Welcome to another Gambling Guru column. The last few weeks in the NBA have had plenty of intrigue, including the news out of Brooklyn that the Nets – my team – fired coach Lionel Hollins and re-assigned GM Billy King. Chris Sheridan wrote a depressingly accurate Billy King obituary chronicling all of the disastrous decisions he made during his Nets tenure. For the record, I’m not as mad with the Paul Pierce/Kevin Garnett trade as many fans, analysts and journalists were. It was aggressive and
The Thunder made an offseason coaching change from Scott Brooks to Billy Donovan. The move was inherently tied to Donovan’s ability as an offensive coach to improve the team’s efficiency and versatility. [Read more…]
We’re a quarter of the way through the regular season and the NBA landscape has shifted dramatically. Kobe Bryant is retiring after this season and wants to be remembered as a “talented overachiever” when it’s all said and done. Meanwhile, Bryant’s Los Angeles Lakers (3-15) trail only the Philadelphia 76ers (1-19) for the league’s worst record. With every loss, the Lakers grow closer to keeping their top-three protected draft pick and potentially land top prospect Ben Simmons. On the flip side, the Golden
It seems like the Houston Rockets are willing to try nearly anything to get out of their early-season funk. As we approach the quarter pole of the NBA season, Houston has already replaced its head coach and is trying numerous different lineup combinations. To put it nicely, things are still a work in progress for the Rockets. After needing overtime to defeat the Knicks, who were without Carmelo Anthony because of an illness, on Sunday, Houston stumbled to a 116-105 loss to
On Saturday, Oct. 24, three days before the start of the NBA regular season, 27-year-old guard Ish Smith was finishing up the Washington Wizards’ final preseason practice as he and his teammates prepared for Wednesday’s season opener in Orlando. Then, like he had five times before in his career, Smith got cut. Smith was one of five players on non-guaranteed contracts waived by Washington that day, an all-too-familiar occurrence for a player who spent his previous five seasons on eight different NBA
It’s go time. The NBA season finally opens up tonight and it has snuck up on me more than any season I can remember. Anyway, here are my over/under picks for the win totals for each team based on the numbers set at Pinnacle Sports. Atlanta Hawks, 49.5 wins: UNDER This team was simply lights out against the spread last season, and they’ll be a solid team again, but I’m projecting them to fall slightly under 49 wins. Boston Celtics, 45.5 wins: UNDER I love Brad
I like the Detroit Pistons and the Sacramento Kings as upstarts in the East and West. I also think the Milwaukee Bucks are going to be the funnest team to watch develop … but I am not alone in that opinion. I am not on the Jahlil Okafor for MVP bandwagon. Other are, but I think it’ll be Stanley Johnson of Detroit (if the Pistons make the playoffs) or Emmanuel Mudiay of the Denver Nuggets for ROY. As far as MVP, it
One couldn’t have imagined a worse outcome for the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2014-15 season. A massive plague of injuries kept the team below full strength for the entire campaign. Specifically, Kevin Durant missed 55 games, Serge Ibaka missed 18 games and Russell Westbrook missed 15 games. The other four rotation players who started and finished the season with OKC – Anthony Morrow, Steven Adams, Andre Roberson and Nick Collison – missed between eight and 16 games each. All those missed