It wasn’t supposed to be like this for Kevin Love when news broke that he would be joining LeBron James and Kyrie Irving in Cleveland over the summer. Sure, he was supposed to sacrifice like everyone else. That’s expected when you build a super team like this because there is only one basketball to go around. Just ask Chris Bosh, who went from averaging 24 points in Toronto to never sniffing 20 points again (regularly in the 18-point range) when he
There’s no getting around the fact that injuries are a part of basketball. Whether it’s something as minor as a thigh contusion or something devastating as a broken bone, it’s the frustrating aspect of playing a sport that most simply can’t avoid. Having to sit and watch while everyone else plays can become particularly difficult if the injury is a lingering one, and Nick Young of the Los Angeles Lakers appears to be having a pretty tough time at the moment.
Over the last 35 years, the Los Angeles Lakers have been the gold standard for success, not just in the NBA, but across the Big Four sports in America. That’s the big picture. Little picture? The Lakers last season set a new standard for futility: 55 losses, more than any other team in franchise history. Nearly from start to finish, the 2013-14 campaign was a disaster of injuries and ire, much of it directed at owner and basketball operations head Jim
The NBA has been considering, or at least entertaining the idea of finding ways for the regular season to be shorter in some way to help prevent its valuable players from being too worn out. So in Sunday’s upcoming preseason contest between the Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets, the league will try out a 44-minute game for the first time ever just as a simple sample to evaluate. Here are the details, from ESPN: The contest will be four minutes shorter than
News broke last week regarding Nick Young of the Los Angeles Lakers going down with a thumb injury in practice. An MRI revealed that he completely tore the radial collateral ligament in his right thumb on Friday and is expected to miss six to eight weeks. Young, or “Swaggy P”, apparently injured his thumb when he was guarding Kobe Bryant in practice. The Lakers are hoping for a more definitive return date after he undergoes surgery, which was scheduled for today.
The Los Angeles Lakers received some bad news on Friday when it was announced that guard Nick Young may miss 6-8 weeks after suffering a torn radial collateral ligament in his right thumb. It apparently happened in practice while he was trying to guard Kobe Bryant, which is a shame given the praise that Bryant gave to Young about his defense just a couple of days ago. The Lakers will look to head into the season without a key player once
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
On Thursday, we brought back our Three-Man Weave, taking a look at some of the big picture questions for Eastern Conference teams that the offseason may or may not have answered. Today, we shift our focus to the Western Conference, where the player movement has been less dramatic and more subtle but entirely interesting and thought-provoking. Let’s take a look at some of the bigger issues. 1. Which team has taken the biggest step forward in the Western Conference? [Read more…]