DeMarcus Cousins is an interesting individual. He’s obviously a very talented player. At 6-11, he’s shown off his tremendous skill set as a premier big man since his days at Kentucky. With a knack for scoring around the basket, rebounding at an alarming rate, and dishing off the rock like a pure point guard, he’s an all-around commodity. Read More »

There wasn’t as much drama to this Clippers win over the Jazz, but even more significance came with it. L.A., you see, hasn’t lost in a pure month after beating Utah, 107-96. In their 17-game win streak, 16 of them came in December. It’s only the third 16-0 month in NBA history, after the ’72 Lakers and ’96 Spurs, though the ’96 Bulls went 14-0 in January during their 72-10 season. Unlike Friday’s dramatic win in SLC, the Clippers didn’t have to rally from 19 points down. Read More »

We’re not sure if we’ve ever seen so many old stars stay relevant past their primes. Steve Nash is seriously better at 38 than he was at 28. Tim Duncan is still reliable, and still consistently averages 15 and nine. Nas and Jay-Z haven’t fell off yet, and are somehow still popular in this age of terrible dances and forgettable rappers. And even Kobe Bryant is sort of like the Darth Vader of the NBA. Basically, the history books are being re-written before our eyes, and old records are dropping off faster than Green Bay’s bandwagon. Read More »

In my bracket, I had Kentucky and UNC. The two best teams, I figured, should meet again to determine the 2012 championship. Then Kendall Marshall was taken out in the air by a lumbering big man in the round of 32, and everything was turned on its head. Kentucky might look like runaway favorites tonight with a top six that could probably play with any core group of any college team in the past 20 years. But we’ve seen upsets before. In college basketball, sometimes talent can be trumped by experience, and Tyshawn Taylor and Thomas Robinson have a history together. It’s not likely they’ll lead Kansas to yet another championship upset over John Calipari. But it’s not out of the question either. Read More »

One was a top-10 pick in the 2011 NBA Draft. The other was the NBA’s version of Mr. Irrelevant; the last pick in the 2011 Draft. When the Kings selected Jimmer Fredette out of BYU the notion was that the pick coming 50 slots later wouldn’t mean much. Read More »

In a 66-game season, a 2-5 start isn’t that easy to turn around. So what do you do if you’re the Sacramento Kings? You fire your head coach. See you later, Paul Westphal. Read More »

As the NBA regular season approaches, we preview the upcoming campaign with the “Highs and Lows” system — predicting the respective ceiling and basement for each team.

Added: David Lee, Ekpe Udoh, Dorell Wright, Louis Amundson, Charlie Bell, Rodney Carney, Dan Gadzuric, Jeremy Lin

Lost: Anthony Randolph, Corey Maggette, Anthony Morrow, Raja Bell, Ronny Turiaf, Kelenna Azubuike, C.J. Watson, Anthony Tolliver Read More »

Combine the typical widespread preseason optimism of every NBA team with the fact that the start of training camp means Media Days all around, and you know why this time of year is always good for blatant bulletin-board material and more subtle jabbing comments … On one hand you have Chris Bosh, who (intentionally or not) sneak-insulted the Raptors by telling everybody that he’s never been in a training camp as intense as Miami’s — probably because they’re focusing on, you know, defense. Read More »

With Chris Cohan officially out as owner of the Warriors, Bay Area fans are elated he’s finally gone. Since they are so happy about the end of his unsuccessful tenure, the fans will have a bit of a honeymoon period with new owner Joe Lacob. While fans will give Lacob a year or two to turn things around, he and his ownership team have important decisions to make right now. The most pressing of those decisions is whether or not to retain Don Nelson for the final year of his contract, something the Warriors should not do. Read More »

Yesterday was my 25th birthday. I know, kinda crazy. So with the National Championship game last night, I figured I’d look back at the past 25 years of the Big Dance. At the end of the Final Four, the Associated Press always selects a Most Outstanding Player (last night being Duke’s Kyle Singler). The MOP need not be a member of the Championship team, but they almost always are. In fact, the last player to win the award in a losing effort was Hakeem Olajuwon back in 1983. But not everyone goes on to have a career like The Dream. With that in mind, I’ve tracked down the MOPs of the past 25 years… Read More »