Well that was quick. After just one season on the job – and a rotten 21-61 record (even thought that somehow tripled last year’s win total) – the Charlotte Bobcats have fired head coach Mike Dunlap.

Here’s the statement from the team: Read More »

Hopefully you didn’t start throwing back cold ones too early in anticipation of the holiday yesterday, or else you probably missed some really good basketball. Case in point the battle in Florida between the Magic and Heat, which felt like an intra-squad scrimmage because so many Miami “fans” infiltrated the Amway Center. But there was one big difference: the game’s intensity was bordering on Duke/North Carolina levels. Read More »

The Charlotte Bobcats beat the Minnesota Timberwolves last night on a last-second, game-winning shot from Kemba Walker. The win moved them to 4-3 on the season. Last year, it took them 30 games before they got their fourth victory. Yes, the Bobcats smartly drafted Michael Kidd-Gilchrist with the No. 2 pick in last June’s draft, but the real change after last season’s historically awful season is the coach patrolling the sideline. Tyrus Thomas intimidator, Paul Silas, is gone, replaced with little-known St. John’s assistant coach, Mike Dunlap. Read More »

Michael Jordan, the player and legend, is easily definable. Say the name — even a specific season, really — and memories pop up. As an owner and executive, however, his track record offers few memories to grab hold to — and the one that is, last season’s record for worst winning percentage, is the polar opposite of the kind of accolades he collected as a player. He recently offered a small window into the mind of Jordan the owner, and why he’s not going to stop doing it anytime soon. Read More »

When we talk about the NBA’s biggest enigmas, why doesn’t anyone ever mention Tyrus Thomas? He’s a 6-9 freak of an athlete who showed in college he’s good enough – when he cares – to make a big difference. So far in the NBA, he’s displayed a decent skill set when he’s healthy. He’s not a liability on the line, doesn’t need the ball to be effective and can play in a number of different systems. He even started for a playoff team in Chicago. Of course, it’s hard to stay relevant when your best friend on the team is the trainer, but we think Thomas deserves a little more shine as one of the NBA’s biggest underachievers. Read More »

We’ve written a lot in this space about the league’s “one more try” theme going into this next NBA season with the amount of older players getting contracts. One of the more intriguing teams trying to put it together is Dallas. On Friday they won Elton Brand off waivers to join Chris Kaman and Darren Collison as new additions in Mavericks blue. We’re sure they’re excited to have a home but it’s only temporary: all those contracts are for one year just in case the Magic hold onto Dwight Howard and he enters free agency next summer. Read More »

I’d heard enough about Mike Dunlap to know he was unknown and yet hardly unproven. A guy perennially stuck on a “best coaches you don’t know” list, who’d tutored Carmelo Anthony even if you couldn’t pick him out of a line at your grocery store.

I was walking to the gym to meet Dunlap for the first time in person. He had just been hired by Oregon to be its assistant and came with recommendations from around the hoops world, and a glowing review from George Karl. One of my closest friends had grown up going to camps at Denver’s Metro State campus that Dunlap ran as a two-time national title-winning head coach. He swore by Dunlap’s coaching a year before he even hit town. I knew he was the right hire then for a listing Duck program. What I saw from just that day and that season from Dunlap tells me he’s the right — and yet an unquestionably head-scratching — hire for the Charlotte Bobcats now, too. Read More »

With Gonzaga’s 72-54 rout of Pepperdine in Malibu this past weekend, the Bulldogs reasserted themselves after falling to unranked Loyola Marymount the game before. In fact, until the Lions were able to successfully upset the ‘Zags, their dominance has been unmatched in the West Coast Conference – including nine conference titles in a row. In what many outside of Spokane believed would be a rebuilding year – after losing Jeremy Pargo, Micah Downs, Josh Heytvelt and Austin Daye the prior season – Mark Few and Co. are right on track to make it ten straight WCC titles. Read More »