the-nba Page 54 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Draymond Green keeps it real and creates Boston bulletin board material at the same time
Although the 2022 NBA Finals has been an up and down series for veteran Draymond Green, that hasn’t stopped him from giving his honest opinion during media sessions. Ahead of Game 6 in Boston, Green was asked about the mental challenge of preparing to face the Celtics as opposed to getting ready for...

It’s all smiles with the Pelicans and Zion Williamson these days, or so they tell us
Barring any unforeseen circumstances, such as another Zion Williamson injury, in the 2022-23 season expect to see the full New Orleans Pelicans team that basketball fans wish had taken on the Phoenix Suns in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. The Pelicans can offer Williamson a max contract extens...

C’mon give Jayson Tatum a break
The internet strikes again. Well, Twitter, to be exact....

It’s easy to like these Warriors again
There was just something about Kevin Durant on the Golden State Warriors that almost ruined basketball. It wasn’t ever about the burner accounts and snowflake sensitivity. The lack of competitive advantage made the NBA challenging to enjoy while Durant was in the Bay Area from 2016 to 2019. Now that...

Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James for an NBA title? It could happen in real life, just not quite the way you want it
It’s the 2043 NBA Finals. The erosion of the east coast is impossible to ignore, and it will be illegal to hold summer football activities outdoors because the average temperature in most places will be 115 degrees. But indoors, the matchup the world has been waiting for will finally take place. Tha...

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 ...

How can anyone root against Steph Curry? I’ll tell you how
I tend to cringe when NBA pundits incredulously ask, “How could anyone root against Steph Curry?!” I’m not a LeBron true believer, here to disparage the greatest shooter in the history of the game. He’s incredible. The hand-eye coordination is something out of Star Wars. When little Anakin Skywalker...

Whether he admits it or not, this is a different Andrew Wiggins in the NBA Finals
Stephen Curry was mesmerizing on Friday night. If the Golden State Warriors do go on to win their fourth NBA Championship in eight seasons, it will be one of the most memorable championship performances in league history. Curry, a generational talent and one of the NBA’s most popular players, respon...

Kyrie Irving is way better at basketball than at Twitter
Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant were supposed to be a generational duo on the hardwood. Three years later, Durant has been about what we expected, but Irving hasn’t held up his end of the bargain. Even on social media, Durant is running circles around Kyrie. Durant and Kyrie have waaaay too much free ...

Micah Parsons’ Draymond slander earned him a lot of criticism on Twitter
In the social media age, everyone has a platform to voice their opinion on everything under the sun. Although just because you can say it doesn’t mean you always should. Dallas Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons is quickly finding out that some things are better left unsaid. Parsons was not impressed ...

Steph Curry and Steven Stamkos are having an Old Guy Summer
Well, spring. But whatever....

When does sportswashing come for an American team?
The story of the weekend was the LIV Golf…whatever, or LIV Golf Whatever, finally going from theory or proposal to the real thing. Even complete with the suppression of the press, which is an astonishingly good look for a company funded by a government that is mostly known for suppressing the press ...

The Rangers will almost certainly learn all the wrong lessons
To figure out where the New York Rangers are going after being dumped out on their ass by the Tampa Bay Lightning, it’s important to retrace how, and especially why, they got here....

Draymond Green’s postgame podcast ignores the elephant in the room
As more avenues open to give broadcast coverage to the NBA, more veteran players try their hands at the art of speaking constructively about basketball, as opposed to playing it and spewing whatever they want in postgame interviews. J.J. Redick is a budding star in the industry, and CJ McCollum look...

Steph Curry really wants that Finals MVP trophy
Game 4 of the Finals felt a lot like Game 1 with the road team quieting a hyped home crowd via a fourth quarter run that flipped the game and sent stunned fans for the exit before the final buzzer. Steph Curry needed to be brilliant and he was, hitting the biggest shot of a series that has seen few ...

Marcus Smart is the player Draymond Green used to be
The Draymond Green brand is still strong enough that LeBron James openly fantasizes about playing with him and his podcast is a hot topic even while the Warriors fall into a 2-1 hole against the Boston Celtics. Green, now 32, still benefits the Golden State Warriors in many ways. He sets bone-crushi...

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...

Who’s going to win (lose?) the Rudy Gobert trade extravaganza?
Rudy Gobert is this offseason’s CJ McCollum in that every GM is going to call about the star player and get counteroffered with the secondary player. Yes, we know you called about Donovan, but for the low price of a couple draft picks and a salary dump, you can have Rudy at $38 million to $46 millio...

LeBron James wants to play with Steph Curry
This year’s NBA postseason has been pretty good, minus all the injuries, even with the absence of LeBron James. While the era of James playing into June every year is over, that doesn’t mean we won’t hear from the King during the playoffs and especially once the NBA Finals roll around. And one thing...

Stop comparing viewership numbers for the NFL and NBA
Viewership for the 2022 NBA Finals is up 37 percent from last year and its ratings are the highest they’ve been since the last time the Warriors were in the Finals in 2019. That said, there are some worrisome figures. For one, while viewership is up from 2020 and 2021, Game 1 of these Finals were th...