When I was a boy, I pinned a photo to the bulletin board hanging on my bedroom wall—a 4×6 color snapshot of the local university mascot, (weirdly) signed and gifted to my parents to pass on to me. I was a fan of the school’s football and basketball teams, so in the mind of a kid…
Go ahead and dust off your adage of choice: The grass is always greener. Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. Chances are, one of them applies to Kyrie Irving. It seems Irving, the Cavaliers’ seminally skilled point guard and former No. 1 pick, wants out of Cleveland. This wouldn’t be noteworthy for 98…
I have a friend—insomuch as a 70-year-old man might consider me a “friend.” We’ll call my friend Greg. A few years back, when Greg was a spry, mid-60s shithead—and I say that with the utmost reverence—we’d do battle in Wednesday morning 1-on-1 hoops at the YMCA. That’s no hyperbole or purple prose. Greg would, very simply, beat the snot out of me. Despite my being three…
Corey Brewer had one job. In his defense, when the Thunder took the ball under their own basket leading Houston 103-100 with 7.1 seconds left in last night’s game at Oklahoma City, sticking Russell Westbrook wasn’t technically Brewer’s job. But after a Domantas Sabonis down screen released Westbrook from Trevor Ariza at the weak-side elbow, the unfortunate task of switching to cover the NBA’s resident Weapon…
Cover sports far and wide enough, for long enough—say, from amateur roller hockey to world-class prizefights—and you soon figure out that less is said, either publicly or privately, the higher up the food chain you climb. A high school freshman tennis star would happily offer up mom and dad’s AmEx number for a picture in the local paper, whereas an NFL quarterback guards the identity of his…
Five things I love about the start of the 2015-16 NBA season: 1. The immortal Al Jefferson. Smarter folks than I have written more cogently on the greatly exaggerated death of NBA post play, so I’ll just say this: Al Jefferson rocks. Perimeter shooting? A vertical jump that clears a MacBook? Screw ‘em. Big Al doesn’t need your newfangled…
The best officials in any game, as the saying goes, are those who make you forget they’re even there. Right or wrong, no will ever accuse Dick Bavetta of having blended into the background. On Tuesday it was announced that Bavetta is retiring as an NBA referee, and it’s notable if only because the man…
