With the NBA Playoffs quickly approaching, the chase for the Larry O’Brien is about to jump into high gear. The teams in the East are set, but they are still jostling for positioning (unless you’re the Miami Heat). In the West, seven of the eight teams are set with it coming down to the wire between the Utah Jazz and Los Angeles Lakers for the No. 8 spot. The Heat have proven all year long that they are the team to beat when the second season comes around and will definitely have a very good chance of repeating as champs. Read More »

This year’s Basketball Hall of Fame class was officially announced yesterday, and taking his rightful place among the game’s greats in September will be Gary Payton. The Glove holds the distinction of being the only point guard ever to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year, an honor given to him for his suffocating work during the 1995-96 season. It was, however, his work that postseason that immortalized his defensive reputation. Read More »

Last week, the basketball world was abuzz with news that the owners of the Sacramento Kings were in the process of finalizing the sale of the franchise to a Seattle-based ownership group. The upshot of the apparent deal, while far from sealed, was that it would effectively mean the return of the Seattle SuperSonics next season. Read More »

In the new issue of Dime Magazine, we took a look at the best – and worst – the game has offered since the turn of the century. From the players to jerseys to sneakers to teams to even trends, you can relive the past 12 years by scooping up the new issue currently on newsstands nationwide. In those pages, you’ll find the following feature… Read More »

In the new issue of Dime Magazine, we took a look at the best – and worst – the game has offered since the turn of the century. From the players to jerseys to sneakers to teams to even trends, you can relive the past 12 years by scooping up the new issue currently on newsstands nationwide. In those pages, you’ll find the following feature… Read More »

The Knicks’ Jeremy Lin has spurred incredible highlights, sustained enthusiasm from the world’s toughest fans and created a cottage industry of awful puns of his last name.

But don’t pretend he’s the first to burst on a hoops scene like this. The second-year guard’s jaw-dropping five-game run is, instead, the perfect time to remember another unheralded guard’s flash of fame back in 2003. Read More »

It is pretty rare when an elite superstar, a player at the top of their game, is traded off by a team. Circumstances have to reach a boiling point where the team is not going anywhere or the player sees greener pastures and nothing will stop that fixation. In the NBA today, superstars (and those who think they are superstars) are all built the same. If their team has not won a championship or when they see their friends winning them in a brief amount of time, they see it as a need for a new setting. Read More »

David Stern says he doesn’t think the entire season will be lost, explaining there’s too much at stake, too much to lose. We want to believe him, but we’ve heard the song before. While many outsiders are assuming a mass flood of players going to Europe and China would put enormous pressure on Stern and the NBA, the commish isn’t worried. He told Bill Simmons: “All that stuff is better to read about than to actually do.” Ouch … Read More »

With the threat of an entire year without basketball looming, we’ve started to bemoan the eventual disasters of collateral damage that this labor dispute will cause. Players leaving to play overseas, a lost year on the end of Tim Duncan‘s career and an entire October of actually having to watch baseball (oh wait, the NFL is back. Deliver us from evil!)

One of the most common myths of the last lockout was that Shawn Kemp, veritable NBA superstar and Krispy Kreme aficionado, was one of the players most physically damaged by the lockout. The Internet has been buzzing with the question: “Who will get fat after the NBA lockout?” Read More »

Style-fiends want the NBA season to happen, too. Just like those of us who care about the actual game, fashion trends won’t be set pregame, postgame or midgame if there’s no season. What shoe styles will the pros wear? And how about them new Washington Wizards threads? They look pretty cool on paper, but we won’t get a full feel for them until we see John Wall throwing no-looks JaVale McGee‘s way, or better yet, the Wizards winning. Read More »