Last year we debuted the “Highs and Lows” system — previewing the NBA season by predicting the respective ceiling and basement for each team. Same theme, different season…

Added: Hedo Turkoglu, DeMar DeRozan, Jarrett Jack, Amir Johnson, Antoine Wright, Reggie Evans, Marco Belinelli, Rasho Nesterovic, Sonny Weems

Lost: Shawn Marion, Anthony Parker, Jason Kapono, Joey Graham, Roko Ukic, Pops Mensah-Bonsu, Kris Humphries, Jake Voskuhl, Nathan Jawai, Hassan Adams Read More »

We’ll start with the Twitter-sponsored portion of Smack: Over the weekend Michael Beasley closed his Twitter account after he took some heat (no pun intended) for posting a pic that may or may not have been bags of weed. Nothing too major, but this is the exact kind of thing that kept Beasley from being a surefire #1 overall pick a year ago. No disrespect to Derrick Rose, but you take a lefty power forward with Beasley’s game and Tim Duncan or Blake Griffin’s personality, and the only thing he needs to worry about is getting a suit to match the team colors of whoever has the top pick. Instead, this is almost like watching the early part of Lamar Odom’s career replay itself … Ron Artest used Twitter as his bulletin board to spice up the next Lakers/Rockets game. Read More »

Thank Oscar that the program directors at NBA TV decided to start showing some of the best games from the ‘08-09 season in neat little one-hour increments this week, otherwise the general inactivity these days would draw a basketball fan stir crazy … The NBA free agent landscape is like combing through the used CD rack at a store that’s already been raided by the broke college students: There’s still some interesting, slightly attractive product, but nothing too great. Case in point: The most intense “bidding war” lately has been over C.J. Watson — a second or third-string PG on most teams — and that just ended since the Magic pulled out of negotiations and it’s looking like C.J. is headed back to the Warriors … Meanwhile, David Lee is the biggest name left on the board that anybody seems to want (sorry, A.I.). Read More »

All eyes were on Blake Griffin yesterday, as he made his Vegas Summer League debut and pretty much lived up to every lofty expectation you could have put on him. Blake went for 27 points (11-15 FG) and 12 boards in 29 minutes, leading the Clippers to a win over the Lakers. He hit a three, dunked on a couple of dudes, showed a nice turnaround jumper, used the glass effectively a la Duncan, and showed he can also lead a fast break. Good thing there were plenty of cameras in the building; this could be the high point of the Clippers’ season … Read More »

One play defined exactly why I’ve never understood some people’s love affair with Rasheed Wallace. In the second half of yesterday’s Cavs/Pistons game, with Detroit down by 15 and five minutes away from getting swept out of the first round, LeBron had Will Bynum posted up on the elbow. Easily spinning off Bynum, ‘Bron attacked the rim with a punctuation mark on his mind, and ‘Sheed was the only man standing in his way. Read More »

“How One Player is Changing the Game Forever.”

When I first saw that work-in-progress headline for Brandon Jennings‘ Dime #46 cover, admittedly I thought it was a reach. But eventually I talked myself into it, and came to believe that Jennings’ groundbreaking decision to sidestep David Stern’s NBA age limit and still get money right after high school would reverberate on every level of basketball — from high schoolers being presented with another option besides college, to colleges having yet another competitor in the recruiting wars, to the on-court effects of the NBA introducing players with a unique background of having played American high school and international pro ball. Read More »

Cavs/Pistons is one of those series that makes us pine for the days of the first round being best-of-five. By now it’s pretty obvious Detroit is cooked; they showed some heart in cutting Cleveland’s 30-piecing in half during the fourth quarter last night (with Will Bynum as the sparkplug), and maybe they can steal one at home if Cleveland relaxes, but really, we know who’s moving on from this and who’s gonna pop up on Kenny Smith’s “Gone Fishin’” poster … Read More »

Watching Amir Johnson in his 10 minutes off the bench last night, two things occurred to me: (1) Instead of barely cracking the Pistons’ rotation, the 21-year-old could have been a senior at Louisville this year, and (2) Amir has the tightest waves in the NBA. Read More »