I never called Nick Van Exel shy. Too many jumpers early in shot clocks proved he had no conscience. I never called him timid either. Too many arguments with Del Harris proved that. I also never called him faint-hearted. He had enough street cred to get name-dropped in a song by Jigga. I figured he had a little Cypress Hill in him when he shoved Ron Garretson into the scorer’s table. And busting out “the monkey” midgame, against the Jazz no less (I doubt anyone on that team had even heard of “the monkey”), should’ve been all the evidence needed to sum it up: Van Exel had himself some big ol’ Sam Cassell-sized balls. Read More »
After the Kamikaze’s triumphant return, you knew Reebok was going to continue to look to their archives for upcoming releases. And the Reebok Blast appears to have called, “Next.” Inspired by the original ’90s version of the shoe made famous on the feet of Nick Van Exel, the Blast brings a refreshed, on-court look to the street. Read More »
With the sudden retirement of Shaquille O’Neal from the NBA, we got to thinking about all the great players that the Big Social Security Applier played with during his 19 seasons in the league. There’s a long list of All-Stars, but in making the list, we ask this question: Who was at their best while playing with Shaq? For example, the Kevin Garnett that O’Neal played with this season won’t rank as highly as the 2007-08 Amar’e Stoudemire that he shared the court with in his Phoenix stint.
Obviously, we’ll save all the center slots for the Big Aristotle himself, but without further adieu, we present the First, Second and Third All-Shaq teams: Read More »
And just like that, the Celtics have all the momentum in the NBA Finals. Winning last night’s Game 2 behind a record-setting performance from Ray Allen and the clutch playmaking of Rajon Rondo, Boston now gets three straight games at home, where they’re 7-2 in these playoffs and went 3-0 against the Lakers in the ’08 Finals … As invisible as Ray was in Game 1, he had everybody checking for him this time. In the first half he dropped seven three-pointers — missing only once and scoring 27 before halftime — and finished with an NBA Finals record eight treys. Ray (32 pts) started out banging shots in Derek Fisher and Shannon Brown‘s faces like he was Miguel Cotto and they were Yuri Foreman; and even after Kobe took on the assignment, the 10-time NBA All-Defensive pick got lit up, too … Read More »
Norm Nixon isn’t walking through this door. Elgin Baylor isn’t walking through this door. Silk Wilkes isn’t walking through this door.
I was born in 1982, and I didn’t begin to understand NBA basketball until sometime around 1988. So before I roll out a list of my all-time favorite Los Angeles Lakers, I should point out that I missed a lot of the “Showtime” era (though ESPN Classic has helped rectify that), and I never watched Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain when they wore purple and gold. Read More »
I don’t smoke tweeds, but I grew up much closer to the greenery than just listening to The Chronic and Cypress Hill. So while 4/20 is more significant to me because the new season of “Deadliest Warrior” debuts tonight, I understand the importance of the stoner’s holiday.
According to some of my more laid-back colleagues, “nuggets” is a term commonly associated with 4/20. You can probably guess why. So with that, here are my 10 favorite Denver Nuggets of the past 25 years: Read More »
After spending some time in Denver over the holidays and getting a chance to see the Mile High’s finest run through the Atlanta Hawks – and then be subsequently steamed rolled by the Dallas Mavericks – I was able to get a better sense of the team’s collective flow. No debating that this is Carmelo’s team – through with Chauncey Billups mends the glue – but beyond their star base, is the real key to their success: Ty Lawson. Read More »
There was a reason why Hova would name drop Nick Van Exel’s name in a verse. Nick the Quick was everything you wanted out of a small guard: a smooth south paw stroke, crafty dribble moves, great court vision and money in the clutch. And best of all, everything he did, he did it with style. Read More »
The era of the Jail Blazers is an interesting and lengthy time period, through which it extends from J.R. Rider’s heyday, until really 2005. Whereas, the Blazers had been branded with this label for a while, I chose to further examine Burnside’s best from ’01 through the ’04 season. Read More »
We don’t know where Carmelo Anthony‘s career is headed, but for the moment, Alex English is still the king of getting buckets in Denver. The Hall of Fame small forward and eight-time All-Star led the League in scoring in ’83 and finished in the Top-5 five other times. He was the NBA’s top scorer for the decade of the 1980′s, and retired with more than 25,600 points to his name. Professor Nick Van Exel leads this English lesson …
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