A member of two championship football teams – one collegiate and one pro – Jermichael Finley has been a winner at every level. But despite boasting countless pigskin achievements on his résumé, the Green Bay Packers tight end still attributes his success on the football field to the fundamentals he picked up on the hardwood with his Houston Hoops AAU team. Read More »

Mother of Lailaa; wife of Shelden; sister of Anthony. Candace Parker goes by many titles these days, but we all know her as arguably the best female athlete in the world. While she’s not in L.A. lighting it up for the Sparks, the 6-4 forward spends her offseason playing basketball overseas for UMMC Ekaterinburg in Russia. In between her motherly duties and obligations to her Euroleage team, we were able to catch up with Candace to talk Sparks championship hopes, playing ball post-pregnancy and her idolization of Ron Harper. Read More »

Whether it’s a need to find better shooters, fix their interior defense or figure out who exactly should run the ball club, the Toronto Raptors have their work cut out for them this offseason. Despite all this, the Raptors are optimistic headed in to this year’s NBA Draft, with high hopes of landing a top-five pick that will hopefully change the fortune of their franchise and appease their loyal allegiance. Aside from these draft hopes, one of Toronto’s few bright spots this season was the play of DeMar DeRozan. We caught up with the Compton Kid to talk summer plans, draft picks and consistency with the Raps. Read More »

Walking into SIR Stage37 for the Reebok RealFlex launch event in midtown Manhattan, I didn’t really know what stood before me. I knew they would have us take part in some sort of stunt course with a couple celebrity appearances, but that was pretty much it. In the complex, I was privied to a spectacle straight out of a Bruce Willis action movie. Atop the stairs to my right a fight broke out. There were punches thrown and bodies shoved. From there, the action moved to the main floor with one participant sliding down a rail and another leapfrogging over the second-story banister. As the chase continued, the setting went from an outdoor backdrop with trees, boulders and logs to juke through and hurdle over, to a street background with an actual Taxi whose hood you had to shimmy across – a la Shaft. Read More »

With the ghost of MJ constantly looming in the Windy City, there are expectations for the Bulls to relive some of that magic in this year’s NBA Playoffs. Despite Chicago clinching the No. 1 seed for the entire postseason, a lot of people are still skeptical on whether they have the experience to get by the likes of Boston and L.A. Whether they do so or not, they have proven this year that they are a force in this league and are/will be legit contenders for some time to come. Read More »

With the regular season nearing its end, teams are either gearing up for the playoffs, or prepping for the NBA Draft. With that said, now may be as good a time as ever for teams to take stock on their first-year experiments and weigh-in on their overall impact. Although the Rookie of the Year is all but wrapped up for Blake Griffin, I decided to bestow some unconventional awards for rookies who have stood out of the crowd, for one reason or another. Read More »

If you’re a basketball fan, chances are you’ve sat at home on a Wednesday night flipping through your sports package and come across an episode of Hardwood Classics airing Game 7 of the 1965 Eastern Conference Finals between the Celtics and the Sixers. Probably one of the most immortalized moments ever in the history of the NBA was Johnny Most’s call of the closing seconds of that game: “Havlicek steals it. Over to Sam Jones. Havlicek stole the ball!! It’s all over! Johnny Havlicek stole the ball!” Today Hondo turns 71 so we thought we’d pay homage to the 13-time All-Star with a dope highlight mix featuring Gang Starr.

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Blake Griffin is finishing off the season exactly as he started it – with a bang. And with the offseason around the corner and his Clippers unfortunately out of contention for a playoff spot, Clippers fans are no doubt eager over the potential of what next year will bring. We caught up with Blake to chat about prospects for next year, joining the Panini trading card team and getting picked on by the refs. Read More »

If you would have told me back in ’08 that an undersized four named Kris Humphries playing for the Raptors would be producing double-double numbers in 2011 while starting for an NBA franchise, I would’ve said you’re crazy. I guess I was hasty in my judgment. This year, “The Incredible Hump” sprouted from a cocoon to a butterfly seemingly overnight, posting averages of 10.0 points, 10.4 rebounds and 1.1 blocks per game, with a respectable PER of 17.91 (ahead of Rudy Gay and Danny Granger among others). Whether you attribute his improved play as being the product of playing in a contract year, a depleted Nets frontcourt that can’t rebound *cough* Brook Lopez *cough*, or the “hot and heavy” effect of being Kim Kardashian’s latest fling, Kris has emerged as a candidate for Most Improved Player and is one of the lone bright spots on a Nets team under renovation. We caught up with Kris to talk about the Nets’ move to Brooklyn, competing against Michael Phelps and scoring on his own net. Read More »

Evidently, Carmelo Anthony wants to “be heard.” In his first endorsement since arriving in New York, ‘Melo is teaming up with Boost Mobile in a new city-wide marketing campaign. The pièce de résistance of this partnership is a 128-foot tall billboard near Madison Square Garden. Dime had a chance to get up with ‘Melo and take part in the festivities at 33rd and 9th, on of all things, a double-decker bus.

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