Archives › Kurt Helin
-
Bucks’ Dalembert says he might switch sides to play for Heat next season
Apr 22, 2013, 9:49 AM EDT
22 Comments
Pretty much every NBA player about to be a free agent talks in vague terms about keeping their options open. They are going to go where the most money comes from and they don’t want to limit those choices. But have you ever heard a player on one side of a playoff series say he…
-
Before Game 1, Gregg Popovich helped a reporter with a crossword puzzle
Apr 22, 2013, 9:23 AM EDT
Gregg Popovich doesn’t care about the public perception of him as a curmudgeon. He honestly doesn’t care what people think. Period. But he’s not a curmudgeon. He can by curmudgeonly, but there is a lot more to him than that one side. A really good profile of Pops by Joe Posnanski at NBC got at…
-
Paul George with as good a chase-down block as you will see (VIDEO)
Apr 22, 2013, 8:00 AM EDT
Paul George had a heck of an afternoon — he had 23 points as part of his first career playoff triple-double leading the Pacers to a Game 1 win. And he also did that to Shelvin Mack, who will now have nightmares of a flying Paul George night after night. Hat tip to The Point…
-
The Pacers had statistically the best defense in the NBA this season. They shut teams down. The only question was could they score enough to win in the postseason? Yes. Yes they can. The Pacers answered that question early and often, putting up 34 points in the first quarter and getting triple-double from Paul George,…
-
Despite what some Lakers fans think ownership does not have an unlimited pocketbook. Even with their new cable deal. The Buss family has always run the Lakers like a business, just one that plays with more revenue than other teams. Yes, they spent a lot to win but they also turned a profit every season…
-
JaVale McGee is the most athletic big man in the game today, and when he makes the right play nobody can stop him. Ask Andrew Bogut, who got fiercely dunked on in the first half Saturday of Game 1 between the Nuggets and Warriors. The best part of this if you’re a Nuggets fan (or…
-
Basketball is about how you adapt and how you finish. The first 24 minutes Saturday’s Game 1 between Boston and New York went exactly how the Celtics want this first round series to unfold — Boston shot 53.6 overall and 4-10 from three, Jeff Green had 20 points on 10 shots, Avery Bradley had 11…
-
When Byron Scott took the Cleveland Cavaliers job in 2010 they didn’t know yet if LeBron James would stay or go — although he had to know “go” was a good possibility the way things had shaken out the season before. Scott, a veteran coach with a hard-nosed style, was in charge of a rebuilding…
-
You got your J.R. Smith. You got your Kyrie Irving from the next area code. You got your Joe Johnson crossover and step back. And you got your ridiculous Monta Ellis shot. You’ve got the best game winners of the regular season to get you ready for later today, when the playoffs start and all…
-
This is how deep the Denver Nuggets are — they’ve been hiding rookie Evan Fournier on their bench all season. He only got in sporadically during the season as the rookie worked on his game and getting stronger and used to the NBA speed (things he talked about needing to do back at Summer League).…
-
New Yorkers sharing? Knicks, Nets could co-host 2015 All-Star Game.
Apr 19, 2013, 9:59 PM EDT
The Brooklyn Nets have a sweet new arena in the Barclay Center. Madison Square Garden — home to the New York Knicks — just underwent a dramatic and expensive remodel. At this year’s All-Star Game, David Stern said there were just two bids to host the 2015 edition of the mid-season game — the Knicks…
-
If there is one thing we can guarantee about the NBA Playoffs — besides incessant TNT promos for their shows — is this: There is going to be a first-round upset. One of the top four seeds — some of them have very difficult matchups that will test them, we’re looking at you Clippers —…
-
Wednesday night when the games ended (and frankly for a while before that) it was time for half the NBA to start thinking about the upcoming draft. Friday the league broke the ties and made it official — here is your 2013 NBA Draft lottery odds. And for everyone in the playoffs, the draft order…
-
The Hype: One fan suing Derrick Rose for not playing. Also, one fan needs a life.
Apr 19, 2013, 6:15 PM EDT
There is a fan in Chicago suing Derrick Rose for not playing this season because he claims that Rose’s absence caused him to go into depression and gain weight. Michelle Beadle and Chris Mannix of NBC’s show The Crossover think what you and I did — are you kidding me? Bulls fans have a right…
-
This was expected, it’s just strange to think of Gonzaga as a place players leave early to get to the NBA. This was expected and now it is official, Gonzaga’s star center Kelly Olynyk has declared for the NBA draft reports the Spokane Spokesman-Review. He’s considered a late lottery, mid-first round pick, with DraftExpress having…
-
Joakim Noah will not start Saturday, sounds like a guy who may not play all series
Apr 19, 2013, 4:04 PM EDT
It’s not that the Chicago Bulls plans have to change dramatically if Joakim Noah is out during the playoffs, they are still going to try and be physical and grind the Nets down. They just aren’t going to be as good at it. Noah sounds like a guy who is not going to play. Not…
-
Gregg Popovich is simply the best coach in basketball. But he comes with inherent contradictions — he is both the curmudgeonly guy who has no use for Craig Sager between quarters and the guy players love and would run through a wall for. He is the guy who was perfectly happy coaching at no-scholarship, below…
-
Report: Cavaliers may move quickly to sign Mike Brown. Why exactly?
Apr 19, 2013, 12:47 PM EDT
Are there really a lot of teams clamoring for the services of Mike Brown? We told you yesterday that the Cleveland Cavaliers were considering bringing back Mike Brown to coach the team after the firing of Byron Scott. I could see that. Despite what Lakers fans think, Brown is a solid NBA coach. The real…
-
Sixers will consider Bynum return but have bigger issues to deal with
Apr 19, 2013, 12:35 PM EDT
The Philadelphia 76ers gambled and lost. They traded Andre Iguodala to get back Andrew Bynum and rebuild their roster around an elite big man. Problem was, he’s an elite big man with terrible knees that never saw the court. And the aftermath of that decision is just beginning to come to down on the team.…
-
Among the things this NBA regular season gave us, there were some just ridonkulous dunks. (And yes, that’s a word. They used it on “How I Met Your Mother” and everything.) Just flat out crazy stuff. So here you go. On the day before the playoffs start let’s take a little trip down memory lane…
-
Stephen Jackson says disagreement with Popovich over how good a player S-Jax is
Apr 19, 2013, 11:22 AM EDT
You’ve seen the Spurs play and you know how it works — everyone fits in their role on the team. Even Tim Duncan and Tony Parker — they have a bigger role with more touches but it is still a role, a cog in the machine. Stephen Jackson was not fitting that role so he…
-
SEASON RECORDS Atlanta: 44-38, six seed in East Indiana: 49-32, third seed in East SEASON SERIES Tied at 2-2. The Hawks won the first two, the Pacers the final two. KEY INJURIES Atlanta: The Hawks will be without Zaza Pachulia (Achilles surgery) and Lou Williams (ACL). Indiana: Danny Granger is still out following left knee…
-
Jay-Z is out. We brought you the report a couple weeks ago that rapper/mogul Jay-Z was selling his sliver of a share of the Brooklyn Nets so he could get into the player agent game. (Jay-Z owns less than one percent of the Nets.) He seemed to confirm the sale in a song “Open Letter”…
-
When Kenneth Faried went down with a sprained ankle last week it looked nasty. Like he’s going to be out for a while nasty. The good news was that the MRI didn’t find anything structurally wrong, but how fast could he really get back? How about Saturday? That’s what Faried is shooting for, the Nuggets…
-
This doesn’t really change anything for the Knicks — they have been without him for most of the season. But they could have used him. Don’t expect to see Amare Stoudemire in the first round of the playoffs. That word comes from Knicks coach Mike Woodson, who didn’t sound very optimistic, as reported by ESPNNewYork.com.…
