If you’re a fan of Penny Hardaway, it’s impossible not to consider what could have been. Penny was All-NBA First Team twice by the time he was 25. Who knows what heights he could have reached if only his body had held up?

That said, there’s no point to focusing on what didn’t happen at the expense of celebrating what actually did. Penny’s all too brief period atop the basketball world brought him a well-deserved enduring legacy, and his eternally cool Nike signature line and 1 Cent logo continues to resonate with sneakerheads of all ages. Read More »

This morning the Internet is buzzing about Dwight Howard‘s monstrous 45-point, 23-rebound annihilation of the Golden State Warriors. The last player to have at least 45 points and 23 rebounds in a game was Chris Webber back in 2001, when he racked up 51 points and 26 boards against the Pacers. Not to take anything away from Dwight – what he did last night was impressive – but he did miss almost 20 free throws, and he did it against the Warriors (they don’t exactly roll out Wilt and Bill Russell in the post).

What Webber did in ’01 was AMAZING. Read More »

Say hello to the bad guy. We have a new beast in the West. In probably the most physical game of the NBA season so far, the Blazers showed why everyone is so frightened of playing them up in the Northwest by punking the Clippers and Blake Griffin, 105-97. With the NBA’s newest A-List team threatening them over and over, Portland answered every call. Between Gerald Wallace, LaMarcus Aldridge and Marcus Camby, they did work on Griffin, holding him to the most up-and-down 18 and 12 night you’ll ever see. Read More »

Just when we were set to believe in Atlanta, they collapsed, fell apart, couldn’t make a free throw and now everyone in Chicago is probably sending Jeff Teague thank you cards. Derrick Rose reached out and ripped out the Hawks’ heart before Luol Deng put the winning touches on top in the Bulls huge come-from-behind win (the Hawks led by 19) at home against Atlanta, 76-74. How did the final few possessions go? It was a lot of Rose vs. Teague. First, with about a minute left, the MVP blew by Teague and nearly elevated to Mars at the rim. After the Hawks’ point forced Rose (30 points, seven assists) into an ugly miss on Chicago’s next possession, Teague came down and with tap water in his veins, missed both freebies. So just to rub it in, Rose came down and sped past Teague again to score at the rim. Read More »

It is pretty rare when an elite superstar, a player at the top of their game, is traded off by a team. Circumstances have to reach a boiling point where the team is not going anywhere or the player sees greener pastures and nothing will stop that fixation. In the NBA today, superstars (and those who think they are superstars) are all built the same. If their team has not won a championship or when they see their friends winning them in a brief amount of time, they see it as a need for a new setting. Read More »

“He’s going to empower players to be as good as you want and he’s going to give you enough rope to hang yourself.”

Chris Webber has earned his keep in broadcasting. He’s smart, fair and usually honest. But he’s never said something before that fit so perfectly. C-Webb knows Rick Adelman as well as any NBA player in the league, perhaps of all time. He paired with Adelman in the summer of 1998, Webber being banished from Washington for reasons that had more to do with his off-the-court issues than anything else, and quickly became the De Niro to Adelman’s Scorsese. Read More »

With the NBA season right around the corner, I caught up with three former players-turned-anaylsts from NBA TV today to preview the upcoming season. Chris Webber, Steve Smith and Greg Anthony broke down questions for an hour on everything from Kwame Brown‘s signing to the effect the lockout will have on young egos. While they disagreed on a number of things, they all seemed to be convinced that Boston’s old vets will actually be helped by the lockout. Read More »

Pistol Pete better be unbeatable. He better be out there throwing in wild hook shots from behind the backboard, and tossing in scoop shots from the three-point line. For all of the eccentric stuff the Pistol did in the NBA, he’ll always be remembered more appropriately for his college theatrics, and the trick shots he mastered so completely (Remember all of those old H-O-R-S-E TV programs). Upon playing the “Legends Showcase” for the first time, and jumping immediately into H-O-R-S-E, I thought Pete Maravich needed to come correct. If the 2K developers didn’t arm him with justice, there would’ve been Hell to pay. Thankfully, the Pistol was at his gun-slinging best. Read More »

If you’ve been watching NBA TV at all this summer – and I’m sure you have if you’re like me – you must’ve noticed how often they play Game 3 from the 1994 first round series between Phoenix and Golden State. I’ve seen parts of that game probably four or five times. It was Chris Webber’s first taste of the postseason and one of the final bites in the prime of Charles Barkley’s career. C-Webb seemed at times, for all of his Fab Five-ness, a respectful young kid. But he crossed the line with his infamous regular season dunk over the reigning MVP. You know the one: catch it on the break, flick it around the back for no reason other than because he can, and then shove the ball down Barkley’s throat after stepping off his Flight No. 4. Read More »

The only memories I have of Wayman Tisdale are from his final few years in the NBA when he was just a forgettable role player in Phoenix. I didn’t catch him in his prime during the late 1980s and early ‘90s. I also never realized he was a spectacular musician until sometime around his death in 2009. If we are talking about great NBA musicians, then Tisdale has to be near the top. He had a No. 1 Billboard album, as crazy as that sounds. But if we did that – opened this list up to every ballplayer/artist – it would turn into an impossibility. Read More »