Fire Mike Brown. That has been the sentiment of many Lakers fans after watching their super team open the season with three straight losses. Don’t believe me? Check out our “When will Mike Brown get fired” poll. It turns out, fans aren’t the only ones having an issue with the scrutinized coach’s methods, from Alex Kennedy of Hoopsworld: Fans have already started calling for Brown’s job and many of his players have started wondering if he’s the right person to lead the team. Behind
The Dallas Mavericks have been doing just fine without Dirk Nowitzki. Now we will see how they do without Shawn Marion. The Mavericks said Tuesday that Marion has a sprained MCL in his left knee and will miss at least three games before being re-evaluated. Marion suffered the injury in the third quarter of Monday’s 114-91 home win over Portland and did not return. Initially, the injury was not believed to be serious. According to the team, Marion had an MRI that confirmed
NYK @ PHI: The unbeaten Knicks are apparently that much better than the 76ers, who they trounced for the second straight day. Carmelo Anthony (21 PTS, 7 REB) got a lot more help from Raymond Felton (16 PTS, 8 AST) and Ronnie Brewer (13 PTS, 10 REB) in the rematch. J.R. Smith (17 PTS, 7 REB, 5 AST, 2 STL, 1 BLK) has been superb off the bench. Ageless Rasheed Wallace looked pretty good in 13:33, with 10 points including
Friday was the final night of exhibition games — hooray! — and this is a huge weekend for fantasy basketball drafts. We’ll take a quick look here at all the results, along with what we learned, if anything. Later today, around 2:00, be sure to return for the debut of our Week Ahead column by Jeff Nichols. Every Saturday afternoon, Jeff — the master strategist behind our Fantasy Basketball Primer — will review the previous week (today, the entire preseason) and
When we wrote last month that the Western Conference playoff picture would be filled in by the Dallas Mavericks and Minnesota Timberwolves, it was assumed that both teams would have their alpha dogs at power forward. Now that Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Love are both out until at least December, that picture could be changing. Nowitzki and Love both are top-10 players whose presence instantly legitimizes their teams as playoff-worthy, regardless of the other 14 players sharing a locker room and airplane with them.
The decision of Dirk Nowitzki to have knee surgery isn’t a complete surprise. It will cost him all of November, a definite setback to his owners, including Mark Cuban. If there’s any consolation, Dirk should be much better in the second half; the non-surgical option might have ruined his entire season, with the Mavericks and in fantasy leagues. You cannot replace a Hall-of-Famer. Elton Brand will start at PF. How much he has left, we’ll find out. Brandan Wright is also in
DALLAS – The grand experiment begins today with the first day of training camp. Call Mark Cuban, Donnie Nelson and Rick Carlisle crazy, but they believe they have found an alternative recipe for championship success. 1. Take a superstar who may be starting to decline but still is near the top of his game. 2. Add a one-time prolific offensive player who has discovered the joy of defense. 3. Toss in a point guard from Indiana, a shooting guard from Memphis, a center from
It’s Labor Day weekend, and that means that NBA training camps are just a few short weeks away. While you wait for them to kick off, we’ve still got you covered with all the latest news from the basketball world. Check out Sunday’s Tweet of the Day from Mike Fratello, which deals with actual basketball being played in remote outposts, and definitely give a look to A.J. Mitnick’s extensive update on the qualifying for Eurobasket ’13. If you haven’t already, you