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As we move into the first week of March, nine games were on the NBA schedule for Sunday.
The Heat showed the Knicks who the boss is at Madison Square Garden, Kobe showed that he still has young legs in Los Angeles, the Pacers put a strangle hold on the Central Division and the Thunder hold on to outlast the Clippers.
Impress your friends with our latest version of Five Fast Facts.
En route to the best record in the NBA, the San Antonio Spurs have withstood injuries to Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Kawhi Leonard.
Now they will have to do without Tony Parker, their most indispensable player.
The Spurs announced Saturday that Parker had an MRI that revealed a Grade 2 sprain of his left ankle that will sideline him for four weeks.
Parker was hurt in the third quarter of Friday’s 130-102 home rout of Sacramento. He is averaging a career-high 21.0 points (10th in the NBA) and 7.6 assists (sixth) while shooting 53.3 percent fron the field (first among guards).
Parker has started to receive MVP consideration. Prior to the All-Star break, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich – whose gushing comes extremely grudgingly – said his point guard “should be in every conversation for any award that’s going to be given.”
Popovich continued his campaign last week, saying, “Name me a point guard who’s had a better season? I can’t think of one.”
The Spurs are 46-14, two games in front of Miami for the NBA’s best record and homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs. San Antonio also is trying to hold off Oklahoma City (42-16) and the Los Angeles Clippers (43-18) in the Western Conference.
Over the last three seasons, the Spurs are 150-44 when Parker plays and just 7-7 when he doesn’t.
However, if told their star point guard was going to miss a month, the Spurs probably would have picked March. They have 13 games remaining in the month and 11 are at home.
Parker’s backups are rookie Nando de Colo and Patty Mills. Ginobili also runs the offense on occasion.
If you didn’t know any better, one may have thought that Jarrett Jack was referring to how he and his team would perform against the San Antonio Spurs on Friday night when he said “history” would be made.
Of course, the backup point guard for the Golden State Warriors was actually referring to the new short-sleeved “jerseys” the team would don for the first time in the history of the NBA.
Which player is the most consistent winner for his own team in NBA history?
That is the question I asked myself a couple of years ago, in February 2007 to be precise. In an effort to find an answer, I decided to rank all NBA “franchise players” since the 1979-80 season.
This winter, I updated the research, taking into consideration every player that has played in the NBA.
