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
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
After Monday’s 106-79 road win over the deliriously dysfunctional Brooklyn Nets, the 33-6 San Antonio Spurs have matched the team’s best start through 39 games in its storied franchise history. The Spurs have won five championships since Gregg Popovich took over as coach during the 1996-1997 season, but have never started the regular season with more wins than they have right now. And San Antonio isn’t just beating teams, it’s steamrolling opponents at a level not seen anywhere else in the league. The
Over the last two weeks, Doc Rivers the coach has done a fantastic job of covering for Doc Rivers the GM. The Los Angeles Clippers have won nine straight games, the last eight without superstar forward Blake Griffin, who – in case you hadn’t noticed over the past couple of seasons – has overtaken Chris Paul as the team’s best player. When Griffin got hurt, the Clippers appeared to be in trouble. They had just lost three straight games to San Antonio,
In case you didn’t notice, the transition into a new era for the San Antonio Spurs hit a milestone of sorts this past weekend. For the first time in 1,360 career games, Tim Duncan did not score. Coming off a three-game absence – one for rest and two due to knee soreness – the no-brainer Hall of Famer played just 13 minutes Saturday, missing all three of his shots and failing to get to the line. And it was no coincidence that in
The Golden State Warriors’ historic start, led by Stephen Curry’s MVP campaign, and Kobe Bryant’s farewell tour have captured the headlines so far this season. We saw LaMarcus Aldridge become the biggest free agent to change teams and Kevin McHale became the first coach to get fired in Houston. Will Kevin Durant leave the Thunder this summer? Will Jeff Hornacek become the first coach fired in 2016? That’s just the tip of the iceberg. A new calendar year will bring more coaching changes,
In all likelihood, Luke Walton will be spending All-Star Weekend on vacation in two months. This would be a travesty, and it is time for someone to tell NBA commissioner Adam Silver to prevent a miscarriage of recognition. I will take on the job. As most of you know, the honor of coaching each conference’s All-Star team goes to the coach whose team has the league’s best record prior to the break. Last year, that job fell to Steve Kerr, who was
Is the NBA inching toward parity? Or slowly sinking into mediocrity? Those may seem like strange questions during a season in which the Golden State Warriors have imposed their dominance over the rest of the league in unprecedented fashion. Yes, at 22-0 the Warriors have obliterated the best start in NBA history and have looked downright unbeatable while the clock was ticking during a vast majority of those 22 games. In that sense, they present a very strong argument against the notion