In basketball and every other major pro team sport, we always seem to be in the middle of a period where one position is enjoying a “Golden Era.” Right now, a lot of people would say this is a Golden Era for point guards in the NBA. And if you haven’t seen Dime’s NBA preview issue yet, there I wrote that we’re seeing the beginning of a Golden Era for small forwards.

At the beginning of this decade, though, we were in the age of the power forward. Read More »

No matter how old and inconsistent he gets, apparently Peja Stojakovic will always be able to light up the Suns. In what could have been one of those rock-bottom moments for the Hornets — national TV, no Chris Paul, interim coach, hosting a red-hot opponent who could conceivably drop 130 points on ‘em and get them booed out of their own gym — N.O. showed some heart and pulled off an upset win behind Peja’s 25 points, 13 boards and seven threes. It wasn’t the first time Peja has taken down the Suns on a big stage: Read More »

When the Spurs smacked the sting out of the Hornets in their season opener the other night, everybody but Tim Duncan looked like world-beaters. Last night in Chicago, Duncan proved he’s still dominant when he needs to be, but his teammates didn’t show up and San Antone took an L … The Bulls just had too many weapons to counter the Spurs’ one-man show. Derrick Rose put up 13 points and seven dimes and Luol Deng had 17 and nine boards, as the whole starting five and sixth man Kirk Hinrich scored in double figures. 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: Jonny Flynn, Ramon Sessions, Wayne Ellington, Ryan Hollins, Damien Wilkins, Sasha Pavlovic, Antonio Daniels, Oleksiy Pecherov, Jason Hart, Nathan Jawai, Mark Blount, Henk Norel

Lost: Randy Foye, Mike Miller, Sebastian Telfair, Craig Smith, Rodney Carney, Mark Madsen, Kevin Ollie, Jason Collins, Shelden Williams, Bobby Brown Read More »

As not to break my own “It’s just summer league” adage, I won’t get too excited about the fact that Roy Hibbert and Tyler Hansbrough are rampaging through Orlando right now for my Pacers like Robert Parish and Kevin McHale in ‘86 (with A.J. Price as their Dennis Johnson).

We’re still months away from the real games, from even beginning to determine whether Hansbrough will become the good pro I think he’ll be, or the Lottery pick bust his harsher critics think he’ll be. Read More »

As championship parades go, the Lakers managed to throw a pretty good party yesterday. Although the whole privately-funded element and Derek Fisher’s anti-Fun Police PSA threatened to put a damper on things, you have to give the L.A. fans credit for showing up in droves and being on their (nearly) best behavior, and credit to whoever paid for the parade for putting on a good event … Check out this snarky-ass line from the Associated Press story on the parade: “Taking a time-out from work or unemployment, 95,000 people filled the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to give a hero’s welcome to players and coaches.” So Adam Morrison was there after all Read More »

The Timberwolves’ brass told Kevin McHale that they can’t deal with his current job status because they’re too focused on the Draft. But Kevin Love isn’t too busy. Late last night, he tweeted that he was upset about his coach/mentor getting the boot, not realizing that he was actually breaking the news of McHale’s firing too.

“Today is a sad day…Kevin McHale will NOT be back as head coach next season.” Read More »

As expected, you couldn’t get away from Kobe Bryant yesterday. In fact, if you have any Orlando Magic fans in your life, you might wanna have them stay away from the Internet or any sports TV/radio stations for the rest of the week. The fallout from Kobe’s first “solo” NBA championship has so far revolved around two questions: What is Kobe’s place in history? and What’s next for Kobe and the Lakers? Read More »

The two biggest basketball stories from Wednesday revolved around coaches. In the NBA, the Kings ended their search by hiring Paul Westphal as head coach, and in college, USC’s Tim Floyd resigned his post just as it looked like the ugliest parts of the O.J. Mayo saga were coming to light … True story: Last week some of us in the office were talking about the Kings’ top three candidates (Tom Thibodeau, Kurt Rambis, Westphal) and when Paul’s name came up, people actually laughed. Read More »

Friday was pretty quiet for the day after the opening act of the NBA Finals. Then again, funerals tend to be that way. Seriously though, only the most giddy Lakers fans (that includes you, Spike Lee) are completely writing off the Magic after the Game 1 piecing, but anyone who saw the game or just saw the score has to admit Orlando has a lot of work to do to make this series competitive. Read More »