About an hour after I had rolled into the Audi Garage next to the American Airlines Center in Dallas, and about four hours after I left San Antonio, where I had watched the Mavericks lose Game 7 of the first round of the 2014 playoffs to the eventual NBA champion Spurs, members of the Mavs spoke to the media. On the floor of their practice court, Dirk Nowitzki spoke about the disappointment of that game after taking the Spurs to the
Ebola. It is becoming a topic of polarizing opinions and tragic statistics. In Africa, the disease is a full-blown outbreak, having infected nearly 9,000 and killed roughly 4,500. Here, in the United States, the subject of ebola is one that evokes fear, if not complete panic. First there were the two Americans who were flown into Atlanta, headquarters to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), to be treated at Emory Hospital. Both were miraculously cured and released. There have, since, been two
With training camp slated to begin in just under a week, players and teams are putting in the work necessary to get ready for the long, 82-game grind of a season. There are plenty of new faces in new places, and a number of fascinating story lines to follow as the season progresses. One team with a plethora of new faces is the Dallas Mavericks. Owner Mark Cuban and his team had quite an interesting and successful offseason. [Read more…]
The summer of 2014 is remembered in Houston for what might have been. The most noteworthy names to highly consider forming a “Big 3” with James Harden and Dwight Howard were Carmelo Anthony and Chris Bosh, but former Rocket point guard Kyle Lowry is firmly on that star-studded list as well. In a wonderful feature by Grantland’s Jonathan Abrams on Lowry’s career-long search for trust, Abrams outlines Lowry’s falling out with Houston head coach Kevin McHale in the 2011-12 season and the subsequent
After a few offseason moves that made Chandler Parsons the Dallas Mavericks’ highest paid player, they are finally showcasing him in a team related commercial. He and point guard Devin Harris are featured in a promo for North Texas Giving Day, an online giving event that provides nonprofits with an opportunity to get public exposure and gain new donors, resulting in a lot of money being raised for local nonprofits. [Read more…]
With about six weeks remaining until the Oct. 31 contract extension deadline for 2011 draftees, Klay Thompson and the Warriors are in a bit of a standoff. He wants a maximum-salary contract or close to it, while the team would undoubtedly love to find a friendlier number for their cap future. maybe something like the $44 million, four-year deal they struck with backcourt mate Stephen Curry two years ago. On the surface, Thompson isn’t a max player yet. Though known first for
Some NBA owners have a tendency to hold grudges when the star players on their team decide that it’s time to abandon ship, so it was no surprise when Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor provided a pretty good example of having some bad feelings towards Kevin Love when asked to speak about his former franchise player. To summarize, Taylor more or less said the following about Love: he’s the third best player on the Cleveland Cavaliers, he is injury prone, doesn’t
In the two-plus decades since the 1992 Olympics, the Dream Team has been celebrated and romanticized. References to it are wistful and reverential. The Dream Team represents perfection. In the basketball world, it was the greatest. How easily we forget that the basketball power structure in the United States thought the idea of having NBA players in the Olympics was repulsive. At the 1989 vote in Munich to allow NBA players in the Olympics, the U.S. organization (later USA Basketball), which