We’ll call this the list Gary McGhee loves to hate…

I’ve been on both sides of the coin before. It’s the embarrassing times you remember. One in particular stands out for me. College. Sophomore year. Preseason. Every fall semester at a D-III college is always the same: there are the returning players and then there are dozens of kids from high school, all coming together and all believing they’ll be one of the three or four kids who actually make the team. They all have some game and they’re all cocky. Read More »

Damian Lillard accomplished almost everything as a rookie. Outside of nearly leading Portland to the playoffs — just having the Blazers in the conversation was impressive enough — Lillard led the NBA in total minutes, averaged 19 points a game, unanimously won Rookie of the Year AND made the cover of Dime Magazine. He also never hit the rookie wall, miraculously improving as the season dragged into the spring, and repeatedly held his own against some of the league’s best point guards. Read More »

This year’s Basketball Hall of Fame class was officially announced yesterday, and taking his rightful place among the game’s greats in September will be Gary Payton. The Glove holds the distinction of being the only point guard ever to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year, an honor given to him for his suffocating work during the 1995-96 season. It was, however, his work that postseason that immortalized his defensive reputation. Read More »

After having one of their family members break his leg in half right in front of their bench, it was only fitting that this tournament, this season would end with the Louisville Cardinals winning a championship for the school (its first in 27 years), for Rick Pitino (who found out yesterday he’ll be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame), and for Kevin Ware (for obvious reasons). Read More »

While the NBA’s grand old gatekeepers take their time weighing the option of keeping the Sacramento Kings in California’s capital versus relocating the franchise to Seattle, the strongest reason for my pro-Emerald City optimism is that the league ultimately will not escape Seattle’s presence.

Like a ghost unable to stay hidden in a closet of skeletons, the Sonics – the team taken from its home in 2008 and moved to Oklahoma City – will haunt the league until that particular wrong is righted. And while I can envision Sacramento joining the likes of Buffalo, Vancouver and Fort Wayne in the pro basketball history books, I cannot envision the NBA in 10 years without a Seattle franchise.

The latest reminder of the Sonics’ omnipresent legacy was issued this week, with the news that Gary Payton has been voted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Growing up in Seattle during the prime of Payton’s career, my biases say he is the greatest Sonic of all time. But even if I were objective, that wouldn’t be a bold statement. Read More »

[Congrats to Gary Payton - word just broke that he's officially been elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. We will have more on GP and his ascension to Springfield in the coming days. In the meantime, check out this post we put together when it was first announced that he was on this year's ballot.]

With the announcement that Gary Payton will be on his first Hall of Fame ballot this spring, it started the reminiscing for me. As a kid growing up in the Northwest, the Sonics during the Shawn Kemp/GP/George Karl era were my favorites for reasons I couldn’t have detailed at the time. But they played fast, Kemp was like a video game character come to life and Payton carried an attitude that was unmistakable, even at age 8. Having been too young to remember the Portland Trail Blazers’ glory years and NBA Finals runs, the Sonics ran the Northwest as far as I was concerned. Payton was their ring leader, and it’s obvious why. Read More »

How long have you been waiting for tonight? A couple of weeks? Maybe a month? Well, if you’re James White, you’ve been waiting a decade. Flight White was put on this planet to do one thing. He was born to dunk, and yeah, he’s won some dunk contests over the years (and, somehow, lost a few too). But this will be his biggest stage yet. Read More »

The NBA’s All-Star weekend tipped off Friday night with the BBVA Rising Stars Challenge. Team Chuck bested Team Shaq by a score of 163-135 — and it wasn’t really that close. Read More »

Last week, the basketball world was abuzz with news that the owners of the Sacramento Kings were in the process of finalizing the sale of the franchise to a Seattle-based ownership group. The upshot of the apparent deal, while far from sealed, was that it would effectively mean the return of the Seattle SuperSonics next season. Read More »

*With all of the recent events surrounding the Carmelo Anthony/Kevin Garnett feud, and the trash talk involved that lit the Internet on fire, we figured it was a good time to repost our piece on the top 20 trash talkers of all time, originally published in October of 2012.*

David Stern and the rest of the suits might be charged with trying to take the fun out of the NBA, but trash talk will never die. Read More »