One of the best-kept secrets of this young NBA season: Wizards games are sneaky exciting. Actually, forget that: Washington is lunge-forward-in-your-chair WOW sometimes — in part because they have explosive athletes on their roster, and because their “defense” allows the opponents to shine. Last night was a good example, as the Wizards made a predictable road loss to the Lakers entertaining when it had no business being that. The first half was highlight-overload, as Lamar Odom (24 points) finished plays with multiple facials while Kobe Bryant (32 points) knifed into the lane for buckets. Read More »

The Spurs have worn a lot of labels over the years, but we can’t recall a time — even during the Stephen Jackson era — when “explosive” was one of them. Going into last night’s game against New Orleans with the 4th-highest scoring offense in the League, the Spurs went HAM on the Hornets in a 25-point rout that was as good a show of offensive execution as you’ll see this NBA season. Tony Parker (19 pts, 6 asts) was able to turn the corner on Chris Paul and set up floaters for himself and open looks for shooters like Richard Jefferson and Matt Bonner, as six Spurs hit for double-figures, and surprisingly Manu Ginobili wasn’t one of them. Midway through the second quarter, San Antonio was making 75 percent of their field goals while putting N.O. to bed before halftime … Read More »

Ranking the NBA from worst to first…

30. Los Angeles Clippers (2-13) Last week — Lost at Minnesota, lost at Indiana, lost to New York, beat New Orleans Congratulations on pulling off the biggest upset of the young season by knocking off the red-hot Hornets, but it’s still not enough to climb out of the basement. They’re inching their way up the stairs, though. Read More »

Could you, with a straight face, make an argument that Robin Lopez is more valuable to the Phoenix Suns than Steve Nash? If you watched the Suns get dropped into the proverbial oubliette last night by the Magic, you could. Nash missed the game with a groin injury (maybe or maybe not the byproduct of somebody’s reaction to Nash announcing his divorce the same day his wife had a baby), but perhaps more important, Lopez was out with a knee injury that will keep him sidelined for about a month … Without Lopez, the Suns were using guys like Earl Barron, Earl Clark, and somebody named Garrett Siler to man the post. Read More »

I’m sure we’ve all had teachers who cared enough to preach to us about doing better on tests and having the potential to succeed in a course if we only applied ourselves more. I’m sure we’ve even had those teachers with higher expectations, suggesting we were capable of going from an A to an A+ when we’re especially strong in a subject.

Pro sports teams have to deal with the same scrutiny when they’re not playing up to certain standards already established for them. Here are five teams that could use a pep talk from my 12th grade Geometry and Discrete Math teacher, Mr. Pupko. Read More »

Two things had to happen for the Bucks to extend the Lakers’ losing streak (they have those?) to three games: Brandon Jennings had to take advantage of the biggest weakness in L.A.’s defense drop a big number on Derek Fisher, and Milwaukee had to keep Kobe Bryant from torching them. One happened. One didn’t … Jennings scored 31 points, leaving Fisher wearing cinder block sneakers and playing defense with his hands, but with designated defensive stopper Luc Mbah a Moute in foul trouble most of the night, the Bucks couldn’t prevent Kobe from scoring 31 of his own. Read More »

Evidence was building up for Russell Westbrook, if anything, to have a meltdown in crunch time rather than take over last night’s Thunder/Blazers game. Throughout the second half, Wetsbrook was attacking the basket only to miss shots and not get calls. Meanwhile, Andre Miller (16 pts, 11 asts) was kind of busting Westbrook’s ass and picking apart the OKC defense Westbrook was supposed to spearhead. But right when it seemed Westbrook was one more no-call away from a technical foul or a rash of bad decisions, he locked in. Read More »

With the NBA preseason underway and three weeks left until the regular season begins, now’s the time when coaches start to decide which players will earn a starting spot or be moved to the bench. Throughout the League, there have been a lot of position battles — most notably Caron Butler vs. Shawn Marion in Dallas, the three-way fight for SG in Minnesota, and most recently, Andrei Kirilenko vs. Paul Millsap in Utah. Read More »

As NBA training camps get underway, we preview the upcoming season with the “Highs and Lows” system — predicting the respective ceiling and basement for each team.

Added: Wes Matthews, Luke Babbitt, Elliot Williams

Lost: Martell Webster, Juwan Howard Read More »

Earlier this week, Dime’s Andrew Macaluso wrote an opinion column — and I should stress the word opinion — about Deron Williams and the likelihood of him leaving Utah in 2012 for the Dallas Mavericks. The column drew a lot of attention across the country, especially in Utah, where the understandably defensive fan base mostly blasted Andrew for factual errors and various assumptions he made in his piece.

One such response came from Utah Jazz radio/TV personality David Locke, whom Andrew interviewed (via Twitter) and quoted in his column. In a blog post titled, “Reacting to Absurdity – The Dime Magazine Piece,” Locke blew off Andrew’s column as garbage and defended his own role in supporting Andrew’s conclusion that Deron won’t finish his career in Utah. Read More »