Those of us in the Dime crew who are hitting our mid-to-late 20′s are noticing the trend every sports fan experiences with age: The offspring of athletes we grew up watching are now starting to make their own names in the game. Michael Jordan, Shawn Kemp and Glen Rice are just a few of the former NBA stars who now have sons that are college-age and giving us 1990s flashbacks every time they step on the court. Read More »

If Fran Fraschilla said it once, he said it a thousand times: Team USA wasn’t playing against Iran yesterday, they were playing against themselves. (Only without the Jay-Z after-party.) So if that was the case, would we call the 37-point “victory” over the guys in the other uniforms a win or a loss? … Hamed Haddadi and Co. weren’t as terrible as you may have been led to believe, but they still weren’t on Team USA’s level. And yet if you wanted the U.S. to improve during this game, you had to be disappointed. Read More »

For at least two of this summer’s marquee free agents, there wasn’t really a question of where they’d end up. After a brief flirtation with the Knicks, Dirk Nowitzki joined Paul Pierce on the least-suspenseful superstar signings list, re-upping with the Mavs for a reported $80 million over four years. (Throw in Germany’s World Cup blowout over Argentina, and Dirk was probably grinning like Homey D. Clown all day yesterday.) Like Pierce, Dirk could have taken a max deal, but decided to take less so the Mavs have some money to keep putting a solid team around him. Dirk’s deal also reportedly has a no-trade clause, making him and Kobe the only two players in the League with that kind of power … Read More »

Nobody would have predicted this. It wasn’t really that long ago when Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady were neck-and-neck in the debate over who was the most talented player — Shaq and Tim Duncan were still the most dominant — and explosive offensive weapon in the NBA. Today, Kobe and T-Mac are both 31 years old, but while Kobe is still pretty much in his prime and leading his team to championships, T-Mac is like a classic car running on fumes and still hasn’t been on the court in the second round of the playoffs … Read More »

A couple nights ago, I was browsing the Big Ten Network OnDemand and settled on a Purdue/Indiana game from 1993. Bobby Knight, Gene Keady when he still kinda had hair, the immortal Damon Bailey, Alan Henderson, Cuonzo Martin … and Glenn Robinson.

If you don’t remember Robinson, a.k.a. “Big Dog” in his prime, he was a BEAST. He dropped 30.3 points and 10.1 rebounds per game as a junior at Purdue, swept all the national Player of the Year awards, and was picked No. 1 overall in that year’s NBA Draft. His push for a $100 million rookie contract from the Bucks (he ended up getting like $65M if I recall) actually set the wheels in motion for the current NBA rookie salary cap. Read More »

Yesterday was my 25th birthday. I know, kinda crazy. So with the National Championship game last night, I figured I’d look back at the past 25 years of the Big Dance. At the end of the Final Four, the Associated Press always selects a Most Outstanding Player (last night being Duke’s Kyle Singler). The MOP need not be a member of the Championship team, but they almost always are. In fact, the last player to win the award in a losing effort was Hakeem Olajuwon back in 1983. But not everyone goes on to have a career like The Dream. With that in mind, I’ve tracked down the MOPs of the past 25 years… Read More »

After putting Glen Rice‘s career up against Chris Mullin‘s in a head-to-head comparison last week, I was clicking around YouTube looking for video of both guys when I found this gem:

In the waning days of the ’94-95 regular season, Rice and the Lottery-bound Heat hosted Shaq, Penny and the eventual Eastern Conference champs from Orlando. Vowing not to get embarrassed on national TV, G-Money torched the Magic for 56 points (20-27 FG, 7-8 3PA), still a franchise record. Shaq put up 38 points and 16 boards of his own, and Penny dropped 28 and 18 dimes, but this was Rice’s show…

The other day, when we were throwing out names for consideration on the 10 NBA Players with the Most Range ranking, talk naturally turned to the long-distance gunners we watched growing up. Then, as Xavier and Kansas State got into an in-game three-point shooting contest in Thursday’s NCAA Tournament class, those old-school names popped up again while the Dime crew texted and e-mailed back and forth.

After Reggie Miller, my favorite non-Sonics shooter growing up was Glen Rice. Read More »

Following the highlight clip of Michael Redd raining a barrage of jumpers on the OKC Thunder over the weekend, the analysts in the NBA TV studio quickly agreed that Redd is one of the best “pure shooters” this game has ever seen.

I’ve thought the same thing before, and like the NBA TV crew, didn’t give it much debate. Read More »

Before Thursday, the last time we saw the Blazers host the Suns on national TV in December, Brandon Roy had his “superstar” breakout by dumping 52 points on Phoenix. Last night, same setting with the same teams, it was Jerryd Bayless‘ turn. Having just recently been introduced to consistent playing time since Portland is racked by injuries, Bayless went off for 29 points (9-15 FG, 9-12 FT) in 29 minutes off the bench, and by the end of the night had Charles Barkley calling Nate McMillan into question for keeping Bayless buried until now … Read More »