Over the weekend, Allen Iverson (and Jason Williams) held it down in an exhibition all-star game against the 2012 Chinese Basketball Association champion Beijing Ducks. While most NBA execs don’t believe in the magic of AI’s game anymore (after this move, Iverson missed the shot, so we can’t blame them), this defender surely has to. He gets dropped by the one-time MVP, who spent the game rocking one of his most famous sneakers, the Answer IV. Read More »

If you host it, they will dunk. That’s how I imagine the thinking behind FIBA’s 3-on-3 world tour this summer, where a dunk contest has followed each stop’s tournament. Even though 3-on-3 hoops with high-level players leads to about as many alley-oops as a dunk contest itself, the actual competitions have been more than just a sideshow. Add Madrid’s duel between Polish compatriots Raphael Lipinski and Emil Olszewski to that opinion. Olszewski took the victory, though Lipinski, in my opinion, had the best dunk of the whole competition. Read More »

Saturday night’s Midnight Madness event in London brought Europe’s best unknown players together for a 13th straight year, but Haneef Munir, aka Young Hollywood, and Dmitry “Smoove” Krivenko sent them home buzzing because of their dueling dunk contest show. Putting your head at the rim when you’re 5-10 has a way of doing that. While you were out enjoying the last rays of summer, check out the show they were putting on in Easton London. Read More »

Nate Miles was stabbed in the chest nine months ago and both of his lungs collapsed. He hasn’t played competitive, organized basketball since.

Dave Johnson lost a starting spot and a captaincy over a coaching change as a college senior, and was left with only one post-collegiate opportunity at a Chicago camp. He’s still waiting on a call three years later. Read More »

This story was originally published in Dime 70. Check it out on newsstands nationwide to see it in its entirety…

Every young athlete grows up dreaming to become the next Michael Jordan, the next Aaron Rodgers, the next Albert Pujols. But Matt Scott couldn’t because of a debilitating birth defect. He decided instead to become one of the best wheelchair basketball players ever. Read More »

When Kobe Bryant was just starting out in the NBA, he’d spend his free time seeking out quality runs. Even during Laker training camps, sometimes Bryant would sneak off during down time to get in some ball at Venice Beach. He couldn’t help himself. In a way, he’s still doing it, and over the weekend, it surfaced that Bryant went overseas to China to play in the Sprite China Second Annual Charity Basketball Game against a few Chinese pop stars. How’d he do? Apparently, he dropped 68 points… in the second half. Read More »

If we all watched the same Olympics over the past month – including the qualifying games – then we all saw the United States dominate nearly every country outside of Spain in the gold medal game. Spain made it that far. They weren’t supposed to get dominated. They did their job. But so did Team USA.

In Beijing in 2008, the “Redeem Team” took center stage as USA Basketball compiled the best talent in the world, sending them out to reclaim the gold that escaped them in 2004. They responded with a resounding 8-0 record, embarrassing teams by an average margin of 27.8 points per game. Read More »

Missouri faced off against the national team of Netherlands on Saturday during a game of their exhibition tour, with Missouri easily outmatching the European squad by 25 points at halftime. The Dutch were understandably pissed, and started to take out their frustration on Mizzou with elbows, verbal exchanges and like. Except, unlike NBA refs who have quick trigger fingers and rarely let things get out of hand, these refs just couldn’t handle the mayhem. Missouri head coach Frank Haith had just been ejected for berating officials over a non-call on an elbow to forward Stefan Jankovic‘s head, so he decided to pull the plug. He and his players left the court, abandoning the game entirely. Read More »

Team USA is just two wins away from winning a gold medal and continuing their dominance in the international competition. Before they can get to Sunday’s gold medal game, they must get past Argentina yet again, as today’s game will be the team’s third meeting in the last three weeks. Read More »

There isn’t a run in the world Kobe Bryant won’t play in. Like any NBA superstar since 1992 — the date essentially cited in this summer of Dream Team nostalgia as the launch point for the game’s global and commercial awareness — his fame can get him into any game, anywhere, anytime. The ads Nike released during the lockout last summer, showing NBA stars getting burn in church leagues and hipster pickup games in Brooklyn, fulfill the pipe dream of any fan who’s wanted to play the very best. With Bryant there’s a sense it’s not all that far-fetched. Having unchecked access, however, isn’t the same as needing to, the same as how having an almost ideal option doesn’t mean it’s the right one. Read More »