems in
Why do doubts remain about the Atlanta Hawks? The Hawks are 40-8. They have lost twice since Thanksgiving. They have beaten Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Dallas, the LA Clippers, Cleveland again, Portland, the Clippers again, Memphis, Washington, Toronto, Chicago again, Oklahoma City and Portland again. The Hawks just completed the best undefeated month in NBA history, going 17-0 in January. They have won 19 consecutive games, the fifth-longest streak in league annals. They have won 12 straight road games. What seems to be the
LOS ANGELES – The numbers make the pro-side of the argument difficult, even for a determined apologist. Forty-one games played; 123 either missed or to be missed. A shooting percentage of .410. Exactly 865 points scored. For those two-year totals, the Lakers will have invested almost $55 million in salary on Kobe Bryant. They still owe him $25 million for next season. But if you believe the Lakers no longer think it was good business to sign Bryant to a two-year contract
It’s a long season in the NBA, as 82 games can seem like they last forever. For rookies, those 82 games can’t go by quick enough for a number of reasons. Of course, there’s the fact that they’re probably extremely nervous to be playing professionally in front of thousands of fans and against the best competition in the world, wanting to get the first-year jitters and rookie slumps behind them. [Read more…]
Every team wants a player in the NBA All-Star Game. Just this week, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban complained that the voting system is “absolutely, positively broken” and lobbied for the NBA to provide additional roster spots for reserves who may have been overlooked by the fans. His reasoning was that leading vote-getter Stephen Curry received a mere 1.5 million votes, which is a miniscule total when you consider the global, electronic balloting process. As he often does, Cuban made some good
One is gone for the season;one is barely making a peep as his career closes in Memphis. Kobe Bryant and Vince Carter. Shall we compare them? Of course, there is no comparing anyone to Bryant as an equal … because there is no in in the NBA who is his equal. But when we talk about superstars and what they are, and what they might have been, there is a place for comparing Vince and Kobe. [Read more…]
There’s a moment in the classic 1997 episode of Seinfeld, “The Little Jerry,” when Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer are crammed into the back of Marcelino’s store, about to send Kramer’s rooster (which he named “Little Jerry Seinfeld”) into a cockfight. Elaine, meanwhile, has been dating a man she thinks is bald by choice before learning he’s actually losing his hair. He asks her to marry him, before the follicular end comes. “Well, it’ll be a couple of years before he’s completely
Thursday afternoon’s tweet from the Los Angeles Lakers says it all: Kobe Bryant has suffered another injury. [Read more…]