A seven-foot phenom may be China's second hoops star, and the search is on for the third
The names have changed, but the dynamic of the Eastern Conference finals is every bit as intriguing as it was nearly two decades ago when another prodigious number 23 was trying to take down the Detroit Pistons, then in the midst of a run that included three straight trips to the Finals and back-to-back championships. It took Michael Jordan four straight postseason meetings before he learned how to beat Detroit; the question today is whether LeBron James can acquire that knowledge in half the time.
Though their results may not always be pretty, the New Jersey Nets are a pretty admirable lot most of the time. Most of that reverence is aimed at Jason Kidd, 34, who played nearly as well this season as he did while taking the Nets to the NBA Finals in 2002 and '03. Franchise stalwarts Lawrence Frank and Richard Jefferson also are worthy of praise. Frank nearly always molds a strong defensive squad out of whatever ingredients he's given, and Jefferson gets props for playing through a series of nagging injuries.
CHICAGO -- Bulls center Ben Wallace threw a white baseball cap over his bushy afro, turned it around backward and actually smiled a little.
During the 2004 playoffs, members of the Indiana Pacers were involved in an altercation with members of the Boston Celtics. Pacers forward Jermaine O'Neal, who had just been on the receiving end of a hard foul from Brandon Hunter, confronted Hunter near midcourt. Indiana's Ron Artest, who was not in the game at the time, took two steps onto the court before catching himself and returning to the Pacers' sideline.
When Phoenix's Boris Diaw leaped off the bench after teammate Steve Nash was hip-checked to the floor in the waning seconds of Game 4 on Monday night, he was more likely to be delivering croissants than seeking retribution against San Antonio's Robert Horry, the player who committed the foul on Nash.
Scott Skiles is pretty firmly entrenched as the Chicago Bulls' coach for the foreseeable future. He acts as an extension of GM John Paxson while working from courtside, and he has the attention of the team's fan base after three straight trips to the playoffs. Skiles also has the respect of Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf after going toe-to-toe with the team owner during contract negotiations two years ago.
Rasheed Wallace, the self-appointed deejay of the Detroit Pistons' locker room, had a tough time settling on his musical mood on Sunday at Chicago's United Center. To prepare for Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals -- and an expected sweep of the Bulls -- he first selected a high-energy Nas tune, but after nodding to the beat for several measures, he abruptly switched to a mellower cut. Then, following the Pistons' 102-87 loss, Sheed cranked up Chaka Khan singing Tell Me Something Good to ear-splitting decibel levels, only to emerge from the shower and switch to the Lipps Inc. classic Funkytown, shaking his booty to the bass line.
CHICAGO -- For Bulls center Ben Wallace, the first three games of his team's playoff series against the Pistons were anything but hair-raising.
After getting blown out in the first two games of their Eastern Conference playoff series against the Pistons, the Bulls talked about doing all the little things for Thursday night's Game 3.
A seven-foot phenom may be China's second hoops star, and the search is on for the third
The names have changed, but the dynamic of the Eastern Conference finals is every bit as intriguing as it was nearly two decades ago when another prodigious number 23 was trying to take down the Detroit Pistons, then in the midst of a run that included three straight trips to the Finals and back-to-back championships. It took Michael Jordan four straight postseason meetings before he learned how to beat Detroit; the question today is whether LeBron James can acquire that knowledge in half the time.
Though their results may not always be pretty, the New Jersey Nets are a pretty admirable lot most of the time. Most of that reverence is aimed at Jason Kidd, 34, who played nearly as well this season as he did while taking the Nets to the NBA Finals in 2002 and '03. Franchise stalwarts Lawrence Frank and Richard Jefferson also are worthy of praise. Frank nearly always molds a strong defensive squad out of whatever ingredients he's given, and Jefferson gets props for playing through a series of nagging injuries.
CHICAGO -- Bulls center Ben Wallace threw a white baseball cap over his bushy afro, turned it around backward and actually smiled a little.
During the 2004 playoffs, members of the Indiana Pacers were involved in an altercation with members of the Boston Celtics. Pacers forward Jermaine O'Neal, who had just been on the receiving end of a hard foul from Brandon Hunter, confronted Hunter near midcourt. Indiana's Ron Artest, who was not in the game at the time, took two steps onto the court before catching himself and returning to the Pacers' sideline.
When Phoenix's Boris Diaw leaped off the bench after teammate Steve Nash was hip-checked to the floor in the waning seconds of Game 4 on Monday night, he was more likely to be delivering croissants than seeking retribution against San Antonio's Robert Horry, the player who committed the foul on Nash.
Scott Skiles is pretty firmly entrenched as the Chicago Bulls' coach for the foreseeable future. He acts as an extension of GM John Paxson while working from courtside, and he has the attention of the team's fan base after three straight trips to the playoffs. Skiles also has the respect of Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf after going toe-to-toe with the team owner during contract negotiations two years ago.
Rasheed Wallace, the self-appointed deejay of the Detroit Pistons' locker room, had a tough time settling on his musical mood on Sunday at Chicago's United Center. To prepare for Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals -- and an expected sweep of the Bulls -- he first selected a high-energy Nas tune, but after nodding to the beat for several measures, he abruptly switched to a mellower cut. Then, following the Pistons' 102-87 loss, Sheed cranked up Chaka Khan singing Tell Me Something Good to ear-splitting decibel levels, only to emerge from the shower and switch to the Lipps Inc. classic Funkytown, shaking his booty to the bass line.
CHICAGO -- For Bulls center Ben Wallace, the first three games of his team's playoff series against the Pistons were anything but hair-raising.
After getting blown out in the first two games of their Eastern Conference playoff series against the Pistons, the Bulls talked about doing all the little things for Thursday night's Game 3.
There's no point in trying to get inside Jeff Van Gundy's head, trying to anticipate his next move or moving into guesswork territory with the Houston Rockets' front office. If either side had made a decision regarding Van Gundy's future with the Rockets, the press release would have already been issued.
NEW YORK (Ticker) -- Guard Brandon Roy of the Portland Trail Blazers and forward Andrea Bargnani of the Toronto Raptors headline the NBA All-Rookie Team, which was announced on Tuesday.
The NBA has released its list of early-entry candidates for the draft, and that means it's time to crunch some numbers.
Carmelo Anthony never rebounds, Allen Iverson never passes, Kenyon Martin never plays, J.R. Smith won't be seen until October, the team makes too much money and coach George Karl is too volatile to be trusted with a pro club.
Here he comes now, the Sultan of Small Ball, the Maven of the Mismatch, the Pioneer of the Point Forward, the hottest new old thing in coaching, a 66-year-old, white-haired man with a cup of coffee in one hand, a stubbed-out stogie in the other, a belly that spills over the lip of his khakis and only one nickname that will stick: Nellie. But what a nickname it is, one that can describe a style of play (Nellieball) or be inserted into a tired headline (whoa, nellie!) or, these days, be spit out like an epithet, at least around Dallas -- particularly, one imagines, in the lair of a certain hyperactive, media-savvy owner who just 25 months ago was paying Nelson to coach his team.
MIAMI -- Faith in the defending champions was based on the premise that the East stinks this season. Because of that stench, it was thought, the Miami Heat could overcome their own distracted start to this season as well as subsequent injuries to Shaquille O'Neal, coach Pat Riley and Dwyane Wade.
When LeBron James arrived in the National Basketball League in 2003, he was hailed as the next Michael Jordan - both on and off the court.
NEW YORK (Ticker) -- Who is the NBA MVP? According to the league's general managers, it's Dirk Nowitzki.
CHICAGO -- Bulls forward Andres Nocioni buried the 3-pointer to beat the first-quarter horn, turned toward the Heat bench and windmilled his right arm while letting out a triumphant scream.
CHICAGO -- A 2006 NBA championship ring, flanked by giant matching cuff links, was on display in the locker stall of Heat forward Antoine Walker before Game 1 of Miami's playoff meeting with the Bulls.
With apologies to John Lennon: Imagine there's no conference/It's easy if you try.... In such a world, NBA playoff teams would be seeded 1 through 16 without regard to conference affiliation, meaning that the top-seeded Dallas Mavericks could meet the Phoenix Suns or the San Antonio Spurs (the second and third seeds, respectively) for the NBA championship. In such a world, we would not have to concern ourselves with the likes of the New Jersey Nets and the Orlando Magic, the bottom-feeders of the (L)Eastern Conference bracket.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The trial for Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Jackson, accused of shooting a gun during a fight at a strip club, was shifted from Thursday to May 10.
Isiah Thomas, if you're reading this, it's time to end the season. This is the part of the movie where Old Yeller gets taken out back and shot.
One week from now, the NCAA champion will be crowned, brackets will go back to being the metal things that hold shelves together and you'll no longer have a good excuse to put off cleaning out the garage.
With Kentucky fans dogging him after another disappointing finish, Tubby Smith is bolting the bluegrass for Minnesota.
Once a prime-time player, a slashing swingman who averaged 29.8 points for the Detroit Pistons six seasons ago, Jerry Stackhouse is now a bystander when the Dallas Mavericks announce their lineup to pyrotechnics and ear-splitting noise at American Airlines Center. His sweats on, he rolls his shoulders and jogs in place as the starters' names are called, knowing he won't be needed until midway through the first quarter, at the earliest. "Sometimes over on the bench you stiffen up a little bit when you don't get in right away," says Stackhouse. "But it's just something to deal with."
NEW YORK (Ticker) -- Kobe Bryant's latest scoring explosion earned him NBA Player of the Week honors.
With March Madness upon us, the NBA is cracking down on loose-lipped team executives who can't help but talk about -- or to the families of -- Greg Oden or Kevin Durant, the likely top picks in this year's draft.
With the memory of Wednesday's scintillating double-OT Phoenix-Dallas game still fresh in my mind, and anticipation rising about a San Antonio Spurs team that has won 13 straight and shows no sign of stopping, I'm going to reverse direction and talk about the Eastern Conference.
All-Star swingman Joe Johnson of the Atlanta Hawks could be sidelined for up to a month with a right calf contusion, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on its Web site Thursday.
MILWAUKEE -- Quick, who was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2005 NBA Draft?
As the Dallas Mavericks quietly chase history -- emphasis on quietly because they are the least-noticed great team in quite a while -- thoughts turn to the best teams of all time. Could the Mavs, 51-9 as this is written, join that list? Old-timers may demur, but what Dallas is doing this season is remarkable. Even if you dismiss the Eastern Conference -- and please do -- take a look at the West, against which the Mavs have a 32-6 mark.
It's a long season, we wholly submit, and that's usually enough justification for the players who play the game and the media who cover it to lose their collective focus and concentrate on the flavors of the month that usually turn up in February, March and April. If that means scribes end up picking the team that finished with the best record down the stretch to win it all, fine -- nobody gets hurt with a semi-educated guess. But when deserving players are passed over for well-earned hardware, it's time to raise some hackles.
AUBURN, California (Ticker) -- Ron Artest is in trouble once again.
NEW YORK (Ticker) -- Boston Celtics forward Al Jefferson and Sacramento Kings guard Kevin Martin were named NBA Players of the Week on Monday.
NEW YORK (Ticker) -- After surviving the trade deadline, Vince Carter made a loud statement on the court.
On a cold winter morning in 1986, Dennis Johnson and his Boston Celtics teammates stood outside of Market Square Arena, unable to get inside for a shootaround before their game that night against the Indiana Pacers. Johnson bundled his coat around him and pulled down his ski cap over his ears.
Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson has seen a lot of trade deadline days come and go in his 27 NBA seasons. He knows that some years are busier than others. But even Dawson was surprised this year's deadline passed so quietly.
Isiah Thomas is a dunce, a failure. Isn't that the final verdict, the accepted wisdom? We declared that truth to be self-evident years ago, and once we make that call, there's no further review. In sports, the only unforgivable sin is incompetence. Commit any other offense -- drink and drive, hit a woman, snort a line -- and it is still possible to redeem oneself, to change the public's perception from negative to positive. But once you've been tagged as a boob, the stamp is pretty much indelible.
I picked him up at the airport in Bangor, Maine, and I asked him, 'How many bags have you got?' He said he had four. I said, 'Good. That will take you only two trips to get it in the van.' And I walked off and left him. Let him make two trips carrying the bags by himself."
NEW YORK (Ticker) -- Carmelo Anthony is finding his game again.
Listen! Can you hear it? That crunching sound toward the rear of the pack.
Various midseason NBA report cards have already handed the Coach of the Year award to Phil Jackson, nods that seem wholly appropriate. Not only does Jackson have his Lakers on pace for more than 50 wins, but he's also doing it with a roster that shouldn't be playing this well, this soon.
One night in September 2000, on a makeshift stage in a resort ballroom on Sanibel Island in Florida, Cablevision Systems CEO Jim Dolan stood before a captive audience of subordinates -- six or seven dozen senior managers from Madison Square Garden and its sports properties -- and began to sing. It was a lark, one of those gags designed to blow off steam after a day of meetings. Still, barely a year had passed since Dolan had taken full control of the Garden and its two main tenants, the New York Knickerbockers and the New York Rangers, and many in the room had had only glimpses of an owner who, for his entire adult life, had been overshadowed by his father, cable-TV pioneer Charles Dolan. The tales of Jim's drug-and-drink-addled past, his volcanic temper, his shifting moods, were already legendary, fueling the image of a spoiled boy who had been handed the keys to perhaps the most prized property in all of U.S. sports. No one expected a song.
NEW YORK (Ticker) -- Miami Heat guard Gary Payton on Monday was suspended one game without pay by the NBA for his actions in Saturday's game against the Milwaukee Bucks.
NEW YORK (Ticker) -- The NBA has rewarded Mehmet Okur for picking up the slack for the Utah Jazz.
Also in this column: • One key for running teams • Best players in the Euroleague • Notes from around the NBA
WASHINGTON (Ticker) -- Washington Wizards forward Antawn Jamison will miss three to six weeks with a sprained left knee, the team announced Thursday.
NEW YORK (Ticker) -- Forward Chris Bosh made it a clean sweep for the Toronto Raptors of the NBA's monthly awards, claiming Eastern Conference Player of the Month honors for January.
WASHINGTON (Ticker) -- The Washington Wizards apparently will have to continue their winning ways without forward Antawn Jamison.
I can hear the protests right now. How can you compare the two teams? One of them is immortal; the other one has never even been in the Finals. You must be nuts.
A year ago the Minnesota Timberwolves were 19-21 and hoping to surge into the playoffs when they sent forward Wally Szczerbiak to Boston as part of a seven-player, three-draft-pick deal in which they received swingman Ricky Davis, center Mark Blount and guard Marcus Banks. But their newcomers had a hard time fitting in, and Minnesota went 14-28 thereafter, missing the postseason for a second straight year, which brought ever more criticism upon vice president of basketball operations Kevin McHale.
When Charlotte Bobcats forward Emeka Okafor leaps to block a layup, he often turns sideways, like a waiter navigating a crowded room, so that he can extend his right arm as far as possible. When he leaps to block a dunk, however, the 6'10", 252-pound Okafor tries to go straight up, the better to neutralize his opponent's momentum. Considering that a blocked dunk is one of the rarest feats in basketball -- at week's end there had been only 113 in 603 NBA games this season -- this is easier in theory than in practice.
NEW YORK (Ticker) -- After orchestrating the Phoenix Suns to yet another perfect week, Steve Nash was rewarded for his exploits.
The downtrodden Sacramento Kings travel to the Palace of Auburn Hills on Saturday night to play the suddenly somnolent Detroit Pistons in what should be, oh, the 77th-most interesting thing going on in your world that day.
NEW YORK (Ticker) -- Injured Houston Rockets center Yao Ming, who may not be able to play in next month's NBA All-Star Game, still leads all players in the latest returns of fan balloting announced Thursday.
We want to glide into the new year nicely, so this first five-pack of 2007 singles out players, five from each conference, who are overachieving, or, at least, playing above what some people thought they might, at least one of those people being me. This doesn't mean they are bad players playing well; in particular, I don't want one of them -- identified later -- to get mad at me. Note that I have left out rookies: Who really knows what to expect from them?
NEW YORK (Ticker) -- Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas, who erupted for games of 60 and 54 points in December, was named NBA Eastern Conference Player of the Month on Tuesday.
A Secret Service officer arrested a former NBA player after gunshots were reported just blocks from the White House early Wednesday morning.
The National Basketball Association's controversial new dress code has some clothing manufacturers offering players free clothing in an effort to land endorsement deals, according to a published report.
What if they held an NBA finals and none of the stars came?
TO SAY THAT RONY SEIKALY IS LOOKING TO HIT THE BIG time may sound a little strange. After all, the 6-foot-11 former basketball big shot--who hails from Lebanon by way of Greece--starred at Syracuse...
Indiana Pacers forward Ron Artest has been suspended for the rest of the season for fighting with fans after an NBA game against the Detroit Pistons ended with a brawl in the stands.
When the New York Knicks begin their season this month, Jesse Itzler's performances will have basketball fans jumping out of their seats. But Itzler, 36, isn't the team's newest power forward. Rath...
Stock market investors should be pulling for the Detroit Pistons in the National Basketball Association finals due to the Shaq curse, according to a published report Thursday.
National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern said Wednesday it would be good for the league if Michael Jordan were to become a franchise owner, and he believes it will happen sooner rather than later.
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Two lives ago I was a physical therapist who started a successful chain of sports-medicine centers. One life ago I was the president of the Philadelphia 76ers who helped resurrect a franchise from ...
Make no mistake about it, Wayne Alpert is a thinker. And he isn't shy about sharing his thoughts either, which makes him a talker too. Wayne thinks and talks about all kinds of stuff--the politics ...
If there's a god of promotion and customer service, he might just be Pat Croce, the 47-year-old minority owner and former president of the Philadelphia 76ers. Roughly a cross between Norman Vincent...
David Stern, his tie loosened and askew over a crisp white shirt, is sitting by a picture window in a conference room at the National Basketball Association's Fifth Avenue headquarters. Outside, sn...
If you've already anointed Tiger Woods as the celebrity pitchman for the new millennium--the only true heir to the king of all endorsers, Michael Jordan--then slap yourself with a spatula. Old athl...
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Like the rest of America, Atlanta Hawks backup center Mark West had to watch the NBA championship from the stands this year. His team lost to the New York Knicks in the playoffs, and he still hasn'...
Words no longer suffice when the subject is Michael Jordan. You need numbers. Call him the very best basketball player who ever lived, and no one puts up much of a fuss anymore: Five championship r...
Peter O'Malley sounds like a man who's tired of the fight. His family has owned the Los Angeles Dodgers for 47 years--a longer tenure than any other ownership group in Major League Baseball--but ea...
The owners of sports franchises are finally doing what the corporate world has done for ages--paying grotesque salaries to their top management guys. Rick Pitino's new ten-year, $50 million contrac...
Look through the Florida Panthers' official merchandise catalogue, and you'd think every possible way to own a piece of the Fort Lauderdale-based hockey team is being exploited. After all, once you...
You may not have heard of Grant Hill yet, but you will--even those of you who think NBA stands for National Bookworm Association. Hill, you see, is the Detroit Pistons' rookie sensation, whom some ...
TO MANY NATIONAL BASKETBALL Association players, forward Charles Barkley of the Philadelphia 76ers is no sweetheart. They know that trying to stop Charles when he is charging toward the basket is l...
PATRICK EWING, the 7-foot Georgetown University basketball star, explained to a pack of reporters why he chose ProServ Inc., a Washington-based sports marketing firm, to represent him in salary tal...
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