The good news for LA: Andrew Bynum is back and playing out of his mind, recording the first 20-20 game of his career two nights ago against Houston. Now the bad: The Lakers are heading to the Rose Garden, where Kobe Bryant’s career record is 6-23. Tonight’s best game is in Portland, where the LA Lakers make their first, and only, visit of this season at 10:30 ET in the second game of a nice doubleheader on TNT. Preceding that matchup, Atlanta hosts
By Noelia Roman Lamas BARCELONA — Americans are not the only ones discovering Ricky Rubio. In Spain, he is being re-discovered. Two weeks ago, the Spanish media scarcely mentioned Ricky’s situation when reporting about the end of the NBA lockout and the buildup to the upcoming season. They talked about Pau and Marc Gasol’s futures, Rudy Fernandez getting traded, Serge Ibaka (a member of the Spanish national team) playing for a legitimate championship contender, even Jose Calderon’s prospects with the lowly Toronto Raptors. Ricky was forgotten,
For a six-game night, there are some nice matchups. The Nets are visiting the Magic, which means the New York metro area media will be zoning up Dwight Howard. There should be a relay race in Portland, where the Blazers entertain the Nuggets. And on TNT, the Mavericks try to figure out their myriad issues as they travel to take on the Thunder, where Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are bickering. But the best game is the back end of TNT’s
LOS ANGELES — Imagine that, another Laker bubble gets popped before the wife and kids can pick up the wrapping paper from their Christmas gifts…. “Here’s a timeshare in Hawaii for you, and one in Cancun for you, and a Rolls-Royce for Mom…. “Dad has to run downtown but we’ll eat at, like, 6 p.m.? “No problem. By 4, we should be winning by enough to coast in. We’re the Lakers.” Of course, even with local talk show hosts predicting they’d win 72 or
TEL AVIV –In most European countries, there are separate post-season awards for local players and import players. The NBA justly classifies all of its players into one category, as passports are a non-factor when post-season awards are up for discussion. While the approach taken by the NBA is certainly the right one, as the absolute acceptance of foreign players into the NBA has made a big impact on the league in the last two decades, and fans are always looking for
OK, what was that all about? With the conductor striking up the band but no parade in sight, last week in the NBA was like “Planet of the Apes,” with the one of the lost astronauts escaping from the ruling species and gaining his freedom, only to find he’s on post-nuclear-holocaust Earth! Not that David Stern vetoing the trade sending Chris Paul to the Lakers was as dramatic as Charlton Heston ranting, “You maniacs. You blew it all up. Damn you all
Mark Heisler was the first to tell you this was a possibility nearly two weeks ago. Now, it appears it is happening. Multiple news outlets are reporting that the Lakers, Rockets and Hornets have agreed to a three-way deal sending Chris Paul to the Lakers. New Orleans will receive Lamar Odom, Luis Scola, Kevin Martin, Goran Dragic and the New York Knicks’ first-round draft pick in 2012. The Rockets are getting Pau Gasol from the Lakers. There could be other pieces in
We will not try to separate truth from fiction here. We’ll just tell you what is being reported, and we’ll see how it all shakes out tomorrow at 2 p.m. when signings can officially begin. But remember when we told you there were going to be a ton of bad contracts signed because of the stretch exception? That madness is beginning. _ The Knicks are making a big (foolish?) move to address their need for a center. Ken Berger of CBSSports.com