“I am raising the stakes right now … If this is a poker game, I am shoving my chips right in the middle of the table. I am raising the ante. Anybody who wants out can get out. This team is going to the playoffs. OK? This team is going to the playoffs.”

I can just imagine Larry Bird repeating the mantra to himself the morning after pulling off a win-win trade for my Indiana Pacers while he’s at his home gym cashing 92 out of 100 threes before breakfast. Read More »

The NBA: Where off-seasons don’t happen. Yesterday afternoon, a four-team deal involving five players hit the NBA. Darren Collison and James Posey head to Indiana, Troy Murphy lands in Newark, Trevor Ariza finds himself in New Orleans and Courtney Lee is now in Houston. While the names might not be huge, the fantasy implications could be. Let’s dive right in and look at the winners, losers and neutrals from the deal, from a fantasy perspective. Read More »

LeBron, D-Wade and Chris Bosh could take a summer-long vow of silence (plus a Twitter fast) and they’d still be the most hated-on group of players in the NBA. So of course they’re only inviting more hate every time one of them says or writes something semi-controversial … After LeBron’s public tweet challenge the other day, this time Bosh put himself out there: “If you think about how many times somebody asks you, ‘How are you?’ that’s how many times I was asked, ‘Where you going?’” Bosh told the New York Daily News. “So it’s like, well, in my case, I’m going to have fun with it. I’m going to play with people’s emotions. I’m going to be high and low.” Read More »

As reported earlier, the Pacers, Hornets, Rockets and Nets were involved in a five-player deal. The Pacers acquired Darren Collison and James Posey, Trevor Ariza will move on to his third team in three years as he becomes a Hornet, Troy Murphy goes back home to New Jersey with the Nets, and Courtney Lee brings his stellar defense to the Rockets. The trade seems to be beneficial for all teams, but from a player’s perspective, there are definitely some clear winners and losers. Read More »

It’s about time we get some more action this summer. And according ESPN.com’s Chad Ford, it’s going to come in the form of a four-team, five-player trade between the Rockets, Hornets, Pacers and Nets. Here’s how it’d break down: Read More »

Nothing hurts like getting beat in a video game when someone like Richard Jefferson goes off for 14 dunks in one game. It’s a continuous, unending slap in the face. Being at the receiving end of a Kobe Bryant 65-point game is one thing. But losing because your opponent discovers the sweet spot for some scrub three-point shooter is worse than jury duty.

In real NBA games, coaches want certain guys doing certain things and everyone has a role. In the gaming world, if you want Kwame Brown to drop 25 a game, you could probably make it happen (he actually catches passes). Read More »

Chris Paul said on Twitter today that he wants to represent the Hornets and New Orleans for years. While Paul said that immediately after his meeting with the Hornets’ brass, his frustration with the team is clearly growing, and I think his comments recently have set the wheels in motion for him being traded. Paul is arguably a top-five player in the League, and although loved by teammates and fans alike, New Orleans would be smart to trade the face of their franchise. Read More »

As of right now, the jury is still out on where LeBron James will land. But with that being said, let’s take a look at how Miami won a championship in 2006. We know Chris Bosh will be joining Dwyane Wade in Wade County, but besides Michael Beasley and Mario Chalmers, who else should the Heat bring in to help them win another championship. We break it down here: Read More »

It’d been 716 days or 17,184 hours or 1,031,040 minutes since Game 6 of the 2008 NBA Finals. All of that time was enough to watch the Lakers win a title, America to vote in a black President and Tiger to shoot himself in the foot. Yet, everything appears to be the same in Sternland. Boston and Los Angeles met again for the title last night, and the NBA loves it and so does most of America. Except this time, there are a few major differences. Here’s how those changes break down. Read More »

Why the Lakers won: They got to the rim. The one subplot of this series nobody really talked about beforehand is that Boston doesn’t have James Posey anymore. (In fact, the most Posey-ish player in the 2010 Finals is Ron Artest.) Back in ’08, Posey was instrumental in the effort to muscle Kobe and make him strictly a jump shooter. Tonight, Kobe was driving and getting layups, while Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum lived on offensive rebounds and easy dunks. Read More »