Well Derrick Rose had a nice day. He got paid and became a made man in Chicago if he wasn’t already one. Then in the capper, he methodically picked apart everyone’s Eastern Conference sleeper, Indiana, in Chicago’s 93-85 win. We felt like it was April and we were back in the first round of the playoffs again. Rose (12 points, nine assists) was destroying Darren Collison (1-for-7, six points), Psycho T was doing his bowling ball routine (24 points, 13 rebounds) and the Bulls’ defense was more suffocating than an only child’s mother, holding Indiana to 36 percent from the field. Read More »

As more and more NBA free agents sign with teams, roster spots are becoming fewer by the hour. What normally starts on July 1 and winds down by around mid-August, has been condensed into two weeks – with training camp going on at the same time. As you can imagine, this has made it extremely difficult for teams to find any type of cohesion before the season begins on Christmas Day. And the players who are suffering the most are the restricted free agents. Read More »

One of the more prominently promoted features of the new NBA 2K12 is the ability to play with great teams from NBA history. Ostensibly, this would allow one to discover who the greatest squad ever was, albeit in a virtual and fictional setting. Is it Jordan and the 72-win Bulls? Bird and the ’86 Celtics? The Kobe-Shaq Lakers? The Duncan-Robinson Spurs? Make it a head-to-head contest, and you can find your answer. Read More »

Yes this happened Friday night, but we have to give second-year big man Dante Cunningham some props for this block on Kevin Garnett. If the Celtics didn’t lose the game, we’d like to think KG would have shown the young boy some love after the game…

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Is it ever acceptable to settle for mediocrity? In the NBA, more times than not, being mediocre can still land you millions of dollars. But Michael Jordan has never been known as mediocre. The Charlotte Bobcats have been a mediocre team since they were founded in 2004. Believe it or not, when the Bobcats moved their second best player in Gerald Wallace for Joel Przybilla, Dante Cunningham, Sean Marks, and two first-round draft picks, they took a step in the direction to being a relevant franchise in a few years. Read More »

The minutes leading up to the 3:00pm EST trade deadline Thursday didn’t disappoint. There was a flurry of last-minute swaps around the NBA, a league whose GMs appear to have caught some kind of bloodlust for transactions akin to the fever teenage girls have for Bieber. This means that there’s a whole lot to digest today. Let’s wade through the aftermath and assess the effects of the last-minute trading frenzy for fantasy basketball owners. Read More »

WOJ is KILLING it today. His Twitter account has been ground zero for every bit of breaking NBA trade deadline news. One of the many deals he broke this afternoon actually looked to be dead right up until the 3p.m. deadline. At the last minute though, the Portland Trail Blazers and Charlotte Bobcats pulled off a deal to send former All-Star Gerald Wallace to the Great Northwest. Read More »

Somebody call Smush Parker and tell him to dust off his purple kicks. Because if Kobe Bryant is at all missing the time he played with Kwame Brown, a 10-day for Smush in L.A. could be in the cards … OK, so Kobe didn’t say he misses Kwame — he didn’t say anything at all — but during last night’s loss to the Bobcats, Kobe had to notice Kwame was outplaying his more talented opposition for key stretches simply because he went harder. Read More »

The other night in Portland’s win over Golden State, second-year Blazers forward Dante Cunningham had a breakthrough game. Finishing with 13 points and five rebounds in a career-high 39 minutes of action, D.C. showed the Portland brass why they drafted him with the 33rd overall pick in the 2009 NBA Draft. So on a team constantly struggling with injuries, the best thing Cunningham can do is bright it when he’s given the chance. Recently, we caught up with him to talk about his sophomore season, life on the road and Scottie Reynolds. Read More »

We know which teams have the money, and we know which players they want. The only intrigue left before LeBron, D-Wade, Amar’e, Bosh, Joe and the rest actually put pen to paper is how they’ll be recruited. LeBron’s camp has already said they’re not going on a cross-country tour, that they’ll meet with teams at a “neutral site.” (Not that anyone will complain: The Knicks would swim through 500 yards of sh*t-smelling foulness to get LeBron.) … As for D-Wade and Bosh, reports yesterday said they will travel to New York to visit with the Knicks. Meanwhile, LeBron is going to hear pitches from the Cavs, Nets, Heat, Bulls, Clippers and Knicks. Read More »