In a presentation hybridizing performance, art and sustainability, Nike released a new series of its Hyper Elite Platinum uniforms this morning, making another move in the advancement of style meeting sport. The nine teams featured will each wear the jerseys once this season, against non-Nike opponents nonetheless. Read More »

When we throw around the word “sleeper” in reference to an NBA team, it doesn’t really say much other than we think Team X will surpass expectations. Some sleepers could win championships, a la the Dallas Mavericks of a year ago. Others, such as the Memphis Grizzlies of last season, will slip into the playoffs and make a deep run after they weren’t expected to amount to anything.

So in picking the top five sleepers for the 2011-12 NBA season, there’s going to be some good teams that turn out to be super good and some bad teams that might surprise us by not completely floundering about. There’s a few prerequisites to being a sleeper, however. Read More »

A year lost to the black hole of an NBA lockout doesn’t stop at lost revenues for team owners, nor the lost nights of kicking back with an extra large bag of Doritos to catch a game.

An NBA lockout means some players who live and breathe hoops won’t know what to do with themselves. To be real, the most gifted of NBA players probably don’t have hobbies, and blasting inferior competition in self-organized streetball games can only fulfill that competitive itch so long. Read More »

Sean Miller is rolling through the recruiting circuit heading into only his third season at Arizona. On Monday, the Wildcats’ head coach pulled in his biggest recruit yet, landing a top-5 overall prospect in the Class of 2012, Brandon Ashley, to a verbal commitment.

The 6-8, 215-pound power forward transferred this summer to Findlay Prep in Nevada following his time at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland, and chose the Arizona over Oregon, UCLA and Kentucky. Scooping Nike U and the country’s best recruiter in Kentucky’s John Calipari is surely a sign of things to come for Miller at Arizona. Read More »

NBA players are people too. Some might have fine tastes in fine cognacs while others go to clubs so nice that their bouncers wouldn’t let me in if Diddy told them to. But at the same time, they like the same songs that I like and watch the same movies that I do. Sometimes, said movies teach us important lessons, whether they are the generic, over-done type clichés or the deep, intellectual themes.

So these NBA guys must take a few of life’s lessons and view them as applicable to their game, right? Taking into account a few recent flicks, here’s what six popular movies could potentially teach some certain NBA stars. Read More »

Bill Russell‘s 11 NBA championships. Wilt‘s 100-point *insert noun that is exponentially better than “outburst” here.* Oscar Robertson‘s 41 triple-doubles in 79 games during the 1961-62 season. Call me ignorant, but I don’t think they’ll ever break. All these things we’re aware of, but we’re also conscious they’ll never be topped because they were set in a different era.

There’s always lesser records to be broken, however. You want your name cemented into NBA history? There’s ways to do it other than winning a lot or dropping buckets. Read More »

So after I tried to deduce some of the most daring and bold NBA jerseys yesterday, I also came across some threads that I would rather never see again. Such included graphics of strange looking animals, similarities to beer cans and a couple of shiny, Disney-esque themed jerseys that were over the top. Again, such opinions are extremely subjective and these are ranked in no particular order. Read More »

Style-fiends want the NBA season to happen, too. Just like those of us who care about the actual game, fashion trends won’t be set pregame, postgame or midgame if there’s no season. What shoe styles will the pros wear? And how about them new Washington Wizards threads? They look pretty cool on paper, but we won’t get a full feel for them until we see John Wall throwing no-looks JaVale McGee‘s way, or better yet, the Wizards winning. Read More »

Athletes will be athletes. As we saw in Thursday’s Smack, that’s why Oklahoma City guard Nate Robinson is half-seriously considering playing for the NFL, and coaches like Pete Carroll of the Seattle Seahawks are half-seriously thinking about that being a good idea.

It’s the same reason why we always want to imagine LeBron James strapping on the shoulder pads and coming off the edge as a defensive end or repeatedly overpowering any 6-foot-nothing corner for a jump-ball on a fade route. He’s such a good athlete we can’t even decide which position would be a better option. Read More »

A native of Queens, N.Y., former Romanian pro Haron “H2O” Hargrave hopes to bring the community together in his fifth version of the Queen’s Day 5-on-5 basketball tournament on August 20-21.

Hargrave’s event will bring the community together for food, music and an intense basketball tournament of 12 teams playing for a grand prize of $5,000 at the Roy Wilkins Park and Recreation Center in Queens. The format is a double-elimination style tournament of eight-man rosters, who will decide the winner by the end of a 20-minute game (with the clock stopping only in the last two minutes), or whomever first reaches 21 by ones and twos. Read More »