As the NBA season opens tonight, let’s pretend some readers are interested in finding out how a fantasy draft went for a six team league. Who went first?

[Read more →]

We live in France. We can vouch for this. The 89-79 French victory over the United States in the Fiba World Cup quarterfinals yesterday was such a big deal over here that at least two national news shows — including that of government flagship TF1 — led their prime-time broadcasts with the news from Les […]

[Read more →]

Most NBA fans/observers are probably not interested in this. I am. I want the Golden State Warriors to win the NBA championship, over the Toronto Raptors, and I want them to do it with Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green running the show. I want the return of the Big Three that carried the […]

[Read more →]

OK, yes. It turns out the Los Angeles Lakers needed more than LeBron James to be relevant in the 2018-19 NBA season. With 18 games to play, the club is 30-34, having lost seven of its past 10, including a game to the Phoenix Suns, owners of the worst record in the NBA. Before they […]

[Read more →]

Those of us who grew up with the UCLA basketball of John Wooden … and serial NCAA basketball championships … well, we were ruined for life. After 10 national titles in 12 seasons, including seven (!) consecutive through 1973, and an 88-game winning streak, unrealistic expectations became the norm. I distinctly remember listening to UCLA’s […]

[Read more →]

Stephen Curry, the Golden State Warriors standout, on Monday declared that no one has stepped on the moon, setting off a bit of agitation that one of the most prominent and successful players in the NBA would actually espouse that belief. Curry’s ridiculous notion is just this side of the bat-sh*t-crazy position Kyrie Irving of […]

[Read more →]

I saw the high school basketball debut of California native Tyson Chandler. Not many people can say that, because among the material I filed on deadline that night, December 2, 1997, is a note about how the Compton College gym was pretty much empty. Chandler was a 15-year-old freshman and, more importantly, already 6-foot-11. But […]

[Read more →]

Have I done this before? After 10-plus years I must have. But know what? I’m not going to check because the 10 teams I love to hate changes a bit, from year to year. This list would probably be unlike any other I might have done. For instance, most of my life I have wished […]

[Read more →]

No need to be an international NBA fan to guess the answer to that one. The top-two selling jerseys, at the least. That would be LeBron James, No. 1, as he should be, and Stephen Curry, three-time NBA champion. The NBA recently posted lists on the top 10 jerseys sold in Europe, during the 2017-18 […]

[Read more →]

Hmm. Not sure it was supposed to work out like this. Well, then again, maybe it was, once unrestricted free agent Paul George re-signed with Oklahoma City. If the Lakers were intent on providing LeBron James with a superstar-level wing man for his debut season in Los Angeles, and they were trying, it was going […]

[Read more →]