If you haven’t heard, this is supposed to be a down year for the Pac-10.

Over the summer the conference lost James Harden, Jordan Hill, DeMar DeRozan, Jrue Holiday, Darren Collison, Taj Gibson, Jeff Pendergraph, Jon Brockman and Chase Budinger to the NBA Draft. Going back to 2008, the Pac-10 also lost O.J. Mayo, Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook, the Lopez twins, Jerryd Bayless and Ryan Anderson, all of whom would still been in school today had they not gone pro early. Read More »

Is it possible the West is actually stronger than we all thought? No surprise that the Lakers, Nuggets, Spurs and Blazers have been solid, but not a lot of people expected Houston, Dallas and Phoenix to play so well coming out of the gate … The Suns are arguably the best team in the entire League right now, with Steve Nash putting himself in the mix for a third MVP and doing that thing where he makes fringe NBA players look like All-Stars. Last night Nash added to the resume, putting up 21 points and 20 assists in a come-from-behind win at Philly … Read More »

If you’re purely interested in the best interest of Allen Iverson, you’re glad the Grizzlies had one of their business-as-usual losses against the Clippers last night. Having gone 0-3 since A.I. joined the lineup earlier in the week, for Memphis to win after Iverson had left the team for undisclosed personal reasons — even if it was against the Clips — would have brought up all the same criticisms of Iverson you saw in Detroit and at various points throughout his runs in Philly and Denver. Mainly, that A.I.’s team is better without him, and that certain young stars (i.e. O.J. Mayo in this case) are better off when he’s not in the picture … Instead, the Grizzlies did what they typically do with or without Iverson, putting up a lot of points while giving up even more. Read More »

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 »

Missing the deadline for Sunday morning’s Smack, Carmelo Anthony had the performance of the NBA preseason so far in a very late-Saturday/early-Sunday tip in Beijing — in the same arena where ‘Melo and Team USA won their ‘08 gold medals. In just 24 minutes of work against the Pacers, ‘Melo dropped 45 points, going 14-of-19 from the field and 16-of-17 from the line. Oh, and he threw in nine rebounds and two blocks. Those are video-game numbers, like playing NBA 2K against the CPU on Easy mode. But then even more amazing than that might have been Indiana’s “defensive” numbers. Read More »

A good sign that things are getting busier and crazier around here: A couple years ago, if the first televised NBA preseason game was on during the workday, you would’ve found at least 2-3 members of the Dime crew parked on the office couch in front of the TV, workload be damned. This year, the best we could do was catch some of Jazz/Bulls (from London) on a side-glance … No Derrick Rose for this one, as he reportedly hurt his ankle the day before in practice. (Funny how that coincided with his 21st birthday on Sunday. Not that we’re accusing anybody of anything.) Read More »

You might remember USC’s Leonard Washington as the guy who committed one of the dirtiest plays of the year last season, running down the court and hitting Blake Griffin square in the junk. But today, the 6-7, 230-pound sophomore was told that he won’t even have a chance to get back on the court and redeem himself until 2010, after being declared academically ineligible for the first semester. Read More »

Since the NBA Finals ended, we’ve been jumping at any chance we could to watch hoops. From NBA Summer League to AAU tournaments to pickup in NYC/LA, we’ve basically gone out of our way to catch as much ball as we could. And who wouldn’t? So with the NBA season right around the corner, there’s no better time than now to start predicting who is going to win some NBA awards this season. First up, Rookie of the Year. Read More »

Four of the Raptors’ starting five is basically in stone. You know Calderon is starting at point, Hedo at the three, Bosh at the four and Bargnani at the five. The shooting guard spot? That’s where it gets debatable. While early indications out of TO suggest that top draft pick DeMar DeRozan will begin the season as a starter, there is no guarantee that will stick throughout the season and maybe even preseason. The sure-to-be fan favorite guard out of USC has his fair share of competition at his spot. Read More »

What’s up Dime readers! Before I defend my headline, I’d like to take a second to introduce myself to you all. My name is Gerald Narciso and I’m the newest addition to the Dime family. I’m Canadian but grew up in Utah and just finished a three-year stint in Vancouver (Canada not Washington). In the past, I’ve done some freelance work here as long as with Bounce. Apparently Dime liked me so much they kidnapped me from Vancouver and brought me over to the big apple. Anybody got any good suggestions on cool restaurants, bars or coffee shops I should check out, please hit me up! Read More »