Indiana owner Herb Simon would approve of the team re-acquiring former Pacers guard Lance Stephenson in a trade, The Indianapolis Star reports. [Read more…]
The three best records in the NBA belong to the Warriors, Grizzlies and Blazers. What do all three Western Conference teams have in common? Continuity. Besides for some minor tweaks, (Shaun Livingston, Vince Carter, Steve Blake and Chris Kaman) Golden State, Memphis and Portland retained their core players and have been extremely successful over the first quarter of the regular season. For Portland, now at 16-4 after Sunday’s win over New York, this is the third season the LaMarcus Aldridge-Damian Lillard-Nicolas Batum-Wes
Kind of mad at myself this morning — for not winning enough. LeBron James, Gordon Hayward and Pau Gasol combined for 161.25 fantasy points, but the cheaper pieces they were surrounded with all disappointed. [Read more…]
Things have changed in Rip City. For the Portland Trail Blazers, the 2013-14 season not only represented a return to the playoffs, it ended a drought of not making the second round that had lasted longer than a decade. Yes, the Trail Blazers got taken to the woodshed by the San Antonio Spurs in the conference semifinals, doing just enough against the eventual champions to avoid a sweep. But plenty of other teams got whooped by the Spurs, too. Winning against the Houston
What can one write where all has practically been written already? What was once a 100-percent confirmed source has now confirmed itself. LeBron James is leaving the Miami Heat behind and returning to Cleveland to play for the Cavaliers. James made Decision 2.0 known with an Instagram photo and an essay published on Sports Illustrated. [Read more…]
Brazil entered Tuesday’s World Cup semifinal match against Germany facing extreme obstacles. Their captain, Thiago Silva was due to miss the match having accumulated two yellow cards, and star forward Neymar had suffered a fractured vertebra in their quarterfinal match against Colombia. Even with such losses, they were still expected to play well, perhaps carrying out the role of underdog to move on to the finals. The match was highly anticipated and was garnering a lot of media attention and hype.
Day two of the 2014 Brazil World Cup may have had the most anticipated match of the group round. Spain, winners of the 2010 World Cup, had been selected to Group B with Chile, Australia and the Netherlands—the team they defeated 1-0 in the finals four years ago. That match was 0-0 through 90 minutes before the Spanish got the go-ahead goal in extra time. Their first match in this year’s World Cup? A rematch of the 2010 final against Netherlands. This matchup
Phoenix Suns point guard Goran Dragic, once [presumably] hailed as Steve Nash’s heir-apparent, made great strides this year, leading his team to 48-34 record—a 23-game improvement from 2012-13, just missing the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. His play was markedly better, improving his scoring from a career average of 9.5 points to 20.3 this year. That’s an impressive amount of growth. His play earned him the NBA Most Improved Player Award. Our own Chris Sheridan broke down Dragic’s performance and