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were just sold for a record $525 million even though they haven’t been in the playoffs in seven years and play in an outdated arena in a small market.

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Sheridan: Harden Trade Will Haunt OKC For a Long Time

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PrestiWords to live by: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Surely Sam Presti and Clay Bennett of the Oklahoma City Thunder have heard that expression, as both are smart, successful businessmen with good educational backgrounds, although they are a generation apart in age.

Presti is the wise child who built the Oklahoma City Thunder from scratch, taking over at age 30 on June 7, 2007, prior to the team’s final season in Seattle, renting a small apartment with his then-girlfriend near the team’s downtown training facility, then proceeding to dismantle the Sonics.

Bauman: In defense of Russell Westbrook

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220px-Russell_WestbrookNEW YORK — Russell Westbrook could have easily swung the ball to Kevin Durant.

After all, the NBA’s three-time scoring champion was wide open on the right side of the 3-point arc.

The game was hanging in the balance at Madison Square Garden.

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Bernucca: Handing out NBA midseason awards

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A dozen teams have played at least half their schedule and another seven will join them today, when the most of the most significant holidays in this country’s history becomes the season’s unofficial midway point.

So Dr. Martin Luther King Day is as good a time as any to examine the current front-runners for the annual awards. Included are links to both our staff’s preseason picks and the current rankings.

And as always, we’ve included snide remarks if/when necessary.

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Marks: Kevin Martin quietly helping Thunder make more noise

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PHILADELPHIA – Attention K-Mart Shoppers.  The 30-day warranty on your recent purchase is  about to run out.

Despite a couple of mechanical failures over the weekend, the buyer has no plans to return the merchandise for the foreseeable future.  In fact, the buyer is convinced it won’t be too long until the public is just as enamored with the new product as the old one.

Translated, that means the Oklahoma City Thunder is thrilled having nine-year veteran and career 18.3 point scorer Kevin Martin around.  No, he is not nor is he pretending to be James Harden, the bearded wonder who seemed to captivate folks in OKC – at least until he came up virtually empty in the NBA Finals.

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