There are precious few 7-footers that can turn into a jump hook while chewing gum at the same time, much less make a living out of it on the pro level. Yet, there Yao was. And he would have been there, even if he was 6 inches shorter than his 7-6 frame. Maybe if it weren't for those extra 6 inches, he and his Rockets would have played into the conference finals last spring.
Yao Ming Retires from the NBA. [more inside]
posted by auto-correct
on Jul 8, 2011 -
40 comments
"Internationally, the league has never been stronger: It's the only American sports league that attracts stars from every corner of the world. Digitally, the league has been light years ahead of everyone else, embracing the revolution and staying ahead of the curve with social media and video content. It's also spent the past two decades carefully (and successfully) selling mostly black players to a mostly white audience, an ongoing conundrum that nearly submarined the league in the late-'70s and early-'80s. Throw in a killer 2011 Finals and everything looks fantastic on paper … except for the part that the league is losing money." -
Bill Simmons analyzes the NBA labor dispute for his new website,
Grantland.
posted by beisny
on Jun 12, 2011 -
86 comments
From
1967 to 1976, the
American Basketball Association delivered
wild, raw, above-the-rim hoops that few ever saw (lacking TV broadcasts). They introduced the 3-point shot and
slam-dunk contests (along with a red, white and blue ball, short shorts and
big afros), brought pro ball to the American South, and launched the careers of
Connie (the
Hawk)
Hawkins,
Bob Costas,
George Gervin,
Fly Williams,
David Thompson and
a guy named
Julius Erving. You know,
Doctor J.
[more inside]
posted by msalt
on May 19, 2011 -
16 comments
Deadspin tells
the story of the unlikely friendship between Kendrick Perkins of the Oklahoma City Thunder and two fans.
posted by reenum
on Apr 22, 2011 -
22 comments
Free Darko calls it quits. Contributors to the irreverent basketball writing site that Brian Philips describes as "a vintage record shop that radiation turned into a grad student" talk about what Free Darko meant to them. Also,
an interview with Free Darko writer and illustrator Bethlehem Shoals and Jacob Weinstein.
posted by AceRock
on Apr 11, 2011 -
19 comments
Harvey Araton
wrote that basketball star Reggie Miller has "a mouth that can stretch as far as his jump shot range." He might be right. Once, in a game against the New York Knicks, Miller so taunted Knicks guard John Starks that Starks headbutted him. Starks was summarily ejected. That incident took place during Game 3 of the 1993 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals - a series New York would go on to win in 5 games.
[more inside]
posted by kbanas
on Nov 18, 2010 -
46 comments
If
William Wesley says LeBron James is
going to play for the Chicago Bulls next year, it is probably true. Known as
World Wide Wes, insiders call him the most powerful man in the NBA. And nobody really knows what he does. “I don’t have any clue what he does or how financially he benefits from this. I don’t know. But he’s just there. He’s around. He knows all the pro guys, their agents, the sneaker people, the coaches, general managers, media people. There’s no one he doesn’t know."
[more inside]
posted by swellingitchingbrain
on Jun 28, 2010 -
48 comments
Sebastian Pruiti offers the sort of
analysis many of us like to see from the sports media. Instead of manufacturing controversy, his blog teaches us have a fuller appreciation of the game on the court. For example, instead of obsessing on Cousins' personality, we get a look at his sophisticated
post game.
[more inside]
posted by Jagz-Mario
on Jun 28, 2010 -
2 comments
What might be the most profitable
team in professional sports hasn't played a game since 1976. That summer, as the
American Basketball Association was completing its merger with the NBA, only four of the six remaining teams were going to be able to join the league. It was the ABA's responsibility to figure out how to pay off the other 2 owners.
One owner accepted $3 million, which he eventually used to buy the Boston Celtics. The
other owners got a slightly better deal.
posted by empath
on Apr 1, 2010 -
23 comments
The Confessions of an NBA Scorekeeper Gawker's Tommy Craggs talks with an ex-scorekeeper for the Vancouver Grizzlies, and reveals the subjectivity of stat keeping in the NBA.
This guy once gave Nick Van Exel 23 assists just because he felt like it.
posted by reenum
on Dec 11, 2009 -
12 comments
The Donald Sterling Rule "Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling lives by his own rules. And the only one that matters, apparently, is this:
all bad deeds go unpunished. Over the last six years, nearly two dozen L.A. residents have sued Sterling for engaging in racist housing practices and Jim Crow-style bigotry. In a 2003 deposition, the 76-year-old real estate mogul admitted to paying a former employee to have sex with him in an elevator. Three years ago, the U.S. government charged him with "willful" mistreatment of African-American and Latino tenants, and earlier this month, he agreed to pay the Dept. of Justice nearly $3 million to settle a federal racial-discrimination housing lawsuit, the largest award ever for a case of its kind." So why, asks California's
Tenants Together,
has the NBA said nothing about Sterling's less than sterling behavior?
[more inside]
posted by ocherdraco
on Nov 27, 2009 -
27 comments
Transcending The same year Jackie Robinson started playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers,
Wat Misaka became the first "person of color" to play in the NBA. Though he only played three games with the New York Knicks.
[more inside]
posted by drezdn
on Nov 26, 2009 -
5 comments
Basketball doesn't have baseball's numerous simmering controversies over Hall of Fame inductees, but the greatest basketball player denied enshrinement may be 11-time ABA and NBA All Star center
Artis Gilmore. At 7-foot-2 plus 4 inches for his
towering afro, they called him "The A-Train" for his
powerful but
unpretentious play, and today on his 60th birthday he still owns career records in the NCAA (22.7 rebounds per game) and NBA (59.9% field goal percentage). OK, I only posted this so I could link to
these three photos.
[more inside]
posted by planetkyoto
on Sep 21, 2009 -
12 comments
Dallas Mavericks
owner, celebrity
dancer, Dairy Queen
manager, and bloviating billionaire Mark Cuban has been
accused of insider trading. In its
complaint, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused Cuban of selling his entire stake in
Momma.com (since
renamed) to avoid a $750,000 loss in 2004. But not even the government has a gag big enough to cover Cuban's mouth.
On his
blog, Cuban says the SEC is
picking on him and presented an
excerpt of a deposition of Mamma.com's CEO.
And Cuban would like you to believe that he's being
politically persecuted for his support of the 9/11 conspiracy film, "
Loose Change." Cuban's
Magnolia Pictures, which
redacted Redacted, was
said to be interested in a distribution deal.
posted by up in the old hotel
on Nov 19, 2008 -
42 comments
Completely amazing graph of every NBA player for every season in which he played at least five minutes since 1979. Points Per Game are on the Y-Axis, sum total of every other stat on the X-axis, with the data points colored with RGB depending on the player's statistical tendencies during that season. Full explanation of methodology
here. Gigantic monitor recommended. Via the always excellent
TrueHoop.
posted by Kwine
on Jul 12, 2007 -
20 comments
