paulgeorge Page 5 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

And the nominees for this NBA season’s only-great-in-video-games teams are …
There’s a rage-inducing aspect of NBA 2K every year that makes me feel like I need to take those seminars to avoid turning into my dad. A few crazy-talented teams become fan favorites and get overused to the point of exhaustion due to sheer star power despite being middling to garbage in real life. ...

The NBA’s Western Conference is going to be like bumper cars with all the movement this season
It’s October, so Halloween season is upon us, but it’s also time for the NBA to return. All the talk and some drama will be shoved 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....

Kawhi Leonard’s return puts the Clippers back in the Western Conference hunt
It’d been nearly 16 months since LA Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard played an NBA game before Tuesday night’s preseason win over the Portland Trail Blazers. Leonard finished with 11 points in 16 minutes but, more importantly, looked to be fully recovered from the torn ACL he suffered in game four of ...

Home sweet home?
Returning home for one last season is a sacred ideal for NBA vets. Dwyane Wade made his way to Chicago in 2016. Kyrie Irving’s desire to play with Durant in Brooklyn instead of Madison Square Garden with the New York Knicks was influenced by the New Jersey native’s fondness for the New Jersey Nets o...

The two trains of thought are colliding on the Kevin Durant-Jaylen Brown trade
The Boston Celtics have reached their offseason garden of forking paths. After falling short in the NBA Finals, they now seem willing to break up their young tandem, and potentially a fulcrum of their asphyxiating defense. ...

Which state can field the best starting 5?
Now that the Warriors have returned to glory post-Durant, NBA fans just survived one of the most unbearable periods of the NBA. One filled with superteams and razor-thin parity between the three to four coastal teams with stacked talent (Warriors, Lakers, Nets), and the rest of the small-market team...

Danny Ainge has turned the Utah Jazz into a League Pass offseason team
Now in his third decade as a general manager or team president, Danny Ainge is in the next stage of what’s been a blessed NBA existence. As a supporting player on a pair of championship Celtics teams, he was one of the league’s first 3-point specialists, and reached the NBA Finals with Portland, the...

KD is a superstar player, but not a great talent evaluator
In an era where title-starved NBA owners are increasingly taking responsibility out of the hands of their front office and handing their organizational control to their superstars, it’s telling that Kevin Durant personally issued his trade request from Brooklyn with owner Joseph Tsai....

John Wall got a Brinks truck full of money from a bad team, now he gets to join a contender in LA
The Houston Rockets and John Wall have agreed to a buyout of his contract where he’ll take a pay cut of about $6.5 million. That’s not a bad deal considering Wall just sat out an entire season and made over $44 million to do so....
![Where should Kyrie Irving land? [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/e5ae3a27fc30fcb41fe613c5ad8a6754.jpg)
Where should Kyrie Irving land? [Update]
Is there a current NBA player who invokes more disgust, loathing, and aversion than Kyrie Irving? The Brooklyn Nets guard is on his way to imploding his third team. First, he demanded out of Cleveland after tiring playing second fiddle to LeBron James. Then he aggressively bounced out of Boston, cre...

The death of the superteam (for now)
The Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors Finals was one of the more engaging championship fights of recent memory. The Celtics were on a Cinderella tear on their way to facing a retooled, post-Kevin Durant Warriors. Both teams had organically built the backbone of their roster through adept draf...

The Minnesota incubator is about to do it again
Since the Minneapolis Lakers won half of the league’s first 10 NBA titles and then shuffled off to Los Angeles where they won13 more, Minnesota has been an incubator for NBA championship parades–in other cities. After the Lakers’ relocated to L.A., the NBA didn’t return to Minnesota until 1989. The ...

Roving pack of feral dogs ate all of the Suns’ homework
Having a season end the way it did for the Suns — finishing with the best record in the NBA and failing to make it out of the second round — will leave any organization aimlessly ambling around the neighborhood asking their dog where it all went wrong. The latest bit of Sean Maguire-ian “It’s not yo...

Landry Shamet hath brought a plague upon every house he’s entered
Athletes and fans are a very superstitious lot, and if rituals and patterns are to be taken seriously, Suns’ guard Landry Shamet should be forced to play for lottery teams for the rest of his career. If your team is contending for a championship, needs a piece in the offseason, and picks up or trade...

International stars are here to stay on All-NBA Teams
Thirty years after the Dream Team introduced the NBA to the world at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, the league has transformed into something that the late David Stern would be proud of. Basketball has truly become an international game....

What are the Miami Heat?
Three teams have been pillars of culture in the modern NBA: The San Antonio Spurs, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Miami Heat. No matter the players, these three franchises have established systems where players come in to fill a role, commit to the vision, and buy in completely. Of the trio, onl...

Who do Eastern Conference teams need to worry about in a post-LeBron playoff world?
Last week, the NBA presented and christened its Eastern Conference Finals Trophy after Larry Bird. It was a well-deserved honor for an old Hick from French Lick, who helped pave the NBA’s Gilded Age. However, King James should be the most revered monarch over the East. LeBron was the Eastern Confere...

NBA finally puts respect on Monty Williams’ name
Finally, somebody from the Phoenix Suns organization is getting the respect they deserve. This week, head coach Monty Williams was named NBA Coach of the Year, and it’s about damn time. Williams ran away with the voting racking up 81 first-place votes for a grand total of 458. Memphis Grizzlies head...

COVID-19 is still the biggest X-factor of the NBA playoffs
The fat lady may be singing, but the coronavirus and all of its variants are still dancing like the party just started....

The Los Angeles Clippers are the red circle of death of the NBA
Man, Steve Ballmer had to be feeling really good when he first got Paul George and Kawhi Leonard. I mean like “Steve Ballmer hyping up a pep rally” good or “Christmas morning presents as a child” good. He felt “Just bought a brand new XBox and am barely able to drive home below the speed limit” good...