Recently by John Chick
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Basketball
Bargnani cheated out of a deal?
Noel Biderman just wanted the name of his website -- AshleyMadison.com -- on the front of Italian basketball team Virtus Roma's jerseys. The fact that he was trying to do it while the NBA is locked out and Raptors centre Andrea Bargnani was in need of insurance cash in order to play for the team was purely coincidental, the Toronto native said.
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Basketball
NBA meetings mirror NHL lockout
I've been saying for months that the parallels between this situation
and the NHL lockout of 2004-05 are identical. There is no question that
NHL owners at that time accepted the fact there would be no season -- in
September
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Basketball
NBA enters the 'Danger Zone'
Just from a personal standpoint, referring to the loss of pre-season
games in any sport as a "casualty" is like referring to the loss of a
hangnail as a "casualty."
However, it's safe to say we're in a danger zone now in terms of the NBA
season. According to David Stern on Tuesday, if a deal isn't reached by
early next week, games that count will start disappearing.
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Basketball
Talent, coaching not the problem with Canadian hoops
Despite a valiant 15-point fourth-quarter comeback on Sept. 6, the
Canadian men's basketball team fell to Puerto Rico 79-74 at the FIBA
Americas tourney in Argentina - effectively ending their 2012 Olympic
dream.The point here isn't to slam Steve Nash and Tristan Thompson for bailing
on the national team. They are not morally obligated to participate. Rather, it's the reasons behind their decisions that have been the albatross around Canada Basketball's neck for two decades now.
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Basketball
Long road ahead for Canadian ballers
Team Canada tips against Brazil Wednesday at the FIBA Americas tournament in Argentina. The good news for Canada: Much like themselves, Brazil is missing two of their country's top basketball players. The bad news for Canada: Even if they beat a still-sound Brazillian squad that features Tiago Splitter and Euro league star point guard Marcelhino Huertas, they're still in a tough Group A.
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Basketball
Leagues courting locked-out NBA players
As the NBA lockout continues operating in a relative dead zone with no movement between players and the league, the inevitable look towards Europe and elsewhere is in full swing.
- Basketball Farewell, Yao, plus looking for Canada's Miracle on the Hardwood Wednesday's official retirement of Yao Ming didn't exactly come as a Shanghai surprise, nor does it really mark the end of any sort of era. Yet Yao's career will go down in basketball history as a testament to the enormity of the Chinese market and the tragedy of an athlete's body betraying them.
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Basketball
NBA lockout eerily similar to NHL's lost season
The parallels that can be drawn between the current NBA lockout and what happened in the NHL in 2004-05 are way too similar.
In 2004, Gary Bettman's buzzword was "linkage." The NHL, by virtue of
over-expansion and a boring brand of hockey left over from the trapping
era had put the league on thin ice with the U.S. viewing public. So much
so that hockey's hiatus helped develop a new TV success story: Poker.
On Wednesday, the NBA dismissed a New York Times report that questioned
the league's claims of financial distress. Sound familiar, like
something that may have involved Bob Goodenow?
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Basketball
Canadian curveballs spiced up NBA draft
Everything made sense at Thursday's NBA Draft - according to conventional wisdom, anyway. Kyrie Irving went first, Derrick Williams second and Enes Kanter third.
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Basketball
Mavericks cool off Big 3
Dallas Mavericks. Lockouts. Possible apocalypses.
Dan Gilbert, prophet?
To pour cold water all over the afterglow of a phenomenal NBA Finals - one where the world's will seemingly won out over two-and-a-half superstars and their renegade alliance - the sad possibility emerges that this may be the last NBA basketball we see for a long time.
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Basketball
Shaq was most unstoppable player ever
As an idiotic, awkward-looking teen in March of 1993, I walked into a
sporting goods store at Millcreek Mall in Erie, Penn., and saw a display
model of Shaquille O'Neal's size-22 Reebok. It was at that moment that I
actually appreciated just how unstoppable he wasWith his retirement announcement Wednesday, it's not about thinking
of Shaq as being the best player, or even the best centre, ever. It's
about him being the most unstoppable player ever.
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Basketball
NBA Finals pit the 'Superfriends' vs. 'The Veterans'
It may be an unpopular viewpoint, but there's a case to be made for rooting for the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals.
LeBron James has had nights recently that featured the best basketball of his career. Dwyane Wade has been one of the most exciting players in the league for seven years.
You can even feel for Chris Bosh; after three playoff victories in his first seven seasons as a pro, he's rising to the occasion, even if he was scared by the Boston fans one game. Hell, even as Canadians we should cheer for them - to my knowledge there's never been two Canucks on an NBA Finals team (even if Jamaal Magloire is mostly doling out high fives in a suit).
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Basketball
Disco Dirk is a Macho Man
In memory of Macho Man Randy Savage, who passed away untimely last
Friday, I have decided to apply the Savage Scale ranking system to a
handful of players we've been watching in this year's conference finals.
To refresh, here's how the system breaks down:
*Late pro wrestler Macho Man Randy Savage (Excellent)
*Adult film star Herschel Savage (Good)
*Former NHLer Brian Savage (Fair)
*Former child star Fred Savage (Unsatisfactory)
*Former child actor Ben Savage (Poor)
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Basketball
Raptors, MLSE show some respect to Colangelo
At the risk of sounding melodramatic, two things seemed inevitably certain Tuesday. It was going to rain in Toronto for the next 200 days, and the Raptors weren't going to win the NBA draft lottery. To add insult to injury, they dropped from third in the order to fifth.But before we revel in another T-dot pity party, let us thank Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment for realizing it would be idiotically unprofessional to trot out Bryan Colangelo at the NBA's TV studios halfway between Newark Liberty Airport and Manhattan if he wasn't going to be the man in charge of the Raptors next season.
- Basketball Canadian basketball league makes sense News of the announcement of a new all-Canadian professional basketball league drew two distinct types of reaction in this country: 'Great news,' and a sarcastic 'good luck with that.' But while it's fair to draw on previous experience in knocking the financial viability of a Canadian hoops circuit (see Canadian National Basketball League), it's worth remembering that things are a little different this time.
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Basketball
LeBron denies Celtics momentum
Forty-eight hours can make a world of difference in sports.
On Saturday night in Boston, you could almost sense a momentum shift in
the Heat-Celtics series. After outplaying Kevin Garnett for two games,
Chris Bosh wilted in the hostile Game 3 environs of TD Garden as Boston
clamped down defensively, their old big three blowing away Miami's young
big three. Then, as if to signal that a higher power was pulling for
the Celtics, Rajon Rondo pulled a Willis Reed by returning after doing a
Plastic Man imitation with his left arm, Dwyane Wade and the parquet
floor.
Rondo's one-armed performance after the injury evoked legends like Jack
Youngblood playing Super Bowl XIV with a broken femur, and in an ideal
world, would serve notice to those out there who still consider
basketball players in general to be soft.
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Basketball
Heat dismissing Celtics, critics
Two games into the second-round matchup between the Celtics and Heat, the fears of Boston fans and Miami haters are coming true. The Heat are clicking on all cylinders, and the Celts are looking like what they are -- an old basketball team.Never mind banged-up Paul Pierce and Ray Allen's off night with a combined 20 points Tuesday. Miami simply ran all over Boston, and had more than enough legs to bury them in the fourth quarter. What started to appear evident about a month ago -- the Heat playing the best basketball in the league, by far -- may very well lead this maligned collection of egos to an NBA title.
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Basketball
The end of the Spurs' dynasty?
Are the Spurs done? It looks like it. Forget about Monday night's
massive second half showing by Memphis -- that was one of those energy
zones home teams can get into with a great crowd behind them. Not unlike
when Vince Carter hit nine threes against Philly in the '01 playoffs and I woke up 10 hours later on somebody's front lawn in Scarborough.
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Basketball
Plenty of surprises in NBA playoffs
It hasn't quite been March Madness, but some funny things happened in
the first couple of days of the NBA Playoffs. If it wasn't losses at
home by the Lakers and Spurs, then it was Pacers hanging with the Bulls
right to the end in two games and the Hawks convincingly beating the
Magic in Game 1 of their series.
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Basketball
NBA playoff preview
The hottest team going into the NBA Playoffs (Chicago Bulls) faces a sub-.500 team (Indiana Pacers) in a regional rivalry.Easy pick right? Maybe not.From the Pacers games I've seen this year, they're fun to watch. Danny Granger is a stud and Roy Hibbert (remember him, Raptors fans?) can hold his own with Joakim Noah. Sprinkle in Tyler Hansbrough's energy and a bunch of Duke Blue Devils on the bench, and can you see an 8-1 upset? No.
- Basketball Celtics destined for early exit? With Shaquille O'Neal day-to-day status with a right calf strain he suffered Sunday against the Pistons, many are ready to write off the Celtics, especially in a likely second-round playoff matchup against the Miami Heat. Given that going into Tuesday night, Boston is an average 12-9 (after a 5-1 start) since the deadline-day trade that sent Kendrick Perkins to Oklahoma City for Jeff Green and Nenad Krstic, there's reason to be concerned.
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Basketball
Who's the real MVP?
A few months ago, before this Derrick Rose vs. Dwight Howard for MVP
chatter really ramped up, my friend Knuckler sent me an email reminding
me of what Charles Oakley had said about Howard last summer:
"Dwight Howard is embarrassing [Magic assistant coach] Patrick [Ewing]
if you ask me. He doesn't have a ball player's mind. And they tell me he
is one of the best centres in the game. He wouldn't have even made the
league 10 years ago. He would be on the bench."
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Basketball
Dear diary: My bracket is busted.
The so-called experts had this year's NCAA men's basketball tournament
pegged as fairly wide-open. That's definitely been the case in the
Southwest region, and to a lesser degree the Southeast. Elsewhere there
haven't been any true shockers.
The first half of Thursday remains the best segment of the tournament so
far. And even though St. Patrick's Day fell on what some call "God's
Day" or "Basketball Christmas" this year, I still managed to keep a
rudimentary diary for at least part of the day:
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Basketball
March Madness predictions art, not science
Once, every couple of years, the stars magically align. The last time St. Patrick's Day fell on the first Thursday of the NCAA Basketball Tournament was 2005. I can't recall with any veracity everything I did that day, although I know it did involve beer and all-day basketball viewing.
Now I must urge responsible consumption here: You don't want to be running cartoons in your head when Utah State tips with Kansas State at 9:57 p.m. in Thursday's final game. But the combination of the first round of the tourney - possibly the most exciting two days of sports in North America every year - and the observance of the patron saint of Ireland is a heady one.
As far the tournament itself goes, this year it appears to be wide open.
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Basketball
Growing pains in Miami
Miami's four-game losing streak going into Tuesday night has again
brought smiles to the faces of the substantially large number of
Heat-haters out there. And after falling Sunday in another close battle to Chicago, coach Erik Spoelstra said that there were tears shed in the Miami locker room.I won't attack their manhood -- I cried Monday when Charlie Sheen was fired from Two and a Half Men. Given the Heat's record this season against teams with winning records (14-18), there may be a reason for them to bawl.
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Basketball
Mutiny in the Motor City
Watching the Detroit Pistons unravel in the manner they have recently
has been something to see. Last Friday's incident in Philadelphia where
several players missed a morning shootaround -- rumoured to be a walkout
of sorts on coach John Kuester -- brought the team's troubles boiling to
the top.
You could make the argument that the Pistons were the Eastern
Conference's team of the decade from 2000 to 2009. But three years
after last playing in the conference finals, the franchise is in
disarray and many of their mistakes are coming home to roost.
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Basketball
'Melo mania begins at MSG, dunk contest redux
Now that the wish of Knicks fans has come true and Carmelo Anthony is in New York, it's going to be interesting to see how the rest of the season plays out in Gotham. They've added perhaps the best pure scorer in the NBA, and at last check on Tuesday scalpers were asking $12,000 US for floor seats at the Garden.
What it does for the Knicks on the floor - I suspect they will get an immediate shot in the arm from it - remains to be seen, but perhaps more importantly for a franchise that's been in an abyss for a decade, is put it back near the top of the centre of the universe's sports landscape.
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Basketball
Bosh's homecoming will be anything but
So here we go again.
While it won't garner anywhere close to the amount of U.S. media attention that LeBron James' return to Cleveland received in November, the Raptors will get a little more play than usual from the Canadian outlets this week as Chris Bosh and the Heat make tracks to Toronto Wednesday night.
Raptor fans are used to these returns by now - previously in the form of Damon Stoudamire, Tracy McGrady and Vince Carter. And it's worth mentioning that the Raps lost all three of those games - by an average of almost of 13 points - despite a raucous, anti-insert-name-here-crowd.
But I'm not here to break down how the Heat will probably beat Toronto. I'm just here to rebut some of the same old stereotypes and half-truths.
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Basketball
Adding Love makes all-star game better
It was good to see NBA commissioner David Stern quickly add Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love to the Western Conference All-Star team on the weekend.
If there was a blatant snub this year, it was Love.
While he plies his trade for a young, putrid team, there's no denying his game is among the league's elite.
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Basketball
Meet our NBA all-stars
While we're all aware of the flaws and biases of all-star voting (Yao Ming's election despite playing in only five games this season. Thanks, China), the NBA all-star game at least delivers playground-style entertainment. It, along with the Major League Baseball's all-star game are the only mid-season classics worth watching. A defence and body-check-free NHL game with a constantly changing format? Give me a break. And don't even get me started on the NFL Pro Bowl. It's actually fitting these two games are often played the same day.
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Basketball
Making the case for Colangelo
Losers of eight straight through Tuesday, I feel like addressing the
13-32 Toronto Raptors and the building chorus of attacks on general
manager Bryan Colangelo.
A sports GM ultimately has one job and that is to assemble a group of
players that is capable of winning games. In some sports and in some
markets, this is easier than in others.
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Basketball
Melo taking his talents to Newark?
I have a personal bias in favour of Carmelo Anthony.
He brought my beloved Syracuse Orange (16-0 this year I might add,
Montreal's Kris Joseph leading them at 15.1 points per game) the 2003
NCAA title, giving coach Jim Boeheim his first U.S. national
championship after decades of being one of the top coaches in the game. I
didn't go to Syracuse, but I spent some time in the city when younger
and always affectionately equated the colour orange with tangy
refreshment.
- Basketball Chris Bosh: all-star? Chris Bosh told a Miami reporter this week that he thinks he should be an NBA all-star this season. Chris Bosh also once said Toronto "smelled different" than the United States. Actually, let's be fair here for a second. It's unlikely Bosh will be voted in this season, given that he's currently trailing teammate LeBron James, Kevin Garnett and Amar'e Stoudemire in voting for East forwards. However he does play for a marquee squad that has lost only one game since the end of November
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Basketball
LeBron not a fan of Christmas Day games
LeBron James and Lakers coach Phil Jackson, among others, were critical last week of the Christmas Day NBA games we've grown accustomed to.
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Basketball
Different players, same team?
The big three-team weekend deal between the Magic, Wizards and Suns sort
of reminds me of when Kramer traded a radar detector to Newman in
exchange for a helmet in an episode of Seinfeld.
But the reality is you can say that about a lot of NBA trades these
days, where each team gets rid of something around the house they no
longer want in exchange for something that was more valuable five years
ago
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Basketball
'Melo taking his talents to Broadway?
Few things are more predictable than New York fan and media reaction when a star athlete arrives in town, especially when rumours abound that the player will be taking his talents to Broadway.Unlike the many stories linking LeBron to New York in the past few seasons, the odds of Carmelo Anthony landing with the Knicks are somewhat more plausible.
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Basketball
Hard to imagine, but Raptors are still a playoff contender
One of the guys really worth watching this year has been Oklahoma City point guard Russell Westbrook. We knew he had game coming out of UCLA, and he's taken it to the next level in his third NBA season.
In a four-game stretch before the Thunder's loss to the Raptors on Friday, the reigning Western Conference Player of the Week averaged 32 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds.
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Basketball
The Pat Riley countdown
I suppose the speed of which the Pat Riley countdown has kicked into high gear in Miami shouldn't be surprising. I gave it to mid-season, with the thought that all it was really going to take was a bad start by Miami. And that's exactly what's happened.
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Basketball
Bosh has yet to find stride
As most Raptor fans can attest, it's been fun to pile on Chris Bosh's lack of statistical production for the Miami Heat this season.
