And you thought I forgot about it huh? November 18th is a national holiday in my household. Back in the day, it would mean playing The Diplomats “Who I Am” on repeat, spinning a ball on my fingertips while reading Tom Friend’s ESPN features on the man who tattooed WHIT EBOY on his fingers.
The retired Jason Williams turned 36 years old today, and if the end of an era wasn’t already dying, it’s officially gone now. Being retired assures us of that. Read More »
We’ll call this the list Gary McGhee loves to hate…
I’ve been on both sides of the coin before. But it’s the embarrassing times you remember. One in particular stands out for me. College. Sophomore year. Preseason. Every fall at a D-III college is always the same: there are the returning players and then there are dozens of kids from high school, all coming together and all believing they’ll be one of the three or four kids who actually make the team. They all have some game – or at least a little bit – and they’re all cocky. Read More »
The whole situation is just messed up. Depending on who you listen to, the players are slowly losing their strength. There were the questions about Derek Fisher‘s loyalty, and now reports that many big-name players participated in the decertification calls this week. On the other side, the owners’ offers keep getting worse and worse. You give them a little bit, sacrifice a little money, and then they want more. According to Ken Berger of CBSSports.com, even if the players were to agree to a 50/50 split, there’s no guarantee that the owners would take it anymore. The owners also have questions about certain system issues that were already previously agreed upon. Not good signs … Read More »
Dwight Howard hears your concerns, especially you Magic fans out there. He appreciates the Stay Dwight campaign, and doesn’t seem like he really wants to leave. It’s as if he’s slowly being pulled away towards the big city – L.A. or New York. He wants to show he cares. So come Nov. 13, he’ll be throwing his own charity game, which has so many former or current Magic players, we might as well just call it a preseason scrimmage. Everyone from DeShawn Stevenson to Ryan Anderson will be in the house, but the one guy I want to see – no, must see – is Steve Francis. Stevie Franchise… or whatever’s left of him. Read More »
And you thought the Shaq vs. Kobe beef was over? It’ll never end. This will go on longer than anything, linger longer than Brett Favre, and it’ll probably still have people talking 10 years down the road. All was quiet on the front for a while, but O’Neal has a new autobiography dropping on Nov. 15 – it’s called Shaq Uncut: My Story and it’s co-written with Jackie MacMullan – and the book gives some more inside info on O’Neal’s view of the feud between two of the most polarizing players in NBA history. According to Shaq, it was Kobe that destroyed the team’s shot at a title in 2004, the year they had Karl Malone and Gary Payton. Read More »
Is there anything better than playing for a coach that doesn’t just ask – no, he demands – that you be yourself on the court? It’s the ultimate for a player, whether it’s high school jayvee, college basketball, overseas or even at the very top in the NBA. This carefree attitude is especially important with young players (specifically point guards), many of whom don’t know how to run an offense, and don’t have the belief or confidence in themselves to command the ball and put people in the right positions. Rick Adelman knows this, and says he’ll allow his Spanish import, Ricky Rubio, to have all the freedom in the world this year. Read More »
A nice dish may be the most underrated play in basketball. Obsessing over a dunk or a crossover is common, but how often do you really see a one-of-a-kind assist? Very rarely. They’re always overblown and overhyped. A no-look pass is almost never that. We almost never get a truly breathtaking pass because lets face it, no one practices passing. Kids go to the gym and work on ballhandling for hours – crossovers, behind-the-backs and through-the-legs. Then some Plyometrics or squats because we all want to dunk and we all want to walk into a gym and get instant cred. No one respects a pass; Everyone respects a dunk. Read More »
Honestly, there are few things that feel better than dribbling a basketball. Very few…and those are all outside of basketball. It seems natural: Basketball in hand. The basketball pounding against the gym floor. The sneakers squeaking. On the court, it’s art. Dribble low. Dribble high. Fast. Quick. I know it sounds corny, but for me it’s true. I could be in the gym for hours, and do nothing but push the rock through drills. Read More »
There are a couple of guys in this list you might know pretty well, but are nonetheless surprising to see here. We kick off the weekend with the top 10 plays from the lockout-shortened season in 1998-99.
This weekend, on a 90-degree day that seemed to shuffle between gray clouds and blinding sunlight, we got after it. Beers and pizza. There was the head coach, the assistants, the volunteers and the graduate assistants, the whole football staff my dad coaches on. It was for me, red and peeling from way too much sun.
Amazing how everything turns out; my birthday parties as a kid growing up were nothing but basketball and ice cream cake. Read More »
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