You would think that if you’re in the NBA fraternity that you would have an easier time building a friendship with one of the stars in the league. Unfortunately that’s not always the case. Indiana Pacers rookies Tyler Hansbrough and A.J. Price learned that the hard way when they came across KG over the summer. According to this snippet from this Boston Globe story: Read More »

The worst part about preseason polls is that voters adopt a loyalty to those pre-determined spots even after the season shows us some of those picks were just wrong. College football gets it the worst, but the same often applies for the NBA; the only saving grace is that, at the end of the day, voter opinion doesn’t matter because the NBA has a playoff.

That said, we ignored making a preseason NBA Hit List power ranking, so as not to influence this first week’s edition. Counting down from worst to first… Read More »

Some of the benches on NBA squads are just nasty. It used to be teams would go just seven or eight deep in their rotation. Now some of these teams have benches so stacked that they could probably handle Milwaukee or Sacramento’s starting fives. I ranked my top five second units in the league. Keep in mind, starting lineups haven’t been set in stone and some of these guys might start come opening night (tonight for some). Read More »

There’s no question that the class of 2008 is front-loaded with talent. And now that the rookie jitters are gone and contract extensions are in sight, how will they fare after a year in the League under their belts? The reality is, a case can be made for almost 30 guys to be on this list in some way. For instance, where do Danilo Gallinari and Roy Hibbert go with such strong coach-backing? It’s still too early to close the book on any of these guys, but so far here are my predictions. Read More »

Last year we debuted the “Highs and Lows” system — previewing the NBA season by predicting the respective ceiling and basement for each team. Same theme, different season…

Added: Andre Miller, Juwan Howard, Jeff Pendergraph, Dante Cunningham, Ime Udoka

Lost: Sergio Rodriguez, Channing Frye, Michael Ruffin, Shavlik Randolph Read More »

When people ask me for a Greg Oden story, I usually tell them the one from the ‘07 Rookie Photo Shoot. That was the year Oden was supposed to make his NBA debut before microfracture knee surgery delayed his rookie season for another calendar turn. At the time, we were still putting together our cover feature on Oden for Dime #35, and I was going to help get some extra quotes.

“Do you love basketball?” I asked Oden. His answer was something along the lines of, “Yeah. I mean, I’ve been playing since I was a kid.” It wasn’t so much what he said, but how he said it — he sounded like somebody who was trying to convince themselves of something they know isn’t true. Read More »

Nobody was more disappointed in Jerryd Bayless‘ NBA rookie campaign than Bayless himself. After destroying the ‘08 Vegas Summer League (29.8 ppg), Bayless went into the regular season as a darkhorse Rookie of the Year (or at least All-Rookie Team) pick, but soon found himself sitting behind Portland starters Brandon Roy and Steve Blake, and fighting for backcourt minutes with Rudy Fernandez and Sergio Rodriguez. While Bayless had some standout moments — like scoring 23 points in a Jan. 15 game at New Jersey, and dropping 19 on the Hornets on Feb. 2 — for the most part, the 6-3 combo guard’s first go-round in the League (4.3 ppg, 12 mpg) was pretty forgettable. Read More »

Everybody’s still waiting on Lamar Odom and the Lakers to reconcile — it’s like sitting through three seasons of “Flavor of Love” when you know Flavor Flav is just gonna stay with his baby’s mother in the end — but in the meantime, perhaps the second-biggest free agent left on the board is now off. Andre Miller agreed to a deal with the Blazers that is rumored to be worth $22 million over three years … Depending on what you think of Jerryd Bayless‘ game, point guard was one of the few weaker areas on a deep Portland roster. Miller allows Steve Blake to go from one of the lower-tier starting PG’s in the League to one of the best backups, and Bayless can step into that role of off-the-bench scoring combo guard that every team seems to need these days. Read More »

Does anybody want to play for Team USA anymore? The list of guys who have dropped out of this year’s USA Basketball mini-camp (which starts tomorrow) was already getting long — Brandon Roy, David Lee, David West, Big Baby Davis, Andrew Bynum and LaMarcus Aldridge among them — and then yesterday a couple more confirmed they won’t be participating: Read More »

As we said this morning in Smack, now that the NBA Summer League is over in Vegas, the next basketball we have to look forward to is the USA Basketball National Team Mini-Camp which opens Thursday, July 23. While none of the big names from last summer’s Olympic run are going to make the trip, some of the top young NBA talents will do their best to make it to London in 2012. Read More »