It took about 47 and a half minutes for Don Nelson to really miss Stephen Jackson. In the Warriors’ first game since trading Capt. Jack to the Bobcats, they were actually hanging with the Cavs on the road last night. On a critical possession with under a minute to go and Cleveland ahead by four, LeBron of course had the rock, a situation where S-Jack would normally have been guarding him. This time, however, Nellie had to enlist Vlad Radmanovic for the job. (Well, he didn’t have to; Anthony Randolph might have been a better choice.) To the surprise of no one, LeBron scored easily, sticking a pull-up jumper for the dagger … Read More »
Two teams that are going to force a lot of people to buy league passes this season are the Thunder and the Grizzlies. I can’t say for sure whether either will be playoff teams (most likely neither), but I can promise that they will both be exciting to watch. Even though Memphis and OKC stole franchises from the beautiful northwest (my former stomping grounds), you better believe I’ll be strapped to the tube watching those teams all season long.
Both squads have talented young cores that have improved themselves over the offseason. Last season they both had almost identical records. Oklahoma City went 23-59, while Memphis finished at 24-58. My question is: which team will have a better record this time around? Read More »
It’s not every day that you get Hakeem Olajuwon, one of the NBA’s 50 Greatest Players to work you out, but that’s exactly what happened this past weekend in Houston for Kobe Bryant and Hasheem Thabeet. Check out the Hall of Fame center - who Kobe said is “the best (at the) mid-post and post move” - helping the guys out in the paint.
TIM HARDAWAY (by Austin Burton)
The first thing you have to understand about Tim Hardaway is that he was more than just a big crossover and a smile.
Maybe not Hall of Famer, maybe not even truly deserving of having his number retired by the Heat or the Warriors, Hardaway still put a stamp on the NBA that should be bigger than one iconic move. He cracked 5,000 points and 2,500 assists faster (at the time) than anyone since Oscar. He was a five-time All-Star and ranks seventh all-time in threes made, 13th in assists. Read More »
Here’s one straight from the Go Somewhere And Sit Down files: After Michael Jordan jokingly called out Bryon Russell during his H.O.F. speech, of course somebody had to go track down Russell for his reaction. And of course the 38-year-old Russell — who as recently as this summer was talking about trying an NBA comeback — had to go make himself look like the “Can’t let the game go” retired ballplayer, challenging MJ to a battle. “I’ll play his ass right now,” Russell told Yahoo! Sports. “This is a call-out for him to come play me. He can come out here in his private jet and come play. He’s got millions of dollars. He can pay for the jet. He can meet me at the Recreation Center in Calabasas. We can have Mark Jackson do the commentating. We can have Mitch Richmond do the officiating. We can put it on TV and see if Michael’s still got it.” Read More »
Similar to the Vegas/Orlando summer leagues, you don’t want to read too much into the FIBA Americas tournament as far as projecting how its standouts will do in the upcoming NBA season, especially when Team USA sat this one out. But it’s hard not to be impressed by Leandro Barbosa’s recent work and predict big things for him this season. In leading Brazil to the tournament gold medal yesterday, as well as a spot in the 2010 World Championships, Barbosa averaged 21.1 points on 55% shooting from the field. It was a down year for Barbosa in ‘08-09. Read More »
For every idiot/moron/stupid/crazy/you-should-be-fired/you-should-die (seriously) insult I took after writing that Michael Jordan is overrated, the only time I ever felt dumb was later that same night I wrote the column, when NBA TV aired a Lakers/Clippers game from 1979.
While the re-run was meant to showcase Magic Johnson in his first NBA game, the star of the show was the one guy who I somehow failed to mention when listing players who could challenge Jordan for the Greatest of All-Time crown: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Read More »
For the last two All-Star Weekends, I’ve been relatively up-close with Dwight Howard and seen how busy he’s become. In 2008, Dwight’s weekend didn’t really get crazy until after the dunk contest, when everybody in New Orleans wanted to get close to “Superman.” This year, with Dwight being a full-fledged NBA golden child, the ASG’s top vote-getter, and adidas’ most high-profile All-Star representative, he was being pulled in 400 different directions from the time he landed in Phoenix until the time he left.
Considering his run with the Olympic team before the ‘08-09 season, and his longer-than-ever postseason run this spring/summer, you’d think Dwight would take these offseason months to crawl into a hole and chill out before resurfacing for training camp. Read More »
Like we said in yesterday’s Smack, the NBA releasing its regular-season schedule shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but at the same time, it’s kind of hard to gloss over when there’s almost nothing else happening in the news. Dime’s Jeff Chen listed his Top 10 games to watch this season, but we’ve got a few more to add … Opening night, Oct. 27, will be headlined by Celtics/Cavs on TNT, followed by Clippers/Lakers, when Kobe and crew get their rings and the championship banner is unveiled. (You think Spike Lee won’t be there front-row to schmooze with his new favorite team? There’s a better chance Jack misses that game than Spike.) Read More »
There are two realities the Houston Rockets need to accept and address this summer: First, as much as it pains me to say it, Tracy McGrady will never be “T-Mac” again, the dude consistently dropping 30 points a night against any defense in the League and sitting right up there with Kobe and D-Wade in the two-guard hierarchy. And second, Yao Ming is not a reliable superstar and needs to have his minutes monitored closer than a baseball team monitors an ace pitcher’s pitch count. Read More »
