Last season under Tom Thibodeau's first year, the New York Knicks found themselves at the 4th seed. Behind a stingy defense and the unlikely emergence of Julius Randle, the Knicks had the Garden rocking in the playoffs. The Knicks embraced their roots as a tough-minded, underdog team that plays hard every night.
The NBA is back in full swing, and here are five teams that will be better than you think.
The overlooked aspect of team building is making moves that won't make headlines and will make fans of the team scratch their heads in the moment. It's easy to point to the acquisitions of stars, but it's the moves you make that go under the radar and pop up deep in the playoffs like Woah, look how smart this team...
The process of becoming great is one that requires patience and grinding only to see minimal results. However, after a few years of delaying gratification, all the hard work begins to accumulate, and you are able to break through to the next level. The players on this list have seen varying degrees of improvement, but improvement nonetheless. All...
This one here is for my fellow Russ fans:
This year's draft is shaping to be one for the ages. Not only does it include game-changing prospects, but the turnaround from the finals last week to the draft and then free agency next week is so condensed compared to years past. Look for GMs and Players to move with more urgency. Draft night is set to have Woj bombs...
Without hyperbole, I confidently say that the Milwaukee Bucks championship is the best thing to have happened to the NBA in a long time. With this championship, three vital things happened:
Giannis Antetokounmpo gave us one of the greatest finals performances in NBA history a little over 24 hours ago, scoring a playoff career-high 50 points while looking impenetrable defensively. Once the dust settled, debates began on where that single game would rank all-time in NBA Finals history. Never one to shy away from a challenge, I went to...
Blame AAU basketball, blame the one-and-done generation, blame whatever you want, but what cannot be argued is that there is an international wave taking over the NBA. Increasingly it seems like the best and most influential players in the NBA are from countries and regions outside of the U.S.
As much as I hate to say it, it seems like the post-LeBron era is imminent, which means we must look into the state of basketball over the next few decades.
