Buy Low: Devin Harris, Antawn Jamison, Kevin Love, J.R. Smith, Rashard Lewis and anyone else who is going to return from an injury or suspension in the near future should be targeted for low-ball offers.

Danilo Gallinari has turned from being an Italian stallion to an ordinary pony in the span of a week. His owners are champing at the bit for him to put up studly lines again, and in the meantime you should be dangling carrots in their faces in hopes of nabbing this three-point hoss. Read More »

Erick Dampier was almost the headline photo for today’s Smack. Seriously. In the late stages of the fourth quarter of Mavs/Hornets, Damp (16 pts, 14 rebs, 3 blks) was the most clutch player in the building, getting a putback off a Dirk Nowitzki miss to break a tie, catching an alley-oop from Jason Kidd on the next possession, then scoring on another tip-in with 16 seconds left. That should’ve been the dagger, but Dallas killed themselves at the free-throw line in the final seconds: Jason Terry missed one after Chris Paul got T’d up for arguing a push-off call (CP had pushed off on J.J. Barea like 3-4 times in the fourth, but didn’t get called for it until what looked like N.O.’s last-chance possession), then Barea missed two freebies to keep the Hornets alive. Read More »

In lieu of making yet another LeBron/Jay-Z analogy, let’s put it this way: The Cavs are treating the Wizards like LL Cool J did Canibus. They’ll take some time out to address the beef, but always with a swagger that says “Who is this little pest?” It’s even trickled down to the announcers. When Washington came out blasting last night (”Second Round Knockout”) and put the Cavs down by as much as 18 in the first half, Austin Carr admitted the game didn’t mean as much to LeBron and Co. as it did to Gilbert Arenas‘ squad. Read More »

The worst part about preseason polls is that voters adopt a loyalty to those pre-determined spots even after the season shows us some of those picks were just wrong. College football gets it the worst, but the same often applies for the NBA; the only saving grace is that, at the end of the day, voter opinion doesn’t matter because the NBA has a playoff.

That said, we ignored making a preseason NBA Hit List power ranking, so as not to influence this first week’s edition. Counting down from worst to first… Read More »

Breaking down the first-week performances of the serious 2010 title contenders, Spurs announcer Sean Elliott messed up his words and said the Lakers took an “old-fashioned butt cooking” from the Mavs on Friday night. As it turns out, that was the best way to describe what the Spurs were about to do to the Kings on Saturday … Despite Sacramento starting probably the worst frontcourt in the League (Jason Thompson, Sean May, Desmond Mason), it was one of those nights where Tim Duncan didn’t have to do much and could let the smaller guys go to work. Read More »

Now that the 2009-10 NBA season has finally begun, we’ll have brief overviews of the previous night’s games each day, highlighting noteworthy performances and trends, along with some recommendations. These will be fantasy-focused posts and hopefully, you’ll find these to be at least a bit helpful as you navigate your fantasy squads through the regular season. Read More »

It’s been two years since Gilbert Arenas has been relevant in the NBA. On top of being one of the league’s top talents at the time, Agent Zero also possessed Shaq-like charisma that allowed him to grace national magazine covers, appear in TV commercials and pen the hottest blog in the sports world (do athletes still blog?). Coming into the 2009-10 season healthy for the first time in two seasons, Gilbert is on a mission to get his name, his rep and his team back into relevancy. Read More »

Contrary to what Chris Webber said last night, the Celtics are not going to win the 2010 championship because they picked up Rasheed Wallace. While ‘Sheed will definitely play a role, Boston isn’t winning jack (or Larry) unless Paul Pierce performs up to Paul Pierce standards. Last night was vintage Truth, as Boston downed the Cavs in the opening game of the new season, a rare home loss for Cleveland. With a little over a minute remaining in the fourth and the Celtics up by four, Pierce (23 pts, 11 rebs) ran a pick-and-roll with KG near midcourt against LeBron and Shaq. Advantage: Boston. Shaq reached, Pierce teached, then stuck a jumper from the top of the key that was essentially the dagger. Read More »

Is it just us, or has this been — from an injury standpoint — the most destructive NBA preseason in a while? Last year Deron Williams started out on the shelf, and of course Gilbert Arenas and Monta Ellis had their issues, but we don’t remember too many other notables beginning the regular season logging DNPs due to preseason injuries … One standout who’s absence will be very noticeable on Opening Night is Pau Gasol, who as of yesterday is expected to miss the Lakers/Clippers opener with a bad hamstring. Gasol and Andrew Bynum (shoulder) missed L.A.’s last two preseason games, but while Bynum said he’s going to play Tuesday, the Lakers look like they’ll be getting their rings with Gasol in a suit and Lamar Odom in the starting lineup … Read More »

They all count from here on out. Friday was the last day of NBA preseason action, with a nearly full schedule that included two national TV games: Hawks/Magic and Nuggets/Lakers … Orlando effectively ended their contest early, going up by 20-plus in the first quarter and capping an undefeated preseason with a near 40-piecing. Vince Carter dropped 26, hit all five of his threes, and was throwing down double-clutch dunks along the baseline while the Hawks basically watched. Dwight Howard put up 25 points, 13 boards and three blocks … Even more impressive about Dwight’s performance was that he managed to beast Al Horford. Read More »