It’s not personal it’s business. Getting traded is just a part of the glamorous world of professional sports. But four times over a course of two months? Welcome to Quentin Richardson’s offseason. In a span of seven weeks, the 29-year-old forward was traded from New York to Memphis, Memphis to the L.A. Clippers, L.A. to Minnesota and finally Minnesota to the Miami Heat. Just days before Heat training camp, we caught up with Q-Rich to talk about his crazy summer, his days with the Knicks and his fresh start in South Florida. Read More »

Beast of the Night: Dirk Nowitzki not only hit the game-winner in Milwaukee last night, he also finished with 32 points, 1 three, 11 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and 1 block while shooting 48 percent (12-25) from the field, 88 percent (7-8) from the line and didn’t have any turnovers. He’s the hottest fantasy commodity to come out of Germany since Heidi Klum. Read More »

Although Dwight Howard was the one guy on the Magic who didn’t look like he should give his paycheck back after last night’s embarrassing loss to Oklahoma City, that didn’t stop the Thunder announcers from using Dwight for a punchline or two. “Superman has met Lex Luger tonight,” joked commentator Grant Long. His broadcast partner came in for the correction (”Lex Luthor“) but Long had made his point: Orlando looked nothing like a championship contender on Sunday, their second such alarming performance in the last four games. Read More »

If you’re purely interested in the best interest of Allen Iverson, you’re glad the Grizzlies had one of their business-as-usual losses against the Clippers last night. Having gone 0-3 since A.I. joined the lineup earlier in the week, for Memphis to win after Iverson had left the team for undisclosed personal reasons — even if it was against the Clips — would have brought up all the same criticisms of Iverson you saw in Detroit and at various points throughout his runs in Philly and Denver. Mainly, that A.I.’s team is better without him, and that certain young stars (i.e. O.J. Mayo in this case) are better off when he’s not in the picture … Instead, the Grizzlies did what they typically do with or without Iverson, putting up a lot of points while giving up even more. Read More »

Ask anybody who knows anything about basketball which player they’d choose to build a team around long-term, and most likely they’ll choose LeBron. (Others would probably say Dwight Howard, and other renegades might throw out names like Chris Paul and Derrick Rose.) But if you need a clear example why a lot of those same people who’d build around LeBron for the future would take a handful of guys over him when it comes to a one-time clutch situation in the present, look no further than last night’s Cavs/Bulls game … Read More »

In lieu of making yet another LeBron/Jay-Z analogy, let’s put it this way: The Cavs are treating the Wizards like LL Cool J did Canibus. They’ll take some time out to address the beef, but always with a swagger that says “Who is this little pest?” It’s even trickled down to the announcers. When Washington came out blasting last night (”Second Round Knockout”) and put the Cavs down by as much as 18 in the first half, Austin Carr admitted the game didn’t mean as much to LeBron and Co. as it did to Gilbert Arenas‘ squad. Read More »

I can’t resist season preview magazines. NBA, NFL, college, MLB, I’m a sucker for those thick annual issues that I’ll pore through in a couple of sittings before the season, then rarely open during the season. (Speaking of, keep an eye out for Dime #53, our NBA/college/high school preview issue.)

Every few years, one of the preview mags will do a feature where they create the “perfect” player for their sport, Dr. Frankenstein-style. Read More »

The worst part about preseason polls is that voters adopt a loyalty to those pre-determined spots even after the season shows us some of those picks were just wrong. College football gets it the worst, but the same often applies for the NBA; the only saving grace is that, at the end of the day, voter opinion doesn’t matter because the NBA has a playoff.

That said, we ignored making a preseason NBA Hit List power ranking, so as not to influence this first week’s edition. Counting down from worst to first… Read More »

Even with Vince Carter’s ankle keeping him sidelined for his latest return to Toronto (where he could get booed in an Orlando uniform this time), there were more than enough ready-made story lines going into Magic/Raptors: Hedo Turkoglu’s first game against his old squad, the next chapter in the Dwight Howard vs. Chris Bosh rivalry (quietly and consistently more exciting than Deron Williams vs. Chris Paul), and the intrigue of seeing which players would be visibly sleep-walking for a 1 p.m. EST tip-off the day after Halloween. So you can understand why nobody was ready for J.J. Redick to become the headliner. Read More »

By now, you should know that when NBA announcers keep saying, “Kobe is really frustrated,” it’s actually code for, “Kobe’s shot isn’t falling and he’s battling with the refs.” … That was the case during Lakers/Mavericks last night, as L.A. got smoked on its homecourt and Kobe (20 pts, 6-19 FG) struggled between breaking out his best whiny faces. Read More »