Team USA had nothing to play for, and it showed. The Americans already had clinched Group C at the FIBA World Cup by winning their first four games. While other countries jockeyed to get into the knockout stage – or avoid certain opponents – Team USA was on cruise control in Friday’s game vs. war-torn Ukraine. The United States was playing for the fifth time in six nights and had a start time four hours earlier than Thursday. The combination of apathy
On Wednesday, we took a look at the biggest winners of the NBA offseason, a baker’s dozen of players, teams, coaches and even an executive who had a spectacular summer. Today, we look at the NBA offseason’s biggest losers, a collection of an unlucky 13 players, teams, coaches and even an owner. Yeah, take a wild guess at that last one. We also felt the need to include one team’s fan base, which truly deserves better than it has gotten over the
Patrick Beverley and Chandler Parsons once sat side-by-side as teammates… What are they now? Are they friends? Enemies? Or, to borrow a teenage colloquialism, frenemies? One might consider that a valid question considering the tweet that Houston Rockets guard Patrick Beverley sent his former teammate Chandler Parsons. @ChandlerParsons r u excited to play us or scared??? — Patrick Beverley (@patbev21) September 4, 2014 Parsons left the Rockets as a restricted free agent over the summer after Houston general manager Daryl Morey
Free agency has died down, the FIBA World Cup is in full swing and training camps open in less than a month, which makes it as good a time as any to look back at the NBA offseason and determine who were the biggest winners and losers. We didn’t limit ourselves to a round number. The list includes teams, coaches, players and even an executive. It is in alphabetical order and doesn’t have some secret analytic formula that determines the biggest
Free agent Jason Collins has yet to decide whether he will resume his NBA career. After making history last year as the first openly gay player to play professionally in any of the four major American sports leagues when he signed on to play with the Brooklyn Nets, he has since taken become a recognizable face in the ongoing battle for social peace and acceptance. In contrast, NFL rookie defensive end Michael Sam, who also publicly admitted to being homosexual just a
Perhaps the most bizarre story in the NBA is centered around Boston Celtics star Rajon Rondo. The two-time assists leader is rumored to have requested a trade, but the details are becoming murkier by the hour. It all started when ESPN’s Around The Horn uploaded a YouTube video of Jackie MacMullan telling Frank Isola that Rondo requested a trade. The video has since been removed, but Jay King of MassLive.com and Samer Kalaf of Deadspin both caught it and published the comments. Per King: When Frank Isola raised
You probably know by now that Kevin Durant isn’t playing for Team USA. They could have used him Sunday, when his absence exposed virtually all of the warts of this American squad. On the same day ESPN reported that Nike will match Under Armour’s offer of nearly $300 million to Durant, Team USA showed how much it really missed its true alpha dog in an unconvincing 98-77 win over Turkey, which gave every medal contender a blueprint for beating the Americans. In a
Mere days after trading Jared Dudley to the Milwaukee Bucks, the Los Angeles Clippers have struck again. This time around, the Clippers sent two players packing. Surprisingly, it was the two players whom they’d just acquired for Dudley and a draft pick. According to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports, the Clippers waived Carlos Delfino and Miroslav Raduljica. Delfino had two years and $6.5 million remaining on his contract. Raduljica had three years for roughly $4.57 million. Both were traded for Dudley, who had two years and