On Christoper Columbus’ holiday, we discovered that the Cleveland Cavaliers might not be as bad as we thought. Again, we know, It’s Just The Preseason, but the Cavs are still 3-1 (without their new go-to player) after last night, their second road in a back-to-back against projected Western Conference playoff teams (Houston and Dallas). Boobie Gibson scored 15 to lead a Cleveland squad that, at the very least, it’s going to just roll over voluntarily and die without LeBron. Read More »

While most of the summer has been focused on the NBA, college basketball will be starting up again in a few weeks. As a basketball team manager at Vanderbilt, the SEC is my specialty, and while Kentucky is loaded with All-American freshmen again, experience still counts in this league. Here are the returning players most important to their team’s success this season: Read More »

Around this time last year, I ranked the Top 10 players at each position covering the NBA, college and high school ranks for the just-completed season. Welcome to the second annual edition: first up was two-guards, now the centers.

To clarify (again), “Top 10″ is different from “10 Best.” So if you see Cole Aldrich ranked ahead of Brook Lopez, I’m NOT saying the incoming rookie is better than the NBA vet — I’m saying Cole had a better season than Brook. Read More »

After taking in the reaction from the LeBronapalooza last night, you would think the world had ended. Cleveland fans seemed ready to march on South Beach and there were NBA GMs sending out betrayal notes like some lost lover. Did anyone profit from this (outside of those obvious drama setters from ESPN)?

Ultimately, LeBron did just make himself a lot of money, but does he make the list of the 10 biggest winners from Thursday night? Read More »

The Las Vegas summer league is right around the corner, and with it, the 2010 NBA rookie class has its first chance to prove itself on the court against real competition.

But while every first-round pick has a guaranteed contract to fall back on in case they struggle, the guys drafted in the second round are essentially fighting for jobs. These are the 10 second-rounders most likely to sign contracts with the team that drafted them: Read More »

The NBA Draft is typically overstocked with two types of big men: (1) High-profile guys who went to high-profile schools and have teams just as intrigued with their potential as they are afraid they’ll be a bust, and (2) So-called “undersized” bigs who go underrated annually and have to prove themselves in an uphill battle from Day One.

Hassan Whiteside doesn’t fit either description. The 7-foot freshman was an unheralded recruit who burst onto the scene this season at Marshall, leading the nation with 5.4 blocks per game. Whiteside is projected to go anywhere from the Top-10 to later in the 20′s, but whichever team gets him, odds are their fan base won’t know anything about their new project. Read More »

All week long, we’ve been saying Sunday’s game at Cleveland was a crucial test for the Celtics. Win or lose (seeing as it’s tough for anybody to win in LeBron‘s gym), the most important thing would be how much fight Boston had in them. So on that level, you can’t be too disappointed if you’re a Celtics fan; they hung in there well into the second half before LeBron (30 pts, 8 rebs, 7 asts, 3 blks) become too much down the stretch … Read More »

I’m outraged. And you should be too. If you don’t know about Mississippi State’s Jarvis Varnado, then you don’t know about basketball. Here’s a guy, who not only goes out and blocked eight shots last night in a win against Alabama, but he also broke the NCAA career mark (held by Louisiana-Monroe’s Wojciech Mydra) with No. 536. And his name is nowhere to be seen on ESPN.com’s college basketball home page. Read More »

That’s right, the start of the college hoops season is just one week away and you know what that means: it’s time to unleash the mother effing fury! For the past seven months, I’ve been bottling up a vicious mixture of excitement and rage, just waiting for the moment to release my emotions onto the rest of the world. Well that time has come. Your boy Matty D is back to give you a look at the top teams in the country and to separate the champs from the chumps. Read More »

Why would Jarvis Varnado, the nation’s leading shot blocker the past two years, give up his scholarship the summer after he tested the NBA Draft waters? No, he wasn’t kicked off the squad – Varnado is doing it for the betterment of his team. Read More »