“He’s going to empower players to be as good as you want and he’s going to give you enough rope to hang yourself.”

Chris Webber has earned his keep in broadcasting. He’s smart, fair and usually honest. But he’s never said something before that fit so perfectly. C-Webb knows Rick Adelman as well as any NBA player in the league, perhaps of all time. He paired with Adelman in the summer of 1998, Webber being banished from Washington for reasons that had more to do with his off-the-court issues than anything else, and quickly became the De Niro to Adelman’s Scorsese. Read More »

So they think they need a committee to study this stuff huh? It shouldn’t take a genius or even a formulation of a number of basketball minds to figure this one out, but as Yahoo! Sports is reporting, the NBA and the Player’s Association are discussing whether to form a committee to study the age minimum for the NBA draft with “the possibility that no immediate changes to the ‘one-and-done’ rule will come in the finalization of the new collective bargaining agreement.”

Good. Maybe they’ll finally discover what I’ve been saying all along. Read More »

Straight out of high school, Dorell Wright took seven years to prove he can do more than come off the bench for spot minutes. He sat behind Dwyane Wade in Miami, learned the work ethic of the NBA and eventually got an opportunity to shine in his first season with the Golden State Warriors last season, ending up with averages of 16 points, five rebounds and three assists per game.

It took awhile, but how far along would Wright be had he gone to college for one year? How about four? Would he be better prepared, or would he have lost that NBA-level experience that makes him the player he is today? Read More »

I still remember watching Kwame Brown in his first Summer League for the Washington Wizards up in Boston. It was free and I was a fiend, looking for some No. 1 overall pick love. I can remember telling my boys after his first game, “Don’t worry. Kwame will pick it up. He’s only a high school kid.” Ahh, too bad.

Summer Leagues get their exposure from No. 1 picks, second-year standouts and once-in-a-blue-moon explosions from unheard of players. Below that though, there are always interesting subplots. Here are the Top 10 guys to look out for in this year’s Orlando Summer League: Read More »

With the NBA Draft Lottery all sorted out, and the selection order now set, people can start their Mock Draft frenzy. But before we delve into the future, let’s break down the best and worst picks of the past decade by 2010′s Lottery teams. Read More »

Dorell Wright has been one of the forgotten names of the NBA’s preps-to-pros era.

While the Miami Heat swingman hasn’t been an All-Star success like KG, Kobe or Dwight, he hasn’t been a bust like Korleone Young, Ndudi Ebi or Robert Swift, either. Drafted out of South Kent Prep (Conn.) with the 19th overall pick in ’04, Wright has flown under the radar with mixed results, winning a championship in his second year while alternately dealing with injuries and showing flashes of being a solid NBA starter the rest of the time. Read More »

Somewhere in between the final minutes of Portland’s 107-100 loss to Miami last night, I was left wondering, where is Jerryd Bayless? Not for the reason that he should have been in this specific game, but because his all-around NBA presence should be much bigger at this point. In the Miami scorecard, he was only able to log three minutes, contributing two points and a foul in that span. Read More »

Even nearly four years after he was waived from the League, it’s still difficult to look past the pure raw talent and mass potential that was Ndudi Ebi.

Chosen 26th in the 2003 NBA Draft out of Westbury Christian in Houston, the slim and lanky Ebi was projected by many as next Kevin Garnett. Minnesota selected Ebi with its only first-round draft pick during a three-year span due to contract violations with Joe Smith and the League’s salary cap limit. Read More »