When you want to hear a candid opinion about any given subject, there may not be a better NBA personnel to listen to than Sir Charles Barkley. The Van Gundy brothers are up there as well, but Barkley just has a way of grabbing you by the balls about what he has to say. He will be honest about anyone, even if it’s about his best friend Michael Jordan, who – as you’ll find out below – doesn’t exactly appreciate the
It’s always intriguing to read the minds of general managers of the NBA: they are the ones who produce the teams we watch, afterall. NBA.com’s annual GM Survey was released on Monday and predictably, the Heat and LeBron James were on top of many of the winning categories. Along the way, though, you’ll find some interesting – if not somewhat funny (see “Who will win the 2012-2013 MVP” section) – votes that went to places you may or may not expect.
(This is another in a series of 30 guest columns that will run in October, when optimism reigns supreme across the NBA. The theme will be “Five Reasons to Feel Positive About … ” We encourage you to follow the authors on Twitter and visit their sites. – CS) The Bobcats of last season were 100 percent tragedy. They were an utter disaster on the court, making NBA history with the worst season winning percentage. Thankfully for them, the shortened season
Even for hoops addicts, watching NBA preseason games presents a challenge. The baseball playoffs are under way, the college football and NFL seasons are in full swing, and there is this small matter of a presidential election. There is no subscription package for the preseason. League Pass takes a pass until the regular season starts later this month. So the only way you can watch games right now is on NBA TV, which isn’t part of the basic package of a number
What is it about this desire to compare LeBron James to that of Michael Jordan? Clearly, James has a ways to go before you can put him in the “greatest of all time” category. This is not to say that he won’t get there – he is certainly on pace to put up historic numbers when all is said and done – but pitting him against Jordan right now just doesn’t seem very fair, given how much more Jordan has
Flopping has been a major issue in the NBA for quite some time, especially when the playoffs are in session. Players like Manu Ginobili, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Paul Pierce and a countless number of others have lived off of faking out the officials with sneaky tactics that have gone unpaid for, but that could all change as soon as the upcoming season. See what rules the NBA may implement in order to cut down on flopping as much as
There are three NBA teams with new coaches for the start of the 2012-13 season, and no one is expecting any of them to work miracles. In fact, ownership and management appear to be expecting just the opposite. The Charlotte Bobcats and Orlando Magic both are undergoing massive rebuilding projects and don’t seem overly concerned with winning. Both teams have hired inexperienced coaches with strong backgrounds in player development, which means they also have strong backgrounds in patience. It remains to be
The Minnesota Timberwolves made some serious roster adjustments over the summer, all for the better. The most notable move was the acquisition of a revitalized Brandon Roy, but they also got a huge upgrade at small forward by obtaining Andrei Kirilenko and signed the likes of Chase Budinger, Alexey Shved, Greg Stiemsma and Dante Cunningham. As Kevin Love would tell you though, the real best part may have been “cleaning out the bad blood in the locker room”, and he