NBA

A huge contingent of NBA executives and scouts will descend on Portland this week for the Nike-sponsored PK85 tournament. This year’s primary early-season college basketball extravaganza includes 16 teams, two different brackets in honor of company founder Phil Knight’s 85th birthday and, naturally, a wealth of future NBA players who will have a say in … Read more

By TIM REYNOLDS Miami Heat President Pat Riley has a longstanding belief: After 20 games, a team knows its identity. He’s right. And after 20 games, title contenders are usually known as well. Think of this as the end of the season’s first quarter. That’s basically where the NBA is right now, with teams starting … Read more

Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ: WBD) CEO David Zaslav recently made headlines when he told attendees at an RBC investor conference that the media giant did not “have to have the NBA” when its current rights agreement with the league expires following the 2024-25 season. Most media observers believe the chief executive was posturing, negotiating the … Read more

Back in the early 2000s, Dean Oliver was sitting at his computer. Oliver, who is the creator of the “Four Factors of Basketball Success” and considered one of the godfathers of NBA analytics, was searching for others who shared his same interest in applying statistical analysis to basketball. He had seen Bill James revolutionizing baseball … Read more

Kyrie Irving has returned from suspension. Ben Simmons has mustered three consecutive games that echo his past excellence. And Kevin Durant continues to be Kevin Durant, a transcendent scoring machine averaging more than 30 points per game who’s finally free of the head coach he tried to force out over the summer. But don’t fall … Read more

It’s Thanksgiving time, and there are a lot of teams in the NBA that have a lot to be thankful for (the Nets are not one of them, which is saying a lot for a team that has Kevin Durant). But we’re going to split some hairs here. Every team that has a superstar is … Read more

November 23 – Tobias Harris shook off a minor ankle sprain early in the third quarter to score a season-high 24 points as the short-handed 76ers beat the visiting Brooklyn Nets 115-106 on Tuesday night in Ben Simmons’ return to Philadelphia. Harris, who had missed the previous two games with a sore left hip, appeared … Read more

Could this be the most parity-filled NBA season in recent history? Only three teams really stand out as a legitimate contender through late November, and all are in the same conference. One good performance has us nodding our heads and the next one leaves us shaking our heads for most of the squads. Perhaps the … Read more

The Lakers fell to the Suns, 115-105, after yet another tremendous Devin Booker performance. He had 25 points on the night before fouling out with just over a minute remaining, but the Suns didn’t need that last minute from him to extend their winning streak over the Lakers to eight games. With LeBron James ruled … Read more

BOSTON (AP) — The Celtics entered the season with a built-in reason to underachieve. Ime Udoka, the man who had changed so much about their culture and led them to the NBA Finals as a first-year coach last season, was given a yearlong suspension prior to training camp for having an inappropriate relationship with a … Read more