Buy Low: Devin Harris, Antawn Jamison, Kevin Love, J.R. Smith, Rashard Lewis and anyone else who is going to return from an injury or suspension in the near future should be targeted for low-ball offers.

Danilo Gallinari has turned from being an Italian stallion to an ordinary pony in the span of a week. His owners are champing at the bit for him to put up studly lines again, and in the meantime you should be dangling carrots in their faces in hopes of nabbing this three-point hoss. Read More »

I can’t resist season preview magazines. NBA, NFL, college, MLB, I’m a sucker for those thick annual issues that I’ll pore through in a couple of sittings before the season, then rarely open during the season. (Speaking of, keep an eye out for Dime #53, our NBA/college/high school preview issue.)

Every few years, one of the preview mags will do a feature where they create the “perfect” player for their sport, Dr. Frankenstein-style. Read More »

After the first few days of NBA action, it’s time to take a gander at players who might have already frustrated impatient fantasy owners enough to make them amenable to low-ball offers, and those that have performed especially well and will get you more than they deserve in return.

It’s a bit early to even discuss this, but there are very impatient owners out there and so long as they’re flustered or overly optimistic, there are opportunities for you to jump on. Read More »

As we anticipate the commencement of the brand spanking new 2009-10 NBA season, let’s take a look at a handful of fantasy “gangs.” To be more specific, let’s give fun names to certain groups of players who have similar attributes — for fantasy purposes, of course. Hopefully, this post will do two things: offer you some helpful glimpses into what you should expect from these players heading into the regular season, and present you with an amusing read to help you rediscover your smile (especially if you drafted Blake Griffin) and regular breathing patterns amid all the tense eagerness for tonight. Read More »

Principal D-Stern had to have been pleased with his product yesterday, as two of the NBA’s three preseason games took place outside the United States. In Taiwan, the Pacers blew out the Nuggets: Troy Murphy put up 20 points with four threes, and Brandon Rush (20 pts) knocked down six triples, but the real story was Roy Hibbert. The kid was a BEAST, going for 20 points, 11 boards and eight blocks. Granted, Nene being out meant Denver started Johan Petro at center, but he only played 10 minutes before Birdman and K-Mart assumed most of the duties inside. It’s just preseason, but in the Nuggets‘ two games against NBA teams (they smashed a team of kids from Belgrade), they haven’t looked good at all … Read More »

The Lakers and the Spurs are the heavy favorites to lock down the top spots in the Western Conference. Even though the third spot is up for grabs, I think the most likely candidates will be either Portland or Denver. The Nuggets last year gave the Lakers a run for their money in the Western Conference Finals, but the Blazers continually get better every season. Both teams had 54-28 records last season. The question is: Which of these two teams will have a better record after 82 games? Read More »

Thanks to some sloppy play by the Nuggets and that same ol’ sharp execution by the Jazz, there wasn’t much excitement left by the end of last night’s NBA preseason opener. Deron Williams (16 pts, 6 asts) and C.J. Miles (16 pts, 3 stls) led Utah as they teased a 20-piecing before halftime, allowed Denver to cut it to single-digits by the break, but pulled away in the second half to win 103-87. Carmelo (13 pts, 4-11 FG) and James White (13 pts) led the Nuggets, who had 27 turnovers as a team … Carlos Boozer started at PF and finished with seven points and seven boards in 20 minutes, while Paul Millsap came off the bench for seven points and three rebounds in 18 minutes. Boozer somehow didn’t get resoundingly booed by the home fans, but he didn’t exactly get a hero’s welcome, either. Read More »

NBA training camps opened over weekend, meaning it’s time again for Dime’s team-by-team season previews. Last year we debuted the “Highs and Lows” system — predicting the respective ceilings and basements for each team. Or in other words, what is the realistic best-case and worst-case scenario for the 2009-10 campaign?

Added: Ty Lawson, Arron Afflalo, James White, Joey Graham, Malik Allen Read More »

With Bruce Bowen retiring last week and John Stockton headed for the Hall of Fame this week, the concept of the “dirty” basketball player has been in discussion around the Dime office.

Even the casual NBA fans knows about notorious thugs like Bowen, Bill Laimbeer and Ron Artest, who wind up on “SportsCenter” with every elbow, slide-under ankle-breaker, hip check and hard foul they deliver. But you really have to watch the games to point out the guys who are sneaky-dirty; the ones less like Bowen and more like Stockton, whose slight-of-hand acts don’t get as much attention as the guys with reputations that precede them. Here are 10 of the sneakiest/dirtiest, a.k.a. The Wood Harris All-Stars: Read More »

From the best (Shaq) to the worst (Russell Westbrook) on down to the weird (Stephon Marbury), NBA players who partake in Twitter are about to get put on blast. David Stern told Yahoo! Sports yesterday that he’s about to issue some restrictions on players using Twitter and other social media, similar to what the NFL has done. “You want to make sure that pop culture doesn’t intrude on what brought us here, which is the game, and that we show the right respect for the game,” Stern said. “We just need to make sure when it’s OK to Tweet and when it’s not OK to Tweet so it at least focuses around the game. It would look unusual for a guy sitting on the bench to pick up his cell phone, and I think we can agree that he probably shouldn’t be writing e-mails. It’s not about Twitter; it’s about the line of communication. That’s what we’re focusing on.” … Read More »