the-nba Page 14 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Oklahoma City showed Golden State what Basketball Darwinism looks like
Victor Wembanyama has dominated so much of the rookie phenom discourse that Chet Holmgren’s gotten lost in the trees. Holmgren is finally emerging from the forest though. Scoring a commanding 36 points and hitting the game-tying three in an overtime win over the Golden State Warriors will open some ...
USC and UCLA prove why home and away jerseys are a thing of the past
USC and UCLA haven’t been relevant, in terms of a national championship status, in years. I can’t even remember when, but mostly because my brain turned to muck long ago. They tell me that USC has a prime QB prospect in Caleb Williams, and yet every time he shows up in a big game he appears to do no...
This week in the NBA, November 18, 2023
If you went to bed last night thinking that it’s a shame that the 76ers Kelly Oubre Jr. was injured in a hit-and-run accident on Saturday while walking alone in Philly, you may have been confused this morning to see much of X (formerly Twitter) losing its collective mind and suggesting the Oubre Jr....
Chris Paul is the NBA's Ric Flair — the dirtiest player in the game
The more things change, the more they tend to stay the same. This sentence describes Chris Paul to a T. He’s on another new team, but it’s the same ol’ dirty CP3. On the undercard of the MMA main event that broke out during Golden State’s In-Season Tournament game against Minnesota Tuesday night, Pa...
The NBA’s in-season tourney courts are predictably a clown show
There may be no better analogy for how shallow the NBA’s new in-season tournament is than the league’s gaudy courts. The colorful floors were thrown together as a way to differentiate regular season games from in-season tournament games even though they still count toward the regular season. In addi...
Draymond Green is straight out of the WWE — and the NBA is better for it
There is a reason that professional wrestling has remained popular for decades even though the action is scripted. The business understands that in order to sell a story there has to be a hero and a heel. Cheering is fun, but jeering is cathartic. In team sports, the heel is automatically included l...
Jerry Reinsdorf has McConnell’d half of Chicago
I and many other Chicagoans used to sit in our simple Midwestern homes, huddled by the coal stove or whatever people picture us doing in the winter (it’s not that far off, it’s just huddled at the bar), and have a good chuckle at how New Yorkers were sentenced to a life with James Dolan. Here was a ...
Rudy Gobert might be the least-respected star in NBA history
If you haven’t seen it by now, you’ve either been asleep or in a cave with Aaron Rodgers over the past 14 hours. We had another NBA skirmish Tuesday night, but this time it escalated into an all-out brawl with everybody’s favorite Warrior, Draymond Green, in the middle of the mayhem. And, of course,...
Is a Netflix docuseries enough to make you care about the NBA In-Season tournament?
Word on the street is that the NBA and Netflix could be partnering up on the new In-Season tournament. Maybe Netflix can get fans to care about this seemingly pointless tournament nobody asked for. It sounds like all the risk would be on Netflix while the NBA sits back and soaks up all the publicity...
Jordan Poole and Kyle Kuzma are the Kobe and Shaq of the Tanking Title
It’s never a good thing when your two superstars are trending on social media after another loss. That has become the norm for Jordan Poole and Kyle Kuzma. Their first run-in with infamy came when Poole lobbed an oop to Kuzma off the backboard while losing by 20. Together they’re the Bennifer of pro...
James Harden is the NBA’s worst clutch superstar
There are volumes that could be written about what’s wrong with the Los Angeles Clippers superteam. After all the ruckus James Harden started this summer, if you thought he’d arrive in tip-top shape, ready to make one last push at a title with the Clippers, then you’re as gullible as every other tea...
Wake me up when the NBA adds a Champions League or an FA cup
The first NBA in-season tournament kicked off Friday evening. If you were unaware, you’re less informed than most because the gimmick has only been beaten into our brains every day since the season tipped. It’s really a brilliant way to dress up a regular season game, and the courts are so obnoxious...
These are the worst NBA player custom sneakers
An NBA player’s signature shoe is the ultimate signifier of their brand. These kicks reflect and refract the personality and power of those who wear them. Since Michael Jordan signed with Nike in 1984, the shoe skyrocketed from casual mediocrity into a phenomenon all its own. Almost every major bask...
Zion Williamson is the NBA’s most polarizing talent
Zion Williamson is a series of contradictions. He’s a near-300-pound space mover who elevates like he’s in zero gravity. He’s both the mythic John Henry racing a machine and the steam-powered drill he beat in a race because it continuously broke down. Williamson has the build of a defensive end, but...
Emphasis on 82-game schedule won’t solve NBA’s biggest problem
In case the NBA has not made itself clear over the last few months, the league office is fed up with load management. There are 82 games on the schedule, and players are expected to play in every single game unless they are actually injured. The NBA is going so far now as to claim it has data that t...
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,...
Luka Dončić let the NBA down this week
The first-ever international exhibition on Sept. 8, 1978, is immortalized for the defending NBA champion Washington Bullets’ loss to Maccabi Tel Aviv by the score of 97-98. Since 2000, when the EuroLeague was founded, NBA teams are 75-17 against Europe’s top teams in exhibitions. Or 17-75 if you wan...
Darvin Ham wants Anthony Davis, who isn't great from behind the arc, to shoot more 3s
The Los Angeles Lakers are coming off a rollercoaster ride of a season last year where they started out looking utterly defeated only to bounce back and make a Western Conference Finals run in head coach Darvin Ham’s first year on the job. Now entering year two, Ham recently made waves when he state...
It took Dillon Brooks 5 minutes and a nut-punch to show the Rockets he's still Dillon Brooks
The brand is strong with Dillon Brooks. He helped turn the Memphis Grizzlies into a contender, and for his services, he got thrown out of a window like Axel Foley. ...
Chet Holmgren and Victor Wembanyama are finishing what Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic started
If there’s anything the most recent NBA champions taught us, it’s that the center can still be the focal point of an offense. Sixty-six-million years ago, Michael Jordan’s arrival was a terraforming meteor that ended the age of the pivots and began the reign of guards. Prior to His Airness, NBA cham...