The Lakers star is only the eighth player and first since Michael Jordan to win an NBA title, an NCAA championship and an Olympic gold medal. At 27, the best may be yet to comeAnthony Davis looked on with an expression of disbelief on Sunday night as the Los Angeles Lakers put the finishing touches on their first NBA championship in a decade. For the 27-year-old big man from Chicago’s South Side, the elusive missing piece in a career with no shortage of individual successes was finally in his grasp.As the Lakers’ other, slightly older do-it-all superstar took in the scene from down the bench, he couldn’t help but feel a tinge of nostalgia. You never forget your first time....
LA or Miami? Our writers predict the winner, key players and dark horses before the championship tiltWell, that’s the question isn’t it? It’s tempting to say that there’s not much hope, but the Heat have been surpassing expectations all postseason. There’s a simple answer here: limit either LeBron James or Anthony Davis and force the other to try to carry the entire team, hope that they can’t. Reminder: Simple is not the same as easy. HF Continue reading...
Sticking to the principle of freedom of speech can be uncomfortable when commercial gain in China is at stakeIf you have problems with the term “late-stage capitalism”, I hope you can get behind the alternative “ironicidal capitalism”. This is the bit where democracies are so evolved and self-assured they sell their freedom of speech to totalitarian regimes. I know! But kind of logical, when you think about it. There was basically nothing left to flog.For those who’ve missed the saga of the NBA’s travails in China, have no fear. It isn’t going away any time soon, with last weekend’s development being groups of fans wearing masks and “Stand With Hong Kong” T-shirts standing in protest at the Brooklyn Nets pre-season...
The bad chemistry and bad fortune undoing the Lakers have wrought the unthinkable: an NBA playoffs without LeBronIt’s looking like LeBron James in the NBA playoffs isn’t the forgone conclusion we’ve come to presume.On Monday, the Los Angeles Lakers lost to the Clippers, 113-105, slumping to a ho-hum 30-34 record, six games adrift of the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference with 18 games left in the regular season. Not only will James almost certainly fail to extend his preposterous streak of eight consecutive NBA finals appearances, it’s looking more and more likely that he’ll miss the playoffs altogether for the first time since the 2004-05 season, when he was a 20-year-old in his second year. The...
The NBA’s best player could be on his way out of Cleveland (again) after declining his player option on Friday, but there’s something hollow about his thankless pursuit of Michael Jordan’s six titlesLeBron James, who declined his player option with the Cleveland Cavaliers and became a free agent on Friday, is a superstar in a predicament of his own making. He essentially created the culture of NBA stars teaming up to win championships, one that allowed Kevin Durant to make the Golden State Warriors a dynasty at his own expense. The unfortunate thing for James is he gets no credit. While Durant is hailed as a selfless hero who stifled his ego to win two titles with the Warriors, LeBron...