The Houston Rockets are admittedly “broken,” but the fix may still be months away. After losing to Portland in their final game before the All-Star break, the Rockets have lost six of eight and now find themselves below .500 (27-28) as the West’s No. 9 seed. That means that a team that went to the Western Conference finals a year ago and opened 2015-16 training camp with championship aspirations could actually miss the playoffs entirely… depending on what goes down by next Thursday’s
In daily fantasy, everyone gets a chance to own the same players and an opportunity to profit. In traditional leagues, it would be foolish to drop an injured Cody Zeller (shoulder) for Spencer Hawes $3100, but the Hornets’ many injuries have created several DFS bargains. [Read more…]
Can we now stop pretending that Anthony Davis is the second coming of Wilt Chamberlain? Can we now stop with the hyperbolic declarations that Davis is going to own the NBA in two years or that Davis is going to make the New Orleans Pelicans a perennial title contender? Can we now stop calling Davis a top-five player? Top-five players elevate teams by themselves. Top-five players assure their teams of 50 wins and playoff berths, regardless of circumstances. Top-five players don’t say, “We
We’re a quarter of the way through the regular season and the NBA landscape has shifted dramatically. Kobe Bryant is retiring after this season and wants to be remembered as a “talented overachiever” when it’s all said and done. Meanwhile, Bryant’s Los Angeles Lakers (3-15) trail only the Philadelphia 76ers (1-19) for the league’s worst record. With every loss, the Lakers grow closer to keeping their top-three protected draft pick and potentially land top prospect Ben Simmons. On the flip side, the Golden
It seems like the Houston Rockets are willing to try nearly anything to get out of their early-season funk. As we approach the quarter pole of the NBA season, Houston has already replaced its head coach and is trying numerous different lineup combinations. To put it nicely, things are still a work in progress for the Rockets. After needing overtime to defeat the Knicks, who were without Carmelo Anthony because of an illness, on Sunday, Houston stumbled to a 116-105 loss to
In the classic war movie Apocalypse Now, Marlon Brando plays a decorated American colonel who has abandoned the war in Vietnam to set up his own dystopian military conclave in Cambodia that features random missions, animal sacrifices and human beheadings. Martin Sheen plays an American captain sent on a classified mission to assassinate the colonel. When Sheen arrives at the camp, he is asked if he believes the colonel’s methods are unsound. And Sheen replies, “I don’t see any method at all,
HOUSTON — Entering Wednesday, Kevin McHale had accumulated the best winning percentage of any coach in Rockets franchise history and was mere months removed from somehow guiding his injury-plagued team to an unexpected berth in the Western Conference finals. Before lunch, he was fired. Because of 11 regular-season games. McHale, who was in his fifth season as Houston’s coach, was let go just 11 games into his new three-year, $12 million contract extension. In other words, expectations are high enough that owner
There is a ton of money available in NBA free agency next summer, and everyone knows it – especially players in the final year of their contracts. Across all sports, the contract year phenomenon occurs when an athlete performs at his highest level with millions of dollars on the line in a contract season. As a result, players naturally put in extra work in the gym and focus more clearly with their financial future hanging in the balance. Some players use these