the-nba Page 63 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
There are several reasons Joel Embiid isn’t the MVP, but the biggest one is availability
I’m already on the record as pro Nikola Jokić for NBA MVP, so don’t take this article as me piling on Joel Embiid — I know, says the person who is expressing more negative thoughts about him. With the regular season in its final week, the Philadelphia 76ers struggled with three consecutive losses, t...
Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell need to head for Splitsville soon
It’s time to face the music. Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert are a more discordant duo than Salt Lake City and jazz. Always have been and always will be. Their partnership has been filled with more personal drama than team success. The oversized egos don’t match the playoff wins. Great partnerships...
When is HBO green-lighting Whining Time: The story of the 2021-22 Lakers?
I’m not here to defend LeBron James. As recently as two weeks ago, I gave him shit for chasing the scoring title because it’s the only thing he can win this year. James also has enough obsessed, annoying fans willing to defend him by any memes possible, and this pitiful Lakers team was a failure of ...
The NBA MVP race is headlined by three international players, but we should’ve seen this coming
This year’s NBA Most Valuable Player award race is coming down to the regular season’s final days. We’re almost a week into April with a handful of games remaining, and the pack leader seems to change by the day. There is no clear-cut leader, but one thing we do know is the winner is almost assured ...
After Kansas and North Carolina’s thriller it’s official: Transfers are in and one-and-dones are out
College basketball is full of rituals, and one of them is that the day after the season ends a host of publications will release their “way-too-early” preseason rankings, as more attention will be focused on mock drafts and the upcoming NBA Draft....
There’s something in the water in NBA and NHL arenas
Rarely does it make sense to link the NBA and the NHL, other than they tend to play in the same buildings at the same time of year. You wouldn’t really call them roommates, because when one is home the other never is. Though that probably makes them perfect roommates, come to think of it. Still, on ...
Luka Dončić took down Giannis Antetokounmpo yesterday, and scored big in the best NBA player argument
Remember when Luka Dončić was overweight, complaining to officials too much, and the Dallas Mavericks’ record was under .500? That was the story of Dončić and the Mavericks in December. Four months — and a Kristaps Porziņģis trade— later, the Mavericks are one of the hottest teams in the NBA. They a...
Kyrie Irving’s return to full-time has seen his numbers come back to earth
Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving had the sweetest deal of any player in recent memory for most of the season, where he only had to play half the games on the schedule due to his vaccination status....
Cade Cunningham and Jalen Green had a March worthy of No. 1 and No. 2 picks
Showing out in the NBA in March is not quite like hitting beautifully straight drives on the practice range, but it’s close. When there’s no pressure and fewerless consequences, it’s easy to swing free. That’s exactly what Cade Cunningham and Jalen Green did last month, giving their fans a taste of ...
The top 10 clutch scorers in the upcoming NBA Playoffs
The NBA playoffs are just around the corner, and we’ve got tight races in each conference heading down the stretch. Most top teams are usually led by players who can take a game over, especially in the fourth quarter/crunch time. Some players have been left off the list for various reasons like inju...
Winning Time: ‘Piece of a Man’ explores Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s relationship with Islam
What makes Winning Time’s tapestry of stories enthralling is how it reflects the chaotic jazz of our lives. Every character is at odds against the world and themselves. Magic, Jerry Buss, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, each man is fighting a private war. For many of them, it’s a war of the spirit against the ...
Ben Simmons files grievance to get back $20 million
After a season spent off the court but directly in the glare of the national basketball media spotlight for his refusal to play with the 76ers, Ben Simmons is filing a grievance against his former team to the tune of $20 million in unpaid salary....
The entire LSU basketball team is gone
Sanctions are coming, Will Wade is gone, and the Tigers aren’t sticking around to find out what it looks like. LSU basketball might not be receiving the death penalty from the NCAA for their former coach’s infractions, but the team itself has sent the program into a virtual death spiral....
Doc Rivers needs more than motivational tactics to get through to James Harden
It only took 15 games of watching James Harden for Doc Rivers to get annoyed. After a loss against the Detroit Pistons last night — the team’s third straight — where the 76ers got all of eight points from the bench, the coach didn’t put the lack of production on them....
Fictional Hooper Bracket: The Final Four
We got an all-blueblood Final Four. I know we enjoyed Saint Peter’s, but as happy as I am for Shaheen Holloway’s new contract — of course this is yet another example of a college coach capitalizing off of his hard-playing talent for a much better job, but the Peacocks pull their home bleachers out o...
It’s the Bucks’ until they say it isn’t
It’s a strange phenomenon, not exclusive to basketball, where somehow the defending champs get lost. Perhaps most people just conclude that the fatigue from a playoff run the previous season is just a bit too much to overcome. It’s doubly so for the Milwaukee Bucks, as their Finals run didn’t end un...
ESPN’s NBA “retro-cast” sounds like a pretty cool idea
ESPN’s is set to test a new idea on ESPN 2 with an NBA “retro-cast” that will roll out on April 6 during the New York Knicks vs. Brooklyn Nets game at Madison Square Garden....
Greg Gumbel has got some HOT takes, who knew?
ESPN needs to have a Greg Gumbel day on First Take, because it appears that this man has been simmering with hot takes for years. He recently appeared on Sports Illustrated’s Jimmy Traina’s SI Media Podcast and let it fly about how he feels about the recent contracts that NFL broadcasters have recei...
Shaheen Holloway is the 2022 March Madness Champ
If Duke, UNC, Kansas or Villanova are going to win another national title, we have to celebrate something besides another blueblood champion. Watching another blueblood Final Four is nauseating and almost seems antithetical to the glorified ideal of March Madness....