If you are bored and stuck at a desk at work, check out Barats and Bereta on YouTube. They’ve done some funny/wild videos. In this one, they play the weirdest game of H.O.R.S.E. ever.

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Kind of random today, but as I was checking out ESPN First Take this morning, I caught an argument from the guys saying Kyrie Irving will be better than John Wall in five years. My only reaction was: Is this a joke? It’s funny because I think Irving is going to be really, really good. But we talkin’ about John Wall here. We talkin’ about John Wall! Three years from now, you’ll only be able to argue that a couple of PGs are better than this dude.

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The move from high school to college is a ballplayer’s most dramatic change. Growing up, they were the best players on the court, hyped as the best anyone had ever seen. The expectations entering college are through the roof.

Once they finally enter the gym for a first-team practice or meeting, they are starring eye-to-eye with 14 other stars of their caliber, sometimes more talented players. Only the best can survive in college and the best of the best get to the NBA. Normally, it’s those who stand out in front of Dick Vitale who do the same in front of David Stern. But in a few instances, good players may struggle or get stuck in limited roles in college before exploding in the NBA. Read More »

With 14 teams hoping for the ping-pong balls to bounce their way at tonight’s NBA Draft Lottery, everyone’s vying for a chance to draft Arizona’s Derrick Williams. Following the departure of this year’s Pac-10 Player of the Year and the Wildcats’ leading scorer, the weight was going to presumably transfer over to the shoulders of rising junior point guard Lamont “MoMo” Jones. Instead, Jones announced Monday that he will transfer to another school. Read More »

With the Western Conference Finals starting tonight, the NBA has graced us with their fourth commercial spot for the 2011 NBA Finals. Watch as the official basketball of the NBA (this time voiced by Roy Firestone) sits down with Magic Johnson to talk about his favorite shot and moment of his storied career.

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When C.J. Watson replaces Derrick Rose, Chicago fans collectively hold their breath. While their star briefly recharges the batteries, they can only hope that he does not shed his offensive leash. In a structured offense, an overconfident backup can singlehandedly ruin the dynamic. Think Jamal Crawford when he’s ice cold. This, in a nutshell, is C.J. Watson. But the emotional rollercoaster that is Watson’s game does not provide a concrete answer to the following question: How much do the Bulls actually miss Rose when Watson is on the floor? More generally, how great a difference is there between a starter and a backup in the playoffs? Let’s find out. Read More »

There are two sides to this argument. On one end, there’s a crowd convinced that when 20-point scorer Rudy Gay comes back, he’s going to eat away at Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol‘s dinner plates. Trade him this summer, they say. Memphis is just fine without their former best player. They were in the playoffs.

Then, there’s the other side, led by people like John Hollinger and the Grizzlies’ owner, Mike Heisley, who disagree. Read More »

With the Western Conference Finals starting tonight, the NBA has graced us with their third commercial spot for the 2011 NBA Finals. Watch as the official basketball of the NBA (this time voiced by Roy Firestone) sits down with Julius Erving to discuss his gravity-defying reverse layup in the 1980 Finals.

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He’s not flashy. He doesn’t run the floor like Russell Westbrook, drop buckets like Kevin Durant or swat shots into the rich seats like Serge Ibaka, but Nick Collison has become far from just another sub on OKC’s Western Conference Finals squad. And after watching the seventh year pro from Kansas battle it out in both of the Thunder’s two playoff series thus far, it’s clear that OKC needs a healthy dose of more Collison if they want to take their show any further. Read More »

As we mentioned in Smack, I got the chance to participate in a conference call yesterday with TNT and the voices of the Eastern Conference Finals: Reggie Miller, Steve Kerr and Marv Albert. They broke down the Chicago and Miami matchup for nearly 45 minutes, and TNT alerted me that Game 1 on Sunday night was actually the most watched NBA game of all-time in cable history. It finished with a 6.2 rating and over 11 million viewers. The amount of hype and anticipation for this series is clearly exceeding even our own lofty expectations. Read More »