One of the biggest knocks against the NBA is that when the season starts, there are only five or six teams that can truly win the championship, making the regular season and the early playoff rounds interminably tedious. Not this season. As we reach the midway point – 18 teams have played at least 41 games, another nine have played 40 – there are no less than a dozen teams with legitimate title aspirations, including a handful that haven’t been in the
Shlomo Sprung: Hello everyone, and welcome to another column about the greatness of Jimmy Butler here on this fine basketball website, Sheridanhoops.com. (You know this is the place that broke LeBron to Cleveland, right?) Before we begin, I just wanted to remind readers that Butler’s true shooting percentage has gone up a full 2— Suzyn Waldman: Ohhhh mahhhyyy gawdd!! Kelzz Dayton is up in Chris Sheridan’s luxury bawx!!! He’s coming back for another season of Most Improved Player Rankings!!! OHH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS!!!!!
After last week’s loss in Atlanta, Memphis Grizzlies coach Dave Joerger – whose team has the fifth-best record in the NBA – lamented his roster’s shortcomings. “We have to get another playmaker on the floor,” Joerger said. “We’re going to have to start playing multiple point guards (at the same time). We’ve got to be able to get inside of defenses.” It doesn’t matter that the Grizzlies have been at or near the top of the league for most of the season.
Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James has missed the team’s past nine games, including their complete meltdown against the Sacramento Kings on Sunday evening that dropped them to 19-19 on the season. The final score was 103-84, but was surely over well before the final quarter. James has been sidelined with lingering knee and back issues, and was supposed to miss about two weeks with the ailments. Before the Cavs played the Kings on Sunday however, he was spotted at shoot around
When you’re already a proven NBA superstar, improvement usually comes in subtle ways. For Houston Rockets star James Harden, his ascent into the MVP conversation (it’s essentially a two-man race at this point between he and Stephen Curry, unless Anthony Davis’ New Orleans Pelicans make the playoffs) has come from a slight improvement across and board and an understanding that league MVPs are, and always will be, two-way players. The Rockets have had to rely on Harden this year more than
In today’s NBA, the formula for winning in recent years was simple: Accumulate as many maximum-salary stars as you can without breaking the bank. But when you start piling up eight-figure salaries against the luxury tax, the bank breaks pretty quickly. So teams fill out their rosters with minimum-salary veterans. And if you look at the top of the NBA standings right now, many teams are getting very productive seasons from veterans signed to minimum-salary deals. The Chicago Bulls added Pau Gasol to Jimmy
On Sunday night, Kobe Bryant passed Michael Jordan for third all-time on the NBA scoring list. On Friday night in a 112-110 overtime victory over the Spurs, Kobe scored 22 points, leaving him eight short of tying MJ and nine short of leaping him in the record books. He finished Sunday’s game with 26 points and a 100-94 win over the young Minnesota Timberwolves, passing Jordan with an exclamation point. In a season surrounded by uncertainty for the Lakers and Kobe’s future,
It’s been a tumultuous week for the Cleveland Cavaliers. After a solid four-game win streak against teams like the New Orleans Pelicans and Atlanta Hawks, the script has been flipped in Northeast Ohio. The Cavs are now on a four-game losing streak. An ugly losing streak. At times, we’ve seen glimpses of the brilliance of coach David Blatt’s offense. Unfortunately, at the same time, we’ve seen a nonexistent defense and a let’s-stand-around-and-watch-someone-dribble offense. [Read more…]