There wasn’t a whole lot normal about Orlando’s first-round win over the Bobcats. Dwight Howard was stuck in foul trouble and put up numbers maybe Anderson Varejao would’ve bragged about; Vince Carter shot 1-for-17 from three range and 35 percent overall; and yet the Magic won the series easily, the only sweep of the NBA playoffs so far.

J.J. Redick wasn’t his usual self, either. Or maybe he was. Read More »

Everybody wants to make the Hoosiers comparison, but the best movie for Butler‘s surprise run to the NCAA championship game might be Invictus. Yesterday’s win over Michigan State was like part basketball and part rugby. It was ugly, it was grimy, it was gritty, but the Bulldogs pulled off the upset despite shooting 31% from the field, enduring a 10-minute stretch in the second half where they didn’t make a shot, and trying time and time again to give the Spartans the game … Read More »

To the surprise of no one, Eddy Curry told the New York Daily News this week that he’s NOT opting out of his contract this summer, setting himself up to make $11.2 million next season for — assuming he has a repeat of this season — doing just shy of nothing.

You know NFL players, who play a more dangerous sport yet can be cut loose without pay at a moment’s notice, must have a deep-seeded jealousy of NBA players and their guaranteed money. Read More »

One of the commentators on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” said it best earlier this week: Upsets are the life-blood of the NCAA Tournament. Even if it’s at the cost of a busted bracket, people want to see Cinderella stories and have lovable underdogs.

Case in point: When Michigan State benefited from a couple shaky referee calls to knock off 12-seed New Mexico State in this year’s tourney, the crowd was loudly booing as the upset bid fell short. Read More »

Last week, in the wake of the NBA Trade deadline, I put together a list of five free agents who can help your team right now. But let’s be honest: The pickings were slim. And as I said, any player who has spent time on an NBA roster this season had to be waived by March 1 in order to be eligible for the playoffs with another team. So in light of a bunch of need commodities that surfaced on the market, here’s an updated and expanded list of free agents available to the highest bidder. Read More »

Tracy McGrady is finally a Knick, Nate Robinson is a Celtic and Tyrus Thomas has transformed from a sulky Bull into a brooding Bobcat. There were also a few odds and ends to note as the trade deadline passed, and it’s clear that fantasy owners have some work to do if they want to sort through the debris to separate the gems from the rubble. Let’s take a look at the notable fantasy implications. Read More »

So much for the Knicks not being able to land Tracy McGrady’s expiring contract, according to ESPN.com’s Marc Stein, the Rockets, Kings and Knicks have agreed to terms that will expand the Houston-Sacramento deal into a three-way trade that lands Tracy McGrady and Sergio Rodriguez in New York, Kevin Martin, Jordan Hill, Jared Jeffries and Hilton Armstrong in Houston and Carl Landry, Joey Dorsey and Larry Hughes in Sacramento. Read More »

Since hearing about the relaunch of NBA Jam, the talk of the office has been which players are going to make it in the game. As you know,

When they’re not out on the court playing or working out, NBA players are just like us and spend countless hours surfing the internet and watching TV. With all that extra time players have in hotel rooms, you got to kill time somehow. Over the last few weeks, Dime got access to different NBA locker rooms and asked some guys about their favorite TV shows and websites. Some answers might surprise you. Read More »

Steering clear of a competition with the Texas/Alabama national championship game, the NBA had just one game on the schedule last night, with the Bobcats visiting the Knicks at MSG. Not exactly the bright lights of a LeBron or Kobe appearance, not I’d Rather Watch ‘Man vs. Wild’ either. In fact, it’s not crazy at all to suggest both of these teams could wind up in the playoffs in 2010 … The Bobcats were up 10 late in the third, but NY put together a quick 15-0 run that bled into the fourth, highlighted by a couple of Nate Robinson threes, plus one play where he crossed up D.J. Augustin and took off from the dotted line, catching a dunk that would’ve been nasty if he was 6-foot-3; but was downright disrespectful considering he’s the size of a jockey … Read More »