FRESH PICKINGS: Isaiah Thomas (55 percent owned in Yahoo!, 59 percent in ESPN) After recent clamoring from the Sacramento locker room and a minor injury to Aaron Brooks, Isaiah Thomas has finally been given a chance to start. Read More »

Read More »

FRESH PICKINGS: Kawhi Leonard (56 percent owned in Yahoo!, 68 percent in ESPN) After singing Kawhi Leonard’s praises a few weeks ago, he did me dirty by taking a little extra time to heal his bum knee. Now back in action, he put up 17 points, four rebounds, two assists, five steals and three treys in his first start back. In fantasy, Kawhi is a steals specialist, and while he isn’t going to wow you in any other category, he’s not going to hurt you anywhere either. Read More »

FRESH PICKINGS: Antawn Jamison (38 percent owned in Yahoo!, nine percent in ESPN) I’m going to ride the Mike D’Antoni wave until it can’t carry me any further. This week, Antawn Jamison is the Laker who is garnering all the attention around fantasy circles. Read More »

The second hand hasn’t slowed down yet for Father Time, Tim Duncan. The big shot hasn’t escaped his point guard, Tony Parker, either. Duncan showed up early and often, while Parker’s 13th and 14th points (he added 11 dimes) came on the game-winning bucket over an outstretched Serge Ibaka in San Antonio’s 86-84 win. Read More »

Do positions even matter anymore? They feel arbitrary. Shooting guards and small forwards should be wings or swingmen. Power forwards and centers should just be bigs. Most of the time, those are the terms people within the sport use. But for fans and the media, having specific one through five positions help to make sense of it all. Read More »

It’s easy to see why the Oklahoma City Thunder and Los Angeles Lakers are the prohibited favorites in the Western Conference. Sipping from the Thunder and Lakers sweet and convincing Kool-Aid makes sense given the All-Star and Hall of Fame to-be names on their rosters.

But putting premature foregone conclusions aside, I offer libations of a different flavor. There are a handful of teams that play amongst those titans who have a chance to contend. If their stars are so inclined to align, the Western Conference may not be the open and shut case many think it will be. Read More »

Ryan Anderson. Kevin Love. Tracy McGrady. Gilbert Arenas. Dana Barros. Kevin Johnson. What do these guys all have in common? They all won the NBA’s Most Improved Player award.

What are we taught as young players? The summer is the time to improve, right? If you’re not improving, you’re losing, right? Well, as great as the NBA’s MIP award is – and IT IS definitely great when you consider how many things need to go right for someone to have a shot at it – it doesn’t necessarily mean future greatness. Read More »

Ask Gregg Popovich about his golf handicap, and he’ll say he hasn’t hit a ball in over a decade. Ask him about his favorite music, and he’ll rattle off artists like Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Led Zepplin, Usef and anyone else not named Stak5 (err, Stephen Jackson). You can even ask him about his favorite beer, and he’ll answer, “Stroh’s. In the tall bottle.” Coach Pop has a dry sense of humor, and can sometimes come across as less loving than Bobby Knight. The last thing you’d expect from him is hyperbole. But here we are, at the end of August, and Popovich is calling Kawhi Leonard a future star. And he means it. Read More »

The whole “clutch gene” thing has taken on a life of its own in the past year or two. It’s become an impossible standard to live up to. But for once, even with great player after great player succumbing to its weight and expectations, someone stepped up and met the challenge. Through the Western Conference Finals’ first three games, Kevin Durant had 13 fourth quarter points. Last night in OKC’s series-tying 109-103 win, he dropped 18 and made every single big basket. Durant (36 points) wasn’t just hitting jumpers either; In fact, most of his buckets in the fourth quarter were tear drops or midrange pull-ups, the hardest shots to master in the game. He made pretty much all of them, and by the time it was over, he had officially stamped his blueprint on a series that suddenly looks very interesting. Read More »