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This week in the NBA & WNBA March 09, 2024
Need any more evidence that Gilbert Arenas’ bellyaching about Europeans and foreigners ruining basketball with their sweet outside strokes is all hot air? I’ll give you one: Josh Giddey. Now that his legal woes appear to be in the rearview mirror, the whispers about his liabilities in the Oklahoma C...
Minnesota and New York listened to the NBA on load management and guess what happened
The NBA’s annual battle of attrition that precedes the playoffs struck again as Minnesota Timberwolves big man Karl-Anthony Towns is out indefinitely with a torn meniscus. It’s the same ailment that forced Philadelphia Sixers center Joel Embiid to the sidelines, and one that should be treated with a...
Are these Clippers Kenough?
It’s Oscars Week, which feels like as good a time as any to draw up the NBA storylines and characters which could double as Oscar nominees. Next up are the L.A. Clippers and the 2024 season possibly being the culmination of their decade of prosperity....
Don't count on the LA Clippers — they're sure to let you down
The Los Angeles Clippers have been a delightful surprise in the NBA since bouncing back from a rough start once James Harden joined the team at the end of October. ...
If you can’t trust Anthony Edwards, you can’t trust the Timberwolves
I’m not anti-analytics, because data matters, but there’s no way to factor in things like your best player missing tipoff because he was a late arrival, or a coach pulling his second-best player when he’s on pace for a 70 burger. The Minnesota Timberwolves are a very good basketball team, by record,...
It's make or break for the Los Angeles Clippers
Curses run deep. They fester in bloodlines, foundations and scorched Earth and are lamented in prose, lyric and declaration. From Shakespeare to Dostoevsky, curses are a part of the canon of human creativity. After the Boston Red Sox broke theirs in 2004 and LeBron James brought a championship to Cl...
Turns out America loves the Denver Nuggets
Most of the state of Colorado can’t watch the defending NBA champion Denver Nuggets. However, the rest of America is enjoying the show. NBA insider/analyst Ethan Strauss dove into some viewership data for a recent post on his substack....
Steve Ballmer is giving the Clippers a <i>Pretty Woman</i> makeover
As part of their attempt to emancipate themselves from the Lakers and rebrand their image, Steve Ballmer took the LA Clippers out on a shopping spree and unveiled the images of their new logo and uniforms to ESPN’s Zach Lowe. ...
Here's a second-half NBA prediction: Intermittent switch-flipping
It felt like the NBA used to be a lot more consistent. The teams that were good in the regular season also were good in the postseason, for the most part, and if you looked and/or played like a scrub, you were usually dismissed like one. During this era, it’s almost as if you should wait to lay futu...
Doc Rivers refuses to own up to his mistakes
Accountability is a word we hear often in sports. Whether someone owns up to their mistakes or passes the buck, accountability is the word we hear thrown about in the wake of whatever action was taken. Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers has been at the center of an accountability conversation sin...
JJ Redick says it's 'always an excuse' with Doc Rivers
Former NBA sharpshooter JJ Redick is tired of Doc Rivers’ excuses. The First Take host went off on his former coach Tuesday morning, saying how he’s “seen the trend for years....
Who is Mr. Franchise for each NBA team in the 21st century?
Michael Jordan will always be synonymous with the Chicago Bulls. Same thing for Magic Johnson with the Los Angeles Lakers and Larry Bird with the Boston Celtics. But since the turn of the 21st Century, some teams have gone a decade without a face of the franchise (think the Detroit Pistons and Orlan...
Draymond Green tried to play matchmaker with LeBron and Steph, and who could blame him?
Closed mouths don’t get fed, and Draymond Green took that philosophy to heart. This time around, Green took it upon himself to take the type of clumsy desperation heave he usually takes in games and wedges between the rim and backboard....
Warriors unsuccessfully tried to pair LeBron and Steph Curry
A dreary deadline almost saw a seismic transfer of power in the West, as ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Ramona Shelburne reported that the Golden State Warriors unsuccessfully tried to trade with the Los Angeles Lakers to acquire LeBron James. ...
There is no aspect of baseball that MLB won’t make worse for a nickel
We know that MLB owners have no problem making their actual product worse, because it’s cheaper. They’ve expanded the playoffs, making more teams comfortable simply aiming for barely .500. Many teams will use the facade of a rebuild to never actually try, and others will join them to avoid signing a...
It still doesn't feel like Kobe Bryant is dead
It is still difficult to grasp that Kobe Bryant has not been alive to experience the majority of his post-NBA career enshrinements. He was not here for his Basketball Hall of Fame induction, the NBA All-75 team, or the Thursday unveiling of his statue outside of Crypto.com Arena. ...
There are no more excuses for Justin Herbert
The AFC West got a little more interesting a couple of weeks ago when the Los Angeles Chargers added Jim Harbaugh to the fold, replacing Brandon Staley as head coach. That’s not just from a personality standpoint: The Chargers are expected to look much different on the field, especially on offense, ...
Kawhi Leonard has entered the chat in the NBA MVP conversation
For fans who tend to skip over much of the NBA regular season, you’ve probably missed the recent uprising in talk about Kawhi Leonard having a claim in the MVP conversation. Most years, Leonard’s numbers are great. But since he blossomed into a star toward the end of his run in San Antonio, “The Cla...
These are the current and former NBA players who need their own podcast
A decade ago, who would have thought that current and former players would be the best analysts and commentators in the NBA? A novel idea, eh? Former players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson’s “All The Smoke” and Gilbert Arenas were early purveyors of player-run podcasts. It’s since evolved to includ...
Carl Weathers and the professional athletes who became actors
Acting and sports have a lot in common. It takes a ton of body control to do either, both are consumed by millions, and the biggest stars usually have a ton of charisma. These are the athletes who broke out of their sports and became big stars in Hollywood. ...