Once again, Dove Men+Care is coming through in March Madness with some hilarious commercials featuring some of basketball’s greatest personalities. Last year, we saw ads featuring people like Steve Nash, Tom Izzo and Shaquille O’Neal. This year, you’ve probably already seen the commercials with Dwyane Wade… and Jay Bilas. Read More »

GM Billy King is calling them “the best backcourt in the NBA.” We’re calling them a probable playoff team. Joe Johnson just calls them “definitely” better than the Knicks. The venue: Borough Hall. Who: about 1,000 screaming fans. What: a rap cypher. Okay, so the last part isn’t really true. But that’s what it felt like. Someone should’ve just given Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz a mic because the dude was throwing more haymakers at the crosstown “rivals” than Eminem on “The Sauce.” At the rally to celebrate the new stars of Brooklyn, Markowitz instead took the chance to say: “For nearly 40 years the Manhattan Knicks have shown they can’t bring a championship to New York, so it’s going to take the Brooklyn Nets to get the job done. Read More »

Rece Davis: “We go to the stage now with the commissioner of the NBA, David Stern.”

“BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

David Stern: “Whoaaaaa (weird smile). Thank you for that warm welcome and good evening. Welcome to the 2012 NBA Draft.”

Ah yes, the annual booing of David Stern. Is there anything more emblematic of the NBA Draft than the antagonistic heckling of the NBA commissioner? Besides hats that don’t fit, excessive hugging and terrible questions from Mark Jones, no, probably not. Read More »

Last season’s UConn men’s basketball team had one of the craziest and rarest runs to an NCAA Championship that we’ve ever seen. 11 straight postseason wins eventually climaxed with a 53-46 win over Butler for the program’s third NCAA Championship. For such an incredible season, amazingly no one had covered the whole story: how they all got there, the expectations (or lack thereof) and the motivation. Until now. Read More »

Our Saturday started off as perfectly as possible with news greeting us as our alarm clocks rang that a tentative labor agreement had been reached, and that the lockout was finally, if unofficially, over. For now, we can’t completely invest ourselves in a new season – scheduled to be 66 games, starting on Christmas day – but pretty much everyone agrees on one thing: this deal will get approved and will get done. Book it. So who won and who lost? With the cancellation of games, everyone loses: the fans, the owners and the players. But as far as the approved deal, many of the leading names on both sides came out of this looking as good as they could’ve under the current circumstances. Read More »

Five years ago to this day, a microblogging entity known as Twitter was launched not as a rival to MySpace or Facebook, but with an Internet niche all its own. Only in the past year or so has it exploded, and just as Shaquille O’Neal was the biggest man in basketball, Shaq created a Twitter boom that caught on with NBA players and beyond.

Where does Twitter go from here? We can only guess, but in the fledgling years of the social media website, here’s my attempt at ranking the Top 10 Twitter accounts for the hardcore basketball fan. Read More »

THE RULES

*you can also still vote for the Derrick Rose/Dwight Howard matchup. Voting closes tomorrow at 11 A.M. EST.*

Kobe Bryant may just be the most fascinating NBA superstar of the last 15 years. Most pundits agree that Kobe will go down as the second-greatest shooting guard ever. Looking at the all-time numbers, it’s pretty hard to disagree. A rare few have matched Kobe’s longevity – he’s been widely considered a top-five NBA player for many seasons. Read More »

THE RULES

*If you haven’t voted yet for the Chris Paul/Carmelo Anthony matchup, voting is still running until 1 P.M. EST today*

I have to get this off my chest – Dwight Howard should have been this season’s MVP. (Cut to multiple commentors charging at me with an axe.)

Anyway, back to the task at hand. You know, this whole one-on-one thing.

Dwight Howard may be simple to figure out in five-on-five, but otherwise he’s pretty much just controversy wrapped in conflict. Read More »

THE RULES

Reminder: The winners of the D-Wade/JJ and Durant/Ellis matchups will be announced in Smack tomorrow.

When Chris Paul’s knee gave way, we waved goodbye. It was all gone – the supreme court vision, deceptive explosiveness, pinpoint dimes, everything.

Before the injury, he was ascending the stairway to greatness. Any point guard can see the passing lines – but Paul wasn’t any point guard. He was a master puppeteer, manipulating his opponents and teammates on a whim to create easy buckets. He was so dominating, so assertive that he didn’t even need to score to leave his fingerprints all over the game. Read More »

THE RULES

*And if you didn’t get a chance to vote on the Dwyane Wade/Joe Johnson matchup, there’s still time. Voting closes 24 hours after each matchup is posted.*

If LeBron is the mortal enemy, then Kevin Durant is the NBA’s beloved son. He’s the savior that will promote and empower the ideal NBA role model. He’ll end world hunger. He’ll find a cure for cancer. He’ll broker a peace in the Middle East. When Russell Westbrook refused to defer to his lankier teammate, we were personally offended. So what did we do? Read More »