We’re only a few days away from one of the best weekends in college basketball. With Louisville, Michigan, Wichita State and Syracuse set to go to battle this weekend, expect to hear a whole lot of Cinderella, zone defense and Trey Burke talk. It’s inevitable. Hopefully, the games live up to the billing. But in all likelihood, none of them will make this list. Read More »

So, when exactly is the latest “new” Lakers season starting? At the end of the third quarter last night in Phoenix’s unbelievable 92-86 win, all was right in L.A. The Lakers shot 65 percent in the third quarter, Kobe was dishing (17 points, nine assists) and L.A. was up double-digits. Then, Dwight Howard re-injured his shoulder, Michael Beasley (27 points) took it back to K-State, and the Lakers started unraveling. Read More »

The Warriors don’t expect anyone to simply run through them this year. Defensively, they plan on being playoff-worthy, and once Andrew Bogut gets back into the lineup, they should have the personnel to do it. We’re still in the preseason, so you have to take everything with a grain of “This doesn’t really matter,” but going into last night, Golden State had held opponents to 39 percent from the field (No. 1 in the league), and only 92 points a night (No. 6). Read More »

Between what’s happened with former stars like Stephon Marbury and Allen Iverson, we sadly must admit that if Tracy McGrady signs on with a Chinese team this year, he’ll basically be announcing his NBA retirement. At that point, we doubt we’d ever see T-Mac in the NBA again. Read More »

Wherever your turn tonight (or for the next two weeks) you’re going to get hit in the face with Olympic coverage. We challenge you to find a nicer photo than this. Serge Ibaka looks like he just stepped off the set of Shaft. Thank everything for athletes and their Instagramming and Twittering. That photo was courtesy Kevin Durant‘s account, but of course we’ve seen how Team USA rides from Kevin Love‘s account. Don’t forget Deron Williams, too, who basically gave a photo essay of all the cool Olympians out there tonight. Read More »

Now that Lindecision 2012 is all over, and Jeremy Lin is going to be formerly introduced as a Houston Rocket sometime soon, we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. No, we’re not talking about how, for once, the Knicks resisted the urge to indulge as they have so many times before (even though, for once, there were PLENTY of reasons to do it). We’re talking about how we got here. Lin never wanted to leave New York, and opened up about it to SI.com yesterday. Read More »

All along, it’s been a running joke amongst NBA fans. The Big Three in Miami is really only the Big Two. We know what Dwyane Wade and LeBron James are… no one is quite sure what to make of Chris Bosh or how to include him. Well now we know: Bosh is out indefinitely with the abdominal injury he suffered in Game 1 yesterday afternoon, and the whisperings are that the Third Wheel may miss this second round series with the Pacers. That leaves the Heatles in exactly the same position they’ve always been… a bunch of role players supporting the two most unstoppable fast-break options in the league. Read More »

We’d hate to be whoever New Orleans assigns to cover LeBron James on Monday. Two days after giving Bill Walker the business, LBJ continued his trampoline training today on Chicago’s John Lucas. With 5:06 left in the first quarter, LeBron jumped over Lucas, caught his alley-oop one-handed from Dwyane Wade and ripped the rim off. Lucas wasn’t even checking LeBron, who’d lost defender Rip Hamilton on his backdoor cut.

The catch-and-slam part of the play was so nice it didn’t register initially with ABC announcers Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy what LeBron had done — i.e. treated Lucas like a training box — to get up there. They joined Lucas, who’d had his back to LeBron the whole time, in wondering, what just happened? Read More »

On Monday night, Kevin Durant decided it was time to take his game to the Mecca of streetball, and dropped 66 points at Rucker Park. Last night, his NYC summer hoops tour landed at Baruch College for Nike Pro City, where KD suited up and took on a Big Apple Basketball squad headlined by John Lucas III. While Lucas dropped 60 on 22-of-41 shooting, Durant eeked out the W in overtime, 146-143, and finished with 41.

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The NBA has beaten its players. To court that is. As we wrote yesterday, David Stern and his associates have filed a lawsuit against the NBPA after long negotiations took place earlier this week in New York. The league is calling the players uncooperative, claiming they have threatened the league with decertification threats and lawsuits. Unlike the NFL, which coolly resolved all differences last week, the owners have put the smackdown on the players. The longer this goes, the harder it seems that an agreement will come to pass. Read More »