Re: NBA News
Any predictions of what the Finals are going to look like?
My 2 predictions
1) Spurs vs Miami (rematch of last year)
1) Spurs vs Indiana
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Re: NBA News
Knicks' Anthony leaves game with sprained ankle
New York forward Carmelo Anthony will be evaluated Tuesday after he left the Knicks' 103-98 win over the Orlando Magic with a sprained left ankle.
Anthony led the Knicks with 19 points before leaving the game Monday night with 7:26 left in the third quarter.
Without him, the Magic rallied to cut what had been a 25-point deficit to just a point. But the Knicks were able to hang on down the stretch to preserve the victory.
Anthony said in the locker room afterward that he is remaining optimistic about the severity of the sprain.
"I am walking," Anthony said. "I think I caught it before it rolled all the way but it rolled pretty bad. So we will evaluate everything (Tuesday). The good thing is I am able to walk with a little bit of pain. We will figure it out tomorrow. The pain was just too much. I was actually trying to walk it off to see if I could come back into the game.
"There wasn't any reason for me to go out there and risk it anymore."
Woodson also was trying to remain positive for the latest in what has been a string of injuries to his players this season.
The Knicks next play Oklahoma City on Christmas Day.
"Melo's a tough kid," Woodson said. "He doesn't sit out very often and we just have to wait and see how he feels tomorrow, see how he is an we'll go from there."
The Knicks also lost point guard Raymond Felton late in the fourth quarter to what coach Mike Woodson was as a tweaked groin. Felton was just making his return to action after a six-game absence because of strained left hamstring.
He also will be evaluated Tuesday. The Knicks had been struggling to find an offensive flow in the half court and that returned against the Magic early.
"I'm concerned (about Melo), but I'm not as worried about him as I'm worried about Ray, the way he came back and then to go down again. It's tough," Knicks forward J.R. Smith said. "He's our point guard, for sure
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Re: NBA News
The Western Conference Gets Tougher At Top, But Is It Really A Power Shift?
HANG TIME SOUTHWEST – Dwight to Houston and Iggy to Golden State. What a day. So, how much did Friday’s free-agent action shift the balance of power in the Western Conference? Perhaps the biggest shift will be the return of a healthy Russ in Oklahoma City come November.
The West certainly got more top-heavy and more intriguing on a wild day that finally delivered Dwight Howard‘s decision, however awkwardly. The big man is leaving the domineering Kobe Bryant and his rapidly aging Los Angeles Lakers to join The Beard, James Harden, and his young-and-gunning Houston Rockets.
While Howard spent Friday in Aspen, Colo., surely studying the California state tax hit on the $30 million more the incumbent Lakers could pay him, the Golden State Warriors’ aggressive front office was busy selling off expiring contracts to create the cap room needed to reach a rather stunning agreement with Denver free agent Andre Iguodala. It positioned the Warriors perfectly to craft a deal if the desperate Lakers bellied-up seeking a sign-and-trade for Howard while simultaneously strengthening their club for next season if not.
Still, did Dwight to Houston and Iggy to Golden State boost either team to the level of the West champion San Antonio Spurs, to OKC with Russell Westbrook returning or even to the Doc Rivers-coached and Chris Paul-led Los Angeles Clippers?
The West is so stout at the top that while Houston and Golden State began to emerge last season with Harden coming to the Rockets and Steph Curry rising to star status in the playoffs (and both teams will co-chair the NBA’s committee for must-watch teams next season) they might find themselves battling it out for homecourt advantage in the first round. And that’s having not even mentioned the post-Lionel Hollins Memphis Grizzlies now under rookie coach David Joerger returning as a top-five team.
But back to Iguodala and his one-year stopover in Denver. If there is a power shift in the West it’s the potential for a Nuggets avalanche down the standings to open a spot in the top four. Denver finished the season as the No. 3 seed, but since Danilo Gallinari tore his ACL in early April it’s been a steady stream of body blows. Denver lost to Golden State in the first round. Coach of the Year George Karl was fired and executive of the year Masai Ujiri left to run the Toronto Raptors. Now Iguodala is gone and Denver might be on the playoff bubble.
As for the Lakers, it’s disingenuous to talk about the loss of Howard as creating a major power shift within the conference. L.A. hasn’t escaped the second round in three years and with Howard last season it squeaked into the playoffs in the final days of the season as the seventh seed. Kobe Bryant hopes to be back for the start of the 2013-14 season, but there’s no guarantee as he recovers from a torn Achilles tendon.
With a roster badly in need of patching all over, might the Lakers, who — ready for this? — apparently chose a future with Mike D’Antonio over the 27-year-old Howard, be the most likely candidate to fall out of the top eight and open a playoff path for a lottery team such as the loaded — and presumably healthy — Minnesota Timberwolves?
Huh, the Timberwolves passing over the Lakers? Now that would be a power shift.
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Re: NBA News
Courageous Collins Breaks Barrier
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Jason Collins displayed his courage routinely as a big man whose specialty was fighting for space under the rim against the likes of Shaquille O’Neal and Dwight Howard. So the journeyman center, who played for both the Celtics and Wizards this season, had nothing to prove to me, you or anyone else when it comes to courageousness.
Jason Collins played for both the Celtics and Wizards last year, his 12th season in the NBA
Yet Monday, he showed an entirely different type of bravery when he came out as the first openly gay athlete in a major American sport.
“I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.”
Those 12 words he wrote in a piece for Sports Illustrated will not only change the course his life but the lives of his friends, family, teammates and coaches (past, current and perhaps future). They will change everyone else involved with the NBA. Now that this barrier has been broken, Collins will forever be linked to this groundbreaking moment and what comes after.
I cannot think of a man better equipped to deal with this new reality. Collins always has been regarded as the ultimate professional, one of the smartest players of his generation and a teammate willing to give it all up for his team. No one spends 12 years getting cracked in the face by the sharp elbows of some of the best big men in NBA history without being willing and able to withstand some pressure.
Collins always has been one of my favorite players to talk to about basketball and beyond. Catch him in the locker room before a game and bring up almost any topic and he could educate you on a thing or two.
So for every person who has an issue with Collins coming out — and there are sure to be plenty of them — there will be just as many who support him and have his back, folks who commend him for his courage and his refusal to fear the foolish reactions of some.
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Re: NBA News
My dream finally came true.
the San Antonio Spurs not only beat the Lakers, but swept them 4-0.Leave a comment:
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The Chicago Bulls end Miami Heat's 27 game winning streak, the 2nd longest in NBA historyLeave a comment:
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So with the Lakers winning this afternoon, they are in the 8th seed if the playoffs started today
do you think they will make the playoffs, & if you think they will what seed will they finish inLeave a comment:
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Re: NBA News
Lakers owner Jerry Buss dies
LOS ANGELES (AP)
Jerry Buss, the Los Angeles Lakers' playboy owner who shepherded the NBA franchise to 10 championships from the `80s Showtime dynasty to the Kobe Bryant era, died Monday, his assistant said.
Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss
JERRY BUSS: 1933-2013
Hall of Fame owner of Lakers dies.
Buss died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said Bob Steiner, his assistant. He was 80.
He'd been hospitalized for cancer, but the immediate cause of death was kidney failure, Steiner said.
A Depression-era baby, Buss was born in Salt Lake City on Jan. 27, 1933, although some sources cite 1934 as his birth year. His parents, Lydus and Jessie Buss, divorced when he was an infant.
Under Buss' leadership since 1979, the Lakers became Southern California's most beloved sports franchise and a worldwide extension of Hollywood glamour. Buss acquired, nurtured and befriended a staggering array of talented players and basketball minds during his Hall of Fame tenure.
Few owners in sports history can even approach Buss' accomplishments with the Lakers, who made the NBA finals 16 times through 2011 during his 32 years in charge, winning 10 titles between 1980 and 2010. The Lakers easily are the NBA's winningest franchise since he bought the club.
Few owners have ever been more beloved by their players than Buss, who always referred to the Lakers as his extended family. Working with front-office executives Jerry West and Mitch Kupchak, Buss spent lavishly to win his titles despite lacking a huge personal fortune, often running the NBA's highest payroll while also paying high-profile coaches Pat Riley and Phil Jackson.
We remember those who have died in the sports world in 2013.
Always an innovative businessman, Buss paid for the Lakers through both their wild success and his own groundbreaking moves to raise revenue. He co-founded a basic-cable sports television network and sold the naming rights to the Forum at times when both now-standard strategies were unusual, adding justification for his induction into the Pro Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010.
Magic Johnson and fellow Hall of Famers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy formed lifelong bonds with Buss during the Lakers' run to five titles in nine years in the 1980s, when the Lakers earned a reputation as basketball's most exciting team with their glamorous Showtime style.
Jackson then led Shaquille O'Neal and Bryant to a threepeat from 2000-02, rekindling the Lakers' mystique, before Bryant and Pau Gasol won two more titles under Jackson in 2009 and 2010.
Although Buss was proudest of his two hands full of NBA title rings, he also was a scholar, Renaissance man and bon vivant who epitomized California cool - and a certain Los Angeles lifestyle - for his entire public life.
The father of six rarely appeared in public without at least one attractive, much younger woman on his arm at USC football games, boxing matches, poker tournaments - and, of course, Lakers games from his private box at Staples Center, which was built under his watch.
lakers
L.A.'S LEADING MEN
The Lakers have had a lot of great players. Here's our top five.
Buss earned a Ph.D. in chemistry at age 24 and had careers in aerospace and real estate development before getting into sports. With money largely from his Santa Monica real-estate ventures, Buss bought the then-struggling Lakers, the NHL's Los Angeles Kings and both clubs' arena - the Forum - from Jack Kent Cooke in a $67.5 million deal that was the largest sports transaction in history at the time.
In January 2011, Forbes estimated the Lakers were worth $643 million - the second-most valuable NBA franchise.
Buss also helped change televised sports by co-founding the Prime Ticket network in 1985, even receiving a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006 for his work in television. Breaking the contemporary model of subscription services for televised sports, Buss' Prime Ticket put beloved broadcaster Chick Hearn and the Lakers' home games on basic cable.
Buss also sold the naming rights to the Forum in 1988 to Great Western Savings & Loan - another deal that was ahead of its time.
Born in Salt Lake City, Gerald Hatten Buss was raised in Wyoming and attended USC for graduate school, eventually becoming a chemistry professor and working as a chemist for the Bureau of Mines before his life took an abrupt turn into wealth and sports.
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OWN UP TO IT
Franchise success or failure often can be traced to the top. We rank the five best and five worst NBA owners.
The former mathematician claimed his fortune grew out of a $1,000 real-estate investment in a West Los Angeles apartment building with partner Frank Mariani, an aerospace engineer.
Buss purchased Cooke's entire Los Angeles sports empire in 1979, including a 13,000-acre ranch in Kern County. Buss' love of basketball was the motivation for his purchase, and he immediately worked to transform the Lakers - who had won just one NBA title since moving west from Minneapolis in 1960 - into a star-powered endeavor befitting Hollywood.
''One of the first things I tried to do when I bought the team was to make it an identification for this city, like Motown in Detroit,'' he told the Los Angeles Times in 2008. ''I try to keep that identification alive. I'm a real Angeleno. I want us to be part of the community.''
Buss' plans immediately worked: Johnson, Abdul-Jabbar and coach Paul Westhead led the Lakers to the 1980 title. Johnson's ball-handling wizardry and Abdul-Jabbar's smooth inside game made for an attractive style of play evoking Hollywood flair and West Coast cool.
Riley, the former broadcaster who fit the L.A. image perfectly with his slick-backed hair and chiseled good looks, was surprisingly promoted by Buss early in the 1981-82 season after West declined to co-coach the team. Riley became one of the best coaches in NBA history, leading the Lakers to four straight NBA finals and four titles, with Worthy, Michael Cooper, Byron Scott and A.C. Green playing major roles.
Overall, the Lakers made the finals nine times in Buss' first 12 seasons while rekindling the NBA's best rivalry with the Boston Celtics, and Buss basked in the worldwide celebrity he received from his team's achievements. His womanizing and partying became Hollywood legend, with even his players struggling to keep up with Buss' lifestyle.
Johnson's HIV diagnosis and retirement in 1991 staggered Buss and the Lakers, the owner recalled in 2011. The Lakers struggled through much of the 1990s, going through seven coaches and making just one conference finals appearance in an eight-year stretch despite the 1996 arrivals of O'Neal, who signed with Los Angeles as a free agent, and Bryant, the 17-year-old high schooler acquired in a draft-week trade.
Shaq and Kobe didn't reach their potential until Buss persuaded Jackson, the Chicago Bulls' six-time NBA champion coach, to take over the Lakers in 1999. Los Angeles immediately won the next three NBA titles in brand-new Staples Center, AEG's state-of-the-art downtown arena built with the Lakers as the primary tenant.
After the Lakers traded O'Neal in 2004, they hovered in mediocrity again until acquiring Gasol in a heist of a trade with Memphis in early 2008. Los Angeles made the next three NBA finals, winning two more titles.
Lakers at a glance
Los Angeles Lakers
Through the Lakers' frequent successes and occasional struggles, Buss never stopped living his Hollywood dream. He was an avid poker player, frequently participating in high-stakes tournaments, and a fixture on the Los Angeles club scene well into his 70s, when a late-night drunk-driving arrest in 2007 - with a 23-year-old woman in the passenger seat of his Mercedes-Benz - prompted him to cut down on his partying.
Buss owned the NHL's Kings from 1979-87, and the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks also won two league titles under Buss' ownership. He also owned Los Angeles franchises in World Team Tennis and the Major Indoor Soccer League.
Buss' children moved into leadership roles with the Lakers in their father's later years. Jim Buss, the Lakers' executive vice president of player personnel and the second of Buss' six children, has taken over much of the club's primary decision-making responsibilities in the last few years, while daughter Jeanie is a longtime executive on the franchise's business side - and Jackson's longtime companion.
Yet Jerry Buss served two terms as President of the NBA's Board of Governors, and was actively involved in the 2011 lockout negotiations, developing blood clots in his legs attributed to his extensive travel during that time
http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/l...-battle-021813.Leave a comment:
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Re: NBA News
NBA All Star weekend 2013 starts at 6pm
live from Houston on TNT, tune in NBA FaNsLeave a comment:
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