I can’t take credit for that headline. That would go to reader “brett” in today’s Smack, who, in reference to the Golden State Warriors trading Marco Belinelli to Toronto for Devean George, wrote: “pretty sure the warriors traded belinelli cuz they hate their fans.”

It would most definitely seem to be the case wouldn’t it? Golden State has a looong list of head-scratching personnel moves over the last 10 years, the latest being dealing a fan favorite in Belinelli – a guy who still has potential to be a serious, if one-dimensional, offensive weapon in the League – for a guy, if we’re being honest here, who has little to no ability to help an NBA team. George may be the greatest guy in the world, and he may still be able to play a little bit of defense, but the reality is that he hasn’t done a meaningful thing on a basketball court in many years.

So then why would Golden State do this? Read More »

Back for one more. As I’ve covered before, this isn’t a typical “best players” list. If you see a high school kid ranked higher than an NBA All-Star here, nobody’s saying the prep is better than the pro. Instead, I’m looking at the whole picture: Who had an overall better season? Pound-for-pound, who made the biggest impact on their level? Who made the biggest mark on the entire game of basketball? Who made this season his own? That said, here are my Top 10 — not “10 best” — small forwards from the ‘08-09 season… Read More »

While Miami waits for Lamar Odom to decide if he’d rather look at sun-dipped Rodeo Drive honeys or sun-dipped South Beach honeys during timeouts for the next 4-5 years, another possible Plan B in case they don’t get Odom became unavailable. The Hawks re-signed Marvin Williams for $40 million over five years — kind of steep for a guy who wasn’t gonna get $8M a year from anyone else, but not the worst move in the world considering Marvin is a big contributor for a still-developing core unit in Atlanta. Read More »

About a month ago, when NBA TV was showing re-runs of old drafts, I watched the ’05 version, best known as the year Atlanta passed on Chris Paul (and Deron Williams) in favor of Marvin Williams with the second overall pick. Not everyone thought Williams was a bad pick at the time, though. “When we look back years down the line,” said analyst Jay Bilas, “we could be saying Marvin Williams was THE player from this draft.” Read More »

Amongst non-rookies and people not named Anthony Randolph, former UConn point guard Marcus Williams may have been the best player at this month’s NBA Vegas Summer League. Playing for the Grizzlies, Williams racked up 13.4 points and 8.2 assists in five games.

You figured Williams would get serious looks from teams around the NBA in an offseason where everybody seems to be searching for a cheap backup PG, and according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the Grizzlies are gonna be the ones to capitalize. Read More »

In 2002, the first issue of Dime, we ranked who we felt were the 25 most powerful people in the game of basketball. At the time, only six of the names on that list were actual basketball players. The rest was made up of agents, TV executives, attorneys, bigwigs in the NBA office, team owners, and other “suits” — the people we assumed would shape the future of the magazine. Today, we’re proud to say that our Dime #50 version of the power list has a much larger percentage of players. Dime has always been about putting ballplayers first, and over the last seven years, the player has become more powerful in the business and industry of basketball. Read More »

I just got off the phone with Texas coach Rick Barnes, who was at his beach house on the Carolina coast (it’s a hard-knock life) in between recruiting trips. During the call, I asked Coach Barnes about the Longhorns’ much-hyped 2009 recruiting class, ranked #2 in the country by most publications (after Kentucky), as well as other UT-related stuff for the upcoming season.

Dime: From what you’ve seen this summer, how will the incoming group of freshmen perform on this level? Read More »

We all like to create trades that could help our team, but rarely is it something that would work out for both parties. This morning, Ira Winderman from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel proposed something that I think would work well for both the Lakers and the Heat: work out a sign-and-trade agreement utilizing the expiring contract of Udonis Haslem for Lamar Odom. Read More »

Just like an art collector scouring the globe for a masterpiece, sole searching sneaker fiends will go to great lengths to find an exclusive pair of kicks. Back in Dime #25 (August 2006), we put together a list of the Top 25 Sneaker Stores when the kick game had never been bigger. But while that list was limited to mostly US spots, we decided in our 50th issue to take it worldwide. Read More »

When your star speaks, your actions speak louder than your words. Trying to let Chris Paul know that the Hornets mean business as all the teams in the West continue to improve, New Orleans has signed free agent Ike Diogu. Read More »