Basketball Tag

“The transaction seems to have usurped the action in sports because the promise of tomorrow can feel so much better than your team’s today” – Dan LeBatard I’d say that the value of transactions has another basis. I’m 6’1 and about 155 lbs.  I won’t be a center in the NBA. When I criticize an NBA center about the basketball skills that they don’t have, I do so knowing that the things that they can’t do are also things that I can’t do, and never will.  However, fans can be amateur GMsRead More

The 2014 NBA Draft is only two days away and there is already a shake up at the top. Kansas center Joel Embiid was pretty much the unanimous pick to get drafted first overall to the Cleveland Cavaliers, but a recent foot injury during workouts, tacked on to the season ending back injury he suffered this past season supposedly has scared many teams away. It’s rare to find a center with Embiid’s talent both offensively and defensively, and some team will be ecstatic with the risk they take of drafting him,Read More

As a fan of the Oklahoma City Thunder, and a fan of sports in general, I would like to begin this letter with a heartfelt and resounding thank you to one of the most influential players to have been a part of the still-young Thunder franchise.  Derek Fisher, even though you were only a part of the program for a few years, your leadership and poise have helped to bring the program through some tough situations and have worked wonders for a club that needed those elements to bring itRead More

The San Antonio Spurs are giving Miami a reality check this year. They ran away with game 3 of the NBA Finals and did it again in game 4 to go up 3-1 heading back to San Antonio. After back-to-back NBA championships, it appears the Big 3 are human after all. Miami, with the combination of LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh, won 2 straight titles. A win this year would make it a 3-peat, but it seems out of reach. The Spurs “big 3” …or 4 or 5Read More

“I’m gonna fight ’em off A seven nation army couldn’t hold me back” – White Stripes (Seven Nation Army)   A seven nation army, you say? How about nine? The defending NBA champion, Miami Heat has used Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes as a theme song for the last few years. Admittedly, they weren’t the first to do it, but they are the most popular. For the second year in a row, we have the Heat playing against the San Antonio Spurs.  The Spurs have players who wereRead More

Two nights ago the NBA Draft Lottery took place. With the exception of one team, the lottery ended up going chalk. Here are a list of winners and losers of the night.   Cleveland Cavaliers – Winner Cleveland ruined it for everybody.  Before the lottery, I said that there was no way that Cleveland would win. Now, they have the number one pick for the 3rd time in 4 years. One one hand, it means that the ugly tanking of Philadelphia and other teams was not rewarded by the ping pongRead More

At the risk of using excessive hyperbole, let me just say… the 2014 NBA Playoffs have been nothing short of scintillating. Aside from the Heat machine and their stompage of the Charlotte Bobcats, every series has been tight. For that matter, nearly every game has been contentious. As of Friday, May 2nd, there are three series going to game 7s. Additionally, we have another three that could easily go the distance (currently at game 6). Bottom line, you need to hang onto your pants, because they could fly off fromRead More

It has been a beautiful weekend of playoff basketball. Despite the absence of the old guard, all of the playoff games so far have been compelling. The Knicks, Celtics, and Lakers aren’t necessary to make things interesting. After a huge focus on the tanking, non-playoff teams throughout the season, we now have the best teams going against each other (and the Eastern Conference too!). Here are some thoughts and observations from the beginning of playoff season.   The Pacers should be concerned about the Hawks It has been a runningRead More

After Kentucky’s loss to UCONN, the question remains – how many of their players will be back for next year? Among the list of colleges that have produced current and active NBA players, the University of Kentucky is #1 with a total of 22 players sent off to the pros. In the championship game vs. UCONN, they started 5 freshman. Their roster carries with it the potential for another great season next year…if their 5 to 7 best players return. SBNation and DraftExpress, however, have at least 3 of Kentucky’sRead More

I feel pretty damn good about myself. On Saturday, I went 2-for-2 picking the winners, and missed covering both games by half of a point in the Kentucky-Wisconsin nightcap. UConn blew by heavily-favored Florida, and Kentucky eked out a one-point thriller of a victory against Wisconsin. And while I might have picked the winners correctly in those two games, neither myself nor anyone else in their right mind had this matchup for the National Championship: 8-seed Kentucky versus 7-seed Connecticut; the sum of the two teams’ seeds, 15, is the highest inRead More

The Madness has subsided and we’re down to the Final Four challengers for that oh-so-elusive final clip in the annual “One Shining Moment” montage. Florida, the #1 overall seed, we certainly expected to be here. Wisconsin, the #2 seed in the West, isn’t much of a shocker. Kentucky, the #8 seed in the Midwest region is a bit of a surprise, but nobody doubted the talent on the team that was ranked #1 in the preseason. UConn, who was ranked as high as #10 in the nation during the regularRead More

Here are the NBA games you don’t want to miss this week. All times are Eastern. Wednesday Brooklyn at New York, 7PM ESPN When 2014 began, it appeared that we were headed for another year of depressing New York City basketball. The Nets overpaid for Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett and they weren’t getting the results that the owners planned for. The Knicks didn’t make any major offseason improvements and the acquisitions of Metta World Peace and Andrea Bargnani were disastrous. Admittedly, neither of those two statements have changed atRead More

Madness has transpired, the dust has cleared, and we’re left with sixteen contenders for one trophy. Here’s how I see the next two days playing out. Feel free to give me hell in the comment section when I get only one or two of these correct. Here goes: 1 – Dayton beats Stanford The Flyers are 3.5 point underdogs here, but no matter: Dayton will beat Stanford today. The Cardinal did beat Kansas…but that was without the Jayhawks star big man Joel Embiid on the court. Meanwhile, the Flyers haveRead More

Alright guys. It’s two in the morning, and I’ve done very little except watch basketball for the past four days. This is by no means a complaint; actually, thank the Lord Almighty for four straight days of the sporting world’s greatest spectacle – college ball. But man, has it been a frenzy. I’ll make this intro brief: Madness has been Madness; giants have fallen (Kansas, Villanova, Wichita State, Duke, Cincinnati, Ohio State, and more), a few groups of men are looking fantastic in glass slippers (Dayton, Tennessee, Stanford), and aRead More

Selections = made. Matchups = set. It’s time for the absolute BEST time of the year for any true sports fan: MARCH. F*CKING. MADNESS. Get ready for a wild two-plus weeks, folks, as this year is setting up to be one of the craziest in recent memory. Three of last year’s Final Four are in the same freaking region. Last year’s champs, Louisville, are somehow a 4-seed. Wichita State is the first team to enter the NCAA Tourney unbeaten since 1991…and not many people truly believe in them. There areRead More