Did you hear the Magic brass isn’t too smart? That’s what it feels like. Since none of us are a part of Orlando’s organization, we can sit here and talk about “Well, they might as well trade Dwight Howard now and get the most for him. They can’t let him leave for nothing.” We can call for the GM, Otis Smith, to start reaching out to everyone, mainly the Nets and the Lakers, to figure something out. But if we were Smith, we definitely wouldn’t have said what he did yesterday. In an interview with Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel, Smith said about the Howard trade rumors: “I think you have to look at everything. I don’t think you can take anything out of consideration.” Read More »

Why do we like the little guy in basketball? Because it reminds us of ourselves, the ones who missed out on the two-foot growth spurt that we swear could make us into NBA players? Because it gives us a glance at someone doing something they aren’t exactly supposed to do? Maybe. We like underdogs.

Dallas’ J.J. Barea fits that mold. The whirling dervish dropped 17 points and five assists on the Miami Heat in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. How can a guy who’s not even 6-feet tall – teammate Brian Cardinal said he might be 6-feet in stilettos – do this over giants? And how did he score Miss Universe 2006 being so short? And is she taller than him when she’s wearing stilettos? Read More »

If only Radio Raheem was around to see this. Back in ’89, Do The Right Thing, Radio elaborated the concept of love versus hate with the assistance of five-finger rings and a big-ass radio.

He was talking about true hatred, the hate that begets stress and the type of violence that would eventually cost him his life. But today, the word “hate” in pop culture has been watered down to something more like criticism. Read More »

There’s nothing people like to see more than small guys dunking. Just ask three-time slam dunk contest winner Nate Robinson. And thankfully NBA TV analyst Eric Snow has given us a list worthy of debate: the top 10 dunking point guards of all time. Check out the list (with video evidence) after the jump. Read More »

One of the questions I posed to the Dime crew over All-Star Weekend made it into this morning’s Smack:

Doesn’t Nate Robinson have to be considered one of the greatest NBA dunkers of all-time?

Write me off as a Seattle homer if you want, but honestly, I’d be saying the same thing had Nate grown up in Miami or Madrid. Because not only do the facts work out in Nate’s favor, almost any basketball fan’s subjective view of what makes a great dunker also matches up with Nate’s aerial resume. Read More »

Other than Nate Robinson making history as the first three-time champion, there really wasn’t anything memorable about last night’s NBA All-Star dunk contest. It was like one of those comedy movies that’s funny enough to get the job done while you’re in the theater, but 30 minutes after you leave you can’t remember any of the jokes … If there was a signature dunk from Nate, it was probably his last one in the finals, when he threw it off the glass and did a reverse jackknife, then went over to the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and danced with their pom-poms. Read More »