December 30, 2008 by Sam Joynt

Losing your star player to injury for the first half of the season can cause some major problems. Losing your team leader and point guard to free agency can cause even more. When two of your other starters demand a trade (one's already been dealt) problems seem to arise everywhere, unless...

December 23, 2008 by Sam Joynt

How quickly things have changed for Kevin Garnett. Just two years removed from the consistent struggles that overshadowed his personal brilliance in Minnesota, KG is now the proud owner of a championship ring, and in pursuit of another in record fashion. With December underway, the Boston Celtics are in the...

December 17, 2008 by Sam Joynt

Things done changed folks. In most jobs, status doesn't alter from month to month, the corporate executives stay in the office and those in the mail room, well, they stay in the mailroom. The NBA's a little different. Players can rise from obscurity to...

December 9, 2008 by Sam Joynt

How, in a sport so contingent on one and done talent, where the longest a player can remain eligible to compete is five years, do the same teams remain amongst the top ranked squads every year? Look no further than the University of North Carolina for the answer. The unanimously...

December 4, 2008 by Austin Kent

Dear Greg Oden's Neck Beard,It hasn't been two weeks since the day you hung thick and proud under the Herculean jaw of northwestern hope, but your absence in the time herein has left an uncomfortable void in many a man's life. As an admittedly judgmental basketball fan myself, I was...

December 2, 2008 by Sam Joynt

This past summer a new trend emerged amongst the NBA's annual crop of free agent talent. Led by formidable Atlanta sixth man Josh Childress, a number of players opted to take their games overseas in exchange for lucrative contracts, the perception of enhanced playing time and, by extension, more vital...

November 25, 2008 by Sam Joynt

Who is Anthony Morrow? Well, prior to November 15th he was an undrafted rookie by Golden State averaging an unspectacular 7.7 points for the guard depleted Warriors in about 13 minutes of burn per contest.The 6'5" Georgia Tech product averaged 14.3 points and 4.1 boards in his senior campaign...

November 17, 2008 by Sam Joynt

Yes, I know it's only mid-November, but the NBA just recently released the ballot for the 2009 edition of its annual talent showcase and it got me thinking about who would be selected if the votes were counted today. As far as starting players go, it has always been more...

November 11, 2008 by Sam Joynt

Maybe you've heard of him, and maybe you haven't, but if you've familiarized yourself with the AAU circuit, watched any high school all-star games lately or opened an issue of SLAM in the past four or five years then chances are pretty good that the name Lance Stephenson rings a...

November 4, 2008 by Sam Joynt

Like many general managers in the association Joe Dumars is no stranger to controversy. The difference between Dumars however has been his ability to thrive on this controversy, to prove the critics wrong and above all, to win. Dating back to his playing days, Dumars has been engulfed by controversy...

October 31, 2008 by Leigh Ellis

If Isiah Thomas had chosen Hollywood for his career path over the NBA, he would never have been cast in the role of a gang leader. His boyish grin and diminutive frame made him more Gary Coleman than Al Pacino. However, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Thomas was...

October 28, 2008 by Sam Joynt

Len Bias had that swagger, you know what I'm talking about, like the Fab Five, like Jordan, that no-nonsense, I can do what I want, dress how I want, and be what I wanna be, because I am that good kind of swagger. The kind of shit you can't teach...

October 27, 2008 by Austin Kent

On a summery day in the end of June, amidst a limitless flurry of rookie rumors and speculation, Canadian news broke that Toronto Raptors general manager Bryan Colangelo had pulled the trigger on a blockbuster deal that would see his club part ways with chronically under-used T.J. Ford in exchange...

October 24, 2008 by Leigh Ellis

In sport, it's said that the greatest challenge is not to become a champion, but to remain a champion. Anyone can win something once, but to do it all over again proves to any doubters that the initial success was fully deserved and did not come about by chance or...

October 21, 2008 by Sam Joynt

To the untrained eye, the annual McDonald's All-American game is just another in the long list of high school all-star games, but to the rest of us it's a preview; a glimpse at the future of professional basketball, and perhaps no class has been more indicative of this foresight than...

October 17, 2008 by Leigh Ellis

New York Knicks general manager Donnie Walsh has long been a fan of Mike D'Antoni. When Walsh was GM of the Indiana Pacers, he wanted to add D'Antoni to the team's coaching staff, only for then-Pacers' head coach Isaiah Thomas to block the move. It took eight years and a...

October 13, 2008 by Austin Kent

George Gervin deserves your respect. Not because he did for Michael Jordan what Michael Jordan did for Richard Hamilton in 2001. Heck, not for representing the San Antonio Spurs in nine straight All-Star games from 1977 to 1985 either. George Gervin deserves your respect because the tragically underrated, 1996-elected, Basketball...

October 7, 2008 by Leigh Ellis

Vince Carter has always been a wanted man. Though selected by the Golden State Warriors with the fifth pick in the 1998 Draft, the Toronto Raptors had already organized a pre-draft deal to bring him to Canada making it clear to him that he was the guy they were after...

October 3, 2008 by Sam Joynt

It was the year 2000. The location was Sydney, Australia. Gold was the prize. The story of these Olympics Games is different than most however. It doesn't revolve around medal counts, world records or national supremacy. The story of these games follows two basketball players. The first player was a...

September 28, 2008 by Sam Joynt

They are fast, strong and athletic. They play above the rim in traffic, own passing lanes and can dominant with their backs to the basket, and although they may not look like John Stockton, make no mistake, these players are point guards in the truest sense. With the drafting of...

August 17, 2008 by Austin Kent

Josh Smith is a 22-year-old power forward with four years of NBA experience, a record-setting pace for blocks and enough highlight reel footage to start up his own multimedia empire, but ask the man himself what he really needs and discover nothing more than the feeling of being wanted...