Atlanta forward Josh Smith is reportedly on the move by 3 p.m. tomorrow’s deadline. After telling him that they would not offer him a maximum contract, Atlanta’s front office is looking to take a page out of Orlando’s book from Dwight Howard, and bring back valuable pieces for their star rather than losing him to free agency. Read More »

Phoenix let Milwaukee off the hook last night, but it wasn’t Shannon Brown‘s fault. He dropped 20 off the bench, and had one of the best putback dunks of the season. Read More »

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If we needed any further proof that New Yorkers are crazed lunatics who are more up and down than Joe Flacco, we got it last night. In just a few short months, Jeremy Lin went from favorite son to Judas, from Linsanity to something quite average, and New Yorkers went from “Raymond Felton?” to “Raymond Felton!” Last year, Knicks fans would’ve have given you the business you had you spoken bad about Lin. Now, they’re reveling in his struggles, and booed him consistently last night after initially showing him some love during introductions. Read More »

The NBA season powers on entering its fourth week of action and we have a small but effective sample size to evaluate the season’s early surprise players. For purposes of clarity we are discussing the good surprises not the disappointing ones (that comes later).

Whatever the reason, each one of these players has emerged as a key contributor for their team. Here are the Top 10 Surprising Players this season: Read More »

And so, curing the Lakers’ five-game start of discontent might come down to this: whose knee heals faster, Phil Jackson‘s or Mike D’Antoni‘s? In case you’ve been living under a rock you know the Lakers fired Mike Brown as head coach Friday morning, pulling him out of a coaches meeting to do so. Read More »

We don’t often lead Smack with the Pacers, but what transpired in Atlanta last night was too depressing not to. We found out yesterday morning that Danny Granger is now going to miss three months of action, and for Indiana, that’s a major loss. It showed in a 89-86 loss to the Hawks. After going up 14 in the fourth quarter, the Pacers’ offensive rhythm made us want to cry. They were more of a mess than Romney‘s campaign strategy. Read More »

Is it time we start taking New York seriously? We’ll have to wait until Amar’e Stoudemire comes back from his latest knee setback, and Carmelo Anthony gets pushed back to the three to see if this level of play holds up. But what else can we say? ‘Melo (21 points last night) has looked like he’s ready to finally embrace basic basketball principles like rebounding, defending and not holding the ball every time you touch it, and New York is getting contributions from everyone. Read More »

Derrick Rose believes in the process. In fact, he says “My biggest concern is don’t worry about me. I know I’m going to be all right” (that doesn’t really make sense). The fallen Chicago star took to YouTube yesterday to provide a rare update for his fans on the status of his injury. Of course, reports say his knee is ahead of schedule, but what did you really expect to hear? Most are saying Rose won’t be ready anytime before the turn of the new year, and we sincerely hope the Bulls take their time with him. They aren’t winning the title next year, and we’re not trying to see another Gilbert Arenas instance go down, where it felt like every comeback from injury was rushed. Read More »

Nothing gets us going in the Dime offices like a good ol’ fashioned debate, and the best debates are the ones that get heated. Trying to rate the best dunkers in the league is unanimously impossible. Do you want style? Force? Does a big man get points taken away? If a player is an epic dunker in warm-ups, does that count?

Back in the day, we had Vince Carter and there was no denying what type of dunker he was. But in the current NBA, outside of perhaps one or two guys, you could make a case for anyone. Read More »