A better basketball site.
For intelligent readers, from veteran writers.
Keep scrolling down. Good stuff here.
As Sunday night winds down, the desired time that both the Cleveland Cavaliers and Los Angeles Lakers had hoped to complete a deal involving Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol has almost expired.
Bynum’s contract becomes fully guaranteed Tuesday afternoon at 5:00pm EST, so there is still time to complete a deal, but all parties involved would like such a transaction to happen sooner rather than later to allow time for everything to clear. Sometimes that process can take up to 48 hours.
Advertisement
The Western Conference is absolutely nothing like the Eastern Conference when it comes to championship odds.
We have what I call a two-horse race in the East versus what I am going to call the six-plus team race in the West.
In the 15 previous seasons, only four teams (the Lakers, seven times; the Spurs, five times, the Mavericks, two times; the Thunder, once) have won the Western Conference, which is a similar concept to what the Eastern Conference has gone through recently, as I outlined in this column laying out the loooong odds on anyone not from Miami or Indiana winning the East.
The Los Angeles Lakers may be one of the most depleted teams in the league, but they still have plenty of fans scattered around the league. This is evident when they are on the road – there are almost always sections of Lakers fans in purple and gold, cheering them on.
On Friday, seldom-used rookie Rudy Gobert apparently heard some of those cheers for the Lakers at EnergySolutions Arena and had this to say after the contest:
Shoutout to all the lakers fans in utah 
— rudy gobert (@rudygobert15) December 28, 2013
That’s a great touch of sarcasm with the sad smiley face at the end of the tweet, given that his team managed to beat the Lakers 105-103 on a fantastic putback dunk by Derrick Favors.
Tweet of the Day: Twitter Response to Westbrook Surgery, Horford Also Out
Tweet of the Night: Jeff Teague reacts to getting crossed over by Kyrie Irving
James Park is the chief blogger of Sheridan Hoops. You can find him on twitter @SheridanBlog.
While the news of the day is most certainly that Oklahoma City guard Russell Westbrook will be sidelined until after the All-Star break due to an unexpected arthroscopic knee surgery, life in the NBA must go on.
And on it will go for the New York Knicks, who according to ESPN’s Marc Stein, will remain intact for the time being:
Back in October, our editor-in-chief asked the staff to make 10 fearless predictions for the 2013-14 season. One of the predictions I made was that Utah Jazz guard Trey Burke would win Rookie of the Year.
Just as Damian Lillard was a season ago, Burke was ideally positioned to win the award. The Jazz acquired him with the express purpose of giving him the keys to the offense. They didn’t care how many times he wrecked it.
