Now that the Warriors have caught and passed Michael Jordan and his 1995-96 Chicago Bulls as the first team to win 73 games in the regular season — and don’t say Sheridan Hoops didn’t warn ya a long time ago, not once, but twice — let the debate about their place in history begin. Because, you know, that’s what fans and media do when a team pulls off the darn near impossible, the utterly unthinkable in this age of metrics and quantitative
There is an NBA team that started this season with a roster that included an MVP winner from this decade; a recent Defensive Player of the Year; the runner-up in the most recent Rookie of the Year voting; and two All-Stars, including one deemed the league’s Most Improved Player. The roster also included some highly promising youngsters and a handful of savvy, playoff-tested veterans. The team seemed to be a lock for the postseason, having made the playoffs every year but
After the rather meek events of Monday’s showcase game, we can safely say the current NBA season has become sadly boring. All the elements of something monumental seemed in place with another matchup between the Cavaliers and Warriors, this time in Cleveland. Still aggravated that injuries left them shorthanded in their NBA Finals loss last season, the Cavs had even more motivation because of their loss on Christmas Day in Oakland. Also, the once-perfect Warriors had shockingly been defeated two times in their
After weeks of knowing that the trio of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry would join the Brooklyn Nets, they were finally introduced at the Barclays Center on Thursday afternoon. While all the reports were out on how everything came about and what pieces were needed to successfully get a blockbuster deal done between the Nets and the Boston Celtics, there was never an opportunity to hear how the trio coming from Boston really felt about what went down. [Read
Some of the losing coaches around the league appear to be intent on letting their teams hear about just how bad they really are as of late. We saw Doug Collins let it all out in a recent post-game interview, and now we have Washington Wizards coach Randy Wittman, who thinks his team is selfish an does not wish to be coached. Michael Lee of Washington Post has the details: [Read more…]
Dwight Howard, DeAndre Jordan, Brendan Haywood and anyone else who has struggled with free throws, take heart. Each of you is a regular Rick Barry compared to this guy. [Read more…]
MIAMI – OK, he did it again. LeBron James, the talented and tormented Miami Heat forward, declined to take a late-game shot Friday at Utah. He saw a double-team coming and passed to forward Udonis Haslem, who missed a jumper. The Heat lost, 99-98. You’d be tempted to think it was the All-Star game all over again. It wasn’t. This wasn’t some made-for-TV pickup game. It was a regular-season game. It mattered. Now, the LeBron debate can continue. “At the end of the