When I think back to my childhood years and developing my basketball game, like many others my age, I think of the summers when I attended Five-Star Basketball camps. About 10-15 years ago, Five-Star was the most prestigious grassroots basketball organization and helped develop the skills of players like Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Kevin Durant. The business of basketball camps has changed tremendously in the last 10 years with top players and sneaker companies starting their own camps and tournament circuits, and as a result Five-Star took a backseat. Now under new ownership, Five-Star Basketball is ready to step back into the spotlight and reconnect with the youth with the launch of fivestarbasketball.com, a content heavy site with player rankings, blogs, highlight reels, camp history and much more. Read More »

You can now place Bradley Beal of Chaminade College Preparatory (St. Louis, Mo.) in the same sentence as LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Kobe Bryant and Alonzo Mourning. Earlier this week, the 6-4 Florida-bound senior joined those past winners when he was named the Gatorade National Boys Basketball Player of the Year for 2011. Read More »

“He’s wasted his talent.” “He’s soft.” “He doesn’t care.” Vince Carter has heard nearly every insult you could ever throw at a player. But none of that takes away from this: He is the greatest dunker this game has ever seen.

With the recent news that Suns coach Alvin Gentry was benching VC in favor of Jared Dudley, some are taking this as a sign that Carter’s career is pretty much over. But in Wednesday night’s loss against the Thunder, Carter went retro, scoring 28 points and giving us a nice baseline reverse. After that, I figured I would make a list similar to the one I did of Kobe Bryant. Here are the 10 greatest dunks of Vince Carter’s career (no dunk contest and no celebrity-game dunks). Read More »

As I said earlier, from games to parties to appearances, there wasn’t a free second to be had during NBA All-Star Weekend. So for those of you that weren’t able to make the trip, I wanted to give you an inside-look into everything that was going on. With that, check out the entire weekend in pictures (and be sure to click on the next day at the end of the post). Read More »

As much pain as Ben Wallace‘s swollen ankle may have caused him while sitting at home Tuesday, his eyes would have been hurting more had he watched League Pass last night. Big Ben, Gary Payton, Bruce Bowen, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo, Mookie Blaylock — anybody who’s ever made a living shutting down NBA scorers would have cringed at some of the comical “defense” on display … In Denver, the Suns showed up for about 15 minutes before the Nuggets started shooting holes in their D like a game of Duck Hunt. Read More »

Apparently the Celtics and Heat are in a competition to set the record for having the most players in training camp and under contract. Yesterday the Celtics extended camp invites to Mario West (Hawks), Stephane Lasme (UMass), Chris Johnson (LSU) and Jamar Smith (Southern Indiana), bringing their preliminary roster count to approximately 47. It’s gonna look like ABCD Camp the first few days before Doc Rivers starts making cuts … With every new guy Boston brings in, Luke Harangody has to be getting more nervous. He’s likely going to be the slowest, least-athletic guy in camp, which is bad if you’re 12th in line, but worse if you’re 20th in line. Read More »

The hype surrounding Reggie Bush and his Heisman Trophy scandal has swamped the media. Five years after he was the face of college football, Bush has forfeited the sport’s defining trophy amidst the revelation of NCAA violations committed during his USC career. (Good thing O.J. Mayo didn’t win any Player of the Year awards during his one-year stop at USC, otherwise that would be another source of public embarrassment for the school that seems to ignore the fact that their athletes are amateurs.) Read More »

As time passes, the faces change, but the game stays the same. As a result, it’s easy to notice similarities between NBA players from different eras.

The Golden Age for me as a basketball fan was the early-1990s. Those days were filled with a lot of up-and-comers with plenty of style like Shaq, Penny and Kenny Anderson. Add to that the stars from the ’80s like Isiah, Michael and Hakeem who were able solidify their careers and win the ultimate prize within that period, and a host of other memorable characters. Read More »

We mentioned it in Smack this morning, but figured we’d give you a little more detail into what actually went down yesterday in President Barack Obama‘s pickup game. As you can see from the picture, Chicago’s Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah got the invite, but who else was selected for Obama’s personal Dream Team? Read More »

As of right now, the jury is still out on where LeBron James will land. But with that being said, let’s take a look at how Miami won a championship in 2006. We know Chris Bosh will be joining Dwyane Wade in Wade County, but besides Michael Beasley and Mario Chalmers, who else should the Heat bring in to help them win another championship. We break it down here: Read More »