Remember when ESPN ranked Kobe Bryant as the 25th best player in the league? It sounds ridiculous, but what people didn’t realize was that the ranks had nothing to do with what the players did last season or in previous years. Rather, it was a projection of what the players may do in the upcoming season, with all things considered. In Bryant’s case, it was easy for analysts to bring down the expectations due to the unpredictability of his recovery from
In a teleconference last week, we asked NBA analysts Chris Webber and Greg Anthony to pick a Western Conference team which missed the playoffs last season but will make the playoffs this season. “Dallas, mainly because of Dirk Nowitzki,” Webber said. “He’ll be back healthy. What he does, with spacing, getting guys involved … We take his game for granted.” “I would go with the Pelicans,” Anthony said. “I think that’s a team that could make sizeable leaps and surprise a lot
This is the time of year where everyone and their mothers offer up a series of fearless prognostications about the upcoming NBA season. Here’s what I can tell you about my skills at predicting the future. If I was really any good at it, I wouldn’t be wasting it on the NBA season. And neither would anyone else. I am not reading tea leaves, interpreting tarot cards, gazing into crystal balls, holding seances, poring over analytics or buying classified information on the
The Heat are the best team in the NBA. I don’t think anyone would dispute that. [Read more…]
In today’s NBA news, Kobe Bryant is healing nicely from his torn Achilles, the Knicks-Nets rivalry is quickly gaining steam, and Dirk Nowitzki looks to be healthy heading into training camp. Black Mamba right on track According to the Los Angeles Daily News, future Hall-of-Famer Kobe Bryant has been running at 75 percent of his body weight on a treadmill, and looks to be a few weeks away from advancing to full-weight bearing running. This is music to the ears of all Lakers’
In a rather humdrum day in the NBA, here’s what’s making news: Lamar Odom was officially charged with DUI, the Warriors tweeted that Andrew Bogut is finally 100% healthy, and Lithuanian sensation Jonas Valanciunas shining in Eurobasket ’13 games. (We have a fresh update on Eurobasket ’13 from international editor A.J. Mitnick, who reports on a bunch of Eurostash players and Euroleague stars, along with who is sitting pretty (Italy, France) and who is not (Croatia, Greece — although they
Capping off a mediocrity-defining three-year stretch that saw them finish ninth, ninth and eighth in the East, the Milwaukee Bucks should have entered the summer of 2013 with change as the most obvious mandate. As in change everything. Despite a return to the playoffs and encouraging progress from big men Larry Sanders, Ersan Ilyasova and John Henson, the Bucks had little to show for their efforts last season, as coaching upheaval and a dysfunctional locker room motivated GM John Hammond to take a
After the high of winning the 2011 NBA championship, it didn’t take the Dallas Mavericks long to tumble back down. Between the much-publicized decision to let most of the championship team go, and the subsequent failure to obtain a top-tier free agent, Dallas is treading water – not quite ready to go under but with no real rescue in sight. This offseason, the Mavericks rolled the dice and brought in an eclectic combination of players through free agency that left much of