As much as I enjoy watching LeBron James at the peak of his NBA powers, as much as I enjoy watching the veteran Celtics come together since Rajon Rondo went down, as fun as it is to watch Carmelo Anthony drop 35-plus night after night en-route to his first scoring title, and Chris Paul continuing to be the best point guard of this generation, what makes the NBA so great night in and night out is everyone else. Read More »

Ranking the NBA from worst to first…

30. Charlotte Bobcats (18-59) Last week: 30, - Maybe this will be the offseason that they finally find gold in the draft. Probably not, though. Read More »

After Carmelo Anthony hung 50 points on the Miami Heat, we asked whether he was filming his own “Better Basketball: How To Score From Deep” DVD. And again, last night, we don’t think Spike Lee was putting together any “Carmelo Doin’ Work” videos, but someone really should’ve capitalized off this. Anthony was clipping the wings off the Hawks, and had an assembly line of defenders getting buckets in the face. Read More »

As we noted in Smack, amazing call by the commentators. What! What! Wooo! This one-handed facial from Michael Kidd-Gilchrist has to be one of the best dunks all season. Charlotte might’ve lost the game, but Greg Monroe is still feeling dizzy today. Read More »

Boston coach Doc Rivers set the scene after his Celtics’ dramatic double-OT win over Miami. It’s Sunday afternoon, the NBA’s first national matinee game of the season, and the Celtics are prepping to play Miami when the team doctor pulls him aside right before the game. Everyone’s already gone through the walkthrough and looked fine but Rivers gets the word: Rajon Rondo‘s out. No, the doc says to Doc: Rondo’s OUT. Read More »

The current iteration of the NBA places very little onus on a big man. Even the All-Star game is now bereft of the one player who used to be thought of as indispensable to a basketball team: the center. Such is the increasing push toward smaller, faster, more dynamic multipurpose players. But centers still exist, and they’re not all obsessed with Superman, lob dunks, and living in LA. Contemporary big men must account for the trend toward quicker line-ups, and that means possessing some finesse from a position that’s more about plodding than prompt. The centers today need to be able to defend the rim and make the slip-pass to a cutting wing player. They need to be just as skillful at a give and go as they are at crashing the glass. Read More »

We don’t often lead Smack with the Pacers, but what transpired in Atlanta last night was too depressing not to. We found out yesterday morning that Danny Granger is now going to miss three months of action, and for Indiana, that’s a major loss. It showed in a 89-86 loss to the Hawks. After going up 14 in the fourth quarter, the Pacers’ offensive rhythm made us want to cry. They were more of a mess than Romney‘s campaign strategy. Read More »

Slightly less complicated than ranking the best centers in the NBA is determining who should and who shouldn’t be called a center.

In this faster, more fluid and more versatile NBA, where more coaches are using three-guard lineups and embracing “small ball,” players once pegged as power forwards are not only playing center, but they’re also admitting it. Yao Ming is out, Chris Bosh is in, and suddenly the stigma of the center as a lumbering behemoth quarantined to the low post is gone. Read More »

You tell me: could a guy who averaged just 5.9 points a game as a senior at Miami really make an NBA roster? In Orlando, it would make for a cool story, but alas, even after DeQuan Jones ripped off a scalping of Andre Drummond‘s head at the rim in Detroit’s ugly 112-86 win last night, the 6-8 guard is competing with Christian Eyenga, Justin Harper, Armon Johnson and Josh McRoberts for the final roster spot. And even though he scored 22 last night, Jones’ chances of making the Magic’s final roster are pretty slim. Read More »

The Detroit Pistons’ Brandon Knight is ready to start his second season as Motown’s point guard. He didn’t flock to summer hotspots like Los Angeles or Las Vegas or Orlando for extended time, preferring to improve himself in Detroit, where few venture once the season is over. On the eve of training camps optimism is unbound everywhere, so what’s striking about Knight is that he makes no proclamations or promises. Read More »