The last few NBA Finals were unique for me, completely different than any I had witnessed before. The game wasn’t limited to the television. It was on my phone, on my computer, instant, fresh and funny. It actually made me feel bad for LeBron. No one in NBA history had to deal with that level of criticism: constant, unrelenting and immediate, from all sides. Of course, he didn’t do much to help himself either, but that’s beside the point. Read More »

You might have heard, but today the owners and players met once again to go over this lockout business. For a variety of reasons – not all entirely true – things had been looking hopeful in the past week or so. But alas, the news wasn’t good as both sides came out of the meetings without any further progress being made.

We could roll out 500 words on how annoying all of this is, but Twitter has been breaking down the emotional roller coaster for us over the past hour or so anyways. Take it away Twitter: Read More »

Apparently, Rajon Rondo is really good at cornhole. Like 29-1 good. The Celtic tweeted this photo late last night proclaiming he and former Louisville player Alhaji Mohammed forced James Wilkinson and former Hawk Donta Smith to do 50 pushups because they beat them so bad. The real question though is, how long would it take to play 30 games of cornhole?

Read More »

People are funny. People are angry. That’s basically everything Twitter has taught me. I can’t say that I’m a regular tweeter. Of course I provide my loyal followers (I’m damn proud of all 85 of you) with the run-of-the-mill, read my article spam that populates the Twitterverse. But my life instincts aren’t Twitter-oriented. Nor am I that clever. It just seems that all my tweets are one-upped by someone else – like @JayBilas and @EricStangel (two of my favorites to follow). For the rest of us non-famous tweeters, we must submit to the inalienable Twitter standard: unless you can wow us with your unmatchable intellectual wit, shut up. We already knew that chicken parmigiana tastes good. It doesn’t warm our hearts knowing that you’re listening to Rick Ross. Read More »

Five years ago to this day, a microblogging entity known as Twitter was launched not as a rival to MySpace or Facebook, but with an Internet niche all its own. Only in the past year or so has it exploded, and just as Shaquille O’Neal was the biggest man in basketball, Shaq created a Twitter boom that caught on with NBA players and beyond.

Where does Twitter go from here? We can only guess, but in the fledgling years of the social media website, here’s my attempt at ranking the Top 10 Twitter accounts for the hardcore basketball fan. Read More »

Last week I was on Twitter when a good friend of mine, Vanderbilt shooting guard John Jenkins, changed his Twitter icon. I asked him where he his new picture came from, and he told me that Brendan Lunn (twitter.com/NBAguy11) had made it for him, and that he made wallpapers for a bunch of college and NBA players. I looked up his stuff on Twitter and was very impressed. After I followed Brendan, he reached out to me saying he was a big fan of Dime Magazine, and then proceeded to ask if some of his work could be featured in Dime. I responded that I would ask my editor. Read More »

From what I recall in my young life, I’d rank this draft in the top 5, not because it was utterly surprising as far as picks go, but mostly because of how much Twitter enhanced the viewer experience. OK sometimes the pre-pick “sources told me blank team is taking blank player” tweets ruined the surprises; it was a little too NFL Drafty for my tastes. Read More »

When it was all said and done, the Dallas Mavericks grew while the Miami Heat wilted, going from underdog to favorite led by a cold-blooded monster in Dirk Nowitzki. The Mavs beat the Heat in six games because as a team filled with players abandoned and lost in the seas of NBA roster movement, one thing became clear: all of them were hungry.

But of course, blame will fall on Miami’s preseason introduction ceremony of LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade, and mostly on King James himself. Yet, it isn’t that simple. Miami had one season of cohesion to Dallas’ years of scarring playoff losses on Nowitzki’s mind. Read More »

It was the same story of Game 4 all over again, only this time it involved two high-scoring offenses and Dallas didn’t need Dirk Nowitzki to be the man down the stretch.

The Heat fell to the Mavericks 112-103 despite a triple-double from LeBron James and Dwyane Wade toughing it out through a hip injury that saw him spend more time than he’d like in the locker room. Dallas hit the clutch shots to put Miami away, setting up Game 6 in South Beach with a must-win for the home squad. Read More »

Just like that, it’s all tied up. In response to some mix-matching with the Mavericks lineup, Rick Carlisle got some help for a sick Dirk Nowitzki in helping Dallas climb back to a 2-2 series tie. And before you ask, yes, this post is going to come across a little LeBron-haterish.

In Game 4′s tweets, we learn who the T-Mobile girl is and rave over a sighting of The Custodian. And of course, us media are going to go crazy on LeBron James after he shrunk in Game 4, but before reporters made him sweat after the game, the Twitterverse was already ragging on the King. Read More »