wembanyama Page 6 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
A decade-plus of Eastern Conference mediocrity can’t be easily forgotten
It’s weird how much energy goes into debating which conference is the NBA’s best. It makes sense in college football because schools can’t play all 100-plus teams each year, and strength of schedule determines playoff spots. But in basketball, with all 30 organizations facing each other at least twi...
'Brick for Vic' Stock Report
Victor Wembanyama is out of sight, but never out of mind. He’s still crushing it across the Atlantic, but one month into the NBA season, it’s time to take stock of which “Brick for Vic” NBA candidates are closest to completing their Wembanyama-sized mansion. For the franchise that wins the lottery, ...
The Utah Jazz are George Costanza-ing their way to the top of the West
“What is going on in Utah?” was the Brian Windhorst query that ruled the summer as the Jazz’s CEO of basketball operations Danny Ainge jettisoned Rudy Gobert to the Minnesota Timberwolves for a boatload of first-round picks through 2029. The answer was Utah gutting their roster and Quin Snyder walki...
Early NBA season superlatives: Let’s hope this version of the Knicks lasts longer than ‘Bing bong!’
It’s hard to get a vibe on the NBA after one week of games. The Wizards started last 10-3, and New York fans were excitedly yelling “Bing bong!” before both came to depressing finishes. Klay Thompson didn’t return until midseason, and it looks like it may take Jamal Murray and Kawhi Leonard some tim...
Ten players that teams in the 'Lose-O-Rama for Wembanyama' should ship
After the matchup between Victor Wembanyama’s Metropolitans and Scoot Henderson’s G League Ignite teams earlier this month, where the projected No. 1 and No. 2 picks faced off in must-see-TV, half the NBA should have shifted into full-on tank mode. Why meddle in mediocrity if you’re the Orlando Magi...
Wouldn’t you love to hear what executives for the Panthers and Jazz are honestly thinking right now?
Professional sports are like many other industries. The goals of management and the employees are not always aligned....
The NBA’s tanking problem is more perception than reality, and a relegation system won’t fix that
During NBA Commish Adam Silver’s apology tour session with beleaguered Phoenix Suns employees this weekend, he was confronted with another concern. In addition to apologizing for suspended team Governor Robert Sarver and his decades of misconduct, Silver was also besieged by a flood of questions abo...
I hope Evan Mobley is as true as he is in my dreams
While often depicted, lamented, and sanctified as liberating, hope can also be a virus. It can rot rationality from the inside. It can lead to danger, injury, and death. As Ellis Boyd Redding, best known by his friends and fellow convicts at Shawshank State Prison as Red, once said… “Hope is a dange...
Catching up with the soap opera drama of the NBA
The NBA is one of the longest-running unscripted nighttime soaps on television. Even outside of tip-offs and the final buzzer, its headliners are some of the most accessible figures in professional sports. The rosters are smaller, their faces aren’t obstructed, their games air nightly for at least h...
A small win finally for the Carolina Panthers
They’ve lost three consecutive games, all by double digits. A team that was supposed to have an outside shot at the playoffs in a weak NFC South, currently is the frontrunner for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. The Bryce Young sweepstakes may not be the international story of the NBA’s...
10 NBA preseason takeaways that provide insight into the regular season
The NBA will give everyone their first real look at the league’s rapidly transforming landscape and its latest rookie class when the regular season tips off on Tuesday, but the preseason is a window into what to expect from certain teams. Wins and losses are mostly meaningless, so don’t read into th...
Attention NBA teams with no desire to win: Call the Lakers because Russell Westbrook already looks checked out
Calling all tankers. Calling all tankers. If you are desperate to improve your chances at drafting Victor Wembanyama, there is a disgruntled guard on the Los Angeles Lakers who is on an expiring contract, and not as athletic as he used to be....
Victor Wembanyama is the NBA’s basketball comeuppance
Victor Wembanyama is the evolution of basketball personified. But evolution requires a catalyst. Sure Wembanyama’s genes play a significant part, but decades earlier he could have been Frédéric Weis. Weis was the first French center whose name was seared into the memories of American basketball fans...
Victor Wembanyama is in America, and taking part in a matchup that, on a college court, would be one of the most anticipated of all time
While it was great to see Ja Morant taking off for a 360 dunk on Monday night, and Paolo Banchero throwing it down on two people, that was just preseason Memphis Grizzlies vs. Orlando Magic basketball. The NBA regular season doesn’t begin until Oct. 19. Until that day, any minutes fans see of their ...
Winners and Losers of the NBA’s potential relaunch of the Preps-to-Pros Draft Era
The NBA’s preps-to-pros pipeline was welded shut nearly 20 years ago by the late Commissioner David Stern due to NBA general managers’ drafting tendencies beginning to resemble Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating preferences. The narrative that preps-to-pros prospects were too young, too unproven, and that t...
The Chet Holmgren Experiment suffers its first setback
Unicorn status has been bestowed throughout the last decade upon NBA players with proportions so fantastical that we thought they only existed in fables. Whenever one of those hoops fantasies steps out of our imaginations and onto the court, it’s akin to witnessing a futuristic autonomous concept of...
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...
The Jazz wouldn’t say it, but Donovan Mitchell’s days in Utah are likely numbered
Danny Ainge gave no tells during the Utah Jazz summer league press conference on Saturday. The Jazz team president answered, maybe, three questions during the whole session, leaving most of the talking to General Manager Justin Zanik....
The Atlanta Hawks adding Dejounte Murray would change the entire landscape of the Eastern Conference
The Atlanta Hawks were the second best offensive team in the NBA this past season. Trae Young had the best season of his career averaging 28.4 points and 9.7 assists per game on 46/38.2/90.4 shooting splits. He kept his team’s offense rolling all season despite many injuries. Of players who averaged...
If I’m Victor Wembanyama, I’m all good on being called a unicorn
Now that Aleksej Pokuševski and Franz Wagner have understudies and Jabari Smith Jr. has a couple more guards who won’t pass him the ball, it’s time to peek inside the 2023 NBA Draft. And if you’ve done that, you’ve no doubt come across the name Victor Wembanyama. The French big man has a frame simil...