LATEST STORIES FROM TRUE HOOP
Dwight Howard's rough afternoon
When asked about his defensive strategies against Carmelo Anthony or the Lakers' big men during Utah's postseason run, Jerry Sloan routinely pointed out that it's impossible for a defense to focus disproportionate attention to a specific player or area of the court without leaving itself vulnerable somewhere else. When you're facing an elite team with weapons all...
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May 17, 2010
Discuss
Mark Cuban vs. the bottom line
Joe Murphy/NBAE/Getty Images
Is owning an NBA team about fun and games, profits, or both?
There are a couple of lawsuits going on down in Texas, and it's much ado about nothing -- except for one huge thing.
It began not as a fight about the Mavericks, but about the arena they play in. Mark Cuban owns the majority of American Airlines Arena. Unlike the Mavericks, the arena has...
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May 14, 2010
Woodson's tenure unusual til the end
ATLANTA -- There was a certain irony to the post-game eulogies after the Orlando Magic put the Hawks out of their misery Monday night.
On the hand, you had Joe Johnson, knowing the team wanted him to stay but hinting that he was probably gone, slipping into the past tense to talk about his time with the Hawks before returning to the dreaded it's-a-business-speak that precedes...
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May 14, 2010
The energy fueling Phoenix's offensive juggernaut
The Phoenix Suns' pick-and-roll:
You know it's coming, but there's only so much you can do about it.
That pick-and-roll attack is the primary reason Phoenix was the NBA's most efficient offense this season. How good were the Suns with the ball in 2009-10? The gap between their top-ranked offense and Orlando's second-ranked squad was greater than the distance...
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May 14, 2010
Can the Cavaliers retool before free agency?
Between now and July 1, when free agency starts, there is likely to be plenty of movement in the NBA. The Finals will be finished about two weeks before the almighty July 1, 2010, and the draft will be a week after that. Front office reshuffles, new head coaches, real deal trades, a John Wall here or there ... the landscape will certainly change.
Free agents like LeBron James will...
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May 14, 2010
You can't spell "King" without KG
By J.A. Adande
Everything on Thursday was so LeBroncentric that you probably didn’t even see Kevin Garnett when he and LeBron James hugged after the Cavaliers tumbled out of the playoffs.
You might have seen Garnett, but you didn’t really process him, or consider what he means in this whole LeBron saga that took on the feel of a Homeric epic this week. Garnett should...
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May 14, 2010
The game plan doesn't change in a day
Elsa/NBAE/Getty Images
The summer of 2010 was always about finding the team with the best vision of the future.
Everything about LeBron James' free agency plan changed as the Cavaliers were eliminated by the Celtics: No way he'd head back to Cleveland after that. Right?
Wrong. It's hard to say with certainty that anything changed at all. While it's hard to quantify...
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May 14, 2010
Offense the offender in Cavs' finale
For five games, it was Cleveland's inability to guard Boston that was the primary problem, culminating in the 120-point thrashing they suffered in Game 5.
On Thursday, however, the Cavs actually defended well. Kevin Garnett and Rajon Rondo still broke loose, just as they have all series, despite the ineffectual maneuver of switching Shaquille O'Neal onto Garnett. However...
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May 13, 2010
On the criticism of LeBron James
TrueHoop reader David e-mails:
You rarely see any athlete take the kind of criticism LeBron has over the past few days. I'm having trouble thinking of another instance where someone has had such a brilliant start to his career and had every part of his game and psychological makeup questioned.
There's nothing wrong with questioning someone's play after a bad game, but...
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May 13, 2010
LeBron to the Bulls? 3 GMs think so
by Chad Ford
Celtics fans were chanting "New York Knicks" tonight everytime the LeBron James went to the foul line.
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May 13, 2010
One woman's opinion: LeBron going to Knicks
By Chris Sheridan
CLEVELAND - Her name was Melody, her taxi was actually a nice black SUV, and she provided a fine ride from the Hyatt to the airport today, the
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May 12, 2010
Forget LeBron, what's wrong with Cleveland fans?
David Liam Kyle/NBAE/Getty Images
The people in the front row weren't nearly as disappointing as the people missing from the rows behind.
LeBron James is 25 years old, and has played 70 playoff games in which he has averaged 29 points, eight rebounds and seven assists.
His career playoff PER is better than Michael Jordan's. Remember that Jordan's playoff PER wasn'...
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May 12, 2010
What happened to LeBron James?
Both the practical and symbolic significance of Game 5 between Cleveland and Boston couldn't be overstated. The rest of the NBA's elite made quick work of their conference semifinal opponents. Meanwhile, the 61-win Cavaliers were struggling with a Celtics team that was supposed to be creaky and ill-equipped for the long march into June.
Game 5 in a knotted series is always...
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May 12, 2010
Mikhail Prokhorov, just in time
On the day that Mark Cuban is battling the notion that his Mavericks are barely solvent, Mikhail Prokhorov arrives on the scene to compete for the title of owner NBA fans most dream of becoming.
Prokhorov is not just one of the richest owners in sports. He's a flashy billionaire who parties with large numbers of attractive young women. He's a 6-8 workout addict who can both...
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May 11, 2010
The big disappointment
People in San Antonio, Dallas and Portland have taken significant time out of their busy days to skewer me, over the last couple of days, for naming Dirk Nowitzki, Brandon Roy and Tim Duncan as the most disappointing players of the NBA postseason.
The anger is mighty! But misguided.
We all see eye to eye that players like Richard Jefferson, Mo Williams and Jason Kidd
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May 11, 2010
Taking a balut for the team
Don't watch this if you're about to eat, or are squeamish.
Huge thanks to Lucas Jansen for producing that video.
There are a lot of ways this could have gone differently. But this is how it happened:
Noah Galuten, a food blogger at Man Bites World grew up a Suns fan. I grew up in Portland, supporting the Blazers.
As the third and sixth seeds, respectively, those...
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May 11, 2010
The second round in the Smackdown
Has the second round of the playoffs started yet? It's like somebody sneezed and three of the NBA's powerhouse teams of 2009-2010 -- the Jazz, Spurs and Hawks -- have all just been eliminated.
Now there's just the annual Celtic thrill ride left before the Very Serious Business of the conference finals.
It's all a little dizzying.
Meanwhile, it's not so disorienting...
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May 11, 2010
The Slovenian view of Goran Dragic
The Suns' Slovenian backup point guard sent shockwaves through the NBA by almost single-handedly destroying the Spurs in the fourth quarter of Game 3. On Valley of the Suns, Erik Vidmar describes playing youth basketball in Slovenia with Goran "Gogi" Dragic when he was 15:
Before the game our coach warned us about some of their players, especialy about one player who...
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May 11, 2010
Jazz Season Ends, Boozer Questions Start
By J.A. Adande
For some players it’s already time to analyze every facial expression and pronoun, so let the record show that as Utah power forward Carlos Boozer sat in front of his locker and absorbed the Jazz’s second-round sweep at the hands of the Lakers he used the first person plural.
“We have to improve,” Boozer said. “We have to get better.”
Does Boozer...
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May 11, 2010
Guarding Rajon Rondo at all would be a start
Gregory Shamus, Getty Images Sport
The tactic has been to give Rajon Rondo room. In Game 4, that was a costly mistake.
After Rajon Rondo's Game 4 explosion (29 points, 18 rebounds, 13 assists, two steals and one series-changing victory) LeBron James has been talking about wanting to guard the Celtics' point guard himself. And that may well prove to be a remarkable tactic...
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May 10, 2010
A Supreme Court nominee, scrapping
In The New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Katharine Q. Seelye and Lisa W. Foderaro profile Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, and wouldn't you know it, basketball's part of the politics story once again:
She went on to win two plum clerkships, first for Judge Abner Mikva, of the federal appeals court in Washington, and then for Justice Marshall, where she impressed the...
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May 10, 2010
The Suns shake off disappointing playoff history
Chris Covatta/NBAE/Getty Images
The Spurs congratulate the Suns on beating them in the playoffs, which is a new thing.
In Sunday's Game 4, Tim Duncan's elbow opened up Steve Nash's eye. Nash's Suns, meanwhile, opened up a new chapter in their playoff history. In no small part because of their inability to get past the Spurs, the Suns have changed coaches, general...
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May 10, 2010
Firts Cup: Monday
Ron Borges of the Boston Herald: "The Big Three owe The Little One big time because yesterday he was Big Time. Were it not for the peerless four quarters played by Rajon Rondo at the Garden, the Cleveland Cavaliers might well be at home tomorrow night holding a 3-1 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinal playoffs. They are not because the smallest man on the floor was the biggest...
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May 10, 2010
The Game 3 thriller in Utah
The enduring images of Utah's painful 111-110 loss on Saturday evening will be Deron Williams' missed jumper with one second remaining and Wesley Matthews' subsequent oh-so-close tip attempt at the buzzer. But the deeper source of heartbreak for the Jazz was an inability to translate their success into a hard-earned victory.
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May 09, 2010
Woodson speaks on lame-duck status
By Chris Sheridan
ATLANTA - Unlike his lame-duck counterpart still coaching in the Western Conference playoffs, Mike Woodson does not know if ownership will want him back next season. His two-year contract expires in June, and there's a distinct possibility Woodson will be out of work if the Atlanta Hawks are swept out of the playoffs by the Orlando Magic.
"I wouldn'...
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May 08, 2010
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