lonzo Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Giannis, please save us all from a Heat-Knicks series
My favorite part of the NBA playoffs is certainly not riding the highs and lows of the Jimmy Butler experience. As great as he plays two-three games per series, he’s better as an antagonist that a great team has to overcome. Giannis Antetokounmpo is the best player in the NBA, and with him returning...
Battle of the bottom of the Eastern Conference barrel
The Eastern Conference hasn’t been as wide open as the West this season, so their play-in race wasn’t nearly as exciting. There isn’t much expected from the play-in participants in the east, even though the Miami Heat were in the Eastern Conference Finals last postseason. In the east, the Milwaukee ...
The Hornets have replaced the Kings as the NBA’s most beleaguered franchise
The Sacramento Kings Beam season isn’t over yet, but success is relative. The Kings finally ended the NBA’s longest playoff drought. All it took was De’Aaron Fox straightening out his jumper, an offseason for Domantas Sabonis to get fully integrated into the offense, trading for Kevin Huerter and Mi...
Things you wouldn’t have believed in 2018: The Ball bros will be sympathetic figures
If Lavar Ball was to be believed, NBA fans should be nearing phase two of the Ball-aissance. Lonzo is in his sixth year, LaMelo is in his third, and LiAngelo, well, if things had panned out, he’d be somewhere in between. But LiAngelo currently has no entries on his Basketball Reference page, Lonzo i...
Remember LaMelo Ball?
Coming into the season you could see the Charlotte Hornets heading for a ravine. They lost their second-best player to off-the-court issues, and LaMelo Ball was literally limping into the year. Well, the family wagon smashed right off that cliff. ...
I’m tired of tanking being the only answer
It’s a tired discussion, I’ll admit at the top. And maybe it’s my official entrance into the “Old Man Yelling At Cloud” club. Do I get a robe? A pipe? Some sort of plaque? Perhaps younger generations of sports fans just accept that once a team is declared a non-contender, it’s time for them to strip...
Zach LaVine is grumbling — and so are Bulls fans
The contemporary NBA has conditioned basketball fans to seek out unhappy All-Stars like lions stalk the most vulnerable wildebeest. The Chicago Bulls dropped to 6-10 on the season after a one-point home loss to a Paolo Banchero-less Orlando Magic on Friday, and Zach LaVine set off some alerts....
The Second Coming of Dennis Smith Jr.
Maybe all he needed was to come home. Smith is from Fayetteville, North Carolina, and is now playing with the Charlotte Hornets, just a mere three hours from his hometown. The Hornets are Smith’s fifth team in six seasons. Last year, he split time between three teams, including the Hornets. So why h...
10 NBA preseason takeaways that provide insight into the regular season
The NBA will give everyone their first real look at the league’s rapidly transforming landscape and its latest rookie class when the regular season tips off on Tuesday, but the preseason is a window into what to expect from certain teams. Wins and losses are mostly meaningless, so don’t read into th...
The NBA’s Eastern Conference might see a bit of a shake-up in the standings this season
It’s October, so it’s Halloween season, but it also means the NBA is back. All the talk and some drama will be moved aside as teams return to the court, hoping to do what the Golden State Warriors did last season in raising the Larry O’Brien NBA Finals trophy....
The best-laid plans of Bulls and Balls…
The ideal version of this Chicago Bulls roster — the one that started last season 27-11 and featured three wing-sized guys on the perimeter that played defense, scored, and shared the ball — is like so many teams whose bright future hinged upon versions of players that no longer exist. Whether via i...
The plan in is place and the pieces are set — now the Pelicans just have to execute
The New Orleans Pelicans blueprint was on display in the 2022 NBA Finals....
Is LaMelo Ball taking after LaVar in all the wrong ways?
In some families, the apple not falling far from the tree is a perfect way of describing a parent and their offspring. This seems to be the case with LaVar and LaMelo Ball, where business is concerned. ...
The Nuggets are Kroenke’s side piece, but still, a little more effort could go a long way
The Denver Nuggets are an NBA executive factory. Some of the best front-office talent in sports has come through that organization, and hopefully that’s because they have a development system like the San Antonio Spurs, because they continue to lose talent. On Monday the Minnesota Timberwolves hired...
Ranking the top postseason performances in Miami Heat history
Jimmy Butler had a memorable Game 4 against the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday, dropping 56 points in a 119-114 victory over the No. 1 seed....
Ranking the NBA’s first round matchups by how likely we are to see an upset
The NBA’s playoffs are easily the most predictable of the major American sports leagues. Without the variability of baseball or the single playoff game format like football, it’s pretty rare that there are any true upsets in the first round of the NBA playoffs. In most years you look at the bracket ...
Be patient, but more importantly, not cheap, Chicago
If Zach LaVine and Demar DeRozan thought backup was coming in the form of Lonzo Ball, Alex Caruso, or Patrick Williams, they might want to try buddy-copping their way out of the jam Chicago is in now. Fake argue like Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, or mix karate with charisma like Chris Tucker and J...
Goran Dragić could fall right into the laps of a contender following his buyout from San Antonio
Every year in the NBA, there’s at least one highly sought-after role player traded away at the deadline that has no intention of suiting up for their new team. And many times, that feeling is mutual. This year that guy is Goran Dragić. He was traded from the Toronto Raptors to the San Antonio Spurs,...
Why this Chicago Bulls moment matters
It wasn’t supposed to last this long. When Michael Jordan slightly pushed off Bryon Russell to square up for a 17-foot jump shot with 5.2 seconds left in 1998, the future was a giant question mark. The moment the shot clock expired, the rebuild began. Bulls fans knew the band was broken up. This wou...
Bad news Bulls: Lonzo Ball out 6-8 weeks with torn meniscus
The magical dream season that Chicago Bulls fans had longed for suddenly has the potential to turn nightmarish after a recent rash of injuries. Both Lonzo Ball and Zach LaVine have missed the last few games for Chicago since last Friday’s loss to the Golden State Warriors. LaVine could be back withi...