You can thank Kevin Garnett for the lockout. No, he isn’t playing the same role he did in the last one when his newly-minted $126 million contract was seen as the albatross that the owners needed to kill and never allow to come back from the dead. Now he’s in another mode: old veteran looking for one more big pay day. From that angle, it’s cool that he came to NYC and pointed a finger at the owners and at his fellow players. No more concessions, he told his guys over and over. Things got nasty in the meetings – as they’re bound to do with someone like KG – and then progress was halted. In some cases, things went backwards. Read More »

Here we are again. It feels like just yesterday when a lockout starved fans of most of the 1998-99 season. Since then, there have been too many storylines to keep complete track of, but some things never change. The players and the NBA management butting heads is happening all over again.

Though some parts of human nature – greed – never change, pop music doesn’t stop and wait for David Stern to give in to demands. Looking back, here’s some top hits of 1998 and what the song titles can lend in knowledge about the basketball world comparing then and now. Read More »

Where does LL Cool J rank among the greatest rappers of all-time?

Imagine what goes through the mind of a 1980′s hip-hop head should they intake a couple of hours of pop culture on a random weeknight.

You’ve got Ice-T playing a cop on TV. Ice Cube is writing sitcoms and getting the Tyler Perry treatment from a very corny network. Read More »

Every NBA team has a go-to guy, and there’s really only room for one. It’s not about who always gets to take the last-second shot. More realistically, it’s the guy who regularly gets the ball when things are getting tense in the fourth quarter; it’s the guy who is expected to calm things down when teammates are getting sloppy; it’s the guy who is called upon to snuff out an opponent’s rally, or spark a comeback rally of his own; it’s the guy who’s not just supposed to make shots, but make the right decisions when a shot isn’t there. Bottom line: Who do you want the offense to run through when everything is on the line? Read More »