0 comments by Matt Zemek on 4/9/2016
The Denver Nuggets might not have the same upside the Minnesota Timberwolves possess, but they join the T-Wolves as a non-playoff organization which died a very good death in 2016. Most of the non-playoff organizations in the NBA — not to mention their fans — cannot be very happy right now. The Sixers, Nets, Lakers, […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
The Brooklyn Nets didn’t make the playoffs as they had in 2015, but this was nevertheless a fairly typical season for the organization. Brook Lopez was discussed as the subject of possible trades, but stayed put. Mikhail Prokhorov didn’t look very smart. The season ended with everyone feeling pretty depressed, with not a lot of […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
The New Orleans Pelicans exist in an uncomfortable situation… and that discomfort isn’t even an immediate reference to all the injuries which have afflicted the organization this past season. No, the discomfort most centrally in evidence in the Big Easy is the gnawing sense that no one in the organization knows how to solve problems. […]
0 comments by Sean Woodley on 4/8/2016
If you’re an unabashed fan of an unsuccessful team, you know how you’d like to see the NBA Draft Lottery line up if your team hasn’t traded away its future (sorry, Nets fans). Of course you want the team you support to be gifted the opportunity to take a potentially franchise-altering player with the first […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
Before the Golden State Warriors get to 73 wins, they need to reach 72. That’s basic math, but the simple progression of numbers doesn’t begin to tell the story which has consumed the 2016 NBA season. In professional basketball or any other sport, numbers can and do acquire larger-than-life significance. .406 (Ted Williams in 1941). […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
Let it be said up front, for the sake of clarity: Kawhi Leonard, the San Antonio Spurs’ best player in the present tense, played well on Thursday night against the Golden State Warriors. An 8-of-12 shooting line, two 3-point makes, eight trips to the foul line, and only two turnovers represents a relatively efficient performance. […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 4/7/2016
Rick Carlisle isn’t Steve Kerr or Gregg Popovich. He isn’t wonderboy coach Brad Stevens. Not the coach of a championship contender, and not in his late 30s, Carlisle doesn’t have the present moment or the future on his side. Yet, if Wednesday night’s victory by his Dallas Mavericks over the Houston Rockets reaffirmed a single […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
Life is complicated — if you read Sam Hinkie’s 13-page letter of resignation from the Philadelphia 76ers, this truth will be reaffirmed on many levels. In reading that letter, observers will arrive at different conclusions. Try these three: Reasonable people can and will disagree about Hinkie’s methods, their effectiveness, and how coherent a plan Hinkie […]
0 comments by Bart D on 4/6/2016
If you’re the sort of person who believes in karma … good for you. I mean, if someone says anything mean about you believing in it, you assume something bad’s going to happen to them, so I’ve got to stay positive here. You also probably think the Indiana Pacers had this coming this year. After […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
The New York Knicks’ tape has to become a nix tape. Hopefully, this will exist on only one level, so that it doesn’t have to emerge on two separate fronts. What does this mean, as we evaluate New York at the end of a lottery-bearing season? The answers are not that complicated. No lengthy preamble […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
Tuesday night in Oracle Arena, the Minnesota Timberwolves reminded the NBA that although they didn’t come close to earning a playoff berth this season, they’re going to be heard from in the future. The question is: “How much?” The Timberwolves are definitely going to win more in the coming years, as long as Karl-Anthony Towns […]
Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group
0 comments by Matt Zemek
We come not to bury the Golden State Warriors, but to praise the San Antonio Spurs… yet not praise them too much. As you can see, the NBA got a little more complicated last night in Oakland… and even more interesting than it already was. After the Warriors’ streak of 114 straight wins with a […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 4/5/2016
For the Los Angeles Lakers, no one problem overshadows the franchise… because there are too many problems to count. As we conduct an April Autopsy of the Purple and Gold’s NBA season, the D’Angelo Russell-Nick Young mess is not the Lakers’ foremost problem. The culture which created it — rooted in ownership, but evident in […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
The Philadelphia 76ers are not the Houston Astros of the NBA. The Astros endured a lot of pain in 2014, but their development of young baseball players swiftly bore fruit in a 2015 playoff season. When organizations transparently attempt to scrap everything and start from the bottom, there’s an expectation players will develop — not […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 4/4/2016
We didn’t track back-to-backs in the Western Conference in Feburary, because the schedule was both truncated and split in that month by the extended All-Star break. We will present the post-All-Star break portion of February and all of March in this latest report: * Reference Guide: B2B = back-to-back 45 = a “4 in 5” […]
