It’s never fun to be the last player in the green room on Draft Day. As a hooper, you grow up dreaming of that one moment where you will stand up proudly on stage at Madison Square Garden and pound knuckles with David Stern for the first time. Being invited to sit as a green room attendee is fun, but it can sometimes turn into a schoolyard kickball game; waiting anxiously to hear your name called by the captain. And that’s just what happened to Nevada sophomore Luke Babbitt. Read More »

Over the weekend, rumors surfaced suggesting Trail Blazers GM Kevin Pritchard‘s days with the team are numbered. This would have seemed crazy not too long ago, when Pritchard was treated like a rock star in Portland and credited with building one of the League’s hottest up-and-coming young contenders. So what’s the problem now? Two Dime writers debate just how important (or expendable) Pritchard is to the Blazers: Read More »

By the numbers, Rudy Fernandez‘s second year in the NBA was pretty identical to his first. His scoring was only down one bucket per game (8.1 ppg), his shooting percentage only dropped a few digits (37.8% FG), and his rebounds, assists, steals and blocks were almost exactly the same as his rookie year, when he was a second team All-Rookie pick and impressed some folks at the Dunk Contest.

Beyond the numbers, though, Rudy’s second year was a step back. Read More »

So it wasn’t exactly Willis Reed or Daniel LaRusso, but the scene in Portland when Brandon Roy stepped back onto the court yesterday was pretty amazing nonetheless. After the Blazers got bass-taped by Phoenix twice in a row, they activated their superstar at the last minute for Game 4, about a week following his knee surgery. Clearly far from 100 percent and all but dragging his leg around, Roy (10 pts, 4-10 FG) still gave the team and the crowd an emotional lift and managed to play a key role as Portland pulled even in the series … Read More »

Even more than MVP, the Coach of the Year award needs a criteria makeover. Because while it’s kind of ridiculous in retrospect that Shaq only has one MVP when he was the most dominant game-changing basketball player in the NBA for several years, it’s patently ridiculous that Jerry Sloan was never deemed the best coach in the League over any of his two decades-plus run in Utah while continually placing his team in the title contending picture. Read More »

If you thought last Thursday’s loss to the Cavs was a sign the Celtics don’t have enough in the tank to win a championship this year, Saturday’s loss to the New Jersey Nets — yes, we said the New Jersey Nets — was all the confirmation you needed … Tommy Heinsohn and the two psychos from Celtic Pride would have a hard time coming up with an excuse here: Boston was at home, they hadn’t traveled since last weekend, they weren’t playing a back-to-back, and Kevin Garnett (26 pts, 9 rebs) and Rajon Rondo (13 pts, 17 asts) didn’t play horribly. Read More »

There were just too many elements conspiring against the Mavs going into last night’s game in Denver. Facing the second part of a road back-to-back in the Mile High altitude is bad enough, but it gets worse considering the previous game was a grueling 48-minute track meet at Golden State. On top of that, Dallas was without Shawn Marion (back) and Erick Dampier (knee). And finally, Carmelo and Chauncey were back after missing time with respective ankle injuries. Stir it all up, and you have Dallas getting almost 40-pieced in what amounted to a scrimmage for the Nuggets … Read More »

You know the only way a preseason game between the Knicks and a team that isn’t even in the NBA would crack the sports highlights shows on an NFL and baseball playoffs Sunday is if something crazy happened. And in the third quarter of New York’s game against Maccabi Tel Aviv (Israel), things got appropriately insane. After Maccabi head coach Pini Gershon got himself ejected thanks to a couple of techs, he refused to leave the court — if you saw the Season 2 premier of “Tool Academy,” he pretty much acted like the dude who got kicked off that first week. The refs wouldn’t re-start the game until Gershon left, so it turned into a standoff. Read More »

Last year we debuted the “Highs and Lows” system — previewing the NBA season by predicting the respective ceiling and basement for each team. Same theme, different season…

Added: Andre Miller, Juwan Howard, Jeff Pendergraph, Dante Cunningham, Ime Udoka

Lost: Sergio Rodriguez, Channing Frye, Michael Ruffin, Shavlik Randolph Read More »

I know three things about the National Hockey League:

1. There are four Black people involved in the whole operation. 2. Sidney Crosby is the face of the League. 3. Alexander Ovechkin is actually the best player in the League.

Ovechkin made headlines last week when he bashed the NHL for not yet committing to modify its schedule to accommodate the 2014 Winter Olympics. (The League is putting its schedule on hold while players compete in 2010, but hasn’t decided if they’ll do the same for 2014.) Russia is hosting the Olympics that year; Ovechkin is Russia’s top player. Read More »