Beast of the Night: Chris Paul posted 26 points, 14 assists, two steals and two three-pointers last night. He shot 75 percent (12-16) from the field and had two turnovers. His hamstring injury was a bummer earlier this month, but CP3 is back to business as usual. His averages are second best to LeBron James this season. Read More »

I don’t know about you, but doesn’t it sometimes feel like the missed dunks are the ones that can get the crowd hyped? It’s those plays that are just out of reach, so close, that have players pushing the boundaries and fans getting excited. Our friends at Hoopmixtape put together the 10 best misses of the entire year, which includes people like Shaquille Johnson, Stephen Curry and John Wall getting oh so close to some incredible jams. Hit the jump to check out the best of the best misses. Read More »

Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Love and Danilo Gallinari can all stretch out and smile. They have extensions, and won’t be going into next summer having to deal with offer sheets and money and teams vying for their services and their own teams pulling them back in. After back-n-forth rumors that nearly escalated to JoePa levels these last few days about Love, it’s official. He has agreed to a four-year, $62 million extension to stay in Minnesota. It wasn’t the max extension Rose and Westbrook both received. Reports are saying the Wolves wanted to save the “designated player” status for Ricky Rubio (in the new CBA, teams are allowed one designated player contract, which can run for five seasons). But Love will be in Minnesota, for at least until 2015, when he can opt out for an even bigger deal. Read More »

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It’s DimeBag time. Let’s get to it. Read More »

Beast of the Night: Jarrett Jack posted 27 points, five rebounds, 11 assists, a steal, two blocks and a three-pointer last night against the Jazz. He shot 65 percent (11-17) from the field, 100 percent (4-4) from the free-throw line and had two turnovers. This was a nice bounce-back game after putting up mediocre lines in his previous two games. Jack remains a strong fantasy starter in most leagues, as he’ll rack up plenty of minutes and numbers for the Hornets this season. Read More »

It’s easy to start laughing when you see this, but I’m pretty sure you would have the same reaction if this happened to you. In last night’s Minnesota/Dallas game, Michael Beasley was fighting for a loose ball and had his finger smashed in the process.

He went to the bench to ge a good look at his finger and … “OH SHIT, THAT’S MY BONE!” Read More »

The rich keep getting richer. The Heat have a new toy and last night, he dropped 14 points in the fourth, drugged the crowd into chanting MVP for him at the line and used his Sam Cassell in ’94-sized balls to hit two straight jumpers in the final minute against the Celtics. Boston had to endure the wrath of D-Wade (24 points, eight assists, four blocks) and LeBron (26 points) for three quarters, but some great shooting and a zone defense brought them all the way back. Too bad Norris Cole wasn’t having it. Read More »

Lamar Odom, Dwight Howard and Chris Paul aren’t walking through that door. The Lakers are what they are right now: an 0-2 team searching for a spark. They took a beheading at the hands of the Kings last night in Sacramento, 100-91 and while everyone wants to drive the stake into them after two games, maybe we should just give some credit to the Kings. Tyreke Evans (20 points on 13 shots) was a monster again last night, and Marcus Thornton (27 points on 13 shots) was dropping bombs on ‘em Outkast-style throughout the second half. Every time L.A. threatened, one of those two made a big offensive play, or DeMarcus Cousins out-hustled everyone in yellow for the ball. Read More »

When we throw around the word “sleeper” in reference to an NBA team, it doesn’t really say much other than we think Team X will surpass expectations. Some sleepers could win championships, a la the Dallas Mavericks of a year ago. Others, such as the Memphis Grizzlies of last season, will slip into the playoffs and make a deep run after they weren’t expected to amount to anything.

So in picking the top five sleepers for the 2011-12 NBA season, there’s going to be some good teams that turn out to be super good and some bad teams that might surprise us by not completely floundering about. There’s a few prerequisites to being a sleeper, however. Read More »

While it’s more exciting talking up sleepers, bloomers and late-round bargains with your fantasy basketball friends, it’s also helpful to look at the negative side of things. So, in honor of this season of giving, here’s a list of the top five fantasy basketball underperformers for the upcoming 2011-12 season. Each of these players stands a chance of falling short of expectations this season, for various reasons. Read More »