From NBA.com: While last week was simply a continuation of Andrew Bynum’s long-awaited breakout season, it was a complete outlier for Gooden, a 30-year old forward averaging 14.5 points and 6.8 rebounds on 44.3% shooting for the Bucks this season.
A lot of NBA fans hate “flopping,” or the practice of a defensive player falling back like he was knocked clean out after an offensive player so much as touches him, with a passion.
From the Boston Herald’s Steve Bulpett: The 33-year old Boston Celtics center was once considered one of the game’s best big men, but O’Neal, who was drafted out of high school, aged quickly, and has not been a truly effective center for some time, although he has been able to provide size and decent defense in spot minutes over the last few seasons.
FOX Sports’ Chris Tomasson has the story: “Chatty Chris” wasn’t just on his game offensively against the Magic: he held Orlando’s Ryan Anderson to just 5 points on 2-6 shooting.
From Hoopsworld’s Yannis Koutroupis: The Clippers have been searching for a replacement for Chauncey Billups ever since the veteran guard suffered a season-ending Achilles injury, and the Timberwolves are currently only a game and a half out of the 8th and final playoff seed in the West.
From the AP: Bosh missed three games because of the death of his grandmother, and the Heat had their 9-game winning streak snapped in his absence when they were dominated on the boards by Utah in a one-point loss.
UPDATE 4:08 EST: According to the Charlotte Observer’s Rick Bonnell, Diaw and his agent have asked Bobcats GM Rod Higgins about a buyout: This report comes from the French newspaper L’Equippe and website catch-and-shoot.com, and was helpfully translated for us by Ball in Europe: This would be a buyout where Diaw would take a little less money to go, but likely would get offers from other teams.
From Newsday’s Al Iannazzone: A fun story, and just another example of how NBA teams and players are more willing to look for unorthodox solutions to common problems than they have been in the past.
From ESPN.com’s Marc Stein: For the Lakers, the main reason to do this trade would be that they desperately need someone who can provide penetration and outside shooting, and Hinrich is indeed a point guard.
The Washington Post’s Michael Lee has the report: McGee said he was “frustrated” after the Magic game, when he played a season-low 16 minutes, and that what Randy Wittman said to him and shooting guard Nick Young (who has also been benched) after the game was “between him and the coach.”
According to Comcast Sports Net Bay Area’s Matt Steinmetz, Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry will miss tonight’s game against the Atlanta Hawks with a foot injury.
ESPN.com’s Chris Broussard has the report: Broussard goes on to explain that Lakers owner Jerry Buss is no longer willing to simply spend money and have to take the resulting luxury-tax hit, which was the primary motivation behind the Lakers giving away Lamar Odom for the Mavericks’ trade exception when Odom asked to be traded before this off-season.
Charles Barkley has never been shy about speaking his mind, and TV/Radio personality has never prevented athletes from speaking their mind when they appear on one of his shows.
I’ll let Page 2’s Patrick Dorsey explain this video: In the summer of 2010, Cleveland fans made a similar video, “We Are LeBron” in an attempt to get LeBron James to stay in Cleveland.
