The Golden State Warriors’ dream season ends in a LeBron James nightmare; legends leave the game; the basketball world mourns Pat SummittYou can be forgiven for thinking that the Cleveland Cavaliers were finished. After all, no team in NBA history had ever come back from a 3-1 NBA Finals lead and they were playing a Golden State Warriors team that wasn’t just good but historically unprecedented. Having gone 73-9 in the regular season, the 2015-16 Warriors were arguably a single win away from being in the “best NBA team ever” conversation. Continue reading...
The Knicks president wasn’t being racist with his comments about LeBron James but they showed a man badly out of touch with the modern NBAThe Phil Jackson era of the New York Knicks continues to provide the basketball world with non-stop embarrassments. In an interview with ESPN, the Knicks president described LeBron James’s business associates as his “posse”. That resulted in strong rebukes from not just James but also Carmelo Anthony, the Knicks’ star player. It didn’t take long for James’s camp to respond to Jackson’s comments. James’s business manager Maverick Carter took to Twitter to respond to Jackson’s use of the loaded term “posse.” Related: LeBron James says he's lost respect for Phil Jackson over 'posse' comment Continue reading...
For those in a rush to bury the Warriors after Monday’s lopsided loss to the Spurs, it’s worth remembering how difficult it can be to integrate a new starCome with me, if you will, to a time not too long ago; a simpler, more civilized time before the NBA arms race went positively nuclear. 31 October 2014, to be exact. The Cleveland Cavaliers were playing the New York Knicks, not unlike this very year. Just like this year, the Cavs were heavily favored, and the Knicks were predicted to lay down and play dead because, well, they’re the Knicks. It was a festive atmosphere in Cleveland then, too. LeBron James was playing in his first game as a Cav since...
We’ve seen teams go from worst-to-first in a single year before, but never an entire city. The success of both the Indians and Cavaliers is unprecedented“You know, these guys ain’t so fuckin’ bad.” It’s one of the greatest lines in American cinema (or at least one of the more memorable lines from the American sports comedy genre of the late 20th century). In 1989’s Major League, a Cleveland construction worker played by a young Neil Flynn declares that the local team is a lot better than he expected they would be. It’s a sentiment many are starting to feel about the real Indians – and Cleveland sports as a whole – 27 years since Rick Vaughn, Willie Hayes, Jake Taylor and Pedro...