Puppet Kobe‘s voice is done by David Alan Grier, but in the latest commercial he sounds a whole lot more like Mike Lowery in Bad Boys II after Marcus pops Johnny Tapia. “Now that’s how you supposed to shoot!”

As the L.A. Lakers and Orlando Magic get ready to decide the NBA Championship later this week, there are 28 other teams whose primary concern right now is this month’s NBA Draft. And while Kobe and Dwight are the marquee superstars of the moment, the League’s immediate future revolves around Blake Griffin, the inevitable No. 1 overall pick in the draft and the cover athlete of Dime #49 — our NBA Draft Preview issue — which hits newsstands this week across the country. Read More »

The real reason that some members of the media called LeBron “classless” for going MIA following the Game 6 loss was that they couldn’t berate him about his plans for 2010. So when he made up for skipping that press conference on Sunday, LBJ addressed those who believed that anything short of a championship run meant he was Big Apple bound. Read More »

It probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise that even after LeBron‘s team was eliminated from the championship race, Sunday’s headline NBA story still revolved around King James. In this case, it was LeBron’s actions immediately following Cleveland’s season-ending Game 6 loss the other night. Read More »