Athletes are preternaturally competitive beings.
During the heat of competition, the passion that courses through combatants can sometimes take a turn into uglier territory.
Does Kobe Bryant Team Up with Dwight Howard in Orlando?
December 17, 2011 By 15 Comments
As he enters his 15th season, one of the longest tenured pro athletes with one team, Kobe Bryant, finds himself without his best buddy and without his girl.
His team is getting a divorce and so is his wife. The mighty Los Angeles Lakers are in transition and so is Kobe Bryant’s personal life. A change of scenery and sidekick could be just what he needs.
Chris Paul Trade Fiasco ‘Scales of Losing’ – David Stern Edition
December 9, 2011 By 6 Comments
In one of the most bizarre cases in sports history, the NBA decided to overrule a trade involving the Lakers, Rockets, and Hornets last night for “basketball reasons.”
At about 6:30 ET, Marc Stein announced the trade:
- LA would be getting Chris Paul.
- Houston would be getting Pau Gasol.
- New Orleans would be getting Lamar Odom, Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, Goran Dragic, AND draft picks.
Less than an hour later, the NBA stepped in…and stepped in it.
Reports: Chris Paul headed to the Lakers in 3-team trade
December 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Reports from Adrian Wojnarowski of Y! Sports indicate that the Los Angeles Lakers, Houston Rockets and the New Orleans Hornets have agreed in principle to send Pau Gasol to the Rockets, Luis Scola, Lamar Odom , Goran Dragic and a few draft picks to New Orleans, while Chris Paul heads to Los Angeles.
The 25 Best Players in the NBA Right Now
October 19, 2011 By 8 Comments
For Part One of this two-part series, which is inspired by ESPN’s attempt to rank all NBA players from 1-500, click here.
Remember, our goal here is to rank the top 25 players in the NBA right now.
13 Things We Learned This Weekend
October 4, 2011 By 1 Comment
The Tinley children are on Fall Break, so we’re spending the week vacationing on Perdido Key. I was without Internet access until yesterday, when I successfully guessed the password for a wireless router in a neighboring condo. A word of advice: If you’re in Florida and your wireless password is “sunshine,” you’re inviting anyone who can pick up your signal to use your Internet.
Anyway, here are some things we learned this week:
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Who Is Your Sports Version of Captain America?
July 23, 2011 By 2 Comments
Captain America came out in theaters on Friday, and it got me thinking: if I had to choose my sports version of Captain America, who would I pick?
I am not talking about someone who is a physical specimen like Captain America. I am also not just talking about athletes like Jim Thorpe, who might have actually been the real “Captain America.”
Instead, I am looking for an athlete who I would be proud to announce as an American athlete if someone from another country asked me who our country’s best athlete was. For example, I would take character into account (which automatically disqualifies LeBron James).
In looking for my candidate I decided to break it down by sport, picking one or more athlete(s) from each of the major three sports.
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Kobe First, Then Jordan
July 1, 2011 By 16 Comments
After I submitted my Top 20 NBA Players list to Jerod on Monday night, I braced for the fallout. To my surprise, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had predicted.
On the one hand, almost nobody objected to Kareem being #1. I did my list a little differently, pretending like I was a GM that was drafting a player for his entire career. I think most people understood that, and the argument of “20 years (16 quality) is better than 15 years (11 quality)” seemed to fly pretty well.
On the other hand, there’s the whole “Michael Jordan” thing.
Dr. Twitch’s Top 20 NBA Players of All-Time (including his shocking and ‘sacrilegious’ top 3)
June 28, 2011 By 50 Comments
Editor’s note: Since the NBA Finals ended, MSF writers have been submitting and defending their top 20 NBA players of all-time. You can see the aggregate list here. The goal was to see where Dirk fell, or if he fell, among the top 20 players ever after his sterling playoff run this year.
Below are the thoughts of Jon Washburn, who does include Dirk among his top 20 players ever. He also has the most unique top 3 of anyone who submitted a list, which is why I asked him to provide a detailed description of his top 20. And boy did he. Enjoy.
When I was a kid, Jim Harbaugh was the quarterback of my beloved Indianapolis Colts. One season, we started out 4-0 (we were the last team to lose a game that year) and ended up making the playoffs as a wild card. We went into San Diego and beat the defending AFC champs before going to Arrowhead Stadium and beating the 13-3 Kansas City Chiefs. We ended up losing to the Steelers in the famous “Hail Mary” game, and I cried for what seemed like an eternity.
Top 20 NBA Ballers of My Lifetime
June 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Editor’s note: We are currently preparing an article in which a number of MSF writers submitted their top 20 NBA players of all-time. The goal is to see where Dirk falls in the top 20, or if he even makes it at all. Evan decided to narrow his scope a bit and go with the top 20 players of his lifetime. So we are posting his article first, with the mega top 20 article to come. Stay tuned…
Also note that Evan is 22 and says that he really started watching the NBA during the 1997-98 season.
It’s top-20 NBA Players mania around here right now, all thanks to Dirk Nowitzki’s superstar performance in earning his first ring this month. Everyone from announcers to journalists to bloggers are saying Dirk has hit legendary status, maybe even top 20 of all time. I think that sounds a tad high for Dirk, but he now has some serious hardware to reasonably back up the claim to a top-20 spot.
For my own part, I have always thought that the NBA MVP award was the most meaningful of any of the four major sports. Scan the list and you’ll notice every single winner is a Hall of Famer or well on his way to being enshrined. Dirk has his MVP award, he has his Finals MVP award, and most importantly he has his ring.
But is he on par with Larry Bird? Or is that just the most racially convenient historical comparison bandied by most experts?
Honestly, I don’t really know because I never actually saw Larry Bird play. But I have seen plenty of other great players, so for my Top-20 NBA Players list, I decided to restrict myself to those guys I’ve actually seen play. Here is my list with some highly subjective choices, some no doubters, and perhaps one begrudgingly included sharpshooter who burned my New York Knicks many years ago.
Shaquille O’Neal retires, ending one of the truly unique on- and off-court careers in NBA history
June 2, 2011 By 1 Comment
Shaquille O’Neal retired today, and he did it in his own unique, unexpected way. He tweeted it. Really, it was the only appropriate way for a true on-court original and off-court sports/entertainment pioneer like Shaq to go out.
“The Diesel” has been a special player since the moment he entered the NBA. He made an immediate impact, averaging 23 and 14 his rookie season, earning Rookie of the Year honors, and he was named an All-Star starter — the first to do so as a rookie since Jordan.
His dominance revolutionized the position of center, unlike anyone before or since.
Initial Issues for Mike Brown in Los Angeles
May 26, 2011 By 1 Comment
It is now official: Mike Brown will be the next head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. He will be filling the giant shoes of Phil Jackson while taking on the role of coaching another superstar in Kobe Bryant.
Many are surprised by Brown’s hiring, but his career accolades prove that he is worthy.
Video of Joakim Noah’s unfortunate, inappropriate Kobe impression
May 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment
There is a good chance you have seen this by now, but I’ll post anyway for those who have not. I discussed it when Kobe Bryant’s unfortunate use a gay slur was caught on TV, so it’s only fair to give similar treatment to Joakim Noah’s similarly unfortunate use of the same slur.
How Many Parents Name Their Children After Sports Stars?
May 12, 2011 By 1 Comment
Last week, the Social Security Administration released its official list of 2010′s most popular baby names. While I don’t really care that Jacob was the most popular name in 2010 for boys and Isabella for girls, I do enjoy playing around on the SSA’s Popular Baby Names website, which lists the 1000 most popular boys’ and girls’ names for each year since 2000.
After checking the popularity of my children’s names (Malachi was the 163rd most common boys’ name in 2010; neither Meyer nor Resha were in the top 1000), I decided to look into the names of popular athletes to see how many people were naming their children after popular sports stars.
Of course, the data for names such as Michael, Tom, Tim, Maria, and Mia isn’t terribly meaningful. These names are so common that there’s no way to know if parents are naming their children after Jordan, Phelps, Brady, Lincecum, Sharapova, or Hamm. But more unique athlete names yield some interesting results.
The End Of A Dynasty
May 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The Los Angeles Lakers 2011 season is over, but in some ways this is only where it all begins.
With this loss comes tears, shattered dreams, and the possible end of an era that we as NBA fans have become accustomed to; an era that is used to watching the yellow & purple playing basketball in early June; an era that is accustomed to watching the Black Mamba hit buzzer-beaters, match up on Christmas with the King of the East, and bring more titles to the already title-filled Los Angeles. Whether it was the return of Boston vs Los Angeles, the battle with Superman, or Green vs Yellow part deux, the Lakers were always there.
Add the NBA’s greatest coach of all-time, an all-world NBA player, and one of the better supporting casts in the NBA, and you get three-straight Finals appearances. No matter how powerful the NBA’s Western Conference was, it was always the same story at the end of the day.
But with every good story comes an ending, and maybe not an ending most of us would have wanted.
