Category: Features
-
There is a long list of reasons why NBA basketball is The Greatest Game. It has the best athletes and viewing experience, the coolest personalities and fans, the most thoughtful writers, and the funniest Twitter accounts. It is culturally and…
-
I thought I saw a ghost yesterday: Rashad McCants was playing professional. Earlier this month, Shaddy took his talents to Texas, joining Dallas Mavericks D-League squad the Texas Legends. Yesterday’s game, against the Erie Hawks, was televised on NBATV. The…
-
[Last night’s game is the rare Wolves tilt that shows up in my League Pass Broadband archives. I wanted to look back at Derrick Williams’ three turnovers, because I remember each one was of the head-scratching and maddening variety, and…
-
We all love Ricky Rubio and what he has brought to the Timberwolves franchise. His injury last season marked an immediate downward spiral from hopefully playoff team to lottery-bound loser. Part of his recovery process from ACL surgery is regaining…
-
Kevin Love: 2012-13 Return Uncertain Wolves fans learned today that All-Star forward Kevin Love may miss the rest of the 2012-13 season. How big is the loss? It’s hard to say. Love missed the Wolves’ first nine games with a broken…
-
This coming June marks the twentieth anniversary of one of the biggest tragedies in NBA history. On June 7, 1993 a Volkswagon was speeding along Germany’s Autobahn when it encountered a truck that had crashed through the guard rails and…
-
[Co-Authored by Andy & Patrick] What a difference a year makes. Last December 31 the Timberwolves were 0-3 and, despite some hugely entertaining early losses to Oklahoma and Miami, not yet familiar with winning basketball since Kevin Garnett’s departure. Now,…
-
…in which Andy G and I break down candidates for the Brooklyn Nets’ coaching vacancy. (We don’t see PJ Carlesimo keeping the job either.) Patrick J: Moving the Nets to Brooklyn and aggressively changing the team’s branding and player personnel…
-
A difficult but essential responsibility of any basketball coach is to get his or her players to “buy in.” By whatever psychological tactics necessary (with some famous coaches showing little-to-no bounds in their exploration), a coach needs to teach and…
-
Patrick J: How hard do you think AdelKahn is shopping Derrick Williams and change right now for a shooting guard? And, would they do a Beal trade? Would the Wiz? This probably means nothing, but I saw that WaPo picked…
-
“Why do I care?” is the single most hazardous question that a diehard NBA fan can ask himself. “Junkies” like me, and those I surmise to be a large percentage of this blog’s readership, devote considerable time and energy to…
-
The growing anticipation of tonight’s Spurs-Heat game, a primetime TNT tilt, came to a screeching halt an hour or so ago. Gregg Popovich, the “arrogant in an endearing sorta way” coach of the Spurs, decided to leave all of his…
-
Randy Wittman played four years of college basketball at Indiana University. He played there for Bobby Knight, one of the greatest coaches in the history of sports. In Wittman’s sophomore season, the Hoosiers won a national title. In his senior…
-
The 5-4 record of the Minnesota Timberwolves is defined by crosswinds: In one direction blows a continuous breeze of injuries: damaged knees, bizarre knuckle and foot ailments, an ankle sprain (to a player seemingly-immune to such things), with the sum…
-
Andy G: SCENARIO: You just pressed rewind all the way back to June of 2010. You are David Kahn and you possess the rights to the fourth pick in the NBA draft. You have two choices. Draft Wesley Johnson out…
-
Illustration by Howard Shum. Go check it out. Paul George is good at professional basketball. Really good. We’ve raved before about George’s underrated defensive prowess, but it’s worth reiterating: George can defend the hell out of the ball. George has…
-
Okay, folks. With the season about to start and a hurricane about to blow my house down, Andy G and I are doing a rapid-fire INBOX-style NBA Preview wrap-up. We argue about Chris Paul, which teams will rise to the…
-
I finally took a look at some League-wide preseason stats, trends, and anomalies. Much of the data looks just like we’d expect. But the preseason always produces a few surprises and some good laughs. A few of the things that…
-
So, James Harden. Yep. Gone. OKC is screwed. Or is it? You’ll find out in my Western Conference preview. But first things first: Why did OKC trade one of its core stars, just before the season starts, and why was it…