Cleveland Cavaliers

That stench wafting through your home and into your oversized nostrils is coming from the NBA. Although it’s difficult to pinpoint what it actually is, we’re above confusion: it’s clarity. We’ve reached that point of the year where the Association’s happenings finally make more sense than whatever outfit Robin Thicke is wearing these days. Injuries and [...]

Expensive rentals suck, which is why the Cleveland Cavaliers hope to be more than a means to a different ending for Luol Deng. Cleveland traded Andrew Bynum’s contract and an assortment of draft picks to the Chicago Bulls for the two-time All-Star, in a deal announced by the Bulls themselves. That almost never happens. But [...]

Trade rumors can be a nasty business. The uncertainty they bring is just absurd, and no one has faced more uncertainty than Pau Gasol since 2011. The Los Angeles Lakers have dangled him every which way possible, forcing him to spend most of his days in limbo, waiting for word that his tenure in purple [...]

Try as we might to ignore it, NBA players are people too. Living, breathing souls just like the rest of us. They feel. They bleed. They enjoy the occasional snifter of brandy or, in the young at heart’s case, sporadic glass of chocolate milk decorated with a crazy straw. Point is, they’re not robots. They’re [...]

Addition by subtraction. Depletion by addition. That’s been the NBA’s prevailing theme this season. So many teams aren’t where they’re supposed to be. And I mean so many. Can anyone explain the Phoenix Suns, lottery-dwellers of 2012-13? Though they added Eric Bledsoe, they traded away Marcin Gortat and Jared Dudley. Now they’re among the Western [...]

We meet again. One of these times, it won’t be under such dire circumstances. I’ll come to you, wrapped in multi-colored robes and fluorescent glitter, talking about health, durability and how uncommon fragility has become. There will be no mention of a Derrick Rose injury. Or Marc Gasol catastrophe. Or Anthony Davis fracture. Or Paul [...]

This isn’t fair. What else can we say? Injuries have taken their toll on the NBA early, and it hasn’t been pretty. If we’re not anxiously awaiting the returns of Kobe Bryant and Rajon Rondo, we’re watching Andre Iguodala go down. Marc Gasol go down. Derrick Rose go down. For the season. Again. Put simply, [...]

Now we’re getting somewhere. More than 10 percent of the NBA season is in the books, allowing us to form conclusions based off more than two games and a bottle of Grey Goose. Now’s the time when the tankers begin to settle in and contenders that aren’t the Miami Heat start playing like they care. [...]

Expectations are a funny thing. Did I say funny? Sorry, I meant to say that expectations are a cruel-hearted, unshaven bastard. Especially in the NBA. Early on, we cannot escape them. They’re with us always. Always, always, always. And they screw around with our power rankings. At heart, weekly evaluations should be impulsive and read [...]

Can’t blame a guy for trying. Strike, that we can. This early into the season and with already so much speculation being flung around like poo in a monkey exhibit, we can blame everyone who forces us to endure another LeBron James free-agency question. Before the Miami Heat beat the Toronto Raptors, LeBron was, once [...]