The Golden State Warriors are about to complete the best regular season in NBA history. The Warriors are going to win 73 games, one more than the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls. Even Warriors coach Steve Kerr, a reserve on that Bulls squad and one of the great winners in league annals, is blown away by his team’s accomplishment. “I never imagined when I was with the Bulls anyone would ever come close,” he said. “We’re close.” [Read more…]
This is the time of year when we give out our midseason awards. But before we get to the drudgery of Sixth Man Award and Most Valuable Player, let’s start the festivities with a special award for individual achievement that goes to Rashad Vaughn. Vaughn is a shooting guard for the Milwaukee Bucks and the second-youngest player in the NBA. He is one of the dozens of rookies who have made virtually no impact in their first season. He is averaging 2.5 points
Seldom has a team with a nine-game winning streak, 16 victories in its last 17 games and an overall record of 34-6 generated so little excitement. That’s outside of San Antonio, of course. Spurs fans are aware as any of the Ripleys-Believe-It-Or-Not 36-2 start of the Golden State Warriors, but they have every reason to be excited and optimistic about their chances to win a sixth NBA title. The Warriors are defending champions, but the Spurs are only a year removed from winning
All the San Antonio Spurs could talk about last season was avenging their 2013 NBA Finals loss to the Miami Heat, especially the heartbreaking loss in Game 6. The Spurs made sure it didn’t get to a Game 6 in 2014 as they dominated the Heat in five games to win their fifth championship. Tim Duncan, who many assumed would retire after his fifth title, now enters the 2014-15 season looking for a ring for his other hand now. The Spurs brought
It might sound ridiculous to try to compare Aron Baynes, an undrafted reserve with four career starts, to Bill Laimbeer, a four-time All Star and NBA champion. However, the two have more in common than you would expect. Before Laimbeer became the ringleader for the Pistons’ Bad Boys and a namesake for a Super Nintendo videogame, he was an afterthought. Sandwiched in the draft between two players who never appeared in the NBA, Laimbeer – the 65th overall pick in 1979 – was forced to
San Antonio Spurs general manager R.C. Buford won NBA Executive of the Year on Wednesday. Should he have? Unlike the other postseason awards, Executive of the Year is voted on by fellow executives, not the media. So it’s difficult to question the validity of the winner when he has been chosen by his peers. Still … [Read more…]
Each of the eight teams remaining in the NBA playoffs have played a game in this second round, and some interesting trends have emerged that could be harbingers of things to come over the next two weeks (or however long the league decides to stretch out this round). [Read more…]
When the San Antonio Spurs beat the New York Knicks in the 1999 NBA Finals, it was considered a championship coronation for long-time Spurs center David Robinson. With plenty of help from second-year power forward Tim Duncan, that title validated Robinson’s career. But more importantly, it spawned a run of sustained success that is incredibly unique in the NBA, especially for a small-market franchise like the Spurs. [Read more…]