Bernucca: Small Market Dilemma is the NBA’s Big Lie

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220px-JoeMaloofByPhilKonstantinThis summer, when your favorite team’s owner or GM tells you a certain player is financially out of reach, here’s how you know he is lying.

His lips are moving.

NBA business is booming, folks. And not just for the so-called big markets. Take a quick look at the conference finals, which feature four teams from middle to small markets collecting millions for every home playoff game.

Take a look at the Sacramento Kings, who were just sold for a record $525 million even though they haven’t been in the playoffs in seven years and play in an outdated arena in a small market.

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Spurs-Grizzlies Preview: Five Key Factors

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zach randolphUvo, take me back to 2011. (Sorry, I’ve been watching too many Blake Griffin commercials.)

Just two years ago, the eighth-seeded Grizzlies stunned the top-seeded Spurs in the first round of the playoffs, sending San Antonio back to its rocking chairs a little bit earlier than anyone expected.

Memphis used a breakout performance by Zach Randolph (31 points, 11 boards in Game 6) to close out the Spurs, then took the Thunder to seven games before bowing out in the West semifinals.

Back then, analysts like Stephen A. Smith used unnecessary big words to postulate that we were seeing the end of the great San Antonio dynasty. How erroneous those assertions were.

Ladewski: Bulls should pursue Al Jefferson in sign-and-trade

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derrick rose 300x160CHICAGO – After the hated Miami Heat bounced his team from the playoffs earlier this week, Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose was nowhere to be found at the team’s practice facility.

Once again, he left coach Tom Thibodeau and a few of his battered, beaten teammates to answer questions about his decision to sit out the entire 2012-13 season.

Then again, some things are best left unsaid.

For Team Try Hard, it was a season of sprained body parts and unfulfilled promise, one of too many ills and not enough thrills. The suggested title of the team video is Next Man Down.

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The Great Eight: NBA Comebacks From 3-1 Deficits

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noahBruised and bloodied, the Chicago Bulls have no chance of overcoming a 3-1 deficit against LeBron James and the Miami Heat, right?

Right?

Well, don’t be so sure. Some pretty good players have been on the wrong end of 3-1 comebacks in the playoffs. Guys like Kobe Bryant. Patrick Ewing. Julius Erving. Charles Barkley. George Gervin. Jerry West. And Wilt Chamberlain.

And Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant and New York’s Carmelo Anthony don’t have enough help to overcome a 3-1 deficit and win their respective series, right?

Right?

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May: How did the Grizzlies get this good? Oh, brother

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gasolsThe meeting did not go well. At a hotel restaurant in Memphis in February 2008, Chris Wallace, the general manager of the Grizzlies, was trying to explain to Agusti and Marisa Gasol, the parents of Pau Gasol, why he had just traded their son to the Lakers.

Despite the obvious professional upgrade for their son, the parents weren’t all that keen on the move. They lived in Memphis. They had had one son in high school, a roly-poly, 3-point shooting leviathan named Marc. They had another one in high school at the time, another big boy, Adria, who would eventually make the UCLA team as a walk-on. 

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