If we had told you Nazr Mohammed more than quadrupled Kobe Bryant’s scoring total on a night where Kobe played 36 minutes and wasn’t missing a major limb or anything, would you believe that the Lakers still won the game? Moreover, would you believe that we weren’t on ’shrooms? … Following his 44-point performance against Memphis, Kobe scored a season-low five points (2-12 FG) against the Bobcats, and yet L.A. still managed a win. Kobe made a three in the second quarter, hit a fadeaway in the third, and otherwise bricked everything he threw up and hurt his foot when Lamar Odom stepped on it. Read More »

Ranking the League from worst to first…

30. New Jersey Nets (4-42) Last week: Beat L.A. Clippers; lost to Washington; lost to Philadelphia. With Kris Humphries being able to step in and immediately become Jersey’s second-best big man, is that a credit to Humphries’ talent or an indictment of the team’s lack of talent? We’ll go with “B.”

29. Los Angeles Clippers (20-27) Last week: Lost at New Jersey; lost at Minnesota; lost at Cleveland. Technically, they could have had a worse week. At least the players’ paychecks didn’t bounce. Read More »

Since hearing about the relaunch of NBA Jam, the talk of the office has been which players are going to make it in the game. As you know, the best part of NBA Jam back in the day was the player combinations. With that in mind, EA Sports has come through, giving fans the chance to select which three players from each team they would like to see represented in the revival. Read More »

Last night’s Hawks/Celtics game was about as close as you’ll get on TV to seeing good ol’ confrontational angry NBA action in-person without the actual risk of Jermaine O’Neal punching you in the face. We’re not sure if the Atlanta crowd was extra quiet or the court mics were just extra loud, but throughout the game you could hear pretty much everything Rasheed Wallace and Kevin Garnett were saying, especially ‘Sheed … Playing in the building he called home for about 20 minutes once upon a time, ‘Sheed was in vintage form: Yelling at every teammate, cussing at every opponent, and abusing every ref. Read More »

Late last night I was watching Rick Pitino weekly Louisville coach’s show — one of my favorite things about having 264 sports channels — when Pitino made a great point about defensive mentality.

Essentially, Pitino said, there are guys who get upset when they miss a shot, but aren’t nearly as bothered when they get beaten off the dribble. “We’re not going to be a good team until it bothers us more to get beat defensively than it bothers us to miss a shot,” he said. Read More »

The thematic stat you’re going to hear whenever the Mavericks get into another close game is that, dating back to last season, the Mavs are 10-0 in their last 10 games that were decided by one point. The Mavs are also 3-0 this season in games decided by two points, including last November when Dirk Nowitzki hit a game-winner in Milwaukee. Last night the Mavs hosted the Bucks, and again it went down to the wire … Read More »

LeBron James and Kevin Durant didn’t go head-to-head as much as you would have liked to see during Cavs/Thunder, but they did square off on the most important play of the game — and LeBron came out on top. OKC was up one in the final seconds of the fourth when LeBron got a rebound, pushed the ball upcourt and found Boobie Gibson open for the go-ahead triple. (Can you blame Boobie for constantly walking around with a goofy smile on his face? He gets paid to do one thing — shoot the ball — while perhaps the best player in the world does the hard work to make him famous, AND Boobie gets to go home to Keyshia Cole every night. That’s not even fair to the rest of us.) Read More »

With many teams at or past the 41-game halfway mark of the regular 2009-10 NBA season, it’s time to look back at the first half of fantasy basketball and to make some projections about the second half.

Though it’s tough to cover everything in a concise manner, let’s attempt to traverse this broad topic by way of using a simple grading system. The first letter grade after each player’s name will be based on their performance thus far, in addition to how they’ve fallen short of, met or exceeded expectations; and the second grade will be based on their expected value during the second half of the season. Read More »

If you don’t ask, you don’t get. That’s the slogan Stephen Jackson apparently lived by when he asked out of Golden State over the summer. His choice to publicly demand a trade made his life a living hell for the first few months of the season. On top of being fined by the league, Jackson went through a messy divorce with the Warriors organization and became the hottest topic in the basketball media for the first quarter of the season. Read More »

Beast of the Night: Baron Davis had himself a triple-double to the tune of 27 points, 12 rebounds, 12 assists, 5 steals, 1 block and 2 turnovers. He hit a three and shot 52 percent (11-21) from the field and 100 percent (4-4) from the line in a weird game in Memphis that included a 20-minute evacuation of the arena in the third quarter. Davis is having a fine season and should have no problem remaining a top-30 fantasy player if he can stay healthy. Read More »