A little piece of Utah died today. The announcement that Jazz head coach Jerry Sloan is resigning after 22 and a half seasons with the team came as a shock to those outside of the organization and marks the end of an era for the NBA. We will likely never see a coach who sticks around with one team as long as Sloan, not to mention one who defines his team’s identity as much as Sloan.

When Sloan was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009, Dime reader and Jazz fan/blogger Amar penned this piece on the legacy of a true pro’s pro: Read More »

Kobe going at Shaq. Floyd going at Oscar De La Hoya. The Situation going at Ronnie? Our friends over at Complex developed their own Celebrity Smack Talk Soundboard. The soundboard compiles some of the best sound bites from their favorite trash-talking athletes, actors, rappers, and politicians.

You can also hear Read More »

Who do you want your offense to run through with the game on the line? Counting down from 30th to 1st (one per team), I’ve ranked the League’s go-to guys…

TYREKE EVANS, Sacramento Kings It’s called instinct for a reason. Lion cubs must be taught the tricks of hunt, but they’re already ingrained with the knowledge that survival depends on catching prey.

In other words: You can teach the method, not the motivation. Read More »

As much as everybody nit-picked and scrutinized along the way, when you look at what really matters, Team USA put together a pretty impressive performance at the World Championship. Bottom line: They took care of business and won the gold medal. Kevin Durant was dominant, Lamar Odom and Russell Westbrook and Andre Iguodala and almost every member of the team played their roles like they were supposed to, and the U.S. won each tournament game by an average of 24.5 points and only had one close call … 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 »

It’s like there’s no middle ground: NBA teams either make decisions that seemingly take no forethought (e.g. New York re-hiring Isiah Thomas and subsequently pissing off Donnie Walsh), or they overthink decisions that should be easy. The most recent example of that? Detroit still mulling whether or not to sign Tracy McGrady. Why wouldn’t Joe Dumars make the move? From everything we’re hearing it’s a one-year, vet-minimum contract, so no risk there. It’s not like you’re throwing off the chemistry of a championship-contending group. Read More »

“David Lee is getting paid ($80 million), but he may not know what he’s getting into going to Golden State. Not to say there’s a curse on the franchise, but, well, No. 6 pick Ekpe Udoh has already gone down with a wrist injury that could put him out up to six months. And his replacement in the rotation will likely be Brandan Wright, who is about as durable as a cheap pinata.” … That was nine days ago in Smack. Then, in his first real court time as a member of the Warriors — yesterday’s opening session the Team USA training camp — Lee suffered what was believed to be a serious right middle finger injury. Read More »

What constitutes “news” these days? It was already getting hard to tell after the past week of one million made-up rumors and random speculation, but then this LeBron-on-Twitter thing hit yesterday and further confused the situation. If you haven’t heard, LeBron officially signed onto everybody’s favorite social media toy, and that development was actually reported by the Associated Press and other major outlets like a real-life “news” story. (Not that we’re claiming superiority; we’re all following @KingJames too.) Read More »

During the Suns-Lakers series, TNT showed Marv Albert‘s interview with President Barack Obama. If you remember, the interview was really interesting. Usually when a politician talks about sports, you yawn and don’t pay much attention. However, with Obama, I was drawn in the entire time and thoroughly impressed by his basketball knowledge and insights into the game. Obama is a great speaker, and his interview proved that not only is he great when writing his own speeches, but also when doing an interview. Even if you hate Obama’s guts as a politician and disagree with everything that he does in office, as a basketball fan, there is no denying how awesome it was to see the President talk hoops with Marv. Read More »

The NBA is off until Sunday, when the Celtics and Magic tip-off the Eastern Conference Finals (Lakers vs. Suns begins Monday). In the meantime, be prepared for 24/7 LeBron James coverage. With everybody weighing in yesterday to either breakdown what went wrong for the Cavs or speculate where LeBron will end up this summer, it was LBJ overload on Friday. Realistically, it’s going to come down to three teams: Cleveland, Chicago or New York. They’re going to throw everything they have at LeBron, but what happens for the two franchises that miss out on him? Read More »