Nearly two years removed from a gruesome broken leg, the Boston Celtics need Gordon Hayward to step up. After signing a four-year, $128 million deal in July of 2017, Gordon Hayward’s first season with the Boston Celtics lasted all of five minutes before a severe broken leg sidelined him. A run to the 2018 Eastern
Month: August 2019
A torn ACL is always bad news, and for the Los Angeles Lakers, the DeMarcus Cousins injury significantly decreases their margin for error. For the third time in the last 19 months, DeMarcus Cousins has suffered a debilitating injury to his left leg. As first reported Thursday by The Vertical’s Shams Charania and later confirmed
2:16 AM ET ANAHEIM — Spain had sliced an 18-point lead to eight with just four minutes remaining as Gregg Popovich watched to see how his young Team USA would respond. Joe Harris buried a 3, Mason Plumlee stole the ball off a Ricky Rubio pass, Derrick White made a floater and then a Kemba
When evaluating a team’s offseason, it can take a while to complete. Between going over what happened last season, what they did this summer and predicting what lies ahead – it’s quite the exercise. You could almost call it a process. Oh hey, speaking of processes, the next team up in this series? The Philadelphia
6:35 PM ET The San Antonio Spurs will retire Tony Parker‘s No. 9 jersey, the team announced Friday. The Spurs will honor Parker in a ceremony Nov. 11 ahead of a game against the Memphis Grizzlies. Parker played 17 seasons and won four NBA titles with the Spurs, before conluding his career last season with
Is 25-year-old Jonquel Jones ready to take the Connecticut Sun to new heights after close playoff losses the past two seasons? Curt Miller has done the math. He’s at an experience disadvantage. While the last four WNBA champions have averaged five players in their 30s, the Connecticut Sun head coach, now in his fourth season,
9:46 AM ET Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov has officially agreed to sell his remaining stake in the Brooklyn Nets and full ownership of Barclays Center to Joe Tsai, the team announced Friday. Tsai, who had already paid $1 billion for a 49% share of the Nets in 2018, is paying an additional $1.35 billion for
Another milestone during the dog days of NBA summer has come and gone. The schedule was released on Monday and to no one’s surprise, the Los Angeles Lakers lead the way with 43 nationally televised contests. Equally as unsurprising is the fact that Charlotte and Cleveland round at the bottom at a measly three games
The following three-part story stars Russell Westbrook and James Harden. In the story, they will find a basketball. The story is based on Jon Klassen’s three books I Want My Hat Back, This is Not My Hat, and We Found a Hat. They are brilliant children’s books. This is probably less so. Part one: Russell Westbrook and
9:23 PM ET Tim BontempsESPN Brett Yormark, who has served as CEO of the Brooklyn Nets for more than a decade, will step down from his post, league sources confirmed to ESPN. Yormark has been in the role since 2005, when he came to the Nets from NASCAR, and helped usher the franchise to Brooklyn
TORONTO, CANADA – JUNE 10: DeMarcus Cousins #0 of the Golden State Warriors boxes out against the Toronto Raptors during Game Five of the NBA Finals on June 10, 2019 at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this photograph, user is consenting
6:59 PM ET EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Draymond Green had just told DeMarcus Cousins that he hadn’t seen him look this fit and slim since his college days at Kentucky. He was ready to see the big man wreak havoc on the NBA this season. That was just last week. On Thursday, Green and the
Happy NBA Schedule Release Week, everyone! With the 82-game set released on Monday afternoon, we now know what marquee matchups are on the docket for the 2019-20 campaign. While FIBA World Cup is officially underway and training camp is right around the corner, Basketball Insiders has kicked off another week of its Grading The Offseason
11:22 AM ET Los Angeles Lakers center DeMarcus Cousins has suffered a possible knee injury and will undergo further testing Thursday in Los Angeles, league sources told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Cousins was working out in Las Vegas on Monday when he had to leave the court, sources said. Cousins signed one-year, $3.5 million free-agent deal
Marvin Bagley wasn’t always put in the best positions to succeed last year. For the Kings to unlock his and their potential, they must better utilize him. Quite often, optimization is what distinguishes draft picks who live up to the billing from those who fall short of expectations. Some teams view first-, second- and third-year
11:58 PM ET Attorneys representing lawyer Michael Avenatti filed a court motion on Wednesday that alleges that a Nike employee at least approved under-the-table payments to former Duke star Zion Williamson and ex-Indiana star Romeo Langford when they were still in high school in February 2017. The alleged offers — $35,000 or more for Williamson
Every four years, approximately 3,000 Jewish athletes from 40 different nations competing in a total of 19 disciplines partake in the European Maccabiah Games for a chance to win a Gold Medal. This year, the games took place in Budapest, Hungary. Just like the Olympic games, each country fields a team to bring home medals for their respective
5:14 PM ET Associated Press AKRON, Ohio — LeBron James has dedicated a basketball court at the school he founded for underprivileged children in his hometown. Joined by his close friends and former teammates from nearby St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, James helped unveil a multicolored outdoor court at the I Promise School, which has
With so much player movement this offseason, the 2019-20 NBA season features a plethora of potential revenge games. Revenge games will be all the rage during the 2019-20 NBA season. Since so many big-name players moved either via free agency or trades this offseason, there will be no shortage of homecomings scattered throughout the regular
11:00 AM ET Antawn Jamison earned his only two NBA All-Star selections as a member of the Washington Wizards. Now he’s returning to the team in a front office role. The Wizards announced Wednesday that Jamison was named their new director of pro personnel. Jamison, 43, has been a scout for the Los Angeles Lakers
Welcome back to Basketball Insiders’ “Grading The Offseason” series, where we go over how each team did this past season as well as evaluate how they did this summer. So far, we’ve covered the lottery teams, the borderline playoff teams and the treadmill teams. Now that we’re approaching the playoff teams, we’re coming up on
1:45 AM ET LOS ANGELES — USA Basketball coach Gregg Popovich said what former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has done to bring light to social justice and racial inequality “was a very patriotic thing.” Popovich, the longtime coach of the San Antonio Spurs, has spoken multiple times in the past about Kaepernick, who
NEW YORK, NY – MARCH 17: (NEW YORK DAILIES OUT) LeBron James #23 of the Los Angeles Lakers in action against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden on March 17, 2019 in New York City. The Knicks defeated the Lakers 124-123. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or
6:50 PM ET After suffering a knee injury in competition last week, Miami Heat forward Kelly Olynyk will be unable to compete for Canada in the FIBA World Cup, a source tells ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Oynyk is expected to be ready for the start of the NBA season. Olynyk slipped and fell during the third
Welcome back to Basketball Insiders’ “Grading The Offseason” series, where we go over how each team did this past season as well as evaluate how they did this summer. So far, we’ve covered the lottery teams, the borderline playoff teams and the treadmill teams. Now that we’re approaching the playoff teams, we’re coming up on
5:51 PM ET Associated Press Kyle Lowry of the NBA champion Toronto Raptors says his surgically repaired thumb has not recovered sufficiently enough to allow him to participate with USA Basketball in camp for the FIBA World Cup, and he is withdrawing from consideration for the team. Lowry made the announcement Monday after meeting with
Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images The NBA has, at long last, released its schedule for the 2019-20 season, and we’re going to rank the upcoming season’s Christmas Day games. The NBA being played on Christmas Day has been one of the bedrock traditions of American sports. No, this isn’t like Thanksgiving football,
8:23 PM ET Associated Press CHIBA, Japan — First-round NBA draft pick Rui Hachimura scored 35 points to lead Japan to a 99-89 win over New Zealand in a World Cup warm-up game at Port Chiba Arena. Hachimura became the first player from Japan to be chosen in the first round of the NBA draft,
After a whirlwind month of action, the basketball-watching world has approached the most boring month of the year in the NBA — so looking over each and every team’s offseason is more imperative than ever. In this edition of “Grading the Offseason”, we’re taking a peek at the suddenly-erratic Minnesota Timberwolves. Remember when the Timberwolves
5:19 PM ET Former NBA player Sebastian Telfair has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison for illegal gun possession, Brooklyn’s district attorney announced Monday. Telfair, 34, was convicted in April of one count of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, which stemmed from an arrest in January 2017. Police found firearms,