The U.S. men are about to get their toughest test of the Olympics. And it still won’t be a game. Lithuania plays the record-setting Americans on Saturday, two days after they detonated Nigeria by 83 points. After that one, a mini-controversy has erupted around whether the team purposefully ran up the score on the helpless Olympic debutantes. Nah; we mean, the U.S. just could not miss. Now, they weren’t exactly holding the ball in four corners, but even though we aren’t quiet buying Coach K saying that Nigeria’s coach would have been “humiliated” if the U.S. didn’t play hard the whole way, they did have to put the ball up every 24 seconds. Read More »

Oklahoma City didn’t play Thursday, but try telling Thunder fans it wasn’t a victory. Guard Russell Westbrook went all Boomer Sooner by signing a five-year, $80-million extension. The deal brought praise for GM Sam Presti and hailed Westbrook, slammed for being a “shoots-lots” guard, for his unselfishness: “Instead, Westbrook delivered to his teammates, his organization and this city a blessed gift. Expansion of the Thunder’s window of opportunity to turn Oklahoma City into Titletown. … No promises beyond 2016, but until then, barring catastrophic injury, an oil-and-gas bust or general manager Sam Presti losing his senses, the Thunder is set for five years of excellent basketball,” the Oklahoman columnist Berry Tramel wrote. Read More »

New Jersey will be coming for that NYC crown soon enough, but at least for now, the Knicks are still the big brother. Even if it was preseason, New York gets bragging rights for at least a few more weeks, beating the Nets in Newark 92-83. While we can’t take too much away from a preseason game – c’mon, Renaldo Balkman led everyone with 20 – both teams got some nice contributions from their role players. Rookie Iman Shumpert (16 points) outplayed every other perimeter player for the Knicks, and rookie Marshon Brooks (10 points) and Anthony Morrow (15 points) put in work from the perimeter … At least offensively, Amar’e Stoudemire (10 points) and Carmelo Anthony (17 points in three quarters) looked pretty in-tune for the first preseason game. Read More »

MVP: Kevin Durant wins this honor despite having a disappointing season. Despite seeing season-over-season declines in points, rebounds, assists, steals, field-goal percentage and free-throw percentage, KD was able to put up No. 1 averages in 2010-11. That says quite a lot about his shot at retaining this crown for many seasons to come. You can pretty much scribble his name at the top of your 2011-12 draft-day cheat sheets now. Read More »

Buy Low: Steve Nash has 28 percent from the field in his last four games to go along with 8.8 points, 4.8 rebounds, 11.5 assists, two turnovers and a measly 0.3 threes per game. These are not the Nashty kind of numbers we’re used to seeing from him. However, look closely at his game log and you’ll see that two of those games came against elite point guards – Deron Williams and Rajon Rondo. With a strong fantasy playoff schedule ahead of him, Nash should bounce back sooner than later. Read More »

With the trade deadline having come and gone last Thursday, you may be wondering why there has been a flood of NBA activity going on the past few days. Today is the deadline for players to be released from their contracts (whether that is bought out or waived) and still be able to appear in the playoffs for another team. The first domino to fall was Troy Murphy, who according to ESPN.com’s Marc Stein chose the Celtics over the Heat. But who’s next? With that, here are the Top 5 available NBA free agents on the market right now. Read More »

Another year, another NBA Trade Deadline gone by. As you probably would expect, the Dime office was Ground Zero today for anything and everything trade related. Whether it was Twitter, texts or phone calls, we were constantly on our toes looking for the most up-to-date info to relay to you, our readers. With players’ names being thrown around more than the gut of Chris Farley in a Matt Foley motivational speaker skit, it was difficult forecasting what gossip would end up reality. On the wake of the recently kyboshed Mayo/McRoberts deal, it brought my attention to the other rumored deals that were circulating, but for one reason or another didn’t quite come to fruition. Here they are: Read More »

The same thing happens every year. After being dangled as bait up until the trade deadline passes, whoever doesn’t get a bite is often bought out and then heads to a contender. Or, if they are traded, there’s always the possibility they could return to their previous team (read: Zydrunas Ilgauskas). As of right now, there are three such players that will most likely be bought out and taking their talents elsewhere: T.J. Ford, Troy Murphy and Jason Kapono. Here’s what we’re hearing. Read More »

The big NBA news today (so far, at least) is a deal that sends Deron Williams to the New Jersey Nets in exchange for Devin Harris, Derrick Favors, two first-round draft picks and $3 million. There’s also a second deal that involves the Golden State Warriors, who will send Dan Gadzuric and Brandan Wright to the Nets in exchange for Troy Murphy. There’s a lot going on with this curveball, so grab your White Russian, lift it in honor of the shrewd Mikhail Prokhorov and read on for a quick assessment of the fantasy fallout. Read More »

Well this is crazy! Just a day after the Nets missed out on another big player acquisition, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, the Nets have traded for Deron Williams, while sending Derrick Favors, Devin Harris and two first-round picks to the Jazz. New Jersey will also send Troy Murphy to Golden State, and the Warriors will send Dan Gadzuric and Brandan Wright to the Nets. Read More »