The season wasn’t supposed to go this way for the Charlotte Bobcats. Coming off the franchise’s first-ever playoff appearance last spring, there was an excitement surrounding the ‘Cats for 2010-11. New majority owner Michael Jordan was in office, star forward Gerald Wallace was a certified NBA All-Star, and swingman Stephen Jackson spent the summer getting in the best shape of his career and embracing his role as team leader.

The Bobcats were supposed to be good — or at least interesting. Read More »

The Dallas Mavericks have shown us this part before: The gaudy early-season record (16-4), the offense that’s crisp as country bacon (47.5% FG, 3rd in the NBA), the MVP push by Dirk Nowitzki (24.9 ppg, 7.7 rpg). And 100 percent of the time, their impressive early efforts have failed to produce an NBA championship.

Why should anybody believe this year will be different? Because these Mavs are winning with defense and rebounding, two areas in which offseason trade acquisition Tyson Chandler has carved his niche. Read More »

“Amar’e! Where are we going to dinner?” Raymond Felton shouted across the locker room to the guy itching to get out the door, already completely dressed and fending off a few straggling reporters after he had just finished up with an entire legion of them around his corner locker.

“Wait on me after this!” Felton motioned towards the throng of seven or eight cameras and tape recorders around his face. Stoudemire nodded, answering affirmatively with an animated “Yeah!” as he bounded out into the bathroom. Read More »

Dating back to the Allen Iverson era — which was here and gone about as fast as A.I.’s first step — cracks in the chemistry of the Detroit Pistons infrastructure have effectively ended what was one of the NBA’s most consistent runs of success over the last decade. While the A.I. situation drew more national attention because of the big names involved, the Pistons’ issues over the last couple of seasons have been just as damaging. Now it’s just getting out of hand. Read More »

Utah broadcaster Ron Boone called it at the beginning of the second half: “The Jazz will win this game.” Never mind that his team was down 16 at halftime and were close to setting a record for “Least amount of effort exhibited by any Jerry Sloan team ever.” What happened? First of all, we’re betting Sloan lit some C4 beneath some of his guy’s butts during the break. And secondly, some bad Clipper luck — coupled with Deron Williams going into beast mode once again — led to Utah’s 109-107 come from behind 2OT win … Read More »

Who do you want your offense to run through with the game on the line? Counting down from 30th to 1st (one per team), I’ve ranked the League’s go-to guys…

STEPHEN JACKSON, Charlotte Bobcats

Kellen Winslow II‘s favorite basketball player has to be Stephen Jackson. The NFL Pro Bowl tight end once famously spouted off in a post-game college press conference: Read More »

Forget “Real Training Camp” on NBA TV. Can we get the Charlotte Bobcats a reality show on Showtime? Stephen Jackson is worth the airtime alone, but then throw in Michael Jordan getting used to everything that comes with being The Boss, Shaun Livingston‘s (latest) comeback story, Tyrus Thomas‘ mood swings, Sherron Collins‘ out-loud Chitown personality getting rookie hazed, Boris Diaw‘s battle to stay below 320 pounds, the Kwame Brown/MJ dynamic, and Larry Brown‘s manic obsessive nature, and you’ve got potential greatness. Read More »

Times have changed in Detroit. The 2004 NBA championship is a distant memory. No longer are the Pistons one of the most superior defensive teams in the League. Chauncey Billups and Rasheed Wallace are gone, and the team is playing under its third coach since Larry Brown led them all the way in ’04.

It’s been a rebuilding process without a “rebuilding” label, and as expected, wins were hard to come by this past season in the D. Read More »

In this day and age, athletes have out of this world physical ability. Some run faster and jump higher than us normal people could ever imagine.

There are some players in the NBA today that could start on an NFL team right now, or have at least played football during high school or college days. Watching the Monday Night Football doubleheader last night between the Ravens/Jets and Chargers/Chiefs, if got me thinking about which NBA players could make a transition into the NFL. Here are the top five, plus one coach: Read More »

LSU is a high-powered SEC school that lands top talent season after season, and their basketball program has been known to produce high-flying power dunkers. As far as their NBA success, however, those noted ex-Tigers run the gamut: Shaquille O’Neal is a Hall of Fame lock, whereas Stromile Swift, the No. 2 pick in the 2000 NBA Draft, was a bust. Tyrus Thomas sits somewhere in the middle. Read More »