Phil Jackson won’t be awful as president of the New York Knicks. He certainly won’t be as bad as Isiah Thomas was in running the club. And he will almost certainly be better than David Kahn, Bryan Colangelo, Joe Dumars, Otis Smith and Geoff Petrie have been in recent years. But Phil Jackson isn’t Isiah Thomas, or David Kahn, or Bryan Colangelo. He’s Phil Jackson, with a reputation of all things basketball that he touches turning to gold. And that’s exactly what
A lot has happened since our MVP rankings were published on Wednesday. The Heat have not lost five out of six, blowing a chance to surpass Indiana in the Eastern Conference standings, and the Los Angeles Clippers won their 10th in a row Friday night by defeating Utah as Blake Griffin reached 20 points for the 25th consecutive game. I had Griffin ranked third and James ranked second behind Kevin Durant in the latest edition of the MVP ranks, and now I
Thanks to all those who voted in our poll last week asking whether Kevin Durant or LeBron James is the stronger MVP candidate. The final results were astonishingly close, with Durant taking over Tuesday night as he was scoring 42 points against Houston and winning the poll with 47.10 percent of the vote to James’ 46.33. Is this a preview of what the actual voting will be like? It probably was, and the challenge for the NBA front office in late April and
Something I have noticed about the NBA: “The Game” is fighting a losing battle with those promoting the game. While that may sound a little confusing, it has become increasingly obvious that the promotion around the game is more important than the game itself. And this discussion looks very different depending on which side you are on. Last week LeBron James scored a career-high and team-record 61 points in a game. A few games later he lays an egg (by LeBron standards)
How do you score 61 points in a game and not get named NBA Player of the Week? Well, if you’re LeBron James, you total 58 points in the three ensuing games, all losses. James and the Miami Heat had one of their worst three-game stretches of the season, minimizing the impact of his 61-point explosion a week ago and giving Eastern Conference Player of the Week honors to Carmelo Anthony, whose New York Knicks had a rare good week. Anthony averaged 29.0
A look at the overall NBA standings shows four teams at the top – Indiana, Oklahoma City, San Antonio and Miami – separated by one game in the loss column. In fact, they were dead even until three of them lost Sunday. Just a notch below them are three more teams – Houston, the Los Angeles Clippers and Portland – separated by two games in the loss column. They also would have been dead even had the Blazers held
Good evening hoops fans. This is my first crack at the Sheridan Hoops blog for quite some time, but rest assured, I will do my upmost to fill the void left by some of the blog’s veterans. As always, there was plenty going on around the league. We’ve had upsets, injuries and brilliant individual performances on this NBA Sunday. Oh, and that team in New York is still attracting headlines. Let’s get to it! Bulls outlast Heat Chicago again proved that it is at the
Phil Jackson can run the New York Knicks if he wants to. That is the word on the street this morning, although he will NOT become their next head coach. For insight into the reasons why, check out this column from Charley Rosen. But if he accepts the job, he is going to have his work cutout for him. Although the Knicks have won three straight games and are still in contention for a playoff spot in the East, they still