On Christoper Columbus’ holiday, we discovered that the Cleveland Cavaliers might not be as bad as we thought. Again, we know, It’s Just The Preseason, but the Cavs are still 3-1 (without their new go-to player) after last night, their second road in a back-to-back against projected Western Conference playoff teams (Houston and Dallas). Boobie Gibson scored 15 to lead a Cleveland squad that, at the very least, it’s going to just roll over voluntarily and die without LeBron. Read More »

If you look at the Top 5 scorers from the World Championship this summer, it probably wouldn’t surprise you that all of them currently play in the NBA. That is, all of them except one. So while Luis Scola led the field with 27.1 points per game, it was New Zealand’s Kirk Penney (24.7 ppg) who scored more buckets than even Kevin Durant. Read More »

Everybody had the day off at the World Championship, as pool play is wrapped and we move to the knockout round. Today it’ll be Serbia vs. Croatia, and Spain vs. Greece in a matchup that is happening way earlier than anyone expected. After losing two games in pool play (to France and Lithuania), Spain can’t pretend like they haven’t gotten their wake-up call. Marc Gasol put up 25 points and 8 boards in what was basically a must-win against Lebanon, and is averaging 15.4 points and 7.2 boards in the tournament. Rudy Fernandez (shooting), J.C. Navarro (scoring) and Ricky Rubio (dishing) are doing their thing, and even Fran Vazquez showed up the other day (more than can be said about his Orlando Magic career). Read More »

If Fran Fraschilla said it once, he said it a thousand times: Team USA wasn’t playing against Iran yesterday, they were playing against themselves. (Only without the Jay-Z after-party.) So if that was the case, would we call the 37-point “victory” over the guys in the other uniforms a win or a loss? … Hamed Haddadi and Co. weren’t as terrible as you may have been led to believe, but they still weren’t on Team USA’s level. And yet if you wanted the U.S. to improve during this game, you had to be disappointed. Read More »