So the brands adapted. With an impeccable roster headlined by Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi and Jewell Loyd, Nike began releasing their player’s exclusive colorways to the public. 

Bird and Loyd, each known for their affinity with Kyrie Irving’s former Nike signature shoes, received a number of colorways in the marketplace, with Bird headlining the “Keep Sue Fresh” collection that spanned from the Kyrie 4 Low to the Kyrie Infinity. 

Out in Phoenix, DT began repping ‘Bron’s signature series, from the LeBron 9 and LeBron X to the LeBron 19—she even had compiled an extensive Mercury-colored collection of LeBron PEs, including the LeBron 18 “La Cabra”—which translates to the GOAT in Spanish.

In Washington, six-time All-Star Elena Delle Donne was paying homage with her PE rotation, dawning a Swoopes I-inspired colorway of the Nike Hyperdunk 2017 alongside a steady influx of KD 12s. But at the tail end of the 2019 season, Delle Donne flipped the script, electing to wear a lace-less model, the Nike Air Zoom UNVRS. Constructed around the brand’s newest technology, Flyease provided wearers with a hands-free, easy-access design geared toward those with disabilities. The latter would serve as a three year-long smoke signal of what was to come. 

In October of 2022, Nike and Elena Delle Donne officially released the Nike Air Deldon. While the high-top model wasn’t specifically marketed as a signature offering, the silhouette was as close to one as you could get. Built with Flyease technology at its foundation, the Air Deldon was inspired by the two-time MVP’s younger sister Lizzie, who is disabled. The model represented several aspects of Delle Donne’s personal journey, detailing her battle with Lyme disease on one colorway while joining Nike’s BE TRUE initiative that heralds the LGBTQIA+ community with a rainbow-treated installment.  

Then there’s Sabrina Ionescu. Before the legend of Caitlin Clark arose, Ionescu captivated the nation in college—breaking national and school records at the University of Oregon with a flashy play style and an unstoppable pull-up three. 

While standing on the shoulders of the legends that came before her, Nike announced Ionescu would be the eighth women’s signature athlete in Nike Basketball history. After 17 years, The Swoosh had returned in full to the women’s game and they flooded Sabrina’s business with support. An expansive marketing campaign, a full release schedule featuring more than a dozen colorways, a full unisex apparel collection and intricate storytelling that ran throughout the model. 

Touted as the first-ever unisex signature basketball shoe, the Nike Sabrina 1 sold out the first handful of colorways during the late summer. Then it took things to another level when the model was added to Nike’s customizable Nike By You platform. With layers of detailed fabrics, stitching and panels, the Sabrina 1 brought out the platforms’ full potential, allowing fans of the already praised silhouette to create their own 1-of-1 versions.

Custom Nike Sabrina 1s engulfed social media in the following months, with creators drawing inspiration from their favorite colorways of past signature models like the “Bruce Lee” Kobe 5. Some designs even stuck and were replicated at mass, like the titular rendition dubbed the “What The” colorway—inspired by Nike Basketball’s mid-2010s run of taking every colorway from one signature shoe and compiling it into one loud, expressive and surprisingly cohesive ensemble.

From the W and the NBA to men’s and women’s college basketball and the G-League, the Nike Sabrina 1 exploded in popularity. As soon as the 2023-24 season tipped, the low-top model quickly became a go-to for many Nike-endorsed NBA players with Mikal Bridges, Jalen Brunson, Tyler Herro and others customizing their own PEs at a frantic pace.

This time around, Sabrina’s sneaker won’t be a one-and-done: she confirmed during this year’s New York Liberty training camp that her second signature is currently in the works. 

And then there’s the long awaited announcement of the Nike A’One. As the first Black woman to receive a signature shoe with the brand since Sheryl Swoopes, A’ja Wilson continues to cement her legacy as not only a great, but a player deserving of the utmost recognition and respect. After headlining the Nike Cosmic Unity last season and dawning a regal black and gold LeBron 21 PE during the 2023 Finals, two-time WNBA Champion and New York Times Best-Selling Author A’ja Wilson has been positioned for an insanely bright future, and arrival of the A’One in the Spring of 2025 was met with top-tier marketing: Wilson posted a flick of herself wearing an iconic hoodie that read, Of Course I Have a Shoe Dot Com with the caption: “The answer to the question.” It was just as iconic as Wilson and her illustrious career. 

Wilson and Nike aren’t just only releasing a signature sneaker though—the two-time WNBA champion and MVP has been working for over a year now on a full apparel collection and signature slides, too. She’s been heavily involved in each step of the process, consistently checking in with the brand and going as far as to suggest satin-lined hoods so women wouldn’t have to wear a bonnet during travel days. 

As for other stars, in the summer of 2021, Jordan Brand announced the largest women’s roster in the brand’s history, signing Dearica Hamby, Satou Sabally, Jordin Canada, Aerial Powers, Te’a Cooper, Crystal Dangerfield, Arella Guirantes and Chelsea Dungee. Joining an established core of Kia Nurse and Asia Durr, the Jumpman went out and put pen to paper with Rhyne Howard, Dana Evans, Isabelle Harrison and Gabby Williams over the next year and a half. 

Picking up the legacy of the since-retired Moore, Jordan’s revamped athlete roster has brought a fresh perspective to the brand’s once-reserved approach to the ladies’ side of the game. Player Exclusive colorways have flooded WNBA hardwoods as a result. Kia Nurse’s Toronto Raptors-treated Tatum 1, Satou Sabally’s international-inspired Air Jordan 37 and Isabelle Harrison’s butterfly-coated Jordan Luka 2—in homage to her late sister—have each extrapolated a piece of the respective athletes’ journeys. In turn, sneaker blogs and team social media accounts have begun to add another element of storytelling to the WNBA’s atmosphere. 

Even though signature silhouettes and exclusive colorways continue to draw headlines, both Nike and Jordan have been cultivating their next generation of partners in the backdrop through the new possibilities presented by NIL. Mirroring the selectivity of their signature lineup, Nike has signed reigning National Freshman of the Year Juju Watkins, former AP Player of the Year Paige Bueckers and top high school sophomore Jerzy Williams to NIL deals. 

In the same realm, Jordan Brand has signed Rutgers-bound guard Kiyomi McMiller, LSU’s SEC Freshman of the Year Mikaylah Williams and UCLA point guard Kiki Rice. 

While it’s yet to be officially announced, Caitlin Clark has reportedly signed an endorsement deal with The Swoosh as well. Clark was one of the brand’s first NIL signings before her senior year at Iowa. 

This is just the beginning, and with investment, attention to detail, and unwavering support for women’s basketball, the renaissance continues.

Feeling nostalgic? Here’s a history lesson on how past WNBA legends paved the way in the sneaker game.

The post Today’s WNBA Legends Are Shifting Sneaker Culture  appeared first on SLAM.

Los Angeles Sparks forward Dearica Hamby is on set, marveling at the photos that were just taken for a Jordan Brand campaign. It’s June, and Hamby is with us at the Jordan Brand Flagship store in downtown L.A. She’s rockin’ a pair of Jordan IIIs along with a custom mini skirt paired with a Jordan sports bra peeking through a netted top. As she peers over her white shades and takes flicks of the photos that were just shot, it’s clear that she’s hyped about how everything is turning out…including her outfit. Not only is the look Instagram-worthy, but it’s something that she wishes she could wear in the tunnel right now. 

The fashion visionary behind Hamby’s one-of-one look, as well as the entire editorial campaign, is none other than Sydney Bordonaro. The Pittsburgh native popped off with every look and did so by herself, without even one PA or assistant. One minute Bordonaro is in the locker-room-turned-glam-room, a pair of office scissors in hand, cutting Hamby’s top, which was originally a dress; the next she’s handing Chicago Sky guard Dana Evans a white leather purse and black shades to wear when it’s her turn in front of the camera. When Evans sees the photos, her reaction is nearly identical to Hamby’s—she, too, asks for the photos to be sent to her ASAP.

That’s the pure magic that is Bordonaro. She has a way of getting her clients to trust her, all while putting together looks that compliment them both as women and athletes. Look no further than the fits she’s put together with superstars like our co-cover star Kelsey Plum, who is always rockin’ something crazy in the tunnel before games and is consistently featured on LeagueFits. Bordonaro is big on attention to detail; having styled Hamby before, she had the skirt custom made to fit her perfectly. 

“My favorite part of what I do is my relationships with each of my clients. I cherish it,” she says. “There’s a very friendship-type bond between us. I love it. I’m always cognitive to never get too comfortable, though. They’re paying me for a service. They’re trusting me with their image.”

It’s not hard to trust her vision either. Bordonaro’s own sense of style is fire. Scroll through her Instagram feed and you’ll notice her bold, bright and colorful fits, long acrylic nails and lashes. It makes sense why she’s so tapped into the game—Bordonaro can hoop, too. She committed to Pepperdine as a sophomore in high school, and after graduating in three years, she did her grad year at Long Beach State. Word in the SLAM office was that she dropped buckets on Duke back in the day, which we later confirmed—as a freshman, she scored 23 points and hit seven three-pointers in that game.

“It just recently came to my attention that people who’ve met me from styling didn’t know I was a hooper! It blows my mind because I feel like I still associate myself [with] being a basketball player. I still feel like that’s me!” she says. 

Bordonaro started playing basketball when she was just 4 years old and wore a different Allen Iverson jersey to school every day in second grade. Basketball has remained “the center of [her] life since then,” but styling wasn’t necessarily something she thought she would do. Bordonaro majored in sports management and had her sights set on becoming an NBA agent. It wasn’t until after she finished school, and she didn’t “have to focus on ball as much,” that she started really tapping into her creativity.

“I love fashion, because in the craziest way, it’s just like basketball,” she says. “I love that you can portray who you are based on the way you dress. It’s a form of expression. You can catch someone’s vibe as soon as they walk into the room based on the way they’re dressed.” 

As one of the leading stylists truly elevating the WNBA fashion game, Syd is pretty booked and busy these days, but her vision has started becoming clearer and clearer as more opportunities come her way. “Recently, I decided I want a showroom, a fly creative space. I think I’m going to do that in Vegas by the end of the year,” she says. “I also see myself working beside athletes, agencies and brands more and more. I want to build a team around me. I want to bridge the gap [because] I see a disconnect here.

“Great things take time,” she adds. “I’m really enjoying the process of building this thing up.”

The post Meet Sydney Bordonaro: the Visionary and Stylist Who is Elevating the WNBA Fashion Game appeared first on SLAM.

From dominant big threes and electrifying duos to all-around greatness, here’s our top 43-33:

43. 1958-59 Boston Celtics

Coach: Red Auerbach

Record: 52-20

Roster: Gene Conley, Bob Cousy, Tom Heinsohn, KC Jones, Sam Jones, Jim Loscutoff, Frank Ramsey, Bill Russell, Bill Sharman, Bennie Swain, Lou Tsioropoulos

The greatest rivalry in NBA history began, for all practical purposes, in the spring of ’59, and it foreshadowed the decade to come. Led by veteran guard Bill Sharman’s 20.4 ppg, five Celtics averaged better than 15 ppg en route to the League’s best record. They needed seven games to dispatch Syracuse in the conference finals, setting up a first-ever Finals meeting with the Minneapolis Lakers. Three Cs averaged 20-plus, Bill Russell pulled down 22.1 boards per and Boston swept their way to the title.

42. 2002-03 San Antonio Spurs

Coach: Gregg Popovich

Record: 60-22

Roster: Mengke Bateer, Bruce Bowen, Devin Brown, Speedy Claxton, Tim Duncan, Danny Ferry, Manu Ginobili, Anthony Goldwire, Stephen Jackson, Steve Kerr, Tony Parker, David Robinson, Malik Rose, Steve Smith, Kevin Willis

The Kings, Mavs, Spurs and Timberwolves all finished ahead of the three-time-defending-champion Lakers in ’02-03, but one of them would still have to beat L.A. when it mattered. Led by Tim Duncan, fresh off a second straight League MVP award, and second-year point guard Tony Parker, San Antonio got its chance in the second round and dispatched Shaq and Kobe in six games. They handled Dallas and New Jersey in similarly businesslike fashion en route to the chip.

41. 2018-19 Golden State Warriors

Coach: Steve Kerr

Record: 57-25

Roster: Jordan Bell, Andrew Bogut, Quinn Cook, DeMarcus Cousins, Stephen Curry, Marcus Derrickson, Kevin Durant, Jacob Evans, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala, Jonas Jerebko, Damian Jones, Damion Lee, Shaun Livingston, Kevon Looney, Alfonzo McKinnie, Klay Thompson

The three-peat was never a given, but it was right there, within reach. As injury-impacted NBA championships go, this one is right up there. With Steph, KD and Klay, the Dubs were the scariest offensive team in the League; but a mix of minor and major injuries to the Splash Bros, Durant and much of the supporting cast in May and June were too much for the Dubs to overcome. Toronto got them in six games in the Finals. You just know they’d love a do-over.

40. 1993-94 Houston Rockets

Coach: Rudy Tomjanovich

Record: 58-24

Roster: Scott Brooks, Matt Bullard, Sam Cassell, Earl Cureton, Mario Elie, Carl Herrera, Robert Horry, Chris Jent, Vernon Maxwell, Hakeem Olajuwon, Richard Petruska, Eric Riley, Larry Robinson, Kenny Smith, Otis Thorpe

Go ahead and attribute Houston’s first title to Michael Jordan’s baseball flirtation. Others have done it, and it’s just wrong. The Rockets excelled at both ends of the court, had all-time great Hakeem Olajuwon and his Dream Shake in the middle and boasted a versatile lineup of fierce gamers like guards Kenny Smith and Vernon Maxwell and rugged Otis Thorpe. Houston outlasted the Knicks in a classic Finals series and deserves a title with no asterisk.

39. 1983-84 Boston Celtics

Coach: KC Jones

Record: 62-20

Roster: Danny Ainge, Larry Bird, Quinn Buckner, ML Carr, Carlos Clark, Gerald Henderson, Dennis Johnson, Greg Kite, Cedric Maxwell, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Scott Wedman

After two years of watching hated rivals Philadelphia and the Lakers hoist the trophy, Boston reclaimed its rightful spot atop the NBA. Or at least that’s how Celtics fans figured it. Call the roll: Larry Bird, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale were up front. Dennis Johnson, Cedric Maxwell and Gerald Henderson handled the backcourt. The Celtics had way more regular-season victories than anyone else and won a thrilling seven-gamer over L.A. to take the title.

38. 2011-12 Miami Heat

Coach: Erik Spoelstra

Record: 46-20

Roster: Joel Anthony, Shane Battier, Chris Bosh, Mario Chalmers, Norris Cole, Eddy Curry, Mickell Gladness, Terrel Harris, Udonis Haslem, Juwan Howard, LeBron James, James Jones, Mike Miller, Dexter Pittman, Ronny Turiaf, Dwyane Wade

Although LeBron James had taken his talents to Miami a year earlier, the Heat hadn’t won a title. In the lockout-shortened ’11-12 campaign, James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh & Co. changed that. The Big Three were a force all season, and a strong supporting cast helped fuel a focused postseason run. The seven-game Eastern Finals series with Boston was a grind, but the Heat dominated OKC in the Finals to take the title.

37. 1972-73 New York Knicks

Coach: Red Holzman

Record: 57-25

Roster: Dick Barnett, Henry Bibby, Bill Bradley, Dave DeBusschere, Walt Frazier, John Gianelli, Phil Jackson, Jerry Lucas, Dean Meminger, Earl Monroe, Luther Rackley, Willis Reed, Tom Riker, Harthorne Wingo

If it’s possible, the Knicks five-game wipeout of L.A. in the Finals was actually an anticlimax after their thrilling Eastern Finals upset of the Celtics. The Knicks were the consummate collection of team players. Backcourt men Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe were practically unguardable. Dave DeBusschere was a force inside, while Bill Bradley patrolled the wings. Jerry Lucas was the League’s best passing big man, and Willis Reed could still hang with the best centers around.

36. 1999-2000 Los Angeles Lakers

Coach: Phil Jackson

Record: 67-15

Roster: Kobe Bryant, John Celestand, Derek Fisher, Rick Fox, Devean George, AC Green, Ron Harper, Robert Horry, Sam Jacobson, Travis Knight, Tyronn Lue, Shaquille O’Neal, Glen Rice,
John Salley, Brian Shaw

This was the first of three straight for the Big Brother-Little Brother Lakers. Shaq and Kobe were together for three seasons before ’99-00, and although their relationship wasn’t always the warmest, their talent was overwhelming. There was just no stopping the Diesel. O’Neal overpowered defenders and swept the boards clean, while Bryant provided offense from all over. Glen Rice was a potent outside weapon, and a cast of veteran winners completed the Laker machine.

35. 1979-80 Los Angeles Lakers

Record: 60-22

Roster: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Ron Boone, Marty Byrnes, Kenny Carr, Jim Chones, Michael Cooper, Don Ford, Spencer Haywood, Brad Holland, Magic Johnson, Mark Landsberger, Butch Lee, Ollie Mack, Norm Nixon, Jamaal Wilkes

Showtime made its NBA debut in Magic Johnson’s rookie season, when the 6-9 point guard brought fun back to the Lakers and kick-started perhaps the League’s most entertaining decade. Johnson revitalized center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and served as the trigger for a raucous L.A. attack that was bolstered by Norm Nixon, Jamaal Wilkes and Jim Chones. The Lakers ruled the West and finished off Philadelphia in six, with Johnson scoring 42 in the Finals-clinching victory.

34. 2014-15 Golden State Warriors

Coach: Steve Kerr

Record: 67-15

Roster: Leandro Barbosa, Harrison Barnes, Andrew Bogut, Stephen Curry, Festus Ezeli, Draymond Green, Justin Holiday, Andre Iguodala, Ognjen Kuzmic, David Lee, Shaun Livingston, James Michael McAdoo, Brandon Rush, Marreese Speights, Klay Thompson

The Warriors’ first title in 40 years—and the first of three in four seasons—was accomplished primarily by the never-ending shooting of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, whose solution to tough defenses was simply to move back another step or two. Draymond Green handled the tough work and never backed down from a soul, while Harrison Barnes and Marreese Speights did what was necessary. The Warriors dumped the Cavs in six to take the crown.

33. 1976-77 Portland Trail Blazers

Coach: Jack Ramsay

Record: 49-33

Roster: Corky Calhoun, Johnny Davis, Herm Gilliam, Bob Gross, Lionel Hollins, Robin Jones, Maurice Lucas, Clyde Mayes, Lloyd Neal, Larry Steele, Dave Twardzik, Wally Walker, Bill Walton

The Blazers weren’t overpowering during the regular season, but by the playoffs, they had become the perfect team, working as a highly efficient unit under coach Jack Ramsay. It all started with Bill Walton, a pivot savant who could pass, score and rebound. Maurice Lucas provided the muscle, with Lionel Hollins, Dave Twardzik, Bob Gross and Larry Steele willingly playing supporting roles. Portland overcame Julius Erving’s high-flying Sixers in the Finals with textbook unselfish basketball.

Read here to find out who made it on the rest of the list, including No. 75-66, 65-55 and 54-44.

Get your copy of SLAM Presents TOP 75 NBA Teams Of All Time

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The post SLAM’s TOP 75 NBA Teams of All Time: No. 43-33 appeared first on SLAM.

“To join such an elite company is amazing,” Howard said in a statement. “Overall, just super stoked to be a part of a family that cares about you on all levels in life.”

BREAKING: WNBA #1 pick Rhyne Howard of the Atlanta Dream has signed a multi-year shoe deal with Jordan Brand. pic.twitter.com/uMXYtimf7x

— Nick DePaula (@NickDePaula) May 5, 2022

Isabelle Harrison of the Dallas Wings and Dana Evans are the other two recent Jordan Brand signees. Evans is the first NBA or WNBA player that has won a championship in Chicago to sign with the brand since Jordan himself.

“I was always a sneakerhead, and now understanding that Jordans are a symbol of excellence and being a part of the Jordan Brand Family is everything I thought it would be and more,” Evans said.

Howard will make her professional debut on May 7, when the Dream takes on the Wings in College Park Center.

The post No.1 Overall Pick Rhyne Howard Signs Multi-Year Deal With Jordan Brand appeared first on SLAM.

Surrounded by her parents Damon and Shwanda, as well as other loved ones, Evans receives the long anticipated, and overdue, call from the Dallas Wings. She has been selected first in the second round with the 13th pick in the draft. For Evans, this beautiful moment came with slight disappointment—she expected to be drafted much higher. 

“Honestly, I was a little disappointed because I thought I should have [gone] earlier,” Evans says looking back. “Everyone that I talked to prior to the draft told me that I was a first round pick, for sure. Early on, top five, lowest would be like top eight that I [would]  fall, so it was surprising to me but it was also a blessing.”

Despite sliding a few spots down the board, the moment was still a dream come true. 

“That’s something that I dreamed about. Hearing my name being called was something that I’ve always wanted. So it was still something that I look at, and thank God for, because like I said, that’s what I worked for my whole life. And I finally did it.”

For Evans, her spirituality is what keeps her optimistic and hopeful no matter what occurs. Being a 5-6 guard (on a “good day” she once tweeted) came with being overlooked, and for her, this was another moment where she knew that trusting the process was key. Throughout her basketball journey, Evans has had to look past perfection and remind herself not to rush things. She believes that God always has a plan and timeline. 

Evans is from Gary, Indiana, a small city that’s sent a handful of players to the pros, including Glenn “Big Dog” Robinson (Bucks), Dick “Skull” Barnett (Knicks) and Wilson Eison (Lakers). Her hometown instilled a sense of toughness in her, as she saw things around her neighborhood that forced her to grow up fast. 

“Growing up in Gary groomed me into the person I am today,” Evans says. “It made me tough, it made me blue collar, It made me appreciate the little things in life as well. Not to take anything for granted. Seeing people that I grew up with get killed or go to prison for something that could have been avoided is sad watching but that was just the reality. I will say it helped me mature quicker than usual. But it made me the person I am today.”

The game has another way of teaching you how to deal with adversity. After spending a little over a month on the Dallas Wings’ roster, Evans was traded to the Chicago Sky, which meant she was less than an hour away from the 219. She found a sense of comfort in the move.

“I think it was the best move for me,” Evans tells SLAM. “Me being close to home, me being able to be the backup point guard for [Courtney] Vandersloot and learn from her is huge.Dallas had a lot of guards so I didn’t think that was the best fit for me. And that’s okay, because it’s a lot of girls out here that’s really good. So, finding the right fit in an organization is important in this League.”

Chicago presented the perfect opportunity for Evans to thrive, as she joined a stacked roster with perennial All-Star veteran Candace Parker, Courtney Vandersloot, as well as elite hooper Diamond DeSheids and Kahleah Copper. Assistant coach Olaf Lange and Parker were two people that really welcomed the rookie with open arms.

“Candace is somebody that I always wanted to get pictures with after games and I never could because it was always so hard,” Evans says. “I always used to go to the Sky games and I used to see Vandersloot, even Sylvia Fowles when [she] was on the Sky. So going from watching them and then playing with them and then also playing against two of my favorite players in the Finals was honestly mind blowing, because it’s like, I’m really here.”

Although Evans’ career started off as somewhat of a roller coaster, it’s been nothing short of full circle moments. She played in 23 regular season games this past season and was named to the WNBA All-Rookie team, averaging 3.9 points and 1.2 dimes. 

The former 2x ACC Player of the Year went from being overlooked in the draft to now sending the Dallas Wings home in the first round of the playoffs and winning a WNBA championship against Diana Taurasi and the Phoenix Mercury in front of 10,000-plus fans in Game 4 of the Finals.

“Honestly, that was the best time of my life, especially being able to do it with my family, with my friends, the people that I grew up with close to home,” Evans says. “It was big because I think when you do it with people that [have] been there with you from start to finish, it makes it a little better just because they know how hard it’s been, they know what I’ve been through—they know how bad I’ve been wanting the championship, and to get it at the highest level was crazy.”

Someone who can truly speak to the testament of Evans’ basketball career and how far she’s come is her former Westside High School coach and Indiana Basketball Hall of Famer Rodney Fisher. He first started coaching Evans when she was in the fifth grade and became her coach again once she started attending Westside. It was her defense that stood out to him most. 

“That’s what sold me,” Fisher tells SLAM. “She was just outstanding and relentless on defense. Couldn’t shoot the ball, didn’t have the handles, but you [could] see her willingness to learn and just how hard she played. Just a great, great attitude. The will to win. The time that she put in, even in the fourth and fifth grade, she put in the time. So everything she’s gotten she’s earned.”

Leading the pack at Westside her junior and senior year of high school, Evans scored 2,832 career points, the fifth-most in state history. As a senior in 2016-17, she helped lead Westside to a 20-7 record while averaging 36 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 6.2 assists. 

She had her options of playing at Purdue, Tennessee or Louisville, and ultimately chose to take her talents to the Cardinals and suit up for head coach Jeff Walz. Her four-year career at UL was nothing short of spectacular: as a freshman, Evans was named to the ACC All-Freshman team in 2018 and the following season she doubled her scoring average from 5.1 points to 10.4, earning ACC Sixth Player of the Year.

That was just the beginning: she turned things up as a junior and became the first player in the history of the conference, men or women, to go from Sixth POY to ACC Player of the Year. As a senior, Evans averaged 20.1 points and played a key role in leading the Cardinals to the Elite Eight.

“Louisville was the stepping stone to get to where I really wanted to go in life. Obviously, graduating college and playing at that level was huge too because that’s something that I wanted to do as a younger kid, and being able to finally do it was huge,” Evans tells SLAM. “Louisville helped groom [me] and made me better on and off the court.”

With all that she’s accomplished throughout her career, Fisher says that Evans hasn’t switched up at all. She’s still just a kid from Gary.

“She’s got so many accolades from high school to college and being drafted, but she’s always level-headed. It’s never about her,” Fisher says. “She still comes over to the house, you know, whenever she can. She makes everybody feel like I’m really something special. And she doesn’t have to do that.” 

Photos via Getty Images.

The post Just a Kid From Gary: How Dana Evans Went From Being ‘Disappointed’ on Draft Night to a WNBA Champion appeared first on SLAM.

Here’s a complete list of the results, as well as a look back at how each Draft pick performed during their latest seasons:

FIRST ROUND:

No. 1: Dallas Wings select Charli Collier (C, Texas)

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Collier is a terrific post player, high level rebounder and rim-protector—which helped her earn Big-12 All-First Team and Big-12 All-First Team Defense honors. The 6’5 center finished the season averaging 19.0 points and 11.3 rebounds per game, while shooting 51.% from the field. In a Sweet 16 upset win over No. 2 seed Maryland, she led the way with 16 points and 11 rebounds.

No. 2: Dallas Wings select Awak Kuier (PF, Finland)

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The 2021 WNBA draft is loaded with international talent, highlighted by Finnish big Awak Kuier who is 6’5 and has a lot of length. While playing in Ragusa Italy, Kuier averaged 8.9 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 1.5 blocks per game.

No. 3: Atlanta Dream select Aari McDonald (PG, Arizona)

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No one can forget Aari McDonald’s historic run in this past year’s NCAA Tournament, as she led Arizona to the championship game vs. Stanford. The senior guard was outstanding all season for the Wildcats as she averaged 20.6 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 4.0 assists. The First-Team and Pac-12 Player of the Year, as well as the conference’s Co-Defensive Player of the Year, is extremely quick off the dribble with tremendous handle and unlimited range. The star guard also poured in 26 points and 7 rebounds in Arizona’s upset Final Four victory vs. UCONN.

No. 4: Indiana Fever select Kyrse Gondrezick (Guard, West Virginia)

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No. 5: Dallas Wings select Chelsea Dungee (G, Arkansas)

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Dungee, who was an All-American this past season, has a pure scoring ability that’ll transition well into the WNBA. The three-time All-SEC player put together her best season as a Razorback as she led the conference in scoring. The red-shirt senior finished the season averaging 22.3 points, 3.9 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 1.5 steals, along with shooting 42.4 % from the field, and 38.7 % from three.

No. 6: New York Liberty select Michaela Onyenwere (F, UCLA)

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In four years with UCLA, Onyenwere was an excellent leader for the Bruins on and off the court. Onyenwere, who averaged 15.3 points, 1.2 assists, and 7.2 rebounds per game in 123 career game career. The unanimous First-Team All Pac-12 player, has the ability to guard one-through-three but also can match up against bigs in the post.

No. 7: Los Angeles Sparks select Jasmine Walker (PF, Alabama)

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Walker is a versatile forward whose game is next-level ready and she can stretch the floor. Walker was named First-Team All-SEC as the forward is capable of scoring inside and beyond the arc. Averaging 19.1 points, and 9.4 rebounds, while shooting .398% from three this past season. Named as a Katrina McClain Award Finalist, Walker posted 22-double-doubles this past season and set the Alabama scoring record with 41 points.

No. 8: Chicago Sky select Shyla Heal (PG, Australia)

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Heal is an all-around guard who can handle the basketball with confidence and score around the rim. She is only 19 but has pro experience since the age of 14 when she became one of the youngest in history to debut in the WNBL’s Queensland Stars in 2015-16. She became the first 18-year-old to score 30 points in a WNBL game since Lauren Jackson and finished her career with 16.7 points and 3.4 assists.

No. 9: Minnesota Lynx select Rennia Davis (SF, Tennessee)

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Davis had a great career at Tennessee and she finished her senior season by averaging 17.3 points and 8.8 rebounds per game. The All-SEC First Team player and AP All-America Honorable Mention has great length and size that will help with the transition into the next level. Davis is also one of the best perimeter defenders in her respected draft class.

No. 10: Los Angeles Sparks select Stephanie Watts (G, North Carolina)

With the 10th pick in the 2021 @WNBA Draft, Sparks select Stephanie Watts (@swatts15) out of @uncwbb. #RootedInLA | #CountIt pic.twitter.com/LA15YYP7YY

— Los Angeles Sparks (@LASparks) April 15, 2021

Watts battled adversity throughout her career with injuries but also proved to WNBA scouts why she can compete at a professional level. Transferring back to UNC after a season-ending injury at USC in 2020, Watts was on a mission in 2021. As a graduate student in the 2021 season, she led UNC in assists, steals, and blocks. She also put up double figures in 12 of the last 13 games. Watts was huge for UNC in the tournament, scoring a season-high 26 points in the win against Clemson. In four seasons, Watts averaged 14.8 points and 2.7 assists.

No. 11: Seattle Storm select Aaliyah Wilson (SG, Texas A&M)

With the 11th pick in the 2021 @WNBA Draft, the Seattle Storm selects @aaliwilson2.#TakeCover pic.twitter.com/1aVYjxLO8s

— Seattle Storm (@seattlestorm) April 16, 2021

Wilson is fresh off a strong four-year career with the Aggies and this season she was the team leader in points per game, blocks, and steals. The 5’11 Wilson averaged 12.7 points and 5.9 rebounds. Earning Second-Team All-SEC honors, Wilson led the team with 18 double digit scoring games. Wilson tore her ACL, MCL, and meniscus back in 2018 but has shown off her toughness and is now ready to take her talents to the next level. No.1 pick

No. 12: Las Vegas Aces select Iliana Rupert (C, France)

With the 12th pick in the @WNBA Draft, the Las Vegas Aces select Iliana Rupert from France.

Welcome to Las Vegas, @Iliana_rups!!#ALLIN pic.twitter.com/klAufVbOKm

— Las Vegas Aces (@LVAces) April 16, 2021

The 19-year-old center is highly fundamental and experienced for a young age. After an impressive season, she was named FIBA Europe Young Women’s Player of the Year. Last season, Rupert was impressive on the offensive end—putting up 11.8 points and 5.4 rebounds in each game.

SECOND ROUND:

No. 13: Dallas Wings Select Dana Evans (G, Louisville)

With the 13th pick, we select…

Dana Evans! @UofLWBB #TakeFlight#WNBADraft pic.twitter.com/9Tsx6Y35Pd

— Dallas Wings (@DallasWings) April 16, 2021

Evans is coming off a strong senior season where she was named ACC Player of the Year for the second consecutive season. Evans averaged 21.0 points and 2.7 rebounds—leading Louisville to a regular-season ACC championship. Evans, who is only the third Cardinal to earn AP All-American, had a memorable career with the Cardinals. Evans will transition well into the WNBA she’s is quick with a great ability to shoot the three at a high level.

No. 14: Las Vegas Aces select Destiny Slocum (G, Arkansas)

.@destinyslocum24 is going #ALLIN in Vegas

Destiny is the fourteenth overall pick in the 2021 #WNBADraft.@RazorbackWBB x #SECWBB pic.twitter.com/nj6vCX55HN

— Southeastern Conference (@SEC) April 16, 2021

Slocum was a highly effective shooter for Arkansas. She had a long journey to the Draft as she transferred twice from Oregon State and Maryland—deciding to finish her collegiate career with the Razorbacks. Slocum was huge and averaged 15.0 points per game shooting 48.3% from the field in her season at Arkansas

No. 15: Atlanta Dream select Raquel Carrera Quintana (F, Spain)

With the 15th pick in the 2021 WNBA Draft, the Atlanta Dream select…

Raquel Carrera from Spain! #GoDream | #WNBDraft pic.twitter.com/EcAJCu0VbH

— Aatlanta Dream (@AtlantaDream) April 16, 2021

The 19-year-old guard is coming off a recent Euro-Cup championship with Valencia Basket Club Sad, after a thrilling one-point victory 82-81 over Reyer Venezia. Throughout the Euro-Cup, Carrera shined: she averaged 12.6 points as she showed off her ability to finish around the rim while also grabbing 7.4 rebounds a game. Carrera also showed off her court awareness as she moves without the ball at a high level. Carrera will now look to make the transition from Spain and the Euros to the WNBA. 

No. 16: Chicago Sky select Natasha Mack (F, Oklahoma State)

With the 16th pick of the @WNBA draft, the Chicago Sky select Natasha Mack from @OSUWBB #skytown | #NoCeiling pic.twitter.com/j6ZOc0YZLT

— Chicago Sky (@chicagosky) April 16, 2021

Mack may possibly be the best rim-protector in this draft as she’s coming off the college season leading the country in the blocks (112). Coming off her senior season where she averaged 19.8 points and 12.5 rebounds, to go along with 3.6 blocks, Mack now owns the OSU all-time blocks record. She was also named Big-12 First Team and unanimously Big-12 All-defensive first team. To go along with that, the Second-Team All-American was also awarded WBCA Defensive Player of the Year.

No. 17: New York Liberty select DiDi Richards (G, Baylor)

Didi Richards (@Deauzya), welcome to New York! #OwntheCrown pic.twitter.com/k8IebRXJAX

— New York Liberty (@nyliberty) April 16, 2021

Richards is known as one of the nation’s top on-ball defenders. After becoming the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year, Richards solidified that this season. She battled an injury that left her temporarily paralyzed. She eventually returned later in the season and finished the year with 7.3 points and 7.2 assists per game.

No. 18: Seattle Storm select Kiana Williams (G, Stanford)

With the 18th pick in the 2021 @WNBA Draft, the Seattle Storm selects @Kiana__W!

Welcome to Seattle, Kiana! #TakeCover pic.twitter.com/ao22edYQvk

— Seattle Storm (@seattlestorm) April 16, 2021

Fresh off a championship season with Stanford, Williams was the perfect leader for the Cardinals during their run. She averaged 14.2 points, 3.8 assists and 1.6 steals during her senior year. Also, Williams set the program record for most threes in school history (311) while also never missing a game in her four-year.

No. 19:  Indiana Fever select Unique Thompson (F, Auburn)

OFFICIAL: With the 19th pick in the 2021 #WNBADraft, we have selected Auburn forward Unique Thompson.#OurWayUnscripted x #FeverDraft pic.twitter.com/ggQ4KWDDnE

— Indiana Fever (@IndianaFever) April 16, 2021

Thompson is considered one of the top rebounders in this draft class after becoming Auburn’s all-time rebounding leader. Last season Thompson had 22 double-doubles and averaged 17.6 points per game complemented by 12.8 rebounds.

No. 20: Connecticut Sun select DiJonai Carrington (F, Baylor)

From the West Coast to the East Coast, @DijonaiVictoria is going to educate both ends of the nation on her skill!

Congrats on your selection to the @ConnecticutSun!#SicEm | #WNBA | #NextLevelBU pic.twitter.com/vfjBHgx387

— Baylor Lady Bears (@BaylorWBB) April 16, 2021

After transferring from Stanford, Carrington had an impressive senior season for Baylor as she averaged 14.1 points and 4.9 rebounds. Coming off the bench for the Bears, Carrington took home the Sixth Player Award and the Newcomer of the Year in the Big-12. At 5’11, Carrington is a physical guard who can get it done on both ends of the floor at a high level.

No. 21: Connecticut Sun select Micaela Kelly (G, Central Michigan)

WHAT’S GOOD ALEAH!
With the 30th pick, the Connecticut Sun select @aleahgoodman! #WNBADraft pic.twitter.com/cya8MHMOls

— Connecticut Sun (@ConnecticutSun) April 16, 2021

During her career at CMU, the highly athletic guard did it all during her college career. Kelly scored 2,173 points while grabbing 618 rebounds and dishing out 513 assists. She made first-team Mid-American twice in 2020 and then 2021.

No. 22: Los Angeles Sparks select Arella Guirantes (G, Rutgers)

The newest member of the #RocFam & Los Angeles Sparks!

Welcome to the Family @Arella_Karinnn! pic.twitter.com/zKfuHTePXp

— Roc Nation Sports (@RocNationSports) April 16, 2021

A highly skilled guard who has a strong ability to finish around the rim with both hands, Guirantes is coming off an impressive season as she averaged 21.3 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 5.2 assists this season. She also recorded Rutgers’ first triple-double since 2011—only the third in program history.

No. 23: Seattle Storm select N’dea Jone (F, Texas A&M)

With the 23rd pick in the 2021 @WNBA Draft, the Seattle Storm selects @NdeaJones!

Welcome to Seattle, N’dea! #TakeCover pic.twitter.com/vhvyz3eB93

— Seattle Storm (@seattlestorm) April 16, 2021

Jones had a terrific career as an Aggie and she leaves Texas A&M as the program’s all-time leader in both rebounds, (1,026) and double-doubles (41). This past season, Jones earned All-SEC First Team for the second time in her career following a strong senior season campaign. She finished the season averaging a double-double with 12.1 points, and 10.3 rebounds per game. The 6’2 forward has a high-level ability to cut to the basket hard and set screens.

THIRD ROUND:

No. 25: New York Liberty select Valerie Higgins (G, Pacific)

Valerie Higgins (@valhiggs22), welcome to New York! #OwntheCrown pic.twitter.com/C1HHIv5W1G

— New York Liberty (@nyliberty) April 16, 2021

The red-shirt senior did a little bit of everything during her three-year career at Pacific. Since arriving in Stockton after transferring from USC, Higgins has become one of the best players in Pacific women’s basketball history. She leaves ranked in the top ten in points, assists, steals, blocks, and free throw percentage while recording 35 double-doubles. This season leading the Tiger in scoring at 16.5, Higgins earned both WCC Defensive Player of the Year and WCC All First-Team honors.

No. 26: Indiana Fever select Chelsey Perry (F, UT Martin)

Valerie Higgins (@valhiggs22), welcome to New York! #OwntheCrown pic.twitter.com/C1HHIv5W1G

— New York Liberty (@nyliberty) April 16, 2021

Perry is the premier small school gem that can make an instant impact. At 6’2” Perry has the size to compete at the next level. Perry averaged 22.9 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 1.7 blocks in her senior season but has been a force since her freshman season. She has now left UT Martin as the program’s all-time shot blocker with 228 career blocks.

No. 27. Atlanta Dream select Lindsey Pulliam (G, Northwestern)

Lindsey Pulliam. To the LEAGUE!!!

Congrats @AtlantaDream. You got a good one. #GoCats x #WNBA pic.twitter.com/tna4xLomwh

— Northwestern Women’s Basketball (@nuwbball) April 16, 2021

Third all-time scoring leader, Lindsey Pulliam, had an amazing career putting up a career total of 2,025 points in four seasons with the Wildcats. Pulliam was selected to All Big-Ten first team and AP All American honorable mention in 2019-2020. She is a confident guard who plays with intensity and can score at every level. The 5’10” guard averaged 15.5 during her senior season.

No. 28: Los Angeles Sparks select Ivana Raca (F, Wake Forest)

With the 28th pick in the 2021 @WNBA Draft, Sparks select Ivana Raca (@ivana_raca) out of @WakeWBB. #RootedInLA | #CountIt pic.twitter.com/YIXtlU0tLZ

— Los Angeles Sparks (@LASparks) April 16, 2021

The senior out of Belgrade, Serbia was a double-double machine during her last two seasons at Wake Forest. Raca was just as impressive with her 12 points and 13 rebounds performance against No. 1 Louisville—proving her worth against top tier competition. She looks to bring her versatility to the next level.

No. 29. New York Liberty select Marine Fauthoux (G, France)

Marine Fauthoux (@fauthoux_marine), welcome to New York! #OwntheCrown pic.twitter.com/b7m0QCTsnx

— New York Liberty (@nyliberty) April 16, 2021

Fauthoux is a 5-foot-9 point guard from France who averaged 4.3 points, 1.3 rebounds and 1.5 assists for the LDLC ASVEL Feminin in the EuroLeague this season. With a high basketball IQ, Fauthoux is acclaimed for being a “team-first” guard who can lead her team.

No. 30. Connecticut Sun select Aleah Goodman (G, Oregon State)

WHAT’S GOOD ALEAH!
With the 30th pick, the Connecticut Sun select @aleahgoodman! #WNBADraft pic.twitter.com/cya8MHMOls

— Connecticut Sun (@ConnecticutSun) April 16, 2021

The senior guard has had an outstanding four-year career with the Beavers. Known by Oregon State fans as “AL3AH”—Goodman is the school’s all-time leader in career threes at .437%. The first-team all Pac-12 player averaged 16.2 points and 3.2 rebounds per game.

No. 31: Indiana Fever select Florencia Chagas (G, Argentina)

OFFICIAL: With the 31st pick in the 2021 #WNBADraft, we have selected Florencia Chagas from Argentina.#OurWayUnscripted x #FeverDraft pic.twitter.com/94C1JHtrMo

— Indiana Fever (@IndianaFever) April 16, 2021

Chagas was a standout in Europe who recorded the first triple-double in history at a women’s U17 World Cup. She can play both the guard and point guard positions comfortably, and has been crowned the “jewel of Argentina women’s basketball.” At just 19-years-old, she is now the first Argentine player to be drafted into the WNBA and averaged 9.4 points, 3.1 rebounds, 1.6 assists, and 1.1 steals in 23.8 minutes per game with the USE Rossa Scotti.

No. 32. Phoenix Mercury select Ciera Johnson (C, Texas A&M)

With the 32nd pick in the 2021 @WNBA Draft, the Phoenix Mercury select Ciera Johnson from @AggieWBB!

Welcome to The Valley, @_CieraJ! pic.twitter.com/qDl1MFgeNq

— Phoenix Mercury (@PhoenixMercury) April 16, 2021

Johnson was also a double-double machine over at Texas A&M, putting up a career 21 double doubles putting her fourth on the list in Aggie history. She had a breakout game in her senior season opener where she finished with 18 points and 18 rebounds against Lamar University. She continued to dominate on the boards all season and finished off the season averaging 10.5 points and 7.6 rebounds a game.

No. 33. Indiana Fever select Maya Caldwell (G, Georgia)

OFFICIAL: With the 33rd pick in the 2021 #WNBADraft, we have selected Georgia guard Maya Caldwell.#OurWayUnscripted x #FeverDraft pic.twitter.com/CBUnMKgqBr

— Indiana Fever (@IndianaFever) April 16, 2021

Caldwell, who is only the 24th Bulldog in the program’s history to be drafted into the W, left a legacy at Georgia. She led her squad to the SEC tournament game for the first time since 2004 and snagged Georgia’s highest NCAA Tournament seeding since 2007. Throughout her four years, she’s had 37 double-doubles.

No. 34. Los Angeles Sparks select Aina Ayuso (G, Spain)

With the 34th pick in the 2021 @WNBA Draft, Sparks select Aina Ayuso (@ainaayus) out of Spain. #RootedInLA | #CountIt pic.twitter.com/IGkuqeFhQA

— Los Angeles Sparks (@LASparks) April 16, 2021

Ayuso suited up for the Baloncesto Zaragoza in Spain this season, where she averaged 3.9 points and 2.7 rebounds in 19 minutes per game. With a strong court vision and talent, she’s had experience playing with pros in Spain and in the NCAA—where she played alongside superstar Sabrina Ionescu over at Oregon during the 2017-18 season.

No. 35. Seattle Storm select Natalie Kucowski (F, Lafayette)

With the 35th pick in the 2021 WNBA Draft, the @seattlestorm has selected our very own @nataliekucowski!

Congratulations Natalie!#TakeCover | #RollPards pic.twitter.com/QE8icnM5Tb

— Lafayette WBB (@LafayetteWBB) April 16, 2021

The senior from Philadelphia averaged a double-double with 17.8 points and 13.3 rebounds a game. Kucowski was efficient on both sides of the court, during her 4-year career and will look to continue to improve on her game as she makes the transition into the WNBA.

No. 36. Las Vegas Aces select Kionna Jeter (G, Towson)

Kionna Jeter is the first Tiger in program history to be drafted into the @WNBA

Congrats to @KMeloooo on being selected by the @LVAces with the 36th overall pick!

: https://t.co/DAXUsu4URq #UnitedWeRoar | #WNBADraft | #ALLIN pic.twitter.com/Tbax8exC1B

— Towson Women’s Hoops (@Towson_WBB) April 16, 2021

Jeter is the first player from Towson to be drafted in the W. That’s not the only accolade she’s snagged during her three-year career: the 2020-21 CAA Preseason Player of the Year is also the first from Towson to be named All-CAA First Team three years in a row, and she won back-to-back CAA All-Defensive Team honors.

—

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Jack Ravitz is a Sports Media and Journalism major at Sacred Heart University, currently interning for SLAM. Follow him on Twitter: @jravs13 and Instagram: jravs_13

Kobe Blackwell is a Sports Journalism major at Arizona State University, currently interning for SLAM. Follow him on Instagram: @kobe_blackwell.

The post 2021 WNBA Draft: Complete Results 📈 appeared first on SLAM.

But this development doesn’t mean college players must let go of their NBA dreams. In fact, there is a growing contingent of players carving out long and distinguished NBA careers despite not being drafted.

Since the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament in Virginia has long featured the best senior players in the country, and many seniors are the same players being passed over in the Draft, it’s not surprising that several 2016 PIT alumni were top performers in the just-concluded NBA summer leagues in Orlando, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas.

Established NBA players like Wes Matthews, Jose Barea, Jeremy Lin, Anthony Morrow, Anthony Toliver, CJ Watson and more recent success stories like Kent Bazemore and Robert Covington all played at the PIT. Not one was chosen in the NBA Draft.

Alums from this year’s PIT were on nearly every team roster in the summer leagues. Bryn Forbes, who shot over 48 percent from three-point range during his senior season at Michigan State, did not get drafted, but the San Antonio Spurs were (not surprisingly) smart enough to snap him up for their summer league units in Salt Lake and Vegas and he delivered what was expected: pinpoint three-point shooting.

Here is a brief look at 10 PIT alums from this season and how they fared this summer:

Bryn Forbes (6-3, 190), Michigan State (San Antonio Spurs)

Unlike many of his PIT brethren, Forbes was given ample opportunity to show his team what he had. In eight games, he shot 40.6 percent from three-point range and 94.4 percent from the line, averaging 11.6 ppg in about 25 minutes per game of playing time. Forbes tallied 23 points vs Philadelphia, hitting 8-10 from the field and 4-5 from three-point range. Forbes has textbook catch-and-shoot mechanics but also understands when not to shoot, which could get him on the court with veteran players sooner. The Spurs signed Forbes to a partially guaranteed contract, and he has an excellent chance to secure a roster spot in the fall.

Abdul Nader (6-6, 230), Iowa State (Boston Celtics)

Nader was the last of six Celtics picks on draft night, chosen 58th overall after a solid if unspectacular two-year career at Iowa State. He didn’t see many minutes in Salt Lake City, but when the Celtics switched venues to Vegas, Nader caught fire. He scored in double figures in all five games in Vegas, hitting 10-21 from three-point range and averaging 12.8 ppg. Nader loves to use his quickness on the baseline to attack the basket, but he was a reliable three-point threat from the corners in Vegas. Boston’s roster is nowhere near locked in, and Nader still might spend next season in Europe or the D-League, but he made the Celtics take note of him.

Mike Tobey (7-0, 253), Virginia (Charlotte, Utah)

Tobey played five games for Charlotte in the Orlando Summer League, then jumped on a plane to Vegas and joined Utah’s contingent for six more games, playing on consecutive days for two different teams across four time zones. The 7-footer got a lot more run from the Hornets, delivering 10 points and 6.8 rebounds per game, shooting 66.7 percent from the field while also adding 1.6 blocks per game. In Vegas playing for the Jazz, Tobey played less, but was still very effective, shooting 52 percent from the field and contributing 5 points and 4.3 rebounds in just 15 minutes per game. Tobey also made an impact defensively, showing the ability to both defend in the post and also provide rim protection against drivers. Tobey looked like a future NBA player.

Maodo Lo (6-3, 194), Columbia (Philadelphia 76ers)

The native of Germany is a rare coveted rookie among European league teams, but he joined the 76ers for both the Salt Lake and Vegas events in a bid to drum up more interest among NBA teams. Lo has high-level experience playing with Dirk Nowitzki and Dennis Schroeder on the German National Team, and it showed during his clever play in summer league. Lo shot 39.6 percent from three-point range in seven summer league games, hitting at least one three in six of his seven games. Playing at both guard spots, Lo showed an aggressive mindset he didn’t bring with him to Portsmouth, and it served him well. Lo still needs to improve his handle and his overall strength, but he did enough to intrigue NBA teams that he won’t be forgotten if he does elect to play in Europe.

Patricio Garino (6-6, 211), George Washington (Orlando Magic)

Since Garino did not play in Las Vegas, it might be easy to forget how good he looked with Orlando Summer League champion Orlando White. Garino, who helped GW to the NIT championship as a senior, did a little bit of everything, delivering as complete a performance as any player in Orlando. He averaged 12 points, 3.3 assists, 3.3 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game, shooting 38.5 percent from three-point range. Garino reached double figures in every game, played physical defense and got wherever he wanted to on the floor with the ball despite not possessing great foot speed. San Antonio’s Kyle Anderson has found a niche in the NBA and Garino, albeit shorter than Anderson, demonstrated many of the same assets.

Jameel Warney (6-8, 260), Stony Brook (Dallas Mavericks)

Warney isn’t a stretch-4, but rather a throwback to the type of power forward the NBA used to value: a physically strong rebounder and defender who can finish around the basket. Warney didn’t receive big minutes from Dallas, but he did a lot when he got into the games. In just over 16 minutes per game, he averaged 6.5 points and 6.5 rebounds per game, shooting 59.3 percent from the field and adding one blocked shot per game. Warney averaged 10.8 rebounds per game at Stony Brook, with several double-figure rebound performances against major conference teams. It’s true that rebounding is one skill that seems to translate well from college to the NBA game, and Warney is a proven rebounder.

Egidijus Mockevicius (6-10, 237), Evansville (Brooklyn Nets)

Mockevicius was not a big name in college basketball circles, unless the conversation turned to rebounding. The native of Lithuania led the country with 14.0 rebounds per game and was also ninth in the country in field-goal percentage (63.7 percent). He was originally scheduled to play for Dallas in the Summer League, but Brooklyn aced out the Mavericks with a partially guaranteed contract and invitation to training camp. Mockevicius got into two games for Brooklyn, with 8 points and 5 rebounds in 16 minutes vs Cleveland, and 9 points, 5 rebounds and 2 blocks in 16 minutes vs Washington. Mockevicius is a very smart player, knows how to play around the basket and isn’t opposed to getting physical. He has a legitimate chance to make Brooklyn’s roster.

David Walker (6-6, 200), Northeastern (Miami Heat)

Walker’s summer league stint was unusual in terms of its duration. He played in 11 games for Miami, five in Orlando and six in Las Vegas. Walker often played point guard during his career at Northeastern, but his position in the NBA, given his height and relative lack of foot speed, must be shooting guard. After a slow start in Orlando, Walker started playing more minutes and shooting the three-pointer with accuracy. In 11 games, he shot 17-40 (42.5 percent) from three-point range, averaging 6.0 points in 21 minutes per game. He hit at least two three-pointers in seven of 11 games, with a personal best of four three-pointers vs OKC. Walker shot 41.3 percent from three as a senior in college, so his marksmanship shouldn’t be a surprise. His shooting ability makes him a viable candidate to wear an NBA uniform in the near future.

Andrew Andrews (6-2, 200), Washington (Los Angeles Clippers)

Andrews knows how to put the ball in the basket, as evidenced by his 20.9 ppg average as a senior at Washington. Playing for the Clippers in Orlando, Andrews put together several solid performances, averaging 11.0 points, 4.4 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 2.2 steals in 28.6 minutes per game. Andrews got to the line more than five times per game in Orlando, shooting 77 percent from there, and NBA veterans broadcasting his games (Greg Anthony, Vince Carter) noted his ability to get into the lane and create plays both for himself and teammates. Andrews must be a combo guard to earn a look from the NBA, and he took a big first step in that direction in Orlando.

Devin Thomas (6-9, 248), Wake Forest (Minnesota Timberwolves)

Thomas collected more than 1,000 rebounds in his four-year career at Wake Forest, finishing fourth in school history in that category. He’s never been a polished offensive player, relying on a lefty hook for most of his points, but he’s always rebounded, and he did that for the Wolves. In 22.2 minutes per game, Thomas averaged 5.2 points and 7.5 rebounds per game. Thomas averaged more than three offensive rebounds per game in Vegas, showing ability in an area most NBA teams seek. Thomas could be a double-double machine in a top European league, but his work in Vegas might get him a shot at an NBA training camp.

Others of Note: Isaiah Cousins, Oklahoma (Sacramento); Kyle Collinsworth, BYU (Dallas); Matt Costello, Michigan State (Atlanta); Gabe York, Arizona (Charlotte); Retin Obasohan, Alabama (Sacramento).

Chris Ekstrand has written about the NBA Draft for more than 30 years. He has written about college and professional basketball for Sports Illustrated, The Associated Press and the Newark Star-Ledger. He is the former Editor of the NBA Draft Guide, and worked in the NBA league office during the golden years of Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls. Today, he is a consultant to NBA Basketball Operations and spends the college basketball season scouting the ACC, SEC, Atlantic 10 and other major conferences.

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But which states can lay claim to being the first home to the best three-point shooters throughout all of NBA/ABA history? That’s to say, on the whole, what states have produced the most accurate (and most errant) bombers in each league?

On the surface, California—native state for the likes of Korver, Thompson, Reggie Miller and Tracy Murray—would seem like a top contender here. But Cali has also produced long-range bricklayers like Russell Westbrook and Antoine Wright, who drag down the overall three-point percentage produced by all its native NBA players. So, California actually ranks No. 12.

The most sharpshooting states are mostly in the rural north, where there’s not much else to do but spend endless hours arcing away in an empty gym, perfecting the game’s bedrock skill. It also helps if you’re, like, your state’s only NBA player.

First thing’s first: New Hampshire? No. 1?

Yes. It’s true. The Granite State rocks this metric on the burly, flamethrowin’ shoulders of Matt Bonner, forward for the defending champion San Antonio Spurs and the third-most likely team to win the 2015 West Conference crown. To this day the Red Rocket is the one and only NBA player NH has ever produced. Some say this is cheating. But the fact Concord isn’t a blacktop mecca isn’t New Hampshire’s fault.

We get into multiple NBA native son territory with most other states. It should be noted some of the game’s great shooters moved a lot in childhood. Steve Kerr, for instance, was born in Lebanon. So although he high schooled in California, he doesn’t help boost that state’s numbers. And because Trajan Langdon just had to be born in California before moving to Alaska early on, Alaska drops a couple of spots. Likewise, Steph Curry’s Akron birth and Charlotte upbringing means North Carolina’s loss, but Ohio’s gain.

With that out of the way, let’s proceed. Below are the two most accurate three-point shooters born in each state. Keep in mind:

– Only players with a career minimum of 200 three-point field goals made are included.

– Top two players ranked by who has the higher percentage, to a tenth of a percentage point (not shown)

– All info, current through February 17, 2015, is from basketball-reference.com and Evin Demirel’s sports blog.

Alabama

Wesley Person 42% (1150 of 2754)

Chuck Person 36% (1220 of 3370)

Alaska

Mario Chalmers 36% (628 of 1723)

(No qualifying No. 2 player. No other Alaskan-born player at all, really.)

Arizona

Sean Elliott 38% (589 of 1572)

Jerryd Bayless 35% (300 of 845)

Arkansas

Mike Conley 38% (630 of 1677)

Derek Fisher 37% (1248 of 3341)

California

Jason Kapono 43% (457 of 1054)

Kyle Korver 43% (1669 of 3857)

Colorado

Chauncey Billups 39% (1830 of 4725)

Darrick Martin 34% (350 of 1030)

Connecticut

Scott Burrell 37% (339 of 909)

Ryan Gomes 35% (334 of 956)

Delaware

Stephen Graham 31% (53 of 172)

Joey Graham 30% (54 of 180)

DC

Tim Legler 43% (260 of 603)

Roger Mason 38% (595 of 1549)

Florida

James Jones 40% (668 of 1676)

Mitch Richmond 39% (1326 of 3417)

Georgia

Dale Ellis 40% (1719 of 4266)

Jodie Meeks 37% (599 of 1616)

Hawaii

Cedric Ceballos 31% (235 of 760)

(No qualifying No. 2 player)

Idaho

Luke Ridnour 35% (576 of 1644)

Illinois

Steve Novak 43% (564 of 1301)

Anthony Parker 40% (596 of 1474)

Indiana

Courtney Lee 39% (1825 of 4033)

Scott Skiles 38% (524 of 1381)

Iowa

Matt Bullard 38% (599 of 1561)

Kirk Hinrich 38% (1134 of 3023)

(Harrison Barnes shares No. 2 spot in percentage, but has fewer makes)

Kansas

Maurice Evans 36% (426 of 1172)

Earl Watson 32% (502 of 1555)

Kentucky

Allan Houston 40% (1305 of 3247)

Darel Carrier 38% (398 of 1055)

Louisiana

Eldridge Recasner 41% (239 of 584)

Rashard Lewis 39% (1787 of 4625)

Maine

N/A

(Jeff Turner, with 73 makes on 34%, is only Maine-born NBA player)

Maryland

Dennis Scott 40% (2962 of 7111)

Danny Ferry 39% (677 of 1724)

Massachusetts

Dana Barros 41% (1090 of 2652)

Vinny Del Negro 36% (243 of 677)

Michigan

BJ Armstrong 43% (436 of 1026)

Glen Rice 40% (1559 of 3896)

Minnesota

Brad Lohaus 36% (392 of 1086)

Devean George 34% (427 of 1246)

Mississippi

Mo Williams 38% (998 of 2611)

Lindsey Hunter 36% (1075 of 2984)

Missouri

Bradley Beal 41% (304 of 751)

Brandon Rush 40% (411 of 1018)

Montana

N/A

(Adam Morrison, with 124 makes on 33% shooting, is closest)

Nebraska

Fred Hoiberg 40% (373 of 941)

Nevada

Pat Garrity 40% (631 of 1587)

CJ Watson 38% (400 of 1045)

New Hampshire

Matt Bonner 41% (773 of 1870)

New Jersey

Troy Murphy 39% (613 of 1578)

Mike Bibby 38% (1577 of 3999)

New Mexico

N/A

(Andre Roberson, with 16 makes on 23% shooting, is closest)

New York

Danny Green 42% (550 of 1326)

Brent Barry 41% (1395 of 3442)

North Carolina

Hubert Davis 44% (725 of 1651)

Anthony Morrow 42% (611 of 1450)

North Dakota

N/A

Ohio

Stephen Curry 43% (1066 of 2462)

Eric Piatkowski 40% (2044 of 4711)

Oklahoma

Mark Price 40% (976 of 2428)

Brent Price 39% (363 of 938)

Oregon

Kyle Singler 38% (240 of 633)

Danny Ainge 38% (1002 of 2651)

Pennsylvania

Wayne Ellington 39% (322 of 834)

Matt Carroll 38% (344 of 896)

Rhode Island

N/A

(Joe Hassett, who made 194 on 34% shooting, comes closest)

South Carolina

Michael Dickerson 40% (288 of 712)

(Dickerson will likely be soon surpassed by Milwaukee Buck Khris Middleton)

Pete Chilcutt 38% (188 of 494)

South Dakota

Mike Miller 41% (1558 of 3821)

Jon Sundvold 39% (226 of 576)

Tennessee

JJ Redick 40% (789 of 1990)

Shawne Williams 35% (271 of 786)

Texas

Daniel Gibson 41% (578 of 1419)

Wesley Matthews 40% (887 of 2221)

Utah

Byron Scott 37% (775 of 2093)

Tom Chambers 31% (227 of 740)

Virginia

Dell Curry 40% (1235 of 3098)

Cory Alexander 35% (507 of 1508)

Washington

John Stockton 38% (845 of 2203)

Martell Webster 38% (785 of 2045)

West Virginia

OJ Mayo 38% (778 of 2059)

Jason Williams 36% (957 of 2673)

Wisconsin

Terry Porter 39% (1297 of 336)

Caron Butler 36% (706 of 2052)

OK, enough of the nerdilization. Forget the metrics for sec. In your opinion, who’s the best pure shooter, the most talented shooter, the one with the sweetest stroke—that your state has ever produced?

The post American Snipers appeared first on SLAM.

Simeon vs. King:

The city’s two most famous programs started their rise to success at approximately the same point, as the late Bob Hambric began his tenure at Simeon midway through the 1979-80 season and King’s Landon “Sonny” Cox got the job in 1981. Simeon won its first state title in 1984—the Wolverines were led by the late, great Ben Wilson—after defeating King in the city semifinals, a victory made sweeter because Hambric was reportedly upset over big man Laurent Crawford transferring from Simeon to King. The Jaguars got revenge in 1986, as the Marcus Liberty-led King handed Simeon its first defeat at the hands of a fellow Public League team in 69 games in the city championship, then went on to its first state title. It became a familiar pattern, as the South Side schools matched up repeatedly in the Public League playoffs. King caught the Ws in ’87, ’89, ’91, ’94 and ’99, and Simeon won the high-stakes affair in ’88.

Crane vs. Marshall:

These two West Side schools don’t have much love for each other, whether Patrick Beverley and Sherron Collins are facing off or if either of the two historic programs are in the midst of a down year. Going back to 1955, Marshall and Crane have battled for the city title six times, with Marshall holding a 4-2 head-to-head advantage and a 12-11 lead in overall Public League championships. Both teams have been “Downstate” multiple times, but only Marshall has taken home the crown—on three separate occasions, most recently in ’08. But regardless of the year, when these two squads match up, it’s guaranteed to be a packed house with neighborhood pride on the line.

Westinghouse vs. King:

While other schools such as Whitney Young intermittently popped up as contenders throughout the ’90s, the decade was dominated by Westinghouse of the West Side and
perennial South Side power King. They matched up five times in city-title games, both to start and end the decade in 1990 and 1999, along with a three-year stretch in ’92, ’93 and ’94. King won a trio of the clashes, but Westinghouse—best known for producing pros like Mark Aguirre and Eddie Johnson—was no slouch in its own right. Under coaches like Frank Lollino and Roy Condotti (and later, Chris Head and Quitman Dillard, prior to the school de-emphasizing sports and becoming a magnet school), Westinghouse, for decades, was right up there with King and Simeon as far as being a household name in the Chi.

Evanston vs. New Trier:

The fact that these two schools in Chicago’s north suburbs meet annually at a neutral site, Northwestern University, is a testament to this rivalry’s intensity and drawing power. Evanston, immediately north of Chicago, won the 1968 state title and fell to Ben Wilson-led Simeon in the 1984 championship game, despite the presence of future Purdue star and NBA player Everette Stephens. Neighboring New Trier, in tony Winnetka, lost to Chicago’s Hirsch, starring John Stockton’s Utah Jazz predecessor Rickey Green, in 1973. Both teams are usually two of the strongest squads in the ’burbs, and when they play at NU’s Welsh-Ryan Arena, the games tend to get heated, even when the likes of a Stephens or sharpshooter Matt Lottich, a New Trier product, aren’t around.

Proviso East vs. Proviso West:

Proviso East is the crown jewel of basketball programs in Chicago’s western suburbs, with greats like Doc Rivers, Jim Brewer (Doc’s uncle), Michael Finley’s “Three Amigos” team (high school teammates and fellow NBA Draft picks Sherrell Ford and Donnie Boyce, the latter being the school’s current coach), Dee Brown and Shannon Brown among the notable alums.
The Pirates, whose iconic sleeved jerseys were better looking than anything the NBA has offered recently, are a true powerhouse, having won four state championships, producing college prospects yearly and as mentioned, sending several players to the League. Proviso West is better known for hosting perhaps the area’s biggest holiday tournament, but it periodically has some players, such as current Houston Rocket Robert Covington, last season’s D-League Rookie of the Year. Still a neighborhood rivalry between Maywood and Hillside, while Proviso East doesn’t have much competition among local schools, at least there’s some bragging rights on the line when it faces Proviso West.

Simeon vs. Morgan Park:

Under Bob Hambric protégé Rob Smith, Simeon has risen to new heights, winning an unprecedented six championships—two in a row with Derrick Rose, four straight with Jabari Parker—to become known as the present-day rulers of the Public League. Although Whitney Young, which featured the likes of incoming Duke freshman Jahlil Okafor and Michael Jordan’s son Marcus, might have more of a national name, Simeon’s current rival is Red-South foe Morgan Park. Coached by Nick Irvin, son of the late Mac Irvin, godfather of Chicago’s basketball scene, the Mustangs have made a name for themselves, having won back-to-back state titles. The annual “Battle of Vincennes” (the Avenue where both schools are located) is intense, as many of the players have known each other for years and play AAU together, but the rivalry shouldn’t be blamed for the 2013 shooting death of 17-year-old Tyrone Lawson, a spectator and Morgan Park student.

East Aurora vs. West Aurora:

An annual matchup between two schools in the same west-suburban town, this rivalry is just as contested as those in the city, if not more so. West Aurora, which won a state title back in 2000, has traditionally been the stronger program, as longtime Blackhawks coach Gordie Kerkman is regarded as one of the best in the entire region, having produced players such as Kenny Battle of “Flyin’ Illini” fame. But East Aurora has had its moments, too, and the Tomcats have seen success when stars like current UConn guard Ryan Boatright played for the program.

Marshall vs. Whitney Young:

This one is on the girls’ side, as the two Red-West rivals battle annually to be the best in their conference and city, though due to having different classifications, they avoid each other in the state tournament. In recent years, Whitney Young, which has produced a slew of top collegiate recruits under Corry Irvin, has been the better program, winning six consecutive city titles and two state championships. But led by the legendary Dorothy Gaters, Marshall, the alma mater of WNBA star Cappie Pondexter, is the standard-bearer, having won 23 city championships and eight state titles.

Thornton vs. The South Suburbs:

Similar to Proviso East, Thornton has been the most consistent program in its neck of the woods. A difference, however, is that Chicago’s South Suburbs, where Dwyane Wade attended school, are historically much more competitive, with teams like Thornridge (alma mater of Quinn Buckner), Thornwood (Eddy Curry’s school), Bloom (schoolboy legend Raymond McCoy starred here) and even Homewood-Flossmoor (where Julian Wright became a top recruit) having their moments in the sun. But Thornton has stood the test of time, going back to Cincinnati star and ABA player Lloyd Batts in the late ’60s and early ’70s, recently resigned Charlotte Bobcats exec Rod Higgins and Melvin Ely, who teamed up with NFL players Antwaan Randle El, Tai Streets and Napoleon Harris to go Downstate and knock off Kevin Garnett, Ronnie Fields and Farragut back in the 1995 state tournament.

Chicago vs. Chicago (Red-West, Red-South, Red-Central):

If you can’t tell by now, a lot of Chicago’s rivalries happen in cycles, based on a certain crop of players, individual coaches and of course, the unique make-up of the city. The Red-West might have preserved its traditional legacy the longest, as Westinghouse’s reign could easily be challenged by the likes of Farragut (KG’s alma mater), Marshall and Crane, depending on the year. Even with “The ’House” no longer a power, the other three still go at it, with Whitney Young, a magnet school, taking over Westinghouse’s old role. In the Red-South, while Simeon faces stiff competition from aforementioned Morgan Park and others, it’s nothing like the old days, when Vocational (Juwan Howard), Carver (Tim Hardaway, Terry Cummings), South Shore (Paul McPherson) and Julian (Byron Irvin) all had it going simultaneously. The Red-Central, which has been dominated by Curie (Cliff Alexander) in recent years, used to be King’s domain, but with DuSable (Mo Cheeks), Robeson (Bo Ellis, the Pargo brothers), Dunbar (Billy Harris, Ronnie Lester) and others each having tough teams in various seasons, it wasn’t a cakewalk.

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The post Trophies appeared first on SLAM.

 Grizzlies (45-31) 100, Nuggets (33-43) 92

Memphis bullied the Nuggets to get a crucial win – really, every game is crucial in these next 10 days – as they chase a spot in the postseason. The Grizzlies’ front court pair of Marc Gasol (24 points) and Zach Randolph (20 points, 15 rebounds, 3 blocks) were dominant, controlling the game from the high- and low-post alike. MIke Conley had 21 of his own as the Grizzlies held ground for the final spot in the Playoff race.

Randy Foye led Denver with 21 points, also grabbing 9 rebounds, while Ty Lawson came off the bench for disciplinary reasons and netted 16 points, with most of them coming at the free throw line, where he was 10-12.

Bobcats (38-38) 91, Magic (21-55) 80

The Bobcats reached .500 for the first time in more than four months, topping the Magic at home. Al Jefferson was on the receiving end of MVP chants and, while he has virtually no shot at the award, he’s certainly been invaluable for Charlotte. The post professor put up 29 points and 16 rebounds, hitting 13-24 from the field. The Bobcats evened their record for the first time since Nov. 20, when they stood at 6-6. Kemba Walker had 13 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists for the triple-double, while Anthony Tolliver went 4-5 from 3 off the bench, finishing with 13 points.

Victor Oladipo paced the Magic with 21 points off the bench, but Orlando struggled against the Bobcats’ stingy defense, hitting 35 percent as a team. Nikola Vucevic was a late scratch for the Magic.

Raptors (44-32) 102, Pacers (53-24) 94

Even without two starters, the Raptors were able to close out the Pacers in a statement win. Toronto held off a late charge from Indiana in a tense, Playoff-like matchup, punching back with a 10-0 run to close the game after the Pacers took a two-point lead. Terrence Ross hit for 24, while Jonas Valanciunas put up 22 points and 9 boards and DeMar DeRozan had 20 and 9. The Raps were without Kyle Lowry and Amir Johnson, but didn’t let it phase them against their potential second-round foe.

The Pacers missed their final seven shot attempts, as they yet again failed to close out a game due to poor execution. Paul George scored 26 points on 7-17 shooting and David West had 21. Indy has dropped three of their last four games against fellow Eastern Conference Playoff teams.

Hawks (33-42) 117, Cavaliers (31-46) 98

On the verge of losing their Playoff spot – which GM Danny Ferry has proclaimed he’s indifferent toward – the Hawks crushed Cleveland, one of the teams chasing them. Mike Scott scored 26 points, hitting the 20-point mark for the first time in a month, and Jeff Teague put up 20 points and 12 assists to lead Atlanta. Paul Millsap had a double-double of his own with 16 points and 11 rebounds, chipping in 6 assists as well.

The loss all but ends the Cavaliers’ hopes at sneaking into the postseason, as they now sit three games behind the Hawks for 8th after getting swept 3-0 in the season series. Dion Waiters led the Cavs with 23 points and Spencer Hawes put up 16 points and 10 boards. Kyrie Irving finished with 13 points in his second game back from a biceps tear.

76ers (17-59) 111, Celtics (23-53) 102

Philadelphia is setting the league ablaze (relatively) from the bottom of the standings, winning their second game in four tries following their record-tying losing streak. Michael Carter-Williams posted 24 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists in his hometown and Henry Sims scored a career-high 24 points, hitting 14-18 shots at the free throw line, while pulling down 9 rebounds. Thaddeus Young and Elliott Williams both scored 15 points for Philly.

The Celtics have dropped seven straight games, and lost to the Sixers for the second time in a row – they were the last team Philly beat before their losing streak. Rajon Rondo recorded a triple-double with 11 points, 11 rebounds and 16 assists to lead Boston.

Nets (41-34) 116, Pistons (27-49) 104

Brooklyn unleashed a barrage of 3-pointers on the hapless Pistons, coasting to a home win that allowed them to get some rest. The Nets connected on 15-31 from deep, with Mirza Teletovic (20 points) dropping in 6-10 shots from beyond the arc. Shaun Livingston topped the scoring column with 23 points on 11-14 shooting, getting the longest run on the team with just 32 minutes played. Paul Pierce had 17 points on 6-9 shooting (3-5 on 3-pointers) and Marcus Thornton dropped 15 points off the bench and hit 3-5 from long range.

Andre Drummond was a beast for the Pistons, going for 23 points and 18 rebounds – half of them on the offensive end. Josh Smith put up 17 points on 7-13 shooting, knocking down a whopping 4-8 of his jumpers. As it has been all season, Detroit’s defense was a mess; the Nets scorched them for 60.5 percent shooting on the night, getting whatever look they desired.

Timberwolves (38-37) 122, Heat (52-23) 121 (2OT)

The Heat failed to put the Timberwolves away and fell short when a jumper by Ray Allen (10 points) drew iron at the buzzer of the second overtime. Kevin Love (28 points, 11 rebounds) missed potential game-winners at the end of regulation and the first OT, but scored 9 of his points after regulation ended to lead the Wolves. All five Minnesota starters reached double figures in scoring, including a double-double from Ricky Rubio (14 points, 13 assists) while Chase Budinger dropped in 24 off the bench.

Miami missed several opportunities to close game out, two of them with Mario Chalmers missing a free throw at the end of both the fourth quarter and the first OT. Chris Bosh (24 points, 9 rebounds) drained a clutch 3-pointer to tie the game with 10 seconds to go in the second overtime, but Norris Cole committed a silly foul on a Corey Brewer jumper right after. LeBron James struggled at times in the second half, showing some signs of frustration, but still finished with 34 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals while hitting 12-24 from the field. He also became the youngest player ever to reach 23,000 career points – possibly the reason he rocked his “Happy” Pharrell hat after the game. The Heat remain even with Indiana at the top of the East.

Wizards (40-36) 90, Knicks (33-44) 89

Bradley Beal showed why it won’t be long before both members of the Wizards’ backcourt are considered All Stars, drilling a game-winning jumper in between three Knicks to seal a win for Washington, the second time this year he’s done that against New York. Beal finished with 28 points to lead the Wiz, shooting 12-22 despite going 1-8 from deep. John Wall put up 19 points and dished out 9 assists as the Wizards took advantage of a string of New York miscues. Super-spy Marcin Gortat didn’t get busted gathering intel, but did post a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds.

The Knicks slid right back out of 8-seed as their superstar had one of his worst games of the season. Carmelo Anthony nearly had as many turnovers as points, scoring 10 on 5-14 shooting while coughing up the rock nine times. He committed 4 TOs in the fourth quarter, including giving it away on three straight possessions with the margin at just one point. J.R. Smith had 32 points and hit 8-16 from long range but missed a wild shot at the buzzer.

Bulls (44-32) 102, Bucks (14-62) 90

Chicago pounded the Bucks at home, overcoming poor shooting (even for them) to keep pace with Toronto for the 3-seed in the East. The Bulls hit just 37 percent from the floor, but abused Milwaukee on the glass, grabbing 16 offensive board and taking 16 more shots than the Bucks as a result. Joakim Noah had 11 points and 13 rebounds, while Jimmy Butler and Kirk Hinrich scored 17 apiece. Carlos Boozer also posted a double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds.

Brandon Knight put up 22 points to lead Milwaukee, while Jeff Adrien had 21 points and 9 rebounds.

Jazz (24-52) 100, Pelicans (32-44) 96

The Jazz pulled out a close win over the Pelicans, who at this point seem lucky to be able to field a full lineup. Gordon Hayward put up 21 points to lead Utah, getting to line and knocking down 11-13 freebies. Alec Burks had a similar line off the bench, also posting 21 points while hitting all 13 of his shots at the line. The win ended a five-game losing streak for the Jazz.

Anthony Davis (8 points, 6 rebounds, 2 blocks) played just 23 minutes, as his back spasms flared up. Anthony Morrow scored 26 points on 9-11 shooting off the bench to lead the Pelicans, while Tyreke Evans (8 points, 3-11 shooting) had a rough night.  

Rockets (50-25) 111, Thunder (55-20) 107

Houston clinched a Playoff berth with their 50th win of the season, topping the Thunder in an up-and-down shootout. James Harden went nuts against his former team after struggling in their previous matchups this season, going for 39 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists. The Rockets used a 7-0 run late to take a six-point lead that they wouldn’t give up. Chandler Parsons had 23 points in support of Harden, while Terrence Jones (16 points, 11 rebounds) put up a double-double. Neither team was all that interested in playing defense, but shooting percentages suffered (42 percent for Houston, 45 percent for OKC) thanks to all the running and gunning.

Both teams played without a superstar and a top perimeter defender, as Dwight Howard and Patrick Beverley sat for the Rockets and Russell Westbrook rested for the Thunder, while Thabo Sefolosha is still recovering from calf injury. Kevin Durant (28 points, 7-19 shooting, 12 rebounds, 6 assists) didn’t play particularly well by his standards, but extended his 25-plus scoring streak to 40 games, tying Michael Jordan’s feat. He did hit two triples in the final minute to keep the Thunder in it, but couldn’t get a third to go to win it. Serge Ibaka posted a career-high 27 points, also grabbing 9 boards and picking up 6 blocks, while Reggie Jackson had 17 in Westbrook’s place.

Suns (45-31) 109, Trail Blazers (49-28) 93

The Suns raced away from Portland in the second half, getting a necessary win to hold ground in the standings. Gerald Green exploded for 32 points, scoring 18 in the second half as Phoenix erased a 10-point deficit in the third quarter. Eric Bledsoe poured in 30 points of his own, while Goran Dragic finished with 19. Despite the win, the Suns are still ended the night on the outside looking in on the postseason, thanks to tiebreakers with Memphis.

The Blazers got double-doubles from Robin Lopez (18 points, 13 rebounds) and Nicolas Batum (13 points, 11 rebounds). LaMarcus Aldridge dropped in 18 as Portland finished their season series against the Suns at 1-3.

Warriors (47-29) 102, Kings (27-49) 69

Golden State laid waste to Sacramento, effectively ending the game by the time the buzzer sounded for the first quarter. The Warriors held the Kings to just 27 points in the entire first half and set their season-best mark by holding them to just 69 points on the night, the least Sacto has scored this year. Klay Thompson scored 21 to lead the Dubs, while Harrison Barnes had his best game in what feels like ages with 16 points off the bench. Stephen Curry played under 30 minutes, scoring 12 points as the Warriors led by as many as 42 in the second half before pulling the starters. Marreese Speights had 12 off the bench and hammered down a massive dunk with the game well in hand:

DeMarcus Cousins had 18 points 10 rebounds for the Kings, who shot a measly 32 percent on the night. The Kings haven’t beaten a Western Conference Playoff team in nearly three months.

Mavericks (46-31) 107, Lakers (25-51) 95

Dallas completed a Staples Center sweep, handling the Lakers on the second night of a back-to-back set in Los Angeles. Dirk Nowitzki continued his climb through the history books, passing Dominique Wilkins for 11th on the all-time scoring list. Nowitzki dropped in 27 points on 11-14 shooting, knocking down his usual array of twisting and falling midrange jumpers. Brandan Wright was a perfect 10-10 off the bench, scoring 23 points, while Samuel Dalembert had a double-double with 14 points and 14 boards. Monta Ellis struggled shooting the ball for the second straight night, going 3-13 en route to 8 points and bringing his total for this trip to Staples to 7-25 from the floor. The Mavs held on to sole possession of the 7-seed in the West, as their two competitors both won as well.

Jodie Meeks had 25 points to lead the Lakers and Nick Young dropped 14 off the bench before suffering a leg injury. The Mavs swept the season series, going 3-0.

The post Post Up: Harden Fuels Rockets appeared first on SLAM.

Bobcats (9-11) 105, 76ers (7-13) 88

The Bobcats put an end to a two-game losing patch, sending the short-handed Sixers out of Charlotte empty handed. The ‘Cats came in dead last in the League in offensive rating, but managed to hit 46 percent from the field (six percent better than they shoot on average) and got off a 91 shots, thanks to the hectic pace the Sixers tend to force. Charlotte got two double-doubles: Al Jefferson with his sixth straight, going for 14 (on 6-21 shooting) and 12 boards, and Kemba Walker with 18 and 10 assists. Gerald Henderson chipped in another 18, and Jeff Taylor led the scoring with 20. The Bobcats are somehow just a game and a half out of third in the East.

Philly played without ace rookie Michael Carter-Williams, sitting out with a sore hamstring after his first career triple-double. Tony Wroten started in his place led the team with 21 points (10-22 shooting) and handed out 10 assists. Spencer Hawes put up 10 and 13, along with five assists.

Bucks (4-15) 109, Wizards (9-10) 105, OT

After rallying from a 13-point halftime hole, the Wizards collapsed in the final minute of regulation and overtime. Up by five with 43 seconds to go, the Bucks nailed a jumper by Khris Middleton (career-high 29 points on 11-22 shooting) and a triple from Brandon Knight to tie it up at 102. Chris Singleton missed a potential game-winning three at the buzzer for Washington.

In OT, the Wiz shot 0-6 from the field managed just three points to let the Bucks escape with a victory.

Washington lost sharpshooter Martell Webster to a sprained ankle early in this one. John Wall scored 30 (9-23) and had eight assists for Washington, shooting 6-13 on the mid-range jumpers that are going to be crucial to his and the Wizards’ success. Some stellar transition defense doesn’t hurt, either.

Hawks (11-10) 108, Cavaliers (6-13) 89

Kyle Korver set the record for consecutive games with a made 3-pointer as the Hawks rolled to an easy win over Cleveland. Korver has now hit a triple in 90 consecutive games, breaking a record held by Dana Barros since 1996. The sharpshooter continues to hardly miss this season, going 4-6 from the field and 2-3 from deep. Al Horford did his usual thing, going for 22 on 10-19 shooting and pulling in nine rebounds.

Dion Waiters dropped a season-high 30 on 13-20 shooting for the Cavs, and Andrew Bynum put up his best effort of the year with 20 and 13, but that just seemed to make things worse for Cleveland. Kyrie Irving went scoreless (to repeat: SCORELESS), going 0-9 from the floor and 0-3 from the charity stripe. Even when some of this team’s mismatched parts get going, nothing works for Cleveland.

Celtics (9-12) 106, Nuggets (11-8) 98

The Celtics jumped all over Denver from the opening tip, leading wire to wire for a surprise victory. Boston scored the first 14 points of the game and got their lead as high as 27 in the first half. Jordan Crawford, who first-year coach Brad Stevens has turned into an effective player this season, led the C’s with 22 points (9-13 shooting) and passed for eight assists. The Nugs were unable to slow down Kris Humphries in the pick-and-roll game, as the former Net scored 18 points on 8-11 shooting off the bench for Boston.

Things got a little interesting in the third quarter, as Ty Lawson (20-4-4) helped pull Denver within one before Boston pushed back. Unfortunately, Lawson left the game with a hamstring tweak. Here’s hoping the speedster is okay for the Nugs’ next game. New Nugget JJ Hickson pitched in 17 points and seven boards, and Nate Robinson led the bench charge with 11.

Knicks (5-13) 121, Magic (6-13) 83

All it took was a trip to Brooklyn to get the Knicks back into form. For the second game in a row, New York knocked down its threes – 17-34 in this one – and Carmelo Anthony (20 points on 6-10 shooting, 11 boards, four assists) was less trigger-happy and more willing to move the ball around the arc, helping to increase efficiency and generate good looks for the Knicks. It was just the second time in Anthony’s career he scored 20 or more on 10 or fewer shot attempts.

Including Melo, six Knicks made it into double figures scoring the ball; JR Smith shot over 50 percent from the field (6-11, 5-9 on threes) for the first time in what feels like forever for his 17 points and Andrea Bargnani went for 17 and eight. Iman Shumpert, frequently rumored to be on the move, scored 10 and let some anger out on the rim with the nastiest dunk of the night:

(H/T @gifdsports)

After Orlando kept it close in the first half, the Knicks pulled away in the third and the game was effectively over by the time the fourth quarter started. The Magic, who played without center Nikola Vucevic, were led by Arron Afflalo’s 20 points, while rook Victor Oladipo put up 17 and nine boards. He also registered a nice early highlight in his career, stuffing Anthony on a dunk attempt.

Rockets (14-7) 105, Warriors (11-9) 83

Houston blasted the Warriors out of the building in a manner they previously hadn’t really shown they can: with defense. The Rockets shot just 6-28 from long range, where they usually thrive, but held Golden State to just 35.5 percent from the field. Usually shaky (to be kind) defending the perimeter, the Rockets held the Splash Bros. duo of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson to a combined 7-24 shooting and 1-9 from three. Steph still managed 22 points thanks to 11-11 shooting from the free throw line, but he coughed the ball up eight times.

James Harden and Dwight Howard were every bit the dream pairing Daryl Morey imagined when he put them together; Harden dropped 34 points, also grabbing down seven boards and dishing four assists, while Dwight had 22 and 18, even hitting 12-20 free throws.

Thunder (14-4) 109, Pelicans (9-10) 95

Kevin Durant (29 points, eight rebounds, five combined blocks/steals) and Russell Westbrook (25 points on 8-16 shooting, four assists, four steals) went to work against the Pelicans, and the Thunder have now taken 14 of the last 15 games in this matchup. New Orleans pulled ahead early, leading by double digits in the first quarter, but the Thunder took the lead by half and never let it get close.

Bad news for the Pellies came in the form of another injury, as Tyreke Evans (11 points) sprained his ankle and had to leave the game. Jrue Holiday had 16 and eight assists for NOLA, while Ryan Anderson had a rough shooting night on his way to 18.

Suns (10-9) 106, Raptors (6-12) 97

Markieff Morris (25 points, 11 boards) was the hottest Sun on Friday, nailing his first 11 shots from the field to help lead Phoenix to a win over Toronto. The Suns held the lead the entire second half, going up 15 midway through the fourth. When the Raptors got within six, Eric Bledsoe (16 points, seven assists, two 3-pointers) drained a bomb from long range to ice the win.

Toronto has now dropped five in a row and have two more tough games ahead, Kobe’s return on Sunday and a date with Spurs following, before they might be able to snap their skid. Kyle Lowry led the Raptors with 21 points and seven assists, while Jonas Valanciunas posted a 11 and 10 for a double-double. Rudy Gay raised his field goal percentage with a 6-15 shooting performance on his way to 17 points.

Trail Blazers (17-3) 130, Jazz (4-17) 98

Portland padded it’s margin of victory, embarrassing the Jazz with a barrage of threes. The Trail Blazers set a team record by netting 17 triples, shooting 73.9 percent from behind the arc. Wes Matthews, second in the league in effective field goal percentage and nailing 50.9 percent of his threes, kept shooting the lights out for Rip City. He hit 4-6 threes and 8-11 shots overall to lead the team with 24 points, while Damian Lillard went for 21 (5-6 on 3-pointers, 7-9 overall, six assists). LaMarcus Aldridge looks like an All-Star every time out this season, as he recorded a double-double with 20 points and 15 boards in just 29 minutes – the most played by any Portland starter. Alec Burks led Utah with 16 points, while rookie Trey Burke struggled to the tune of 3-9 shooting and just seven points.

Lakers (10-9) 106, Kings (4-13) 100

In their last game before Kobe’s return, the Lakers rode tough defense and timely shooting to rally for a win in Sacramento. LA used an 11-0 run to take an 88-87 lead, going back and forth with the Kings for the next several minutes. Jodie Meeks (19 points, 7-11 shooting, 5-6 on threes) knocked down two 3-pointers separated by a jumper by Pau Gasol (19 points, seven boards) to reclaim a slim lead. The Kings turned the ball over on three consecutive possessions in the final 1:17 to seal their fate. On the whole, the Lakers forced 17 turnovers while giving it away just 12 times themselves.

Ben McLemore had his best game as a pro despite having one of those late turnovers, scoring a career-high 20 points and hitting 4-7 treys. DeMarcus Cousins matched him with 20 to go along with 11 boards, but Boogie turned the ball over a six times. Isaiah Thomas is getting an early campaign together for Sixth Man of the Year, going for 14 points, nine assists and four steals off the bench. One of his dimes to set up a McLemore three was extra pretty:

(H/T @HPbasketball)

Without Kobe, the Lakers have been gritty, team-oriented and fun. Hopefully, Mamba will find a way to augment this enjoyable team, rather than try to impose his will.

The post Post Up: That Was Easy appeared first on SLAM.

Technically speaking, the legend of James “Flight” White died during Saturday night’s Dunk Contest.

It’s impossible to pinpoint when, exactly, but it took place sometime between him trotting out a gaggle of costumed stewardesses and the last of his seven botched dunk attempts. Performing in front of the largest conflux of attention he’s ever known, White’s mystique went down in a blaze of flashbulbs and exasperated sighs, human heartbreak reflected against the specter of Carmelo’s Anthony’s bug-eyed shades.

Yet in actuality, the funeral had been scheduled since the day he agreed to enter the contest. That was the moment James White became real.

White has always existed, of course, but our knowledge of him has arrived almost exclusively in a 21st-century manner of second-hand sight. As a 30-year-old with not even 400 career NBA minutes to his name, there are no eyewitness accounts of James White’s exploits but thanks to the wonders of YouTube, we’ve received transmissions from him in far-flung outposts like Turkey and Russia, and as far back as his days as a McDonald’s All American. With rare exception, they always involve him dunking a basketball. That is how we know him and how we’ve consumed him ever since he was a teenager, elapsed time measured by the evolution of his dunks—then, half-court bursts; now, full-court bounds—instead of pages on the calendar.

Because that lens is so precise and his stage often so distant, White was, until Saturday, less a person in our eyes than an idea. Those who knew about him embraced him as a cult hero by ignoring what he wasn’t—for starters, a particularly good basketball player—and instead romanticizing him as a dunking vagabond entering and winning contests two continents away and half a world over, a traveling circus unto himself. That it had yet to be commoditized by the NBA machine only made the allure more powerful. It didn’t matter that it was a decision mandated by White’s limited skill set, or that his one-man barnstorming tour represented nothing beyond a way of making ends meet. James White had something we all wanted to see; only we couldn’t, which just made us want to see it even more.

For a very long time, however, it seemed as though we never would have the opportunity to watch him dunk during All Star Weekend, an outcome that was simultaneously White’s best- and worst-case scenario. Had that happened, White would have had to come to terms once and for all with his own basketball mortality; that, like generations of ball players before him, he had failed to achieve his grand ambitions. But in so doing, he would have been remembered—not in the fashion or scope that he once aspired to, but remembered nonetheless. Flight White would have lived forever as a paean to potential, a hypothetical undamaged by time because there wouldn’t be anything concrete to weigh against him. If they never gave him the chance to compete, there was no way he could lose.

But then they did and, as is so often the case, realism fell exceedingly short of imagination. It was destined to be that way no matter where he finished, though, because nothing White could do in person would ever measure up to years of allegory. The YouTube compilations don’t show the missed dunks, after all, or how winded he could get from sprinting the length of the court to set up those perfect finishes; all of that went straight to the cutting room floor, discarded along with any other proof that exposed him as anything short of invincible. For so long, White played Superman to fawning dunk aficionados; that he was cast to begin with is a credit to the unique way he soars through the air, buoyed by the boost his nomadic career gave him as a man apart. But his longevity in the role owed itself to them never finding evidence to indicate he was something else.

White was occasionally super on Saturday but he was perpetually man, flesh and blood and fallibility—and, for all the hype and Vegas money lines in his favor, an ignominious last-place finish. It was the movie we weren’t supposed to see, because fairytales don’t end that way. Flight White was fated to be the winner, his overdue redemption for years of wandering through the desert with no end in sight and our feel-good program of the year by rewarding our collective faith.

Instead, we got the director’s cut, replete with midair flubs and balls clanging off the rim; when the buzzer rang at the end of his second-round attempt, he stood hunched over, gulping for enough air to make one last run down court. And when that, too, drew iron, he shuffled dejectedly to the sideline, the night over before it began. Superman’s kryptonite, as it turned out, was reality.

In truth, White may not have been remembered even if he won the competition. The dunk contest deals more in sheen than substance, an event that burnishes resumes more than it sustains them. It’s a stepping stone beyond than anything else, a spectacle most noted for its capacity to birth stars (Michael Jordan, Dominique Wilkins, Vince Carter) or compelling burnouts (JR Rider, Harold “Baby Jordan” Miner, Kenny “Sky” Walker), along with the occasional vertically challenged dynamo (Spud Webb, Nate Robinson) to boot. The commonality among all three groups, though, is that all of them could play at a reasonably high level. Those who can’t, like Fred Jones and, soon, Jeremy Evans, become nothing more than footnotes.

The same thing very likely could have happened to White, although perhaps it would have gone differently this time. He, unlike so many others, didn’t need to use this contest as a springboard because we had already made him into something bigger than the event itself well beforehand. Our fanaticism for Flight White was never really about him; it was about us. We had invested in him and were eager to see growth; how could we cast him when he proved us right? It would have been our triumph, not his; we knew about him first, we were correct, we showed you.

And when he bombed, we flipped the script the way fans so often do with athletes. We weren’t the ones dunking the ball; he was. We didn’t fail; he did. We weren’t stupid for talking him up and thinking he’d win; if you saw the tape of his mesmerizing between the legs dunk from the foul line, you’d know that no one else can do what he can. It’s not our fault he didn’t show up in the biggest moment of his career.

We’ll forget about it, the way people do when our ideas don’t reach fruition. James White might not, though. He told ESPN’s Justin Verrier before the competition that his dream was for “everybody to see what he was capable of;” on Saturday, he couldn’t show us, and so we’ll never revere Flight White quite the same way again. He—and we—passed the point of no return.

That won’t stop him from trying to change that. As he said to Verrier, “this”—dunking for people’s amazement—“is kind of what [he does].” Whether it’s in the NBA or Turkey or Russia or somewhere else entirely, he will dunk until his legs run out of spring because that has become his lot in life. Like most high flyers, we will not see him age gracefully. Toward the end, it may even become sad, and the mystique of Flight White will chip away like an old coat of paint on a rusted automobile. But James White will keep on dunking anyway, because you can’t pay the bills with an idea. All you can do is put them on credit.

The post The Ballad of Flight White appeared first on SLAM.

I am often amused when I hear people refer to LeBron James as The King. Of what? Cleveland? Have you ever heard of a King with no bling? He’s got no crown, and he moved to try and get a ring in someone else’s (Dwyane Wade’s) town. In my opinion, Kobe Bryant is way m
ore deserving of the “King” moniker than LeBron.

There is no perfect way to define the best player in a team sport. For better or worse, in choosing the best player, we often look for the individual who combines top-level skill, has the best stats, and leads his team to the most championships.

You might recall that when Kobe Bryant was 25 he, too, was a free agent. Unlike the big names in the Class of 2010, he already had three (championship) rings. Perhaps he considered moving to the Clippers, but never a new town. When you’re the best player, they come to you.

The coaches go to you, too. Just like Coach K did in the final minutes for the final shots in the fourth quarter of the 2008 Olympic Gold Medal game against Spain. Players and fans know that if Kobe Bryant is on your team, especially when the game is on the line, the play gets drawn up for him. Why? Because he is the best player.

By the time he was 27, in 2005, Kobe had the best offensive skill set of any guard in the history of the League. I’d say it happened sometime before he dropped 81 on the Raptors, perhaps when he gave the Mavs 62 — in three quarters. At the beginning of the fourth quarter, Kobe had 62 and the Mavericks (team) had 61. This was when the Lakers boasted such “talents” as Smush Parker, Devean George, Kwame Brown, Brian Cook and Chris Mihm, when a common but unfair knock on Kobe was that he didn’t make his teammates better. Do you know where those guys are now (without Kobe)? He has made the Double Nickel and 63 in the Boston Garden almost insignificant.

Now, just recently turned 32, Kobe has five rings. He has become a great teammate. He uses every competitive advantage possible, including speaking to his teammates in Spanish (Pau) and in Italian (Sasha) during games. Since that Gold Medal Game, he has won two consecutive NBA Championships (with a broken finger on his shooting hand and a bum knee, no less) and two NBA Finals MVPs. He is the best player on the best team in the League. That is beyond comparison.

Some argue that he is getting old, but at the same age Jordan had only three rings. And I’m pretty sure Kobe isn’t taking a break to play baseball anytime soon. Because he’s so fundamentally sound, and constantly adding new aspects to his game, Kobe has been able to dominate and will continue to do so, even as his spring and athleticism begins to wane. Five consecutive years on the First Team All-NBA and First Team All-Defensive Team doesn’t scream geriatric to me.

This is all stuff you probably already know, but would rather not admit. Just like years ago, back when people laughably tried to tell me that guys like T-Mac, Iverson and Vince were as good or better than Kobe, before people were willing to break the groupthink and admit that his talents deserved to be compared only to Jordan’s. When Kobe wins his sixth championship and passes MJ on the all-time scoring list (likely less than four years from now), it’ll be easier to admit.

When I hear or see someone say that a player other than Kobe Bryant is the best in the League, I want to ask, what else does Kobe have to do? I think the reason people (detractors) say that has to do with a dislike of his attitude and personality, particularly when he was younger, and the misconception that he was the problem that led Shaq out of town. But keep in mind, this criticism came way before we had the time and perspective to watch Kobe mature and see how Shaq leaves every team — and no one ever wants him back.

While Kobe meets all of the objective measures, he is also a player who exceeds expectations everyday — not once in awhile, but hour after hour, day after day, and in the midst of high expectations. Kobe wants it more than anyone else and constantly proves people wrong.

Think about how and when you first saw or heard about Kobe, before you started hating. He might have been taking Brandy, an R&B Star at the time, to the prom. Flexing in the dunk contest. Shooting air balls against the Jazz in the Playoffs. Getting sucker punched by a grown man (32-year-old Chris Childs) when he was 21. On trial in Eagle County.

Kobe’s is the story of a 6-6 guard who never got cut from his high school team. Instead, he broke Wilt Chamberlain’s state high school scoring record by scoring a total of 2,883 points. He outplayed all of his contemporaries and has amassed more rings than any of the other top players of his generation. He is already considered by many to be the greatest Laker ever. His motivation, clearly, has always been to achieve and surpass what anyone thought was expected.

“To be the best, you have to win… and that’s what drives me.” — Kobe Bryant

Recently, Kobe was asked who would win in a game of one-on-one between him and LeBron. In case you missed it, here was his response: “I’d win.”

Seems like LeBron agrees with me. You might have heard his response to a similar question as heard in a soundbite on Weezy’s song, “Kobe Bryant”:

“I’ve been quoted as saying Kobe is definitely the best player in our league…to me, in my eyes, the best scorer in our league, there’s not another guy in the League that can accomplish what he is doing…”

My point is that if you measure the best player by who would win in one-on-one, who wins the most games or titles, who scores the most, what he has already accomplished, proving haters and doubters wrong, by what the best coaches and players show and say, or exceeding expectations, it is clear that Kobe Bryant is the best basketball player in the world. And it’s not even that close. (KD is on deck.)

Now, if you think the best player is simply the most dominant athlete — the guy who is the biggest, strongest and fastest — with the most future potential, then the best player in the League would be someone else: Dwight Howard.

Kobe’s unique drive and determination have taken him further than most people anticipated. Go ahead and compare him to, or rank him beneath someone else. Watch all the other All-Stars assembling like Voltron, come through to the Staples Center, see the guy who never left, and maybe kiss the real king’s rings.

To be the best player, you have to beat the best, and I think Kobe will be king for a while — no one has the combination of attributes to knock him off his throne anytime soon.

Notes
• Rankings are based solely on projected ’10-11 performance.
• Contributors to this list include: Jeremy Bauman, Maurice Bobb, Erildas Budraitis, Sean Ceglinsky, Ben Collins, Bryan Crawford, Sandy Dover, Adam Figman, Manny Maduakolam, Eddie Maisonet, Ryne Nelson, Doobie Okon, Ben Osborne, Charles Peach, Branden Peters, Quinn Peterson, David Schnur, Todd Spehr, Kyle Stack, Adam Sweeney, Dennis Tarwood, Tracy Weissenberg, Lang Whitaker, Eric Woodyard, and Nima Zarrabi.
• Want more of the SLAMonline Top 50? Check out the archive.

The post Top 50: Kobe Bryant, no. 2 appeared first on SLAM.

We know you have your own idea of who the best players in the NBA are, so see if your list matches ours.

And of course, the question on everyone’s mind is who will be No. 1? Will it be Kobe? LeBron? Durant? Howard? Only way to find out is to check back each day.

Here’s a quick look back at those players who already received their ranking. Make sure to check SLAMonline in the upcoming days to see each of the top-10 players as they’re revealed.

The post Top 50 NBA Players 2010 appeared first on SLAM.

Here’s the thing: I’m an unapologetic basketball fanatic. Scratch that. I’m an unapologetic basketball junkie. Junkie. NBA, NCAA, AAU, high school, doesn’t matter. Basketball. Junkie. I’m so much of a junkie that I’d have white, crusty-lips from tweakin’ due to withdrawal like Chris Rock’s “Pookie” in New Jack City if I couldn’t get my basketball fix. Knowing this, it’s not a stretch to imagine that getting unfettered, glorious access to all things basketball for the 2010 NBA All Star Weekend in Dallas was 10 times better than a Zoe Saldana-induced wet dream for the kid.

That being said, even I wanted to table the whole damn weekend after learning that Dallas would be blanketed under eight inches of flight-cancelling, accident-causing, event-damaging snow. But then I thought about Zach Galifianakis’ Alan, who ate sofa pizza like it was as natural as a bodily function. Sure it’s cold pizza that might have been sat on by someone with plumber’s crack, but it’s still pizza, right? The L’s version of basketball nirvana would be cold, wet and covered with fresh powder, but it’s still basketball, right? So I soldiered on.

Not surprisingly, there were a lot of people who didn’t make it to the DFW area on Thursday because of the bad weather, which is why I went to the EA Sports invite-only event at the W Hotel’s Ghost Bar last night with lowered expectations.

The verdict? Simply put, the good folks at EA did the damn thing.

After riding the elevator up to the top floor with the Toronto Raptors’ DeMar DeRozan, who confirmed that Brandon “Young Money” Jennings will be assisting him with his dunks at the Slam Dunk-In contest against the Clippers’ Eric Gordon, I was surprised by the number of people who had braved the icy roads to get their party on.

I made a beeline to the back, where Kevin Durant and Deron Williams were in a heated battle, playing NBA Live 10, flanked by the glitterati, industry peeps, hangers on and assorted groupies who cheered them on.

KD gave D-Will a convincing spankin’ on the sticks, to which the Jazz PG chalked up to the Former UT standout’s youth.

“He got me, he got me,” Williams admitted. “He’s a young buck. He single. He doesn’t have any kids. I don’t have time to play video games, man.”

“I do this all day, everyday,” Durant said. “This is what I do.”

After the showdown, I took full advantage of the complimentary food and drinks and even designed my own commemorative All Star sneeks, which was a collabo between Adidas, EA and the NBA.

In between crab cake bites, I spied the most unlikely “invited” guest of the evening: embattled and recently ousted former Mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick. I thought dude was like MC Hammer broke. How’d he manage an All Star getaway?

The party was better than I’d expected up until that point, but then The Chocolate Boy Wonder Pete Rock happened.

It was just after midnight when the record spinnin’ half of the duo known for the classic, “They Reminisce Over You,” jumped on the 1s and 2s, taking the music to a shrieking crescendo. Almost immediately, the party went from comfortable to rugby scrum, notable to epic. Next thing you knew, you were squeezing by celebs and standing next to some of the League’s best players, head-noddin’ to Biggie, Pac, Snoop, MJ and The Artist Formerly Known As.

Seen: Tyreke Evans (jeweled and blinging like Christmas tree tinsel), Paul Pierce (low key), Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin (gettin’ some groupie) Love, Stuart Scott (dancing?), Brian McKnight, Bruce Bowen, Chamillionaire, George Hill (heading into bathroom, me stopping in tracks, Hill exiting bathroom, me then entering bathroom), Comedian Mark Curry and Pat O’Brien (dancing to Tupac—yes, Tupac).

Heard: Me “You trying to take home the All Star MVP or what?” Dirk “They don’t want to see a jump shooter win the MVP.” Me “Take it strong to the hole then.” Dirk “Ok. I’m takin’ it strong to the hole.” Me “GTFOH.”

I was enjoying the festivities with Global Grind EIC Datwon Thomas, Kuhvet EIC Branden Peters and RIDES EIC Willie G, who pointed out that all the women at the party were hovering near ball players hoping for a meal ticket, while we were hovering near the Brand Jordan reps hoping for sneaker hookups. I guess we all have our priorities.

Check out video of KD and DWill doing battle:

The post EA Sports Party for All Star 2010 appeared first on SLAM.

To give some perspective to things, help promote the book even more, and to live up to what I promised in my editor’s letter, I wanted to run an interview I did with Rick a couple weeks ago. Obviously this site focuses on players, but as Myles proved with his interview of Britt Robson last spring, writers can be great subjects as well.

Rick is an Illinois guy (grew up in Peoria, played college football at Northwestern, lives in Lake Forest) who came to be friends with SLAM through Chicago-based Scoop Jackson, our former Editor-at-Large, and Rick always gave us love when many of his brethren only liked to sneer at us in NBA locker rooms. He and I worked together to expose the NBA’s air-brushing of Allen Iverson photos in the late-90’s, and then Rick did me a huge solid when he “blurbed” the back cover of my book about the Brooklyn Cyclones minor-league baseball team, in which I certainly borrowed from Rick’s approach to Heaven, which tells the story of a summer on Brooklyn’s playgrounds and the fascinating characters who inhabit them.

That’s enough background for now. Check out what Rick had to say below, and then be sure to visit his website, Ricktelander.com, to learn even more about the man and buy a copy of Heaven, a must-have for any basketball fan.

SLAM: Tell me, first, about your current regular gig with the Chicago Sun-Times.

RT: I’m a senior sports columnist. I’ve been there for more than 13 years. I write four days a week, sometimes more depending on if a team is in the playoffs or if there’s some big event. I also write for Men’s Journal and I still do things for Sports Illustrated; I just had a piece a couple weeks ago.

SLAM: On what?

RT: It’s kind of a sad one. My son was all set to be a star wide receiver his senior year of high school football and then he tore his meniscus in half the week of the first game. They spent a year raising money to get lights for the first time in school history and then he has surgery the day before, and he’s out for the season. So, I wrote about that. I think he could have made all-state. He’s just a terrific athlete. He actually has accepted a lacrosse scholarship to play at Vermont, but football was his main love. And now he’s missing it all. So I wrote about the emotions you go through when those things are taken away from you. And, particularly, a dad who was anticipating just as much.

SLAM: Sorry about that.

RT: Yeah. You know, life goes on. He told me the other day he is going to go out for the swim team when he gets out of this a couple months from now.

SLAM: Sun-Times wise, you can pretty much choose what you’re going to write about?

RT: I mean, in Chicago, there are two baseball teams, the Bulls, the Blackhawks, and then Northwestern, DePaul, Notre Dame, and the Bears. It’s just a never-ending amount of things to write about. There’s never a shortage.

SLAM: Obviously we’re going to shift our focus to Heaven in a second, but as far as “current events”—and for our Chicago readers in particular—can you give me a comment on Jay Marriotti’s long-overdue dismissal from the paper.

RT: It’s made things a lot more pleasant in that you feel like he’s not battling secretly to do all these things. But in the real world sense, it means we’re down a columnist and there might be a little more pressure on me. It’s like a team. The other columnists step up. You all move up a chair. For me, writing isn’t about beating somebody else. It’s not about secretly sneaking in something from somewhere else. It’s about writing the best you possibly can on something in a truthful and meaningful way. And that’s not gonna change for me if we had 2000 columnists or one. So that part of it I haven’t noticed. They told me today from home that the whole back page is my photo. I guess they’re promoting me, which is somewhat ironic because, for years, I was talking about the unethical aspects of this guy and they did nothing about it. But, whatever, that’s promotion.

SLAM: You’ve been a pretty public supporter of us for a long time, which put you sort of in a minority among journalists, especially in the past—I think we’re a little more accepted now—but you were open to us through Scoop and cause you liked what we were doing, which we appreciated. But give your version of how Heaven is a Playground ended up in the pages of SLAM and SLAMOnline (I’ll post a longer, unedited excerpt in the next couple weeks) and why we were a good venue for you to put your book, which came out in the ’70s, back in front of basketball fans.

RT: SLAM is the most fitting venue, by far. SLAM and Heaven are almost interlocked. If you were going to have a spin-off magazine from my experience in Brooklyn and New York and traveling around the east and the roots of basketball, SLAM would have been that magazine. It’s just plain as hell. Look at some of the photos you ran in the magazine. That’s about all that was missing back then because not many people had cameras. I loved SLAM from the moment I saw it because it was all the stuff I was interested in and all the stuff that had been lacking. As attitude and culture became such a large part of sports and, particularly, city sports and urban sports—you see it now with skateboarding and other sports—where its not juts a sport, it’s a way of life. It might be an ethnic thing, it might be a style thing, it might have to do with youth, it might have to do with the political climate at the moment. It has to do tremendously with economics. All those things were what attracted me to street basketball in the first place. And not just street basketball, but the people who played it and why they played it. Not just the scores of games. That’s the least relevant thing to me. And that’s what you see in SLAM. When you read Heaven, you see not only the photos of these guys the clothes they wear but you see descriptions of them. The teenage kids, why were they playing this game? This is sociology, this is history. This is America. And I have a blinding love of sports and I always wanted to understand us as Americans better. And I love basketball—everything about it. From the fact that you can play by yourself to the fact that I once played a game of 21 in Florida where there must have been 45 guys and one ball. It was more than just playing basketball, it was like a social event. So from 1 to 45 you can figure out a way to play this game. The simplicity of it is there in SLAM. You know, it’s about the ball. There isn’t much else you need to talk about. Well, and the shoes.

SLAM: For those who haven’t picked up the issue yet, you turned the entire book (which is around 80,000 words, I think) into about a 3400-word excerpt that I had to trim a bit more. What did you focus on in picking those words

RT: I wanted you to get a sense of being there that hot summer of 1974, which was my second straight summer I went out there. I wanted you to be introduced to the main characters and I wanted you too see the basic conflicts and the beauty and the drama that was building based around this game. I wanted you to get an opened ended view so you’d read this and say, “I really want to know what happened to these people. I want the whole version.” So it’s snippets from just about the whole book.

SLAM: In our case, you took a book and trimmed it down for our readership, which is a great treat for them and hopefully gets them to go buy it, which is kind of full circle because the way you started it was that you wrote a feature story which I believe came out in the summer of ’73, and that’s what was expanded and turned into the book. How did that happen?

RT: Blind luck, I guess. But it was also having one of your dreams answered. I had just started as a writer. I was a young guy. I thought, God, I’d love nothing more than to write a book and to immerse myself in a topic of something I love. And, probably as much as anything, I wanted adventure. I wanted the Wild West. I would have been a guy in a wagon years ago; I would have been an explorer. This is as close as I could come to it. It was a guy, I don’t remember his name, from M. Evans press—I don’t think they even exist anymore—and he wrote me a letter after seeing my article that was exactly what I wanted to do. And he saw a thread of a specific narrative with Rodney Parker as the guide. I had seen that, too. Rodney was my guide; he was the guy in the jungle with the machete leading the way. I immediately wrote back and said yes. He sent a contract, I don’t even think I read it, and sent it back in the mail so fast before anybody could say no. I didn’t care what I was getting paid, none of that mattered. It didn’t matter one iota. This was going to document me as a writer, my life suddenly had meaning and it was Heaven. This was what I wanted to do. This was me. It went from M. Evans to another press and then they shipped it out to, I don’t even remember right now, but it was the third publisher that finally put it out.

SLAM: Was there, in that time period, questions of if it would ever come out?

RT: Oh, yeah, absolutely. When the first company went under, I think I had just finished that summer. There was complete doubt. There was doubt until the book actually appeared that it would ever be printed at all and that that summer would have been a waste. It was really, really close. I was pretty much resigned to the fact it would never appear. Another little tidbit: I wrote the first edition with no first-person narrator, if you could imagine. I didn’t feel I was privileged enough or enough of a name or arrogant enough or important enough to even mention myself in the book. And whoever the editor was said, “Rick, this is lacking you.” And I wish I had done it that way in the first place, but I went back and rewrote the whole thing and put myself in. All my observations, cause I had them all in notebooks. People can identify with me. I’m every man. I’m every young male—black, white, green, whatever—who’s just watching something that they love. Plus, I played so much ball that summer. There were probably days where I didn’t write a thing cause I was just playing. I was exhausted. I ruined my knees on that asphalt all summer. But towards the end, I started staying out of games so I could observe them more. Then I finished it in the spring of ‘75. I locked myself down, went up to my parents’ place in Wisconsin, just me and my dog, and I wrote it.

SLAM: And now it’s on its fourth or fifth printing, which is pretty cool, and maybe the attention from SLAM will get you to another one. Going back, is that first article you did for SI online anywhere? I can’t seem to find it.

RT: I haven’t really surfed the SI vault too much. They have cover stories I’ve done but they’re missing some as well. I do think they have every issue online somewhere though.

SLAM: You mentioned how Rodney stood out to the first person that was interested in buying it, and obviously he stood out to you, and as someone who has read it, he is a very compelling character. I don’t know how you do this briefly, but give a little description of this guy and what makes him and interesting person. I should note, it’s the late Rodney Parker, as he died last winter.

RT: First and foremost, he was a product of the City. Also, he was mixed blood—one of his relatives was white, I believe. And, at that time, things were very cut and dry: you are black or you are white. But Rodney, he floated. He was incredibly astute. I don’t think you’ll find anybody that wouldn’t say he was very smart in his ability to size up a situation. He had some analyses of sociological aspects of basketball that professors might be spouting nowadays. Things he noticed about absent fathers, about the meaning of manhood, about what was lacking in people’s lives and what basketball could fulfill for them. He constantly was saying those things in very intelligent ways, but also in a street way. He was a man of the streets. He had to be moving down the sidewalk; he couldn’t sit still. And, he was a hustler, so he had these two elements. He was very perceptive and brilliant and loved basketball and he was a street agent, one of the original street agents. But he was a street agent who never made any real money at it cause that wasn’t his real motivation. It’s funny, the ultimate irony is money was a motivation Rodney could point to when in fact it wasn’t his motivation. The opposite is what everybody does now, where people say that they want to help kids when all they’re there to do is make money. Rodney was the opposite. He might say I’m gonna make money off Fly Williams, but he didn’t really want that. Money was always falling out of his pockets. In his apartment it would fall off of shelves. He didn’t care.

SLAM: How much did you stay in touch with Rodney in the years after the book?

RT: I’d run in to him all over, at big sporting events. He was a scalper, you know? So I’d see him outside of games. He’d always have that big Rodney smile, and he’s always have a next kid for me to see play who was going to be the best.

SLAM: I met Rodney for the first time when I was doing a little story for SLAM on Smush Parker when he was leaving Fordham. If I’m not mistaken, Smush had no blood relation to him but took his name because of what he had done for him?

RT: Smush was one of those kids Rodney said I “had” to see play! Though he did actually make it, so Rodney deserves credit on him. I think he called him a nephew of his, though I don’t know if that was true.

SLAM: One player in the excerpt for us is Albert King. People know about Bernard King, but Albert—they didn’t really do high school rankings back then, but this was a 15 or 16 year old that probably would have been considered one of the best in the country, correct?

RT: Definitely. He did turn out pretty good, especially in college. He was on a classic SI cover that you probably don’t remember. Him, Ralph Sampson and Mark Aguirre.

SLAM: Just found it! That SI archive is not bad at all. By the way, just surfing as we talk, I still haven’t found the ’73 story, but I did find the piece you did in ’97 about playground basketball in New York, which was a cover story that focused on the amazing Booger Smith (who I saw live a number of times and had the sickest handle I’ve ever witnessed) and sort of served as SI’s honoring of Heaven some 20+ years later. But back to Albert. So yeah, he was very good in college, and definitely solid in the pros. Was he a guy you noticed being great when you got to Brooklyn?

RT: Yeah, I noticed. And I saw the letter Lefty Dreisell wrote him when he was in the 8th grade. He was such a nice, shy kid, and you can actually see in the book how all the attention at such a young age changes him a bit. The thing was, he was that big, 6-6, at 14. And skilled. It’s like, I don’t know—

SLAM: LeBron? Maybe not as good but as far as having the physical gifts at a young age.

RT: Exactly. Great comparison.

SLAM: Another thing I wanted to talk about was the Heaven movie. How did that work? My impression is that you weren’t hugely involved with it?

RT: I wasn’t, in the end. The book was optioned a number of times, which is when someone pays you a little money for the right to make it into a movie in the next six months. Nothing came of it for years, but then I met director Randall Fried at a gym and he was determined to make it happen. It was going to have Michael Jordan—who I had covered with the Bulls and knew abit personally—in the starring role. But long after I was involved, Michael didn’t do it. They got Bo Kimble instead, and the movie didn’t pan out the way Randall had hoped. There was a lawsuit against Jordan and everything, but Randall lost and Jordan even won money in a countersuit.

SLAM: Yeah, honestly, the movie is not good. Did that hurt the book, or does even a bad movie help a book sell?

RT: I don’t think it had any effect either way. It had so little to do with the book. The characters were older, and they never even rode a subway! They didn’t film in New York, which I understand was for budget reasons, but still. The second Hollywood gets a hold of a non-fiction book and starts changing things, it loses it’s connection. I actually tell people my book still hasn’t been made into a movie. I wish it would happen the right way.

SLAM: Ever talk to Spike Lee about it?

RT: I did, but he was involved in that Michael movie he’s been working on, and nothing came of that.

SLAM: Got ya. Well, before we go, let’s get some plugs in for you and the book. Everyone, go Ricktelander.com for much more on Rick’s career. And if you’re lazy and don’t want to follow that site’s links to buy the book, this is where to get the latest edition of the book, which is the second printing by University of Nebraska Press, and this is where you can get an online version of the book.

RT: Thanks, Ben, and thank you SLAM. I hope you get some nice feedback from the piece.

The post Heaven on Earth appeared first on SLAM.

To say the crowds at the Wachovia Center this year have been “less than enthusiastic” would be very kind. Two weeks ago, I was at the Sixers/Sonics game and my boys and I had to use our “6-inch voices” to keep our conversation under wraps.

This is far from the case tonight as the Wachovia is sold out with a reported 20,674 people in the building. The influx of media requests have pushed me to the balcony of the arena, and from my perch I’m overlooking a sea of Iverson jerseys. I see the Mitchell and Ness rookie throwback, some Team USA joints, assorted Sixers home and away versions, and of course the latest Denver installment. There’s also an uncomfortable amount of people who are actually dressed like Iverson. There ensemble includes Reebok Questions, an arm sleeve, either headband or doo-rag, and a #3 jersey. Allen’s style is his own, and although some people could pull it off, the Caucasian middle-aged father seated near center court was struggling with the look.

The media likes to represent Philadelphia as one of the toughest sports markets in the world, and I while that label is fair, there was no doubt what kind of reception A.I. was going to receive. During warm-ups Iverson trotted to mid-court, bent down and kissed the S in Sixers. I’m feeling real nostalgic right about now. Time to show that love Philadelphia. Everyone in the arena was on their feet and his introduction was drowned out by thunderous applause. Iverson circled the court soaking it in and it kept falling on him.

He placed his hand to his ear — his go-to move during the 2001 Playoffs — and challenged the fans to really let him hear it, and they responded. It was 45 seconds of thanks for everything he ever did for the franchise. The game winners, the crossovers, the press conferences, the step back, the step over (Tyronn Lue), the heart, the passion, the blood, restoring national relevance, and of course for the MVP season no one in the city will ever forget.

I was in the Wachovia Center for Jordan’s last game, sneaking away from my intern post to watch the introduction, and while the love rained down for Michael as well, it couldn’t compare to what AI received tonight.

At first I was a little worried Steven Hunter might steal some of AI’s thunder with his own Philadelphia homecoming, but George Karl hit him with a DNP-CD to cool any controversy.

First Quarter
Iverson’s first touch results in the exact opposite of how a superstar is usually treated on the road. He catches a swing pass from Anthony Carter at the top of the key and once again hears it from the crowd.

Andre Iguodala gets out of the gate quick throwing down back to back two handed jams along the left baseline.

Believe it or not, the Nuggets are more interested in getting out on the break then digging in on the defensive end. The Sixers are doing a strong job of getting back on D forcing the Nuggets into their half court offense: Iverson/Anthony isolations on the wing.

Iverson gets his first bucket at the 6:31 mark on a step-back off the dribble. 20,000 people have just experienced déjà vu.

The Sixers are following up tonight’s sell out by hosting Sci-Fight night on Saturday. Team owner Ed Snyder has stated publicly this season that he’s baffled by the poor attendance numbers… Ed, I feel you, but as for the marketing effort… Sci-Fi night. Really?

JR Smith checks into the game with 3.00 left in the quarter. Smith understands tonight is about Allen, and expresses this by jacking two quick threes, 7 seconds into the shot clock. No matter the occasion, he gets his.

Iguodala throws down his 3rd, 4th, and 5th dunks of the first quarter within 2 minutes of one another. Iggy’s lost in transition.

76ers forward Jason Smith hears a chorus of boos after sending Iverson crashing to the floor. I think that one was a force of habit for Sixers fans.

Second Quarter
Philadelphia leads 34-31.

Philadelphia is killing Denver on the offensive glass and George Karl responds by placing his hands in his pockets and subbing in Eduardo Najera.

Najera vs. Louis Scola in one of those PPV, No Holds Barred matches, who ya got?

Andre Miller’s got something for Iverson, baiting him into a reach, hitting him with a crossover and pulling up for a jumper in his mug.

JR Smith is matched up with Reggie Evans after a switch on a screen. Smith’s eyes explode as he hits him with a nasty step over dribble for the easy two points.

Kenyon Martin misses a wide open Carmelo Anthony on a break because he’s dribbling with his head down. Can the Nuggets look out with a Better Basketball video or two for K-Mart?

The Sixers open up a 10 point lead at the 2.58 mark after a corner trey from Rodney Carney.

The Sixers have the lead due to their willingness to make the extra pass and are getting more layups and open jump shots. As high caliber as the Nuggets weapons are, the hesitations in there ball movement is costing them easy looks.

Kevin Ollie should never shoot the basketball. At least a shot clock violation would prevent the break.

Sixers hold a 65-58 halftime advantage.

Third Quarter
Anthony Carter hits a cutting K-Mart for a nasty two handed oop. Martin has a game high 15 points, and though I get at him for his fundamentals, it’s likely not stressed growing up when you have a 44-inch vertical.

Iverson draws an offensive foul on Willie Green after flopping on a Green forearm. The crowd erupts in yet another rare instance of celebrating after a home-team turnover. Green looks puzzled.

Iverson and Green go at each other and exchange back to back three balls on successive possessions. Both guys are looking to workout on the other when they are left in iso.

Andre Miller (28 points, 12 dimes) knocks down three consecutive 15 footers against a Nuggets defense that resembles an empty gym. Sixers are up 87-84.

With the Sixers on a run, George Karl scratches his head, once again puts his hand in his pockets and calls Najera’s name. I’m not clear why, but going to the pockets is clearly related to playing time for EN.

After drawing a foul on what appeared to be a clean block by Sixers rookie Jason Smith, the Nuggets get a stop, and Carmelo Anthony catches an outlet pass from Marcus Camby. Andre Miller attempts to time a block on ‘Melo and ends up eating Carmelo’s jersey.

At the end of the third quarter the Nuggets hold one, 93-92.

Fourth Quarter
The Sixers are shooting 65% through three quarter to Denvers 59%. Lights out tonight.

Rodney Carney has given the Sixers a nice lift tonight off the bench, as he swoops in for the and1. As a Memphis alum he would appropriately miss the free throw.

The Sixers have struggled to fill the seats this season, and are clearly motivated by tonight’s crowd. It’s Iversons night but Iggy, Miller, and Green are all putting on a nice show.

Iverson catches a Camby outlet pass and gets to the hoop in three dribbles. His game speed is unreal.

On the next Denver possession, Iverson is isolated with Lou Williams defending. Iverson clearly likes this match up. He waives off a screen, leaves him with the crossover and gets Williams off his feet for 2 free throws.

With 3.30 left to play, both teams have decided to lock down on defense. It’s half court sets from here on out. Kenyon Martin, be easy.

With Denver down 5, Iverson is given the opportunity to show the sold out crowd he still runs the Wachovia. He bangs a deep three on the wing to cut the lead to 2. Denver gets a stop and the ball is back in Allen’s hands as he drops off a sweet dime to K-Mart for a 2-handed stuff and the tie at 110-110. Timeout Philadelphia.

Carmelo Anthony has his drive pinned off the backboard by Sammy Dalembert. On the other end K-Mart rejects Iguodala’s layup attempt. Still tied with 2:00 to play.

Andre Miller breaks the tie with an up-fake that gets Iverson off his feet. Miller uses his pivot foot to get under Iverson sending him crashing to the floor, the baskets good, and1. Sixers hold three. The crowd is going insane.

Written like a Hollywood script Iverson comes flying down the court, waits for Miller to match up and bangs a three for the corner. He falls back into the stands, tying the game at 113.

With the score still tied, Andre Iguodala drives right and attempts to draw a foul. No whistle follows and as he rotates his body 180 degrees in the air, falling to the floor, he flips the ball up behind him to Sammy Dalembert who lays it in. The Wachovia Center erupts, Sixers hold 2.

The Nuggets call timeout as the Rocky Theme pumps through the arena. Jada Kiss told us, “I’m similar to Carmelo with the game winners” but George has got to calls Iverson’s number on this one.

Out of the timeout, the inbounds goes to Iverson on the left side of the court, shadowed by Willie Green. Iverson looks to drive right and steps back for a long 2 on the baseline. No good, tip in attempt, no good. Iguodala steals the ball and sprints down the court as time expires.

The post Game Notes: Nuggets at Sixers appeared first on SLAM.

For me, it was pretty easy. Having not seen Iverson play this year, I was headed to Jersey (along with Ben—who drove—and Lang). TNT picked Jersey as well, sending Sages and Scooter and Marv and them. There were other national guys there as well—Sam Smith, Michael Lee, Liz Robbins. Isiah may have goten his extension, but he still has a lot of work to do if the Knicks are to be the area’s main NBA attraction.

PREGAME

• George Karl, who’s gregarious to begin with, holds an incredibly long pre-game media session. Much of it focuses on his 23-year-old son, Coby, who’s undergoing cancer treatments. But it eventually shifts to Iverson, who Karl continues to praise at every opportunity. While Karl is talking, Nets center Jason Collins strolls nonchalantly by, a late arrival.

• Like most other teams in the League, the Nuggets place little laminated cards at the locker of each player on the road. They’re printed with the player’s number and, in this case, nickname. Carmelo Anthony is “Melo,” Allen Iverson is “AI,” Reggie Evans is “The Joker,” Kenyon Martin is “730” (think Big L: “If you 730, that mean you crazy”) and Steve Blake is, well, “Blake.” According to the equipment manager, he doesn’t have a nickname. So we’d like to suggest one: Gummo. Sorry Steve, but you DO kind of look like dude.

• Rick Brunson is with the Nuggets. Maybe as a volunteer coach? I never do get to ask.

• The Nuggets strength coach, who looks like a squished-down version of Supafly Snuka (or maybe the Ultimate Warrior, one of those old wrestlers) refers to AI as “Franchise.”

• DerMarr Johnson has two Sidekicks and two phones. Maybe three. Something like that.

• Carmelo Anthony has an iPod bumping (through headphones that may as well be speakers) “new Jeezy” and one of those LRG SK IIIs. Kinda wish he had a D-Wade one.

• FOOD REPORT. Classics: turkey, mashed potatoes and glazed carrots. Plus the unfadeable hot dogs. Nothing original, but why mess with success? B+

• AI dunks in the layup line, comes back down the line past his teammates with a huge grin on his face. It’s amazing how damn happy he seems. He also gets the biggest cheers I’ve heard an opposing player get since MJ retired.

FIRST QUARTER

• Camby wins the tip, to AI in the backcourt.

• Melo scores first, then gets tagged for an offensive foul. There will be many more whistles. He’s wearing calf sleeves on both legs, so it looks like he’s wearing knee-high black socks.

• Melo scores again, and RJ gets a dunk on a pass from VC. Next time down, Carter takes it himself, and gets swatted EMPHATICALLY by Camby. Foul. It almost looks personal.

• AI—in the spirit of being a rookie again—is in some ILL black Questions with baby blue tips. Holla at me, Reebok.

• Iverson gets a steal, leaves it for Melo, who gets fouled. Next time down it’s Iverson again, leaving defenders in his wake before flipping up a right-handed shot over Mikki Moore while driving left. Good stuff.

• Moore, meanwhile, hits two straight unguarded jumpers from inside the circle. He’s really been terrific for Jersey since Nenad went down.

• Iverson finds Nene underneath for an easy dunk.

• Camby hits Melo with an alley-oop from just inside the three-point line. Then he swats a VC attempt right into the media section behind the Nets basket. Nasty. The Nets inbound, Carter tries a jumper while yelling to try and get the foul call. It doesn’t work, and Vince sulks as the Nuggets push it the other way and get an easy dunk (Nene).

• Kidd is actually posting Iverson—playing a two-man game, dribbling in and resetting—which just isn’t the way the Nets should be playing. It doesn’t work very well.

• Linas Kleizas checks in for Melo, J.R. Smith comes in for Gummo. And Eddie Najera replaces Nene.

• Marcus Williams checks in for the Nets. It’s so weird—he wears a headband, but only while he’s sitting on the bench. As he checks in, he tosses it to a couple kids in the stands who are obviously waiting for him to do just that. Does he only sweat when he’s NOT playing?

• An uninspired 20-all at the end of 1.

SECOND QUARTER

• A Boki Nachbar dunk here, a VC 3 there, and the Nets are up 29-23. Vince is wearing those weird Nikes with the Shox that are inside an Air bag. They look sort of like Air Force 25s, only they’re not.

• Meanwhile AI’s heating up. And so are the refs. Melo gets called for his third—offensive, again—with 7:46 to go. That’s OK, though, it’s not like anyone’s here to see him play or anything. Lame call.

• Dave Winfield also picked the Nets over the Knicks tonight.

• Eddie House checks in at 5:32, hits a three at 4:41. Casa!

• Jason Kidd throws a LEGIT no-look pass to Richard Jefferson underneath for an easy two.

• Iverson hits a layup, and the Nuggets get slapped with a delay of game, their second, apparently. Then Nene picks up his third foul and goes out for Najera again. Lots of whistles.

• AI crosses up Kidd, drives past Moore, and hits the reverse layup using the rim to protect the shot. Textbook.

• Kleiza gets blocked from behind by Mikki Moore, and reacts emphatically because he thinks he deserves a call. He gets one—a T.

• Camby picks up another foul before the end of the half, and the Nuggets go into the break down 7, 49-42. Melo played less than 10 minutes of the first half.

THIRD QUARTER

• AI hits a three. He’s got 14. Then Gummo gets fouled on a three.

• The Snackbar catches a dunk on the break, and Gary Sussman comes with the “B-B-B-B-B-oki!” call. Good stuff.

• We can’t quite figure out why, but there always seem to be a lot of fat people at Net games. And not just “out of shape” fat. Like, “at risk of a heart attack in the next 15 minutes” fat. It’s scary, to be quite honest.

• Carmelo hits to put the Nuggets on top, 57-56 with 7:31 to go in the third.

• Kidd misses a three, the rebound’s tipped to AI, who finds Nene with an oop.

• Camby gets fouled, goes to the line, gets yelled at by some American Chopper looking dude sitting about 20 rows up (bootleg USA football jersey, bandana, sunglasses, mustache). The kid sitting with him (in a Nuggets jersey, no less) looks mortified.

• Camby responds by blocking Jefferson.

• Melo takes VC off the dribble, gets him tagged with his fourth foul. Melo goes to the line, Vince goes to the bench. Melo’s too big, too quick, too strong. He still misses 1 of 2, though.

• Camby swats Mikki Moore so hard that he falls down. The official scorers are wrong, because Camby has roughly 27 blocks.

• Despite more whistles against Denver (Camby picks up his fourth, Iverson commits one on the offensive end), they continue to build the lead. 73-60 with a little over a minute left in the third.

• Hey, more whistles. Melo spins around Kidd and gets called for the hook. It’s there, but please. That’s four on Melo. And Kidd gets whacked by Najera on the follow-through of a 20-footer. 2 + 1 = 3. 73-65 Denver after 3.

FOURTH QUARTER

• T-shirt toss. And, right behind us, a grown man happily (and proudly) snatches a free t-shirt out of the hands of some scrambling kids. That’s the spirit, sir.

• Hey look, it’s Antoine Wright.

• AI gets Eddie House into the air, jumps into him, draws the foul. House is irate—and rightly so—but you know what? He’s Allen Iverson, and you’re not. Enjoy the foul.

• Vince travels, AI drops off to Eduardo. 76-67, Denver.

• Eddie House scores on a runout, and somehow it’s 76-73. I should really be paying closer attention.

• Nene picks up his fifth foul.

• Either Lang or Ben points out that the Nuggets give each other high fives with the backs of their hands. Not sure who came up with that idea, but my money’s on AI.

• Camby picks up his own fifth foul with 6:28 left. Carmelo gets in the lane and picks up his 24th point. 85-80 Denver with 5:30 to go.

• Gummo drives baseline, stops on a dime, losing Jefferson, and proceeds to miss the open two-footer. Damn you, rabbit! You smell like f**kin’ piss!

• Camby draws a charge on Jefferson (risky that, what with five fouls and all) and Melo buries a corner trey. That’s 27.

• The Nets get a Moore dunk (from Jefferson) and an RJ layup off a Camby turnover. The Nuggets turn it over again, but House misfires on a three. Nene checks back in.

• Denver by 2, 88-86. RJ misses a three from up top, AI rebounds and ends up with a layup. Then VC gets a weirdly easy dunk on/by Camby. 90-88 with 2:14 to go.

• Kidd misses a three, and Anthony winds up with an and-1, fouled by Moore on a layup. 93-88 Denver, with 1:38 to go. That’s 30 for Melo. TNT flashes a graphic that the Nuggets are 0-21 when they’ve scored under 100 points. Crazy. But that’s probably gonna change.

• Melo picks up his fifth, and Nene fouls out trying to draw a charge on RJ. VC—who also has five—is being swapped out offense-defense, but he fouls out anyway with 6.7 seconds left after another travel and a missed three. He finishes with 29.

• Final score, Nuggets 94, Nets 90.

POSTGAME

• For some reason we’re kept outside of the tunnel for an extremely long time. Pretty much everyone’s confused. Kenyon Martin (who admittedly didn’t play) comes out before we’re let in. By the time we ARE let in, George Karl’s already out in the hallway. Or maybe he’s still talking from pregame. One or the other.

• Marcus Camby is wering beige. A lot of it. And some cool “MC” diamond cufflinks.

• “I think we can score enough points to beat anybody in the League, it’s about defending the paint,” says one of the best paint defenders in the League.

• “We’re in a good place right now. Everybody thought with the trade for AI it would be instant success.” “There’s no egos out there—the ball is being shared.” “It feels good to get a win. Hopefully we can snowball some more wins on this trip.” More from Mr. Camby.

• We exchange pleasantries, mostly about the wack-ass East Coast weather. “It was 70 in Denver when we left.” Terrific. Meanwhile, it’s 33 in Jersey.

• Melo comes out of the shower room with a clear plastic shower cap on. Stylish.

• Allen Iverson has a huge crowd around him, and it seems like he’s more than content to answer every question. It would probably be possible to write a full magazine feature about AI every game. Once again, he seems extremely happy. Some highlights follow.

• “Obviously I’m not satisfied, because I think we can be better than we are right now.”

• “I thought life would come to an end if I ever left Philadelphia. I feel like a newborn.”

• “I feel like I could have handled things [in Philadelphia] a lot better, they could have handled things a lot better.”

• “Without Philadelphia you wouldn’t have AI all over the world—they gave me a great opportunity.”

• As we leave, the media group around AI has barely diminished, and he’s still talking. No Denver media relations people seem inclined to pull him away.

The post GAME NOTES: Nuggets at Nets appeared first on SLAM.

As legendary crooner Eli Manning would sing “Whoa, we’re halfway there.” It’s been a fun-filled first half of the season. I’ve written about pretty much every game that has taken place on Sunday through Thursday. Here now, is a truncated (for all of our sakes) look back at some of the key observations, fun moments, and general nostalgia found within the confines of the D.A.Y. So many things have happened already that seem so long ago. When you hear the expression “It’s a marathon not a sprint”, this is why. Look how the season has progressed, and we’re only halfway done. In the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter what you or I think or what opinions we have and choose to change when nobody’s paying attention. All that matters are the games.
We start with the appropriately titled “The First D.A.Y.”
L.A. LAKERS 114 PHOENIX 106
The most shocking game of the year! The story of the game was that after giving up 41 points in the first quarter, the Lakers settled down and Lamar Odom led the way to a huge comeback win, putting up probably the best numbers of his career 34, 13 and 6.

CHICAGO 108 MIAMI 66
At least the Heat got their rings in a boring ceremony before the game. This was the worst blowout loss for any defending champ in their first meaningful game after winning a title, EVER. The Bulls treated this like a statement game, I suppose.

The D.A.Y. NBA recaps are back

NEW YORK 118 MEMPHIS 117 3OT
Don’t be fooled by the multiple overtimes, this was not a good game. The Knicks had a 19 point lead in the fourth quarter, which they blew. Good news for the Knicks is that Eddy Curry seemed more manly, as instructed.

CLEVELAND 97 WASHINGTON 94
Gilbert Arenas came off his summer of love with some horrible shooting. As the experts say “He just don’t have it tonight.” I spent part of last night talking to Oscar Robertson. He looks exactly like the old man LeBron character from “The LeBrons.” I think that’s a good thing for Mr. James as he ages.

NEW ORLEANS 91 BOSTON 87
The Celtics have a black clover on their uniforms this year in honor of the passing of Red. This is the only modification to the only real jersey left in the NBA that I respect. Paul Pierce was a BEAST for Boston 29 and 19 boards?!?

MILWAUKEE 105 DETROIT 97
Guess who was tossed by the refs for talking back? Rasheed Wallace! No, I’m serious, why don’t you believe me? This should be an eventful year for Sheed with the refs allowed to T up anything they want.

UTAH 107 HOUSTON 97
Carlos Boozer put his trade value way up there with a monstrous 24 and 19. Deron Williams joined him with a double-double of his own, and the Jazz got some big shots from quiet off-season acquisition Derek Fisher.

The D.A.Y. of the Tech

LA CLIPPERS 96 DENVER 95
Carmelo, who hit game winners night after night last season, wasn’t available to take the last shot cause of some BS. I believe the Melo situation is going to receive some coverage in blogs and the mainstream media today. He threw a headband sort of in the vicinity of a ref for his second technical of the game. THAT is extreme.

The D.A.Y. with Philly and Atlanta on top

PHILLY 107 MIAMI 98
Shaq didn’t play, cause he’s fragile these days. Lots of wear and tear on that big body. How long have we all been wondering what Allen Iverson will do to adjust when the injuries and age take their toll and he’s slowed down? It still hasn’t happened, as he’s scored 30+ in all three games and Philly is a surprising 3-0 to start the season. Oh, he also had 13 assists along with that.

ATLANTA 95 ORLANDO 82
The Hawks held the Magic to 11 points in the first quarter in this battle for future supremacy of the Southeastern division. Joe Johnson led the Hawks with 31, Zaza chipped in with 17, and Lang is celebrating because the Hawks are in first place and above .500 for the first time since 2002.

The D.A.Y. that Nellie got his revenge

GOLDEN STATE 107 DALLAS 104
Dallas raised their Western Conference champions banner before the game. That was the best part of their night. Baron Davis played the full 48 minutes, leading the Warriors with 26, 8, and 7. J-Rich had the layup that put them on top, as Golden State got their coach the emotional win. Or as Nellie put it “At 66, you don’t find a lot of emotion except for love and death. But it was a special (night) for me.” Dirk led Dallas with 26 and 11. It’s too early to worry about them being 0-3.

UTAH 103 DETROIT 101
Andrei Kirilenko allowed Rip Hamilton to blow by him, and Memo Okur saved the day with a blocked shot to seal the win? What planet is this? Not to keep bringing up the technical foul thing, but there was a big call in this game that gave the Jazz a technical free throw. A call against a Detroit coach. Dave Cowens, who isn’t even the head coach. That’s bad. Speaking of techs, Rasheed picked up his fourth of the season.

SAN ANTONIO 105 NEW YORK 93
The Knicks put on a spirited run to get their fans hopes up, only to have them crushed by the cold facts of life. Isiah pulled the billionaires club and went with youth against the Spurs and as Tony Parker was quoted after the game “The second group played harder. That’s for sure.” Great.

CHICAGO 110 MILWAUKEE 85
The Bulls flashed their opening night form again and then some, racking up 110 points. Ben Gordon led the way with 37 and 9.

The D.A.Y. the Hawks looked like a playoff team

ATLANTA 104 CLEVELAND 95 OT
Lang is going to be in a good mood today. Tryonn Lue got his Tyus Edney on. And he talked trash too. Overtime. Tied at 92, guess who comes running off a screen for the three? Tyronn Lue. In OT the Cavs fans turned their MVP chants for LeBron into boos when he missed even more free throws, finishing the game at 5 for 11 from the line. He also went for 34, 7, and 6 in 47 minutes. The Hawks are flying higher than they ever have in the new millenium.

NEW ORLEANS 97 GOLDEN STATE 93
The Hornets wore their Oklahoma City jerseys for their second straight home opener, this one taking place in… Oklahoma City. Then there’s that Chris Paul fella. 22, 11, and 6. Point God for an undefeated team. Balling.

LA LAKERS 95 MINNESOTA 88
From the opening tip, Andrew Bynum was changing shots, grabbing boards over shorter players, and even took it to KG in the paint. This kid, and yes I’m calling him kid cause he was born in 1987 (nineteen eighty SEVEN!!!!), is a player. He finished the game with 20, 14, and 3 blocks. The Laker offense was flowing, almost like a triangle. Kobe got his ponts in the flow early and Luke Walton hit some shots to give LA an early lead. The Los Angeles Lakers look like a nice balanced team. They are playing winning basketball.

The D.A.Y. of buzzer beaters and circus shots

SAN ANTONIO 111 PHOENIX 106 OT
Oberto is doing exactly what a Spurs center should do, which is get cheap points (11-11 from the field!) by playing opposite Duncan. In OT, after some back and forth the Suns non-defense reared its ugly head and the San Antonio front line put the game away. The Suns might want to work on holding a lead, just some friendly advice. Boris Diaw got a fat contract and now he has the body to match. I don’t think there’s really anything wrong with the Suns like you’re about to hear over and over again. I think it was crazy how they were able to be such a good team the past few years, playing free and easy.

LA CLIPPERS 103 DALLAS 85
The Clippers came out sluggish early, but started picking it up in the second quarter when Cat Mobley started hitting shots, and by the third they were… BALLIIINNNGGGG. Josh Howard is out for two weeks, which is not good. Logic says this is supposed to be a better team than the one that went to the Finals last year. The Mavericks still have not won a game this season.

NEW YORK 109 DENVER 107
Only Jamal Crawford would decide to dribble a ball behind his back for no reason when taking time off the clock for a final shot, leading to a disasterous turnover that could have cost his team the game, then steal the ball back with a play that reminded me of Jason Taylor’s interception TD last Sunday, and then hit a miraculous three.

TORONTO 106 PHILLY 104
Chris Bosh hit a lucky rainbow three with the clock winding down and then made some tough guys faces like he knew it was going in. Who does he think he is, Chris Webber?

SACRAMENTO 99 DETROIT 86
The Pistons miss Ben Wallace, so Rasheed did his best Big Ben impression, grabbing 15 boards and not scoring a single point. Rip and Chauncey both played well, but the much discussed balance of the Pistons when they are going good, was not there. Kevin Martin keeps racking up the points, tying his recent career high of 30.

The D.A.Y. the Mavs finally won and Hornets lost

DALLAS 119 PHOENIX 112
The Suns jumped out to an early lead with one of their trademark bursts of scoring, and they had another burst in them later on, but they just don’t play ANY defense. Not that they ever did. Steve Nash had a sloppy night with 10 turnovers and the Mavs closed out the game with one final run. The Suns have blown leads of 9 points or more in every one of their losses so far. Leandro Barbosa had a career high 30 points, hitting 5 of 8 threes. TNT ran this stat on the telecast: The Suns have outscored their opponents by 15 points with Amare out of the game but trail by 30 points with him playing. His plus/minus is -45. The Suns play Memphis on Saturday and then have about a week off before an easy stretch. They’ll be okay. The Mavs really needed this win. BADLY.

GOLDEN STATE 121 NEW ORLEANS 116
The back end of a home and home. Once again, the home team wins. Add the Warriors as another team that’s playing its best basketball of the millenium. Golden State vs. Atlanta in the NBA Finals? This was a game where everyone was hitting, but it came down to the stars and which one was going to win the showdown. I know that sounds like something Magic would say, but it’s true.

The D.A.Y. Vince fell in love with the new ball

NEW JERSEY 105 WASHINGTON 93
Vince Carter got a new ball bounce on a desperation three at the buzzer to force OT and the Nets were in charge from that point on. Very strange. It hit that square piece of iron at the back of the rim, and gently dropped through. Jason Kidd had a triple double with 18 assists thrown in. He’s still got it. And I was about to post my game notes from a Friday night trip to the swamp where Kidd looked old and slow.

HOUSTON 94 MIAMI 72
Yao was dominant against Shaq, hitting his shot, 13 of 14 free throws, getting layups, and after the game he was quoted saying “Every time I score on him I was happy like a kid, like a kid getting candy on Halloween because it’s really too hard to score on him, too hard. He’s just great.” Wow, a self-applied metaphor! Shaq wasn’t as exuberant, saying “He’s pretty much the same, just big, 7-6. He’s just doing what he’s supposed to do.”

The D.A.Y. from a secret location

SEATTLE 119 NEW JERSEY 113
Luke Ridnour picked and popped his way to a career high 32 with 7 assists, putting the Nets ina 25 point hole they couldn’t overcome. Vince tried his best, scoring 38 while going 5 of 9 from three, and Jason Kidd had 20 and 12, but it was too much Ridnour.

The D.A.Y. Peja went back in time

NEW ORLEANS 94 CHARLOTTE 85
Peja had his best game in a long long long time, scoring a career high 42 and played aggressively while doing it. He had a deflection for a steal and fast break, he was 5 of 10 on threes, and he looked like the guy that was in the MVP discussion in what seems like another lifetime ago. It didn’t even matter that Chris Paul went 0 for 8. Emeka Okafor put up a 25 and 16 in a loss. Charlotte is 1-6.

SAN ANTONIO 92 HOUSTON 84
T-Mac was unstoppable in the first half, going off for 20. Yao was doing his thing. The Rockets built up a 19 point lead, and Pop pulled the starters. Beno Udrih, Robert Horry, and Francisco Elson led a 20-1 explosion, Manu came back in to hit a big three, and the Spurs went on to win. Not fair.

UTAH 112 LA CLIPPERS 90
The Jazz, who have the best record in the NBA at 7-1, got 27 from Memo Okur and 22 from Matt Harpring, turned up the D in the second half and handled the Clips fairly easily. Chris Kaman did not have his best night, with 3 points and 3 boards before fouling out in 18 minutes.

DALLAS 111 CHICAGO 99
A highly paid center that’s been to the NBA Finals was a force of intimidation. That’s right, I’m talking about Erick Dampier! He had 5 dunks and 3 blocks, at least 2 of them were as they say, EMPHATIC. Dirk took on the scoring load, going for 31 and the Mavs picked up their first home win of the season while Scott Skiles began his tinkering with the starting lineup, which is what he does.

The D.A.Y. the Bobcats grew up

CHARLOTTE 95 SAN ANTONIO 92
The one-win Bobcats started off like you’d think they would against the Spurs in San Antonio, shooting 3 of 15. But that’s if you don’t count Adam Morrison, who had the best game of his young career, hitting 6 of his first 7 shots, on the way to a 27 point night.

SACRAMENTO 115 MEMPHIS 111
The Grizzlies went small and tried to outrun the Kings, and they scared them for a minute there, with a 10-0 run in the fourth to take the lead. But… no. Arco. Kevin Martin put the Kings ahead with a three, he hit another one later on to seal the win, and after the game when asked about Ron Artest’s late entrance to the game because of a back that’s been bothering him Kevin said “I thought he just went to the bathroom. You know Ron. You never know what he’s going to do.”

NEW YORK 102 WASHINGTON 82
The Knicks played great defense! Unbelievable. Washington shot a terrible 31% from the field and never hit a three. Gilbert was 0 for 7 from downtown. The Knicks usually let three point shooters have target practice. This was most unexpected. Q Rich hit 5 threes and David Lee bumped and banged his way to 10 and 15.

The D.A.Y. the Rockets held on

HOUSTON 101 CHICAGO 100
The Rockets tried to blow a big lead for the second straight game, and Ben Gordon was happy to take them up on that offer. Houston just barely hung on, and escaped with a one point win. Once again, T-Mac and Yao got the Rockets off to a great start, only to see a big lead shrivel away to nothing. Ben Gordon scored 30 of his 37 in the second half, hitting EVERYTHING, and he finished with an Isiah or Reggie-like 9 points in the final minute. Houston is lucky they got out of this one alive.

GOLDEN STATE 117 SACRAMENTO 105
Oh my God Baron Davis! 11 assists in the first quarter. MVP chants. The Warriors couldn’t miss, and after scoring 40 in the first quarter they never looked back. Kevin Martin scored 26 for the Kings, but enough about them cause they weren’t a part of the game, hitting 1 of 17 from three, unable to stop the Warriors in any way. Baron Davis. 36 points, 18 assists, and 8 boards.

The D.A.Y. of stitches

LA LAKERS 82 CHICAGO 72
Andres Nocioni could not miss, carrying the Bulls on his back with 30 points, including 6 of 9 threes. Too bad there was nobody else to help him out, other than one Ben Gordon three that made it close. But the Lakers hit some free throws, and that was the ballgame. Kobe didn’t have to do too much, and scored just 18, allowing Andrew Bynum to take the Sunday night spotlight with 12, 13, and 4 blocks.

The D.A.Y. that J.R. Smith outscored Melo

LA LAKERS 105 LA CLIPPERS 101
The Kobe we’re used to seeing returned, and he finally broke 40 points in the #24 jersey, so he doesn’t have to do the old Jordan switch back from #45 to #23 for good luck.

DENVER 113 CHICAGO 109
Something is wrong with the Chicago Bulls. That being said, the Nuggets were clearly the better team on this night, and down the stretch J.R. Smith made some big plays that you must have seen on all the highlight shows by now. George Karl had this to say about JR “There are times that he does what we want. Other times he seems like he’s asleep.” You still got it, Georgie boy. Carmelo had a chance to have his seventh straight 30 point game, breaking Alex English’s club record. But he choked at the fre throw line on two otherwise meaningless free throws and had to settle for a lowly 29. Ten turnovers for Melo by the way, but who’s counting?

DETROIT 97 PHILLY 87
Allen Iverson missed the game because he was having a wisdom tooth removed. I feel your pain Allen. Been there, done that, glad it’s over. Without him, Willie Green stepped up and took 21 shots, scoring 24, while the teammate with the second most shot attempts was Korver with 14. Willie, just because you’re getting minutes in place of AI doesn’t mean you have to play like him. Webber missed the game with lower back stiffness.

The D.A.Y. Nash beat Nellie and Nate blocked Yao

PHOENIX 113 GOLDEN STATE 110
Baron Davis didn’t play thanks to sore ribcage muscles, so this game is tainted. The MVP casually hit the game winning three to beat the coach that gave him his first real opportunity in the league, just saying hey we’re the Suns and you’re the Warriors.

UTAH 101 TORONTO 96
The Utah Jazz! Paul Millsap changing shots. Deron Williams much improved in year two. Memo Okur continuing his great start to the season with 17 and 13. The Raptors came with balance scoring, but that was because Chris Bosh had an off-night. Carlos Boozer outplayed him, ending up with a beastly 35 and 9 on 14 of 16 shooting. Andrea Bargnani had his best game in the NBA so far, reaching double figures for the first time with 15 points in 27 minutes.

HOUSTON 97 NEW YORK 90
The only thing that matters about this game is that Nate Robinson blocked a shot attempt by Yao. Yao pretended like he got hit in the eye to hide from the shame. Nowhere to hide when a guy that’s 2 feet shorter than you blocks your shot. Who cares about the Rockets winning, Knicks losing, or anything else that happened in this game? NATE ROBINSON blocked a shot by YAO!!!
MEMPHIS 95 ORLANDO 86
The Grizzlies won their second game of the year. Congrats. Hakim Warrick scored 15 in the fourth quarter to lead Memphis to the rare victory. Dwight Howard had the not-so-rare for him 20-20 night. 24 and 23 to be exact.

The D.A.Y. of Nugget revenge

DENVER 103 LA CLIPPERS 88
The Nuggets finally got some revenge against the Clips after the playoff loss and game earlier this season when Melo got tossed for nothing. Chris Kaman didn’t play, which was probably for the best cause his long time friend Reggie Evans grabbed 14 boards. I said grabbed boards, not grabbed… you know. Carmelo scored 33, but he does that every night.

SAN ANTONIO 98 SEATTLE 78
The Sonics hit one three as a team. When that happens, they score something weak like 78 points. Tim Duncan led the Spurs with 18 and 16. Tony Parker scored 12 in the fourth and the Spurs haven’t lost a road game yet.
The D.A.Y. of Orlando and Golden State

ORLANDO 88 UTAH 75
If the Jazz are the surprise early best team in the league, then what’s Orlando? They went out to Utah, and the early leaders in the East got the win. This wasn’t the prettiest game, and the score doesn’t show how the Jazz had to make a 13-0 run to keep it respectable. Memo Okur got tossed with the game out of reach for Nick Nolte-ing a ball into the crowd (with his hand not feet).

GOLDEN STATE 111 SAN ANTONIO 102
Here’s something I wasn’t expecting to write: Andris Biedrins blocked three straight Tim Duncan shots in the fourth quarter, as the Warriors were running and having fun, getting by the Spurs. No Baron Davis, and no Ginobili. So what. Our friends at Golden State of Mind are happy and they have the thorough recap.

MIAMI 103 PHILLY 91
Allen, this is Dwyane. Dwyane, Allen. The final lines were 45 for AI with 4 assists and 3 steals. Wade had 33, 13, and 7 with 2 blocks and 7 turnovers. Lots of one on five drives through traffic with sick finishes for both of them. Miami came out on top cause Iguodala was the only other Sixer to hit double figures.

DALLAS 93 MINNESOTA 87
The Mavs have now won 10 in a row. Minnesota got a big three from MARK BLOUNT on a play that they actually ran for him, and he hit it. Craziness Mr. Casey, but it worked. The Mavs coughed up a big lead when Minny went to a zone and Dallas couldn’t hit an outside shot. But, the Mavs made just enough plays down the stretch to keep the winning streak alive. Weird game.

The D.A.Y. Utah and Jersey got Ws and Stephen Jackson got lucky

NEW JERSEY 106 BOSTON 103
The Nets, still reeling on that 6 game losing streak, fell apart in the third quarter and watched as Paul Pierce led the Celtics on a 13-0 run. Vince was getting frustrated, but Jason Kidd kept them in the game, and the Nets fought their way back into it.

NEW YORK 101 CLEVELAND 98
A shocking end to the game. Tied with about 45 seconds left, the Knicks put the ball in Jamal Crawford’s hand so he could go one on five and hit a trademark terrible Crawford shot. Before the play, they showed Q Rich and Jamal screaming at Eddy Curry, trying to fire him up for some reason. I didn’t understand why. The reason was that Jamal started to drive, and Eddy cut to the basket, received the pass in motion, dunked it and was fouled. Hit the free throw. Where did that come from? Highlight of the game was when Nate Robinson was called for travelling on a fast break when he tried to bounce the ball off the floor and backboard for the dunk. That was hilarious.

INDIANA 108 GOLDEN STATE 106
Stephen Jackson is a lucky man. He gets hit by cars and walks away from it, and he hit one of the luckiest game winning shots you’ll ever see. Pacers down by 1, he was just standing at the three point line, and the ball was batted out to him by what looked like Baron Davis. Jackson shot and didn’t miss. L’il Dun was handed the responsibility of inbounding the ball with one second left for the Warriors. t was ugly.

DALLAS 117 TORONTO 98
Dirk left after just 10 minutes with blurred vision. What the hell? The Mavs are just too deep for Toronto – even without Dirk. Josh Howard, Dampier, Stackhouse… 11 wins in a row. Bosh put up 18 and 11 in the loss.

The D.A.Y. Kobe’s knee was better

LA LAKERS 132 UTAH 102
The Player of the D.A.Y. has never been an easier decision. Kobe’s firestorm keyed a 79 point second half for the Lakers. 19 of 26, 4 rebounds, 3 assists. 19 of 26 shooting, 12 of 15 from the line. 30 points in the third quarter alone. Wow. And a high five and hug from Phil. The Jazz are supposed to be the best team in the league now that they beat the Spurs. And he did this to them, shades of the Dallas game from last year when he scored 62.

DETROIT 87 MIAMI 85
This was the most anticipated match-up of the year in the East for the past two years. Right now it’s not as exciting. Dwyane Wade came into this game playing some of the best ball of his young Mr. Perfect career, and um, he continued to play well with 8 assists and no turnovers to go with 5 boards, and he made a key block that gave the Heat a chance to tie on the last possession. Unfortunately Dwyane shot what looked like an airball and he suffered through a 5 for 23 game. Udonis Haslem helped him out with 20 and 10, but the Pistons are starting to roll, and have now won 7 in a row. Rip led the way with 24, Rasheed picked up a tech. It’s like old times for Detroit.

The D.A.Y. of Iverson vs. KG and other depressing events

MINNESOTA 95 PHILLY 84
Two of the big questions of the offseason were 1) Why don’t the Sixers and TWolves ever get real help for Iverson and KG? and 2) When are these two HOFers going to be traded? They’re still around with their original teams, Iverson’s wisdom teeth broke down before his body did, which was unexpected, but other than that its more of the same.

CHARLOTTE 97 DETROIT 89
Weird. The Bobcats had plenty of energy going up against a good team once again, and that was enough. Brevin Knight had 14 assists and Emeka had 18 and 8 with 2 blocks. Chauncey Billups said that jumping out to a 9-0 lead should have been enough for the Pistons “Most times when we’re playing a really young team and we’re an elite team and then we jump on a lead like that, most teams could pretty much give up. They didn’t, to their credit.” Elite? The Pistons would be like the 10th best team in the West.

ATLANTA 107 PORTLAND 96
Joe Johnson 33, 6, and 6. He does that. Zach Randolph, 30 points. Him too. Josh Smith, who was poked in the eye Friday night, wore goggles. They didn’t seem to bother him on his way to 13, 12, and 6, and a Josh Smith block on a Martell Webster shot. I think this says it all about the Hawks of the late 90’s until now: this was their first win at Portland since 1997 and they’d lost nine in a row to the Blazers. Some of those losses were against the Paul Allen fantasy basketball lineups, but not all of them.

The D.A.Y. the Mavs finally lost

WASHINGTON 106 DALLAS 97
The Mavs finally lost after those 12 straight wins. Gilbert Arenas has been calling out the word “Hibachi” when he’s heating up, and that worked for 38 points. SLAMonline columnist Etan Thomas had a double double, and the Wizards had a big win. They still do not have any road victories.

CHICAGO 100 BOSTON 82
The Bulls are red hot ever since that dumb “controversy.” The Celtics are the opposite, and not even a dumb controversy can save them. Paul Pierce was held to 8 points. Not a winning formula for them. Nocioni led the Bulls with 20 and 7 on 8 of 10 shooting. Luol Deng played D on Pierce for a lot of the game and afterwords he said “You all can give us credit for playing well, but he might be injured.” If he’s not actually injured, then OUCH! Luol, that’s cold.

The D.A.Y. Steve Nash dished out 20

PHOENIX 127 SACRAMENTO 102
Steve Nash had 20 assists. Amare had 17 and 13. Marion scored 23. The Suns hit 14 of 31 threes. That is as good as Phoenix Suns basketball gets. D’Antoni and Nash even picked up techs to ratchet up the intensity. The Kings were a step behind all night.

PORTLAND 88 DETROIT 85
The Pistons are supposed to have one of the great home court advantages in the game. Their players walk around with a swagger earned from a championship and some deep playoff runs. Zach Randolph showed up at The Palace and gave the business to that very same Pistons team. 31 and 13 for him and the go-ahead bucket with 21 seconds left.

LA CLIPPERS 101 MIAMI 97
Elton Brand exploded for 33 points and 17 boards, demanding the ball and carrying the Clippers above .500. Dwyane Wade had 33 points, but he couldn’t get the big basket or draw the key foul for some free throws with the game on the line. Miami fought their way back after falling behind by 14 in the third quarter, but he couldn’t finish the comeback.

The D.A.Y. the Titantic division sunk even lower

THE NBA 4 ATLANTIC DIVISION 0
Washington had no road wins. They played the Knicks in NYC. Problem solved. They shot 14 of 20 from three. Nice D, Knicks. Gilbert had 38 and Jamison had 33, though either one of them could have scored in the 50s is they wanted to. Philly was outscored by Ben Gordon himself in the first quarter 17-16 on the Sixers way to a 121-94 nightmare with the Bulls shooting 62%. Toronto lost to Cleveland, but it took some late game domination from LeBron to make that happen. The Raptors at least fought until the end. Boston lost at home to Memphis, after the Grizz blew a 17 point fourth quarter lead. Rudy Gay hit the winning shot. Gerald Green keyed Boston’s comeback, but he also left Rudy open for the shot. And once again, the Celts lost at home to arguably the worst team in the league. If that doesn’t say ATLANTIC DIVISION BASKETBALL to you, I don’t know what does. So now that we got all of those winners out of the way, let’s move on the NBA.

ATLANTA 98 DENVER 96
First Lang discovers that Barack Obama has the same voice as The Rock, then the Hawks overcome a 15 point defecit to win in Denver. A great night at the Whitaker house. Atlanta scored 37 points in the fourth on their way to the win sealed by Shelden Williams free throws. Linas Kleiza’s dunk gave the Nuggets their 15 point security blanket, before the game fell apart for them. Melo had a rare sub-30 night, though he did have a big bucket to put Denver on top 93-92. Too bad.

INDIANA 94 ORLANDO 80
A few hours after finding out when his date in court will be, Stephen Jackson put up a season high 26 points. After the game he said “It definitely brings everything to your face and makes you more humble about stuff — I appreciate the game of basketball every time I step out there.” Was it his lack of humility that led to someone trying to run him over with a car? Did that lack of humility cause him to shoot his gun in the air? Whoooooooo! February 12th, the trial begins.

The D.A.Y. of the game of the year

PHOENIX 161 NEW JERSEY 157 3OT
If you weren’t watching this game, I feel sorry for you. You have my deepest sympathies. What a game! Lang and Ben were there, and Lang’s got his game notes. This was a classic for the ages. It was a great game for four quarters, but once Vince fouled out and Nash hit that three to tie with a second left, it morphed into an unforgettable night. Amare fouled out, Raja fouled out. There were other significant parties like Boris Diaw hitting the winning basket by backing down on Jason Kidd who received no double team help, Shawn Marion scoring easily, RJ hitting a big three, and an actual lift from the Nets bench. Forget all that. This was an old school showdown between the two best team leading point guards since Magic. Jason Kidd showed so much heart out there, making impossible plays, highlighted by a three point play against all odds. Steve Nash kept responding with a big shot or perfect pass. They kept going back and forth, refusing to allow their team to give in. It ended when Kidd dribbled the ball off his foot, an ironic ending to one of the greatest PG duels of all-time. The Final numbers for the two of them were phantasmagorical. I actually went to a Thesaurus to find the right word to describe them. Kidd had 38, 14, and 14. Nash had 42 and 13, and cold blooded response after response. WHAT A GAME!

The D.A.Y. Phoenix copied Dallas again

PHOENIX 114 CHARLOTTE 84
The Suns copy everything the Mavs do. Dallas played a reckless no D style before the Suns did, and this year the Mavs started out 0-4, then ran off 12 straight wins. The Suns start wasn’t as bad, but now they’ve copied Dallas’s gameplan, racking up 10 in a row, working their way back to the top of the league. Amare’s knee looks pretty good these days. Good enough to keep banging out those double doubles every night. 22 and 12 on 8 of 11 shooting. The Bobcats have been getting blown out every night lately. Sean May keeps topping his career best game, and he did it again with 26 and 10.

LA LAKERS 106 SAN ANTONIO 99
The Lakers turned up the defensive intensity and closed out the third quarter on a 24-6 run. Phil was happy. Pop was not, and after the game said “I thought the Lakers’ pressure was great in the second half and we folded under that pressure — absolutely folded. End of story.” The Lakers played a great game. Kobe led the way with 34 and Lamar Odom just missed out on a triple double with 18, 11, and 9. If you’re looking for their Michael and Scottie impression, this was the game for you. Lamar even hit a wide open three from the top of the key on a secondary break. A Pippen trademark.

SEATTLE 117 GOLDEN STATE 115
The Sonics gave away another one of their lottery balls, as Luke Ridnour carried them to a come from behind winner over the Warriors. Baron Davis wasn’t on the court for the last shot because… well, there’s no satisfactory explanation. Nellie messed up, and that’s it. That’s three straight wins for the Sonics since Ray Allen started missing games. The Sonics are really going to regret this winning streak later. Uh, I mean wow they’re showing a lot of heart!

PORTLAND 93 TORONTO 83
Zach Randolph missed this game cause he flipped the bird in the house of Bird, and Chris Bosh missed it with a bruised left knee. So, going from there, Jarrett Jack continued to make the most of his playing time, putting up 22, 9, and 8.

The D.A.Y. the Lakers lost Lamar

LA LAKERS 102 HOUSTON 94
The Lakers nearly blew a 27 point lead over the last 9:45 of the game, which is funny since they were playing the Rockets, a team that tries to blow leads like that every night. T-Mac is out indefinitely with back spasms, which you could see coming this year from 5,000 miles away. The big news from the game is that Lamar Odom sprained his knee and they’re calling is a moderate MCL sprain. He could miss a month. Lamar has been the glue on the Lakers all year. I have a feeling that one of his teammates is about to start shooting a lot more. He might have to.

GOLDEN STATE 126 SACRAMENTO 113
Matt Barnes is the new Kevin Martin. Barnes, who has spent most of this season playing with incredible efficiency in limited time, is now getting more run and starting to put up numbers. Matt had a 32 and 11 game on 13 of 22 shooting, including 6 of 9 from three. Kevin Martin wasn’t bad himself, matching those 32 on 10 of 18 shooting including 3 of 7 from three.

DENVER 100 ATLANTA 87
Okay, the Nuggets won this game and are obviously the much better team. But give Lang this one moment of happiness: Marvin Williams on Marcus Camby. Chris Paul, Deron Williams, or Bogut will never do it like that.

The D.A.Y. Bargnani surpassed Darko

TORONTO 91 ORLANDO 84
Four for four in the fourth from three. That’s 44 fours. 5 for 8 from three for the game. Andrea Bargnani, sharpshooting #1 overall pick. Chris Bosh missed another game due to injury, so Andrea carried the scoring load with 23 points. Bargnani and Darko have been the two signature Euromysteries at the top of the NBA draft in recent years. It looks like Andrea will become the better player. Darko had 8 and 7.

NEW JERSEY 108 MILWAUKEE 95
The Nets are starting to slowly turn their season around, now that they are playing bad teams. I’m not impressed yet.

UTAH 105 LA CLIPPERS 86
If Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer played together for any other team, you could still compare them to the way Stockton and Malone played. Deron: 28 and 14 assists. Carlos: 28 and 15 boards. The Clips had a nice year when you could take them seriously as a contender, but I don’t know if that’s still the case.

BOSTON 101 PHILLY 81
The Sixers lost their ninth in a row. The Celtics have won three road games in a row against Atlantic divison teams, and are now a game out of first place. I have to go and find new words to describe just how depressingly bad the Atlantic Division is. If you combined these two teams together right now, it still wouldn’t be a good team.

CHICAGO 99 SEATTLE 84
BIG BEN! 15 points and 20 boards. Yeah! The Sonics somehow outrebounded the Bulls, but they’re still soft. Ben Gordon was the high scorer with 27. Seattle wised up and had Earl Watson join Ray Allen on the DNP list, going hard after those lottery balls.

The D.A.Y. of Baron vs. Yao

GOLDEN STATE 109 HOUSTON 107
Baron vs. Yao. Coming into this season, the consensus was that Yao is an improving player about to hit his prime, and Baron is injured too often to trust, and he shoots too many threes. They’ve both been MVP candidates so far. Yao for the game had 38 points and 18 boards. With Golden State down by one late, Baron got the ball, flew up court, got a screen from Adonal Foyle to get Yao’s hand out of his face, and cooly drained the game winning three. Houston responded by having Yao take a three that was 3 feet short. Strategic advantage: Nellie. Baron finished with 34 and 8.

SAN ANTONIO 103 NEW ORLEANS 77
An emotional atmosphere in New Orleans. The fans had their beloved Hornets back, here to lift the spirits of the region. Chris Paul came out to center court and got on the mic pregame. He thanked the fans, talked about trying to give them some entertainment and enjoyment in their lives, how they are working to restore the community to some semblance of normalcy, and then he started making excuses about how they were short-handed with Tyson Chandler out with the flu. Tim Duncan has no feelings cause he’s a robot. Gregg Popovich is a bad bad maaaaaan. No sympathy for you, Hornets. Duncan only played 20 minutes, scoring 11. They didn’t even need him, it was that easy. Big easy, you could say?

The D.A.Y. of reflecting on the MSG brawlers

WASHINGTON 147 LA LAKERS 141 OT
Well, I wouldn’t call this normal. Gilbert Arenas and Kobe had themselves a nice little shootout. Gil has been struggling on the road all year, but I guess being back in Cali, where he grew up worked out for him. 60 points, daaaaaaamn. 5 of 12 from three, 21 of 27 free throws. 8 rebounds and 8 assists to go along with that. Kobe had a lowly 45 hitting 7 of 11 threes, adding 10 assists and 8 boards. The Lakers were dead in the proverbial water at the end of regulation, but Kob picked up 3 the old fashioned way, Brian Cook hit a monster three, and Gilbert missed at the buzzer. Good thing he did, cause he had many more points to score. Can you say HIBACHI?!? The two teams combined to hit 31 of 66 threes. Sunday night Lakers games – that’s where the scoring is. I undestand that Gilbert had the finest game of his career, but please Wizards do not make that an excuse to wear those “special” uniforms any more. I swear they are a different color in photos than they are in TV. They are a prism that sucks in light and shines it back in your eyeball like your’e looking directly at the sun.

HOUSTON 108 LA CLIPPERS 103
Yao Ming put up 32 and 10, numbers that he gets all the time these days. He made a shot late to hold of a Clipper run, blocked a Corey Maggette shot, and they had a Mac-free win. Rafer continued to step up in Tracy’s absence with 26 and 8. 21, 9 boards, and 6 assists for Shaun Livingston, and Kaman continued his healing process with 20 and 11. Tim Thomas left the game with an injury. Twice. Fugazi.

The D.A.Y. the Knicks and Nuggets responded

NEW YORK 97 UTAH 96 OT
David Lee grabbed 20 boards and hit 8 of 12 shots for 17 points. the Knicks had a lead and they blew it in the fourth. Utah forced OT when Deron Williams crossed Stephon up and drilled a three. In that overtime, Williams hit step back jumper over Crawford, giving the Jazz a one point lead with 3 seconds left. David Lee threw a perfect lead pass to Starbury, who caught it in stride, got right to the hoop and laid it up with Memo Okur letting him in.

DENVER 117 WASHINGTON 108
In the Wizards defense, they were playing the second game of back to back, and they suck on the road. That’s not really a defense though, it’s a pathetic excuse. The Wizards are now 3-9 on the road. George Karl got his team to respond with one of the top scoring tandems in the league missing. The Nuggets jumped out to a big lead, leading by 20 after the first quarter. Washington made it’s run, but the Nuggets held them off. Gilbert followed up 60 points with 30 shots, hitting 10 of them.

MEMPHIS 134 SEATTLE 126 2OT
Here’s the real test to decide whether every double OT is an exciting classic. Sonics-Grizzlies, double OT? Yeah sure, why not. In the first OT, Rashard Lewis missed a free throw that would have made it a 4 point lead for Seattle, and the game would have been over. Chucky Atkins flew up court, launched a bomb from right inside the half court line. Tie game, double OT, where the Grizz ran away with it. This game kept Philly on top of the race for lottery balls. 36 and 14 for Rashard in the loss. Mike Miller and Chucky Atkins combined for 9 threes and 57 points.

The D.A.Y. games were played after the A.I. trade

PHOENIX 115 TORONTO 98
The Phoenix Suns have now won 15 in a row. Toronto was an innocent bystander that got run over, as they should have been. 19 and 9 for TJ Ford and 18 and 8 for Bargnani off the bench. The Suns are balanced and unstoppable right now.

The D.A.Y. of Dirk’s pain

NEW YORK 111 CHARLOTTE 109 2OT
Take that, MJ. You’ve got your special one in a hundred billion life, your money, the respect of every person on the entire planet. We’ve got this game. I’ve already written about David Lee’s big tip, right in Michael Jordan’s face. He’s had so many big moments at MSG at the Knicks expense, it was nice to see it go the other way for once.

UTAH 112 ATLANTA 106
As Lang mentioned in The Links, the Hawks utterly collapsed and gave the game away to the Jazz. The Jazz outscored the Hawks 40-13 in the fourth. Mutoni has a link to some Josh Childress video on his Fanhouse blog. Looks like J-Chill is on his way off the chilling list, and they need him.

NBA FANS 1 PHOENIX and DENVER 0
Actually there are no losers here. Iverson needs to be on the floor to make his Denver debut when these two teams meet up. Good lookin’ out with that snowstorm, God.

GOLDEN STATE 96 BOSTON 95
Happy recap from GSoM. The Warriors didn’t blow it. Al Jefferson had 13 and 11 in 28 minutes. Perk is a Beast is getting ready to commit adultery.

MILWAUKEE 121 MIAMI 95
Mo Williams had a triple double and the Heat felt the pain. Blown out. 28 for Michael Redd. A quick thought: Isn’t it funny how the holy trifecta of LeBron-Wade-Melo keeps getting lock of hall of famers added in? Wade got Shaq, Melo got A.I. What’s next for LeBron? KG to Cleveland?

DALLAS 103 SEATTLE 95
Dueling open threads. Maverick Moneyball and Sonics Central. The big news is Dirk’s ankle. X-rays negative, which is a positive.

The D.A.Y. Ron Artest had old man knees

WASHINGTON 126 SACRAMENTO 119
The Wizards have been a horrible road team this season. The Kings are always great at Arco. Naturally the Wiz put up 44 points in the 3rd quarter when Antawn Jamison simply could not miss. Kevin Martin scored a career high 40, and the Kings actually led at halftime. The real story of this game is that Ron Artest claimed to have a knee injury and chose to sit out. He was quoted as saying “It’s not an all-season thing. I guess it’s just being older. I’ve got to take care of my body a little better.” Hmmm… could this be the beginning of Ron’s latest episode of random self-inflicted destruction? Maybe with Gilbert Arenas in the building, Ron wanted to make sure that he is still considered the craziest. The Wizards are starting to heat up. The Kings are very disappointing, and I’ve already mentioned that several times. The clock on Ron is ticking. Keep it together Ron Ron. Keep it together.

DETROIT 87 CLEVELAND 71
A big game. At least, as big as any can be in the Leastern Conference. The Pistons sent a message, getting a vintage Mr. Big Shot performance from Chauncey in the house of LeBron. The Cavs have now lost back to back to the Nets and Pistons, two of the short list of teams that will challenge them for a trip to the Finals. LeBron had 26 and 10 in the loss, Chauncey had 17 and 10 after struggling for most of the first 3 quarters. If this is going to be the Eastern Conference Finals, then all I can say is let’s go Washington and Chicago and Jersey and Orlando!!!

The D.A.Y. saved by Foye

MINNESOTA 100 CHICAGO 98
The T-Wolves blew a 25 point lead, so Randy Foye could hit a game-winner with 1.8 left. Good strategy.

DETROIT 92 NEW JERSEY 91
Some guys whine and complain so much that you learn to just tune it out. Jason Kidd is not one of those guys, and he might be the most politically correct, diplomatic, uncontroversial player in the game – at least since he got in trouble for beating up his wife. After this game he said “We fought, but that doesn’t mean anything when you have the officials take over the game like that. You go with the Three Blind Mice, and it’s just sad that Tom (Washington) screwed up that game for us.” The play he speaks of was Vince initiating contact on Rasheed and not getting a call that should have sent him to the line for free throws. That Rasheed Wallace, a a ref’s darling. The Nets sure have a lot of excuses when they lose. Refs, injuries, blah, blah, blah. They are in third place in the Atlantic.

MILWAUKEE 114 SAN ANTONIO 107
The Bucks went into San Antonio, and came out with their fifth straight win. Michael Redd did his thing with 36 points on 14 of 22 shooting, Bogut grabbed 11 boards, but the Milwaukee winning streak is all about Mo Williams. In their last loss, he scored 18 with 6 turnovers. Since then, he’s had games of 28, 19 with a triple double, 26, 32, and 23 in this game against the Spurs. Duncan had 25 and 12 and Tony Parker had 24 and 10 in the loss. With the Spurs giving up their spot at the top of the Southwest, Pop was cheery as always, “Our players need to make up their minds … that (defense) is what wins games for us, or if they want to make summer plans.”

DENVER 116 BOSTON 105
Remember when AI was the only star on a team that he had to will to victory? In this game the other four starters for his new team were Yakhouba Diawara, Nene, Najera, and DeMarr Johnson. Nene had 12 and 14, Najera grabbed 11 boards, and Reggie Evans pulled down 14 more boards off the bench, but seriously, are established NBA stars allergic to playing with Allen Iverson? He had 28 and 13 assists on 22 shots. Earl Boykins added 28 of his own, taking 19 shots. Al Jefferson continued his young and beastly ways with 16 and 15, his fifth straight double-double.

SEATTLE 102 NEW ORLEANS 94
First of all, Chris Paul hurt his ankle and he’s supposedly going to miss 2-4 games. That is unfortunate. He only played 10 minutes, and managed 7 assists in that time. The Sonics took advantage of the fact that Jannero Pargo would try 21 shots and lead New Orleans with 23. Luke Ridnour, Ray Allen, and Chris Wilcox combined for 69 points. Did I mention that Chris Paul hurt his ankle?

PHOENIX 110 PORTLAND 87
Leandro Barbosa hit 8 straight shots and scored 20 points in a six minute stretch between the third and fourth quarters. If he were to keep that pace up for a whole game, he would score 160. After the game, his quote: “It was hard for me in the beginning, because we had ice under the court. Then I was just running up and down. I saw some space for me to get to the basket and I did.” I assume they played a hockey game there earlier in the day. The Blazers were led by Jarrett Jack’s 18 and Z-Bo’s 18 and 14. Portland had 8 assists as a team. Boris Diaw had 8 assists, with 0 rebounds and 0 points. Weird.

INDIANA 81 HOUSTON 76
T-Mac made his return and led the Rockets with 19 points. Good thing, cause other names in their starting lineup were Mutombo and Juwan Howard. Old school. Ugly score for an ugly defensive game. 76 points with T-Mac. Al Harrington led the Pacers with 23 and 14 on 24 shots.

The D.A.Y. of Dallas and Phoenix playoff intensity

DALLAS 101 PHOENIX 99
The Mavs came into this game on a 21-3 tear and the Suns had won 16 of 17. Somebody had to lose. The first 46 minutes of this game was pretty cool. Entertaining basketball with Jason Terry going off when he was left wide open. Dallas made sure it didn’t turn into a wide open 158-156 shootout. The final 2 minutes or so were playoff atmosphere crunchtime ball at its very best. Dallas down by 2, Josh Howard leading a break, finding Jason Terry wide open for three with a perfectly crisp pass in transition, the Mavs go up by 1. Some free throws were exchanged, Dirk hitting 2, Amare hitting 1. Phoenix down by 2, with 1:07 left, what do they do? Something conservative to make sure they don’t turn it over while getting a quality shot? How about Nash throwing a lob to Amare for the hammer over Josh Howard and his 12 foot long arms? I jumped off the couch on that one and yelled out loud. It’s too bad Steve is so much older than Amare, cause their pick and roll with the bounce pass is absolutely Stockton-Malone perfect. They probably only have 3 or 4 more good years together cause of Steve’s age, but that’s a play that could last a decade plus. After some back and forth turnovers including Raja Bell unable to get the ball to Nash with Howard denying, The Mavs came back with Terry finding Josh with a perfect strike for the layup to give them the lead. The Suns, with one shot to tie or go for the lead put the ball in Nash’s hands. He drove and looked like he had nowhere to go. Nearly trapped on the baseline, he would have been dead on a game-ending turnover if he wasn’t Steve Nash. Intead he threw a perfect bounce pass to a wide open Shawn Marion under the hoop for the layup. Tie game. Not much time left. Dirk had it in his hands, and you’d think he would let the clock go down to the buzzer for the winner. He was open enough to just take the shot in rhythm. Wet. Dallas by 2 with 1.6 left. The best the Suns could do was get it to Amare for a 22 footer that didn’t go. PLAYOFF INTENSITY! The Western Conference Finals are going to be off the proverbial chain. Terry led the Mavs with 35, Dirk had 27 and that game winner. Nash had 24 and 13 and Amare had 25 and 13.

The D.A.Y. of the return of the new old ball

MINNESOTA 102 CHARLOTTE 96
The T-wolves were down by 20 at one point, and down by 12 in the fourth. A 12-0 run helps get rid of those problems. KG hit the winner from 14 feet with 16 seconds on the clock as the capper to his 32 and 14 performance, including 12 points in the fourth. Ricky Davis added 25 and Mark Blount threw in 21. The Bobcats were missing Gerald Wallace and Brevin Knight with assorted injuries, but Matt Carroll stepped in and scored 23, hitting 5 of 8 threes. All the talk afterwards was about the return of the old ball.

BOSTON 89 PORTLAND 81
Oh. These guys are not very good at scoring the basketball. Perhaps they need a synthetic child’s toy ball. Young C’s Ryan Gomes and Al Jefferson both had double-doubles while Z-Bo did not.

The D.A.Y. Iverson lost to Philly

PHILLY 108 DENVER 97
Allen Iverson lost to his ex-team, picking up 2 techs and getting tossed for the exclamation point. After the game, his quote abotu Steve Javie was very interesting. “I thought I got fouled on that play, and I said I thought that he was calling the game personal, and he threw me out. His fuse is real short anyway, and I should have known that I couldn’t say anything anyway. It’s been something personal with me and him since I got in the league. This was just the perfect game for him to try and make me look bad.” Kyle Korver led Philly with 26 and Andre Miller and Iguodala had 10 assists each. A.I. had 30 and 9 and 7 turnovers in the loss.

CLEVELAND 82 SAN ANTONIO 78
Intriguing matchup, not so intriguing game. The Cleveland fans were going crazy in crunc time when LeBron found Damon Jones for the dagger three, and Larry Hughes was the difference in this game, hitting three threes in the fourth. I should mention that the 3rd quarter score was 11-10. Lots of defense. LeBron had 19 but didn’t dunk on The Robot. Tony Parker led the Spurs with 26.

SACRAMENTO 112 NEW YORK 100
Ron Artest had a career high 39 points. Good way to boost the trade value in front of Isiah’s face. The Knicks really want this west coast trip to end.

DALLAS 112 SEATTLE 88
11 straight wins for the Mavs. The Phoenix-Dallas Western Conference Finals is going to be the real championship series. It needs to go seven games. Dirk had 31 and 15, Josh Howard had 21 and 9, and Seattle got a big first half from Ray Allen on his way to 27. The Mavs are ruthless machine.

The D.A.Y. of Gilbert from 32 feet at the buzzer

WASHINGTON 108 MILWAUKEE 105
Gilbert had 32, 11, and 8. Michael Redd scored 27 on 23 shots, while Caron Butler had 29, 9, and 7. Skip all that and let’s get to the main event. Game tied, Gilbert brings the ball up, has time to get a good shot. Catches Charlie Bell sleeping on the 32 foot bomb. HIBACHI! or GUARANTEED! Or whatever he’s saying these days. Here are some quotes from Gil on that shot. “Once I let it go, I’m like, ‘That’s in. I don’t even need to look at this one.” “I don’t know why this is a surprise to you guys now.” And of course “My swag was phenomenal.” Yes it was. Yes, it was.

PHOENIX 100 TORONTO 98
Chris Bosh came back from his 12 game injury hiatus, which felt like 40 games. The Raptors were tied for first place in their division without him, and now that he’s back, they’re 0-1 and are out of the playoffs. Steve Nash had an off night until the fourth when he scored 13 of his 15 and made about 8 billion huge shots in a row.

MEMPHIS 144 GOLDEN STATE 135
The Grizzlies have a head coach named Tony Barone. He is nothing like Mike Fratello. Observe the score of this game. That was not in triple OT. This was 48 minutes of run and gun and run some more. Nobody was walking the ball up. Nobody was playing defense. Everybody was raining three balls on both sides. Mike Miller, 9 of 12 threes on his way to 33 points. Matt Barnes, 7 of 16 threes on his way to 36 points. Damon Stoudamire had 18 and 16, Baron Davis had 22 and 13.

MINNESOTA 103 SAN ANTONIO 101 OT
KG got the best of Tim Duncan. Rare. Timmy had 23, 13, and 5 with 5 blocks. Kevin with 27, 17, and 7 with 3 blocks. You thought it was all about them? They fooled you. It was about Trenton Hassel playing D on Tony Parker and grabbing a key rebound, as well as Matt Bonner missing a three for the win. Hippie. Mark Blount led all scorers with 28 and Manu had 26.

NEW YORK 99 PORTLAND 81
Eddy Curry. 27 points, 10 rebounds, ZERO assists. So he is the new Patrick Ewing! The Blazers gave up a lot of dunks. A lot

LA CLIPPERS 110 MIAMI 95
The Clippers won a road game in the house of the defending champs. That’s great. Elton Brand had 28. Corey Maggette had 16 and 11, but the best part of the game is simply listing the Heat starting 5.

PG JASON WILLIAMS
SG JASON KAPONO
SF DORELL WRIGHT
PF UDONIS HASLEM
C ALONZO MOURNING

The D.A.Y. Kobe passed for Barkley and Marv

LA LAKERS 132 SACRAMENTO 128
Kobe was trapped near halfcourt, caught a glimpse of the brightest damn yellow sneakers in the universe, got the ball to Smush, and he took it to the rack to tie it up. In OT, Kobe took over, Bibby tried to keep it close, but the Lakers held on. Final numbers for the two stars of the night: Kob with 42 on 11 of 21 shooting and 17 of 20 from the line plus 10 boards and 9 assists. Bibby with 38, 7, and 6.

DETROIT 92 NEW ORLEANS 68
The Pistons handled their biz. 27 for Rip on 18 shots. Chris Paul may have picked up some MVP votes by not playing. When he’s out there, the Hornets could be a playoff team. When he’s not, you have to deal with stuff like Jannero Pargo playing 44 minutes, taking 24 shots and hitting 6 of them. Jannero. Pargo.

LA LAKERS 101 DALLAS 98
13 game win streak for the Mavs? Sasha was not impressed, scoring a career high 16 with game winning three, one of his 4 threes.

MINNESOTA 103 HOUSTON 99 OT
T-Mac had to throw up 29 shots to get 31 points. The Rockets had their 5 game winning streak snapped. The return of Tracy from injury right as Yao went out has really messed up Yao’s MVP year. KG and the Wolves continue to get it done in OT, winning their third straight overtime game. 

The D.A.Y. the Bucks played without Michael Redd

DENVER 104 MILWAUKEE 92
The Bucks were one of the hottest teams in the NBA, and now they are without the fifth leading scorer in the league for 4-6 weeks. How can the East keep getting worse? New prediction for All-Star score: 158-82. In this particular game with the Nugs, Mo Williams who has been one of their more important players this year, left the game with an injury. Iverson was banged up as always, with his toe being the problem this time. Marcus Camby came back from being injured as always to have a 19, 15, and 7 block game. Earl Boykins played 41 minutes and put up 26 and 11.
The D.A.Y. of Dallas Mavilliany

DALLAS 108 UTAH 105
“It’s personal. They don’t like me and I don’t like them.” Those are the words of Jerry Stackhouse about the Jazz, and when quotes like that are generated, you know it was a good game. How about those physical and feisty Dallas Mavs? Are they becoming the new villains of the NBA? Gotta have villains.

NEW JERSEY 101 TORONTO 86
The funniest part of this game is that first place in a division was on the line. The Nets won, they’re in first place. Jason Kidd had 14 assists with just 2 turnovers, Vince had 32, and the Raptors, well at least Bargnani had a decent game hitting 4 of 7 threes. The Nets are now a half game up on Toronto for first place in the Atlantic. Gross.

CLEVELAND 108 SACRAMENTO 98
The Cavs were down 17, LeBron started nailing threes, and they scored 60 points in the second half, pulling away for an easy win. Do not make LeBron have to play hard, because he will bury you. He’s saving his energy for the playoffs and the Cavs are still winners of 8 of 10 and 5 in a row.

The D.A.Y. of Rockets and Wizards supporting casts

INDIANA 97 BOSTON 84
The Pacers won behind 23 and 15 from Jermaine O’Neal, and they have their first three game winning streak of the season. The unfortuante story of the game is the injury to Tony Allen. So it’s not just the superstars that are getting hurt this year. It’s young rising potential stars too. This really sucks for Boston, though it helps their chances in the race for Oden.

CHARLOTTE 103 DETROIT 96
The Pistons were missing Chauncey with an injury, so Rip Hamilton decided this would be a good time to get tossed for complaining in the fourth quarter. Flip Saunders brought Rasheed of the bench for “basketball reasons.” Or so he said. The Pistons scored 8 points in the second quarter and totally took the Cats for granted. Flip Saunders is going to blow the season for this team. Good, cause I’m sick of them. 

ORLANDO 91 GOLDEN STATE 76
Dwight Howard, 30 points, 25 boards, 21 years on this earth. There is nothing I can possibly say to make those numbers more impressive.

SAN ANTONIO 92 DENVER 83
JR Smith came back from his suspension and was credited with “spreading the floor” for Iverson. A.I. had 33 in the loss, shooting well, but he only got to the line 3 times. Tim Duncan missed 7 free throws and the Spurs shot 43% from the line and they still won easily enough. I guess playing defense helps. Tony Parker had 26 and 7.

NEW ORLEANS 96 ATLANTA 77
Jannero Pargo led all scorers with 24. That’s really all you need to know. Joe Johnson and Marvin Williams took the most and second most shots for the Hawks, combining to go 8 for 37. Reported attendance: 10,120. I admire what the Hawks are doing. There are so many bad teams in the NBA, but the Hawks want us to know that they can still be the worst if they want to.

The D.A.Y. Jason Kidd was NOT distracted

NEW JERSEY 86 CHICAGO 83
The Bulls had an 18 point lead, the Nets overcame. Jason Kidd’s off-court issues were beyond irrelevant as he carried the team with a 23-14-11 triple double. The Nets took over the game with a 14-0 run in the fourth that included a dunk from RJ, but once again it was JKidd with a huge three and the key defensive play stripping Hinrich when the Bulls were setting up for a chance to tie. Mikki Moore started and had a 13 and 12 game.

PHOENIX 109 CLEVELAND 90
I turned this game on when it was 101-76 Suns. Not what TNT had in mind. LeBron didn’t really get going until the fourth quarter, with Shawn Marion keeping him in check.  34, 6, and 6 for LeBron, while Steve Nash just picked Cleveland apart with 21 assists and 1 turnover and only needed to score 4 points. His second 20+ assist game of the season. The Suns have won 8 in a row and 9 of 10. Steve Nash after the game said “We played with a lot of concentration, something we haven’t done in the last couple of weeks.” He’s got high standards.

The D.A.Y. that T-Mac, LeBron, and Dwight Howard couldn’t do it all

DALLAS 109 HOUSTON 106
T-Mac had 45 points on 17 of 29 shooting. I noticed those numbers when there was still 2:45 left in the game, which wasn’t close. Devean George of all people hit some clutch threes for the Mavs. 30 and 10 for Dirk and 28 for Josh Howard. The Mavs are on a five game winning streak, which is peanuts for them. As I mentioned earlier, they have won 18 of 19, and while Dirk has been on fire of late and Josh is playing at superstar level, they keep getting big contributions from the Devean George’s of their roster.

The D.A.Y. of Dallas Revenge

DALLAS 114 LA LAKERS 95
Revenge. The Dallas Mavericks are not playing around. If you want to use the back-to-back against the Spurs and Mavs as an excuse for the Lakers, go ahead. I’ll just say that the Mavs are a much better team and they were extra motivated to beat the only team that has beaten them since December 11th. Josh Howard led the team with 29 and 11 while Kobe led L.A. with 26. Avery is not letting them relax. After 41 games, the Mavs are 33-8. Matching that in the second half would make them a 66 win team. The first Shaq-Kobe Lakers championship team won 67 games, including a 19 game win streak as part of a 30-1 spurt. That’s how Avery wants his team playing. Ruthless.

The D.A.Y. of the Dallas-Miami Finals rematch

DALLAS 99 MIAMI 93
Still no Shaquille. He’s taking his time coming back from injury. The Mavs never trailed, but they let the Heat hang around in this game and Wade had a chance to tie it with a three with 5.8 seconds left. He missed. Great effort from Dwyane in the loss, after he briefly left with an injury in the first quarter he came back and played 44 minutes scoring 31 with 6 and 6 and 2 steals. 

PHOENIX 131 MINNESOTA 102
Shawn Marion had 20 rebounds. In three quarters, before sitting out the fourth cause it was too much of a blowout. He needs to be an All-Star. I don’t know who that would knock out of the game, but he needs to be there. The guy spends his whole career overshadowed by teammates, and now he’s the closest thing to being someone that gets to play in front of fans that remember him from his college days in Vegas. Kevin Garnett had to sit this one out because of another punch and run NBA non-fight. The T-Wolves weren’t going to win anyways, so he might as well have missed the game.

The D.A.Y. of Iverson and Carmelo together

DENVER 115 MEMPHIS 98
I don’t know how much we can take from this game, since it was run and run and run and gun Memphis. A.I. and Melo did not have a power struggle, they each had some highlights, there was an oop from Allen to Carmelo, and Marcus Camby grabbed 17 boards and hit a bunch of wide open jumpers for 17 points.

LA LAKERS 108 GOLDEN STATE 103
Kobe hit the key shot, scored 42, and the Lakers absolutely OWN the Warriors, new roster and all. Sarunas Jasikevicius hit a big shot, Al Harrington scored 30, but the Lakers with their depleted front line have been a dominant home team this season. Lamar Odom and Kwame Brown could both play on Friday. 

SACRAMENTO 88 NEW JERSEY 87
Here’s the good news for the Nets: Jason Kidd had another triple double Mikki Moore hit all 8 of his shots on his way to a career high 22, as the Nets built a 20 point lead. That is all for the good news. Mike Bibby, who couldn’t hit the proverbial side of a barn, got hot and carried the Kings with their last 15 points to get them the win. Ron Artest had a shaved head, so the mohawk era is over. Kevin Martin was ice cold, Ron was chucking, and the Nets still found a way to blow it. 

MIAMI 101 NEW YORK 83
The Heat didn’t have Wade or Shaq. Early in the first quarter, they went on a 27-0 run. I’ve got nothing more to say about this game.

ORLANDO 90 CLEVELAND 79
The Cavs are tired from their west coast trip. Many people seem to be accusing LeBron of taking it easy during the first half, saving his energy for the playoffs. You know, like 90% of NBA players. LeBron sees it the other way “It was tough. It was one of those games you try to forget about. We’ve got to get some rest. Everybody’s sleeping pattern is off.” I hear you LeBron. Sleep is underrated.

The D.A.Y. of Phoenix West over Phoenix East

PHOENIX 125 WASHINGTON 105
I watched the whole first quarter of this game, when the Suns ran away with it and toyed with a Washington team that likes to think of itself as the Phoenix of the East. You think Gilbert jacks up shots with no consicence? The Suns are like 7 Gilberts, except they only take wide open shots. 

DENVER 117 SEATTLE 112
Once again, the Nuggets had a chance to work Carmelo back against a bad team that doesn’t play much defense. This was a close game only because Ray Allen caught fire and scored 22 in the fourth quarter, finishing with 44 points, hitting 6 of 17 threes.
And that brings us to the present. I think that was a pretty good summary of what’s happened in the NBA so far on the court, as long as you pretend no games are played on Friday or Saturday night. Some thoughts and opinions are sprinkled in, but for the most part those are the facts.

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It’s time for me to embrace the B word. BLOG! They’re everywhere. Everyone has one. Not just celebrities. If you want to accuse me of stealing deadspin’s idea to do this, well I have no defense other than to say it’s a complete coincidence, and I already started working on it so it was too late for me to stop. I guess my point is that I am ready to embrace the blogosphere. I’ve spent some time at work scouring the NBA Blogs out there. And now, I will drag them down to my dirty little world. The Dirty 30 stays an order, but here’s a blog for each team along with either a comment on the blog, a description, or something funny. This took longer than it should have.

-SAM RUBENSTEIN

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