patrick-ewing Page 1 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
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...
Latest problem with Josh Giddey; Dame Lillard finally steps up; Dalton Knecht and Reed Sheppard on verge of history
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...
Jalen Brunson and the Knicks are proof that having a <i>Napoleon</i> complex isn’t all bad
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....
Big men are back in style in the NBA
The 1995-96 season was the end of the golden era for big men in the NBA. Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, and Shaquille O’Neal were stuffing opponents into lockers with their unstoppable back-to-the-basket games. They were the superstars in the paint, but Alonzo Mourning, Rik Smits, a...
15 NBA players we wish competed in the Slam Dunk Contest
The NBA Slam Dunk Contest is on life support. The G-League’s Mac McClung has won the contest for a second year in a row. Despite Boston’s Jaylen Brown attempting to bring stars back to the iconic event, his dunks were relatively unimpressive. ...
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...
Blame Michael Jordan for Krause widow disgrace; Rudy Gobert trade finally paying off; Lakers need Zach LaVine
Michael Jordan won a widow getting booed. My colleague Stephen Knox covered this yesterday, the booing of Jerry Krause’s widow Thelma during the Chicago Bulls’ Ring of Honor ceremony on Friday, and he isn’t wrong. It’s another “feather” in the “cap” of Jerry Reinsdorf, though he wouldn’t have been i...
Alperen Şengün has a chance to be as good as Nikola Jokić
Every other generation, a player changes how his position is taught, scouted and played. For the current generation of players entering their prime years, that dude is Nikola Jokić. The “Joker” has taken the passing acumen of former bigs Vlade Divac, Yao Ming, Bill Walton and Arvydas Sabonis and com...
In honor of the Magic retiring Shaq's number, here is every NBA team's retired jersey numbers
With the announcement that the Orlando Magic will retire Shaquille O’Neal’s jersey, the NBA has finally done it! All 30 teams have officially retired a jersey number for a specific player (Yes, before Shaq, the Magic’s only jersey retired was No. 6 for “The Sixth Man,” a.k.a the fans)....
These were the best NBA games ever played on Thanksgiving or Christmas
It’s been more than two decades since we’ve seen an NBA game on Thanksgiving. And for the sake of communion and fellowship, we’re better for it. It’s not like the TV won’t be on anyway. With Fox News and CNN rotting our brains and the NFL providing an annual doubleheader, there’s plenty to go numb f...
Reebok is looking to pump some life into its brand with Shaq and Allen Iverson
Air Jordans have dominated the sneaker industry since before my birth, but those were not the first shoes that fascinated me. I thought the Reebok Pump was the coolest shoe in the world. I saw it on TV, then at Foot Locker, and one day one of my cousins walked into my grandparents wearing a pair. Th...
The NBA is right about load management for the wrong reasons
OK, it’s time for Devil’s Advocate corner: The NBA’s stance on load management is a good thing, but not for the dumbass reasons Joe Dumars presented Wednesday. If you missed it, the executive vice president of basketball operations said there’s no proof that load management prevents injuries. Maybe,...
Hakeem Olajuwon charges $50K to teach what cannot be taught — good for him
One of the best/least consequential storylines in all of sports is of the big man who goes to Hakeem Olajuwon’s Dream Shake academy to learn one of the most lethal, and unteachable, moves in the history of the NBA. At $50,000 a session, it’s as close to a Ponzi scheme as you’re going to get without ...
The NBA can try all it wants, player rest is impossible to stop
Remember when the Dallas Mavericks concluded an embarrassing 2022-23 season by not dressing Kyrie Irving and Luka Dončić instead of attempting to qualify for the Play-in Tournament? The Mavericks were fined $750,000, and I think that the NBA reached a breaking point in its never-ending saga of star-...
The Beal-Porzingis-Paul deals feel like a D.C. psyops campaign
After blundering through the last decade, The D.C. Universe is rebooting. Not the Snyderverse IP. I’m talking about the grotesque prospects for basketball in the District of Columbia. Hang around there long enough and you’ll catch me moaning about the bleak times facing the Commanders, Nats, and Wiz...
NBA Draft: From No.1 pick to the Hall of Fame
Tonight is the 2023 NBA Draft, which is taking place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Some years the No. 1 pick is up for debate. This year, it’s almost certain that the San Antonio Spurs, winners of the Draft Lottery, will take French prospect Victor Wembanyama first....
Carmelo Anthony and the top retired NBA players never to win a ring
With Carmelo Anthony’s retirement announcement this week, we thought it’d be fun to look at some of the greatest retired NBA players to never win a ring. It’s a discussion that’s often had, and now Anthony is officially a club member. Besides never winning the ultimate prize, one other thing each of...
The final Brick for Vic stock report: NBA Draft Lottery edition
Stand on your head for one night because this is when everything gets flipped upside down so the NBA bottom feeders can plant the flag on a summit. Tuesday’s NBA Draft lottery is an especially important inflection point in NBA history. There won’t be any wavering over who will be the top pick in nex...
Blood, sweat, and bodyslams: 10 moments that defined the Heat-Knicks playoff rivalry
The Miami Heat and New York Knicks have plenty of bad blood, dating back to the mid-90s. Even 30 years after Pat Riley left New York for Miami, storylines remain between the two teams. Riley is now the Heat’s president, while Tom Thibodeau, an assistant for Jeff Van Gundy, Riley’s successor in New Y...
Redefining what it means to be a unicorn
“Unicorn” is up there with “new normal” and “positionless basketball” as far as terms I would love to see removed from my brain. Any big man with guard skills is dubbed a unicorn, and we’re led to believe the NBA is a mythical universe populated by elves, dragons, and wizards. Well, technically the ...