If you haven’t heard, this is supposed to be a down year for the Pac-10.

Over the summer the conference lost James Harden, Jordan Hill, DeMar DeRozan, Jrue Holiday, Darren Collison, Taj Gibson, Jeff Pendergraph, Jon Brockman and Chase Budinger to the NBA Draft. Going back to 2008, the Pac-10 also lost O.J. Mayo, Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook, the Lopez twins, Jerryd Bayless and Ryan Anderson, all of whom would still been in school today had they not gone pro early. Read More »

You would think that if you’re in the NBA fraternity that you would have an easier time building a friendship with one of the stars in the league. Unfortunately that’s not always the case. Indiana Pacers rookies Tyler Hansbrough and A.J. Price learned that the hard way when they came across KG over the summer. According to this snippet from this Boston Globe story: Read More »

From worst to first, ranking the NBA through the first couple of weeks…

30. New Jersey Nets (0-7) — They’re dropping like panties at R.Kelly’s house in Jersey, with starters Devin Harris, Courtney Lee, CDR and Yi Jianlian all missing games with injury and/or illness.

29. Minnesota Timberwolves (1-6) — The only bright spot of this past week was Jonny Flynn outplaying Brandon Jennings head-to-head. And the Wolves still lost that game. Read More »

The worst part about preseason polls is that voters adopt a loyalty to those pre-determined spots even after the season shows us some of those picks were just wrong. College football gets it the worst, but the same often applies for the NBA; the only saving grace is that, at the end of the day, voter opinion doesn’t matter because the NBA has a playoff.

That said, we ignored making a preseason NBA Hit List power ranking, so as not to influence this first week’s edition. Counting down from worst to first… Read More »

Some of the benches on NBA squads are just nasty. It used to be teams would go just seven or eight deep in their rotation. Now some of these teams have benches so stacked that they could probably handle Milwaukee or Sacramento’s starting fives. I ranked my top five second units in the league. Keep in mind, starting lineups haven’t been set in stone and some of these guys might start come opening night (tonight for some). Read More »

There’s no question that the class of 2008 is front-loaded with talent. And now that the rookie jitters are gone and contract extensions are in sight, how will they fare after a year in the League under their belts? The reality is, a case can be made for almost 30 guys to be on this list in some way. For instance, where do Danilo Gallinari and Roy Hibbert go with such strong coach-backing? It’s still too early to close the book on any of these guys, but so far here are my predictions. Read More »

Last year we debuted the “Highs and Lows” system — previewing the NBA season by predicting the respective ceiling and basement for each team. Same theme, different season…

Added: Andre Miller, Juwan Howard, Jeff Pendergraph, Dante Cunningham, Ime Udoka

Lost: Sergio Rodriguez, Channing Frye, Michael Ruffin, Shavlik Randolph Read More »

Sunday is the first multi-game day on the NBA preseason schedule, with Nets at Knicks, Bucks at Wolves, and Clippers at Warriors on the docket. A few months ago, that Minnesota game would’ve been notable for the first Brandon Jennings vs. Ricky Rubio matchup, but Jennings vs. Jonny Flynn ain’t bad, either. Michael Redd will see his first action since tearing his knee up last season; in a team scrimmage yesterday Redd scored 18 of his side’s 54 points and all reviews were glowing. Andrew Bogut, still nursing a back injury, is out for Milwaukee … The traveling circus that is the Warriors could be fun to watch. Will Monta Ellis freeze out Stephen Curry? Will Stephen Jackson show up to the arena in sweats and flip-flops? Read More »

When people ask me for a Greg Oden story, I usually tell them the one from the ‘07 Rookie Photo Shoot. That was the year Oden was supposed to make his NBA debut before microfracture knee surgery delayed his rookie season for another calendar turn. At the time, we were still putting together our cover feature on Oden for Dime #35, and I was going to help get some extra quotes.

“Do you love basketball?” I asked Oden. His answer was something along the lines of, “Yeah. I mean, I’ve been playing since I was a kid.” It wasn’t so much what he said, but how he said it — he sounded like somebody who was trying to convince themselves of something they know isn’t true. Read More »

Nobody was more disappointed in Jerryd Bayless‘ NBA rookie campaign than Bayless himself. After destroying the ‘08 Vegas Summer League (29.8 ppg), Bayless went into the regular season as a darkhorse Rookie of the Year (or at least All-Rookie Team) pick, but soon found himself sitting behind Portland starters Brandon Roy and Steve Blake, and fighting for backcourt minutes with Rudy Fernandez and Sergio Rodriguez. While Bayless had some standout moments — like scoring 23 points in a Jan. 15 game at New Jersey, and dropping 19 on the Hornets on Feb. 2 — for the most part, the 6-3 combo guard’s first go-round in the League (4.3 ppg, 12 mpg) was pretty forgettable. Read More »