While the NBA’s Top 10 Plays of the Year are impressive, what do you think is missing?

Watching every other team in both the Eastern and Western Conference continue to improve, the Cavs finally stepped up and made another move, this time signing the Heat’s Jamario Moon to an offer sheet. Read More »

Who would have guessed that the first NBA dude to put Blake Griffin on his ass would be skinny JaVale McGee? Blake finished with 19 points, 10 boards and four steals against the Wizards in yesterday’s Vegas Summer League, but one time he came through the lane with the rock and McGee (19 pts, 7 blks) gave the rookie a good, hard, welcome-to-the-NBA foul. Blake stayed on the ground for a second, but he was OK. Then later in the fourth quarter, McGee caught an alley-oop on Blake’s head and screamed on him. (JaVale is still doing the salute thing whenever he dunks, too.) … Rodrigue Beaubois scored 23 for the Mavs in a game against the Thunder that was just ugly. Read More »

After D-Wade‘s Twitter tease (“I got good news coming, stay tuned”) turned out to be that he’s leaving Converse to take his sneaker game down the hall to Jordan Brand — and not an announcement that Lamar Odom was signing with the Heat — it meant the most important free agent left on the market (with all due respect to Allen Iverson) is still without a team. The Lakers had offered Odom $27 million over three years, but pulled it earlier this week, allowing Miami to get in the mix with a reported five-year, $35M pitch. Last night the L.A. Times said Odom called Lakers owner Jerry Buss himself after Buss got upset that Odom’s agent hadn’t been returning calls. Even if it’s not for $9M a year, when it’s all said and done, we think L.O. will stay in L.A. … Read More »

While the debate over Kobe and LeBron will go down for the ages, apparently it’s pretty cut and dry for Hugh Hefner and some of his girls.

Since the NBA All-Star Game starters is a popularity contest, I have no doubt in my mind that Andrew Bynum will be the starting center for the Western Conference All-Star team in 2010. Fresh of a championship by the Lakers, Bynum’s popularity is at an all-time high – even though he really didn’t do anything during the playoffs – because we all know that the fans of Laker Nation roll deep. Read More »

The reality is that, in these times, every NBA team is trying to cut costs — most notably in the form of player salaries — whenever possible. But there are a handful of franchises whose desire to save money is full public knowledge.

The Hornets are one of those teams. And with the League’s highest payroll going into this free agency period, it was assumed somebody would be traded in a salary dump. Tyson Chandler was and is still the most sensible candidate (more teams would want Tyson at his price tag than Peja Stojakovic at his`), but according to Chris Paul, not even the franchise centerpiece is safe. From the New Orleans Times-Picayune: Read More »

We knew this was coming because the Rockets applied for and received that disabled player exception a few weeks ago but now it’s official. The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Yao Ming will have surgery on his broken left foot next week and the Rockets said today that the seven-time All-Star may not be available until the 2010-11 season. Read More »

From the response generated by Diana Taurasi‘s recent scrape with the law, you’d think we were being introduced to the WNBA’s first full-blooded goon.

Taurasi was arrested in Phoenix on July 2 for an “extreme DUI,” when she was pulled over for speeding and blew a 0.17 (twice the legal limit) on the blood-alcohol test.

Happens every day in the NBA, right? Well, imagine if one of the marquee players in the men’s league — Taurasi is leading the WNBA in scoring at 20.6 points a night and is undeniably one of the faces of the women’s game — got into a similar situation shortly before the All-Star Game, and compare the reaction to this column excerpt by ESPN.com’s Mechelle Voepel: Read More »

You had to know this was coming. While Dwyane Wade has been the centerpiece of Converse basketball since he entered the League, it was time for D-Wade to branch out and truly become a global brand. And who better to do that with than Jordan Brand. Read More »