One sequence defined last night’s Lakers/Nuggets national TV preseason game: In the second half, after Kobe Bryant had already come out of the locker room with That Look in his eye, he pulled off his new favorite move on Kenyon Martin; getting him in the air with a pump fake and spinning a quick 360 to his left, dropping a jumper as K-Mart harmlessly floated back to Earth. Then on the Nuggets’ ensuing possession, Kobe jumped a passing lane and finished with a breakway one-hander, slapping on the bottom-teeth snarl as an exclamation point … Read More »

Whether you’re spending your valuable TV time or your valuable ticket money, when you settle in to watch an NBA preseason game, you hope everybody — or at least somebody — on the court treats it like Jason Terry did last night. In the Mavs/Pistons game that aired on NBA TV, Terry almost had you thinking something important was at stake. It seemed at every dead ball he was trying to hype up the Dallas crowd, raising his arms and screaming or doing his little “Jet” dance, and then between the lines he was locked in like it was a playoff game. Read More »

Since you were probably preoccupied last night watching baseball and football, we took the liberty to give you some hoops highlights on the Columbus Day morning. During the Pistons/Hawks game last night, Detroit hit a buzzer beater at the end of each of the first three quarters. The first by Rip Hamilton, the second by Rodney Stuckey and the third by Ben Gordon. The Pistons 100-91 win over Atlanta last night makes them a perfect 3-0 in the preseason. While preseason records are not necessarily an indication of how the season will go, this is an impressive start for a squad that people think are on the decline.

Missing the deadline for Sunday morning’s Smack, Carmelo Anthony had the performance of the NBA preseason so far in a very late-Saturday/early-Sunday tip in Beijing — in the same arena where ‘Melo and Team USA won their ‘08 gold medals. In just 24 minutes of work against the Pacers, ‘Melo dropped 45 points, going 14-of-19 from the field and 16-of-17 from the line. Oh, and he threw in nine rebounds and two blocks. Those are video-game numbers, like playing NBA 2K against the CPU on Easy mode. But then even more amazing than that might have been Indiana’s “defensive” numbers. 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: Ben Gordon, Charlie Villanueva, Austin Daye, Chris Wilcox, Ben Wallace, DaJuan Summers, Jonas Jerebko Read More »

If this is the beginning of a trend, we’ll have to adjust that projected number of wins we had for the Memphis Grizzlies ceiling this year. When Allen Iverson sat out the first preseason game with a “sore hamstring,” we figured that was just NBA code for “I’m a 14-year vet, f*** a preseason.” As it turns out, A.I. really is banged up and will be sidelined for three weeks with a partially torn hammy. There’s a slight chance he could be back by the real opener, when the Grizzlies host the Pistons in what was going to be their biggest regular season game in maybe ever … Memphis beat the Thunder in last night’s exhibition, getting 22 points (13-16 FT) from rookie Sam Young and 18 points from Rudy Gay. Read More »

Of the four teams that played in last night’s NBA preseason games, three were of the “new-look” variety: Orlando, Dallas and Detroit. Most relevant to the 2010 championship race, the Magic debuted Vince Carter in their win over the Mavs. Starting at two-guard next to Mickael Pietrus at the three and Rashard Lewis at the four, Vince scored 21 points on 7-of-18 shooting, 3-of-12 beyond the arc. Dwight Howard had 17 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks, and Rashard scored 18 with four threes … Dirk Nowitzki — looking like an awkward Thor with the long-hair/headband combo — scored 23 points (17-19 FT) for the Mavs, who were without Shawn Marion (rest) and Josh Howard (ankle) … Read More »

Specialists and supporting casts are great, but in the NBA, you’re only as good as your go-to guy. There’s a reason Paul Pierce could claim he was the best player in the world following the ‘08 Finals, or why Kobe put the “Best Player on the Planet” argument on ice in ‘09 until further notice: If you’ve got the ring and you’re the go-to guy on the team with the ring, nobody can really argue against you. Read More »

Eighteen years too late, I watched Pistol: The Birth of a Legend for the first time this summer. Mostly the story of Pete Maravich’s teenage years, partly a ball-handling instructional tape, the movie came to mind when I found out Allen Iverson was signing with the Memphis Grizzlies.

In Pistol, Maravich is a middle-school prodigy playing on a high school varsity team where the coach doesn’t like his style (too “Black”) and the older players don’t like him for being so good so young. Glued to the bench despite his talent, Pete just wants a chance to play, and when he finally gets it, predictably becomes a superstar and leads the team to glory. Ultimately, all that time he spent not playing was a colossal waste of time rooted in old-school values and silly stubbornness. Read More »

Welcome to the (so far) most Twitter-infected edition of Smack ever written. We begin with Nate Robinson, who was arrested yesterday in NYC for driving on a suspended license, and broke the news himself — on Twitter. Nate actually tweeted while he was being pulled over (if only this kind of technology existed when Rodney King got popped in ‘91), and what started with his windows being too tinted turned into a revelation that his license had been suspended for an unpaid ticket he says he didn’t know about. Granted, this is a very minor legal matter, but it’s also horrible timing for Nate when he’s still technically unemployed … One of the League’s other high-profile jobless guys, Allen Iverson, took his free agency news to the Twitter crowd. Read More »