Four SI.com writers analyze the latest news and address hot topics from around the NBA each week. (All stats and records are through Nov. 16.)
Bryon Russell wasn't joking when he challenged Michael Jordan to a game of one-on-one after being called out in Jordan's Hall of Fame induction speech. But Russell is beginning to think that Jordan was kidding when he agreed to play.
• Their friendship declined on the court. In his upcoming book, When The Game Was Ours, co-written with Larry Bird and author Jackie MacMullan, Magic Johnson admits that his close friendship with Isiah Thomas began to suffer when the two met in the 1988 NBA Finals.
It's fascinating how genetics can shape an athlete. Michael Jordan, for example, appears to have passed along some of his talents to his kids.
Basketball legend Michael Jordan has caused a furor at the President's Cup golf tournament after the former Chicago Bulls player was snapped smoking a cigar at the Harding Park course in San Francisco.
"I think the promise of fame and what it holds to you as a child and dreaming of it is not what it is. What it is, I'm not complaining about, but it's just different than the reality you dreamed." -- Rosie O'Donnell
A lot of folks are all wee-wee'd up about the snarky outbursts by Serena Williams, Roger Federer, Michael Jordan, Kanye West, Joe Wilson, the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays, assorted college football players, the lovely folks who vandalized Bills cornerback Leodis McKelvin's lawn after that unfortunate Monday night loss to the Patriots, and more. It appears -- once again -- that Western Civilization is going to hell in lovely little handbasket, and even ESPN's Outside the Lines: First Report was moved on Tuesday to ask a panel of experts if our society is suffering a sudden loss of civility.
They are in many ways the perfect class, three players whose greatness is unquestioned, who have had the phrase "Hall of Famer" attached to their names long before this weekend, when the title becomes official. Michael Jordan, David Robinson and John Stockton have been referred to as future Hall of Famers or certain Hall of Famers for years now, for so long that the induction ceremony Friday night in Springfield, Mass., seems like a mere formality.
I was 24, Michael Jordan was 23. He was sitting on a padded table in the trainer's room at the Chicago Bulls' practice facility in 1986, a few days before he would score an NBA-record 63 points in a playoff game at Boston.
Two years ago, in the central Chinese city of Chongquing, the local government set out to build the world's largest bathroom.
Four SI.com writers analyze the latest news and address hot topics from around the NBA each week. (All stats and records are through Nov. 16.)
Bryon Russell wasn't joking when he challenged Michael Jordan to a game of one-on-one after being called out in Jordan's Hall of Fame induction speech. But Russell is beginning to think that Jordan was kidding when he agreed to play.
• Their friendship declined on the court. In his upcoming book, When The Game Was Ours, co-written with Larry Bird and author Jackie MacMullan, Magic Johnson admits that his close friendship with Isiah Thomas began to suffer when the two met in the 1988 NBA Finals.
It's fascinating how genetics can shape an athlete. Michael Jordan, for example, appears to have passed along some of his talents to his kids.
Basketball legend Michael Jordan has caused a furor at the President's Cup golf tournament after the former Chicago Bulls player was snapped smoking a cigar at the Harding Park course in San Francisco.
"I think the promise of fame and what it holds to you as a child and dreaming of it is not what it is. What it is, I'm not complaining about, but it's just different than the reality you dreamed." -- Rosie O'Donnell
A lot of folks are all wee-wee'd up about the snarky outbursts by Serena Williams, Roger Federer, Michael Jordan, Kanye West, Joe Wilson, the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays, assorted college football players, the lovely folks who vandalized Bills cornerback Leodis McKelvin's lawn after that unfortunate Monday night loss to the Patriots, and more. It appears -- once again -- that Western Civilization is going to hell in lovely little handbasket, and even ESPN's Outside the Lines: First Report was moved on Tuesday to ask a panel of experts if our society is suffering a sudden loss of civility.
They are in many ways the perfect class, three players whose greatness is unquestioned, who have had the phrase "Hall of Famer" attached to their names long before this weekend, when the title becomes official. Michael Jordan, David Robinson and John Stockton have been referred to as future Hall of Famers or certain Hall of Famers for years now, for so long that the induction ceremony Friday night in Springfield, Mass., seems like a mere formality.
I was 24, Michael Jordan was 23. He was sitting on a padded table in the trainer's room at the Chicago Bulls' practice facility in 1986, a few days before he would score an NBA-record 63 points in a playoff game at Boston.
Two years ago, in the central Chinese city of Chongquing, the local government set out to build the world's largest bathroom.
Now that we've seen the tape of LeBron James getting "posterized," or at least dunked on by Xavier's Jordan Crawford at his summer camp, we have the context to gauge James' and others' reaction.
These lists are not mere compilations of all-time bests in their respective sports but all-time bests at quickening the pulse and evoking a visceral response from those fortunate enough to have witnessed their artistry.
These lists are not mere compilations of all-time bests in their respective sports but all-time bests at quickening the pulse and evoking a visceral response from those fortunate enough to have witnessed their artistry.
Claiming to know the greatest draft pick of all time in each of the top 30 slots is a good way to start an argument. In this case, I leaned toward draft picks who helped create team success. While going through the lists year by year, I was reminded just how difficult it is to find impact players -- even when dealing with a top-three pick. To go through the draft lists over the last six decades is to realize that the likes of Bill Russell and Michael Jordan are rarely discovered.
Every graduating class brims with hopes and dreams, as full of promise as so many of its members are full of themselves. In the NBA, in terms of thrilling, game-deciding big shots, the Class of 2009 has to rank among the best.
The last time I saw Chuck Daly was in the spring of 2006, at his condo in Jupiter, Fla. We watched Game 2 of the Detroit Pistons-Cleveland Cavaliers playoff series. I wanted to see if he could detect any similarities between the way the Pistons were defending LeBron James and the way that Daly's Pistons -- the Bad Boys of the late 80s and early 90s -- defended Chicago's Michael Jordan. In the late 80s Daly's "Jordan Rules" enabled the Pistons to shut down the game's greatest individual talent, giving the Bad Boys a place (infamous, some might say) in NBA history.
Let me see if I can make this clear without getting myself in trouble:
Benjamin Franklin said that nothing is certain in this world but death and taxes.
Several months before the 1992 Olympics, Michael Jordan sat down in a suburban Chicago health facility with pole vaulter Sergei Bubka of Ukraine. I was there to chronicle their conversation for a Sports Illustrated story -- albeit a rather invented one -- about two superstars just chilling prior to the Barcelona Games that would re-define the concept of global marketing. Bubka was ill at ease, but Jordan -- aware that I needed something to put in the ol' notebook and genuinely curious about a guy who would stick a pole in the ground, turn himself upside down and tumble 20 feet to earth -- filled in all the conversational cracks.
It was Tom Cruise doing dinner theater, Chris Rock performing at open-mike night and Justin Timberlake singing in the church choir. And yet it was none of those things, because when Michael Jordan announced in February 1994, just weeks before his 31st birthday, that he would attempt a career as a baseball player, it was a move so unheard of, so controversial, so odd, there was almost nothing with which to compare it. The greatest basketball player who ever lived, and one of the most famous people on the planet, was opting for a completely different outlet for his competitive fire.
Michael Jordan didn't leave the NBA to play baseball. He left retirement -- the first of his three retirements, actually -- to play baseball, and for a lot of his peers, that dampened the surprise and shock of Jordan's decision.
That's quite the class the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced Monday. Takes you back to the 1990s: Michael Jordan and a handful of others -- David Robinson, John Stockton and coaches Jerry Sloan and C. Vivian Stringer.
Quick, what is the NBA All-Star record for most points scored in a single game? Who holds the individual mark, one game? Anyone have a clue what the series record is, East vs. West, or what the widest margin of victory was, or who made more trips to the foul line than any player in his trips to the All-Star Game?
The beautiful thing about a new sports year is that it gives us another chance to appreciate all of the same old things. So here is 2009 coming right at you, and it's a whole new chance to:
In honor of the extended holiday, here is an extended look at the simplest way I know to gauge NBA championship potential. Search the roster of any team for an MVP-level talent with the leadership and drive of Larry Bird, Isiah Thomas, Hakeem Olajuwon or (to cite the newest example) Kevin Garnett. Well more than half of the NBA teams are absent this kind of star, which means you can essentially write them off as championship contenders (unless they are the Detroit Pistons of a few years ago, as you'll see below). Here's a look at who makes the biggest difference in the biggest games -- and who may be next to join them.
Ironically, it was exactly 100 years ago this very month when the black athlete first became visibly controversial on the American scene. For then, on the day after Christmas, 1908, Jack Johnson battered Tommy Burns to become the heavyweight champion of the world, and thereby sent an alarmed cohort of good and true American white men off in their noble search for "the great white hope."
The Olympics aren't the only place well-known NBA players can be found engaged in some fierce hoops competition these days.
Imagine being able to convert water into a boundless source of cheap energy. That's what BlackLight Power, a 25-employee firm in Cranbury, N.J., says it can do. The only problem: Most scientists say that company's technology violates the basic laws of physics.
It is, quite possibly, the most overwrought, snarky, hand-wringing, interminable, nitpicked and some would say nitwitted story in the history of professional sports.
Obviously, there are so many factors that have been applied, incrementally, over a long time to bring us to a place where an African-American can be elected president. But I cannot help believing that the ubiquity and esteem of the black man in sport has played a significant part in this transformation of the body politic's thinking.
An NBA city (Seattle) currently has no team and an NBA team (Oklahoma City) currently has no name. Restricted free agency still is a better oxymoron -- right up there with scheduled flights, Las Vegas traditions and affordable health care -- than it is a viable, desirable negotiating status. And next week, disgraced referee Tim Donaghy, the weasel in zebra's clothing who turned into a canary, is scheduled to appear for sentencing in a U.S. federal courtroom in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Each week, SI.com's Richard Deitsch reports on newsmakers from the world of TV, radio and the Web.
The NBA's most celebrated supporting cast (if that's not a contradiction in adjectives) belonged to Michael Jordan in Chicago. And belonged is the correct verb since Jordan looked upon those mere mortals quite proprietarily, often using "my" when he referred to them. In journalistic circles they eventually acquired a sobriquet, the Jordanaires, which was also the name of Elvis Presley's backup singers.
The genius-moron dichotomy, offered from the start by Steve Kerr himself, will get plenty of play between now and October. The Phoenix general manager knew the sort of criticism he would face if the Suns, after his gutsy, in-season acquisition of Shaquille O'Neal, did no better (or possibly worse) in the playoffs post-Shaq than they had done in recent pre-Shaq years.
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Kobe Bryant has invested these past five months in trying to gain leverage over his career. The previous four years are his self-imposed burden, and lately he has been trying to lift that gathering weight and tip it over upon itself. He is succeeding.
As the playoffs approach and the NBA heads into its debate season for individual awards, we sometimes forget that this is still about entertainment. With that in mind, here are my picks for the all-entertainment team -- the five most fun players to watch:
You were anticipating a raise. Instead you got blindsided by a less-than-stellar performance review.
It's May 31, 2007, in Auburn Hills, Mich., and the Cleveland Cavaliers, a Cinderella team no one expected to get this far, are down 107 to 104 in the crucial game five of the Eastern Conference finals against the Detroit Pistons when LeBron James launches a fadeaway three-pointer to tie with 1:14 to go in the second overtime. One minute and 12 seconds later he seals the game with a vicious drive down the lane to put his team up 109 to 107.
Video courtesy NBC's Today showWhen Jeff Jordan takes to the court as freshman player No. 13 with the University of Illinois basketball team, expect an immediate hush to fall over the crowd – and all eyes to turn to him.
Editor's note: We asked SI.com writers to share their memories from the best game they've ever seen. Here are their stories:
Late in Game 2 of a series that happens to be deciding the NBA's champion, ABC play-by-play man Mike Breen asked color commentators Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson if this season represented the greatest competitive divide between conferences in league history.
Though we've long debated the idea that a cast of teammates can make a player better -- Michael Jordan didn't teach Steve Kerr and John Paxson how to nail those 25-footers; he just got them the ball -- we are open to the idea that teammates can also make a player look a whole lot worse. Whether they're disrupting spacing, not working a give-and-go the right way or leaving a player out to dry on a screen-and-roll, some of these superstars have had to overcome quite a bit on their way to that 30-point night.
There have been more than 500 news stories in the last month alone that have mentioned both the names "Dwyane Wade" and "Michael Jordan."
As millions of procrastinating Americans hunker down to do their taxes and Washington considers another round of tax reform, let's think back to a simpler era--1986. Michael Jordan won his first ho...
Does Michael Jordan's magic touch extend to the realm of investing? Upon retirement, His Airness reportedly has an option to repurchase his stake in the partnership that owns much of the Washington...
James Chance Irresistible Impulse Tiger Style
The me generation has a lot to answer for: go-go boots, the Monkees, smiley faces, Donald Trump. Still, we boomers have gotten many things right. We fixed beer. We put more women in the executive s...
Baby-boomers haven't been this concerned about the condition of their joints, it's safe to say, since the day it rained at Woodstock.
The United Way and the Red Cross have received more donations since Sept. 11 than at any other time in their histories. The list of contributors reads like film credits: Julia Roberts pledged $2 mi...
On a sunny August afternoon in Los Angeles, a crowd of teens gathers outside the studios of Nickelodeon, the children's cable television network. They've come to this seedy stretch of Sunset Boulev...
The recent executive changes at CBS and NBC signaled the beginning, not the end, of tumult at the networks. Pugnacious Mel Karmazin shoved CBS CEO Michael Jordan into early retirement, just days af...
PICK SOME NUMBERS BETWEEN 1 AND 500
Economists are famous for disagreeing, especially about the most contentious and important policy issues of our time (the balanced budget, zero inflation, tax reform). But in fact there's a broad c...
I can't wait to tell my kids about golf. When they're old enough to understand (my son is three; my daughter, just two months old), they'll probably be stunned to learn that children once longed fo...
So here we are again, bearing a list of the year's ten most notorious business persons--an exercise traceable to 1991, when the list was led by con artist Robert Maxwell--and needing as usual to st...
So, hotshot, you've got a sheepskin from a high-class business school. You've nailed the vision thing. You learned all those leadership bromides. You're tough but sensitive. And you've empowered ev...
Chicago Bulls coach Phil Jackson has built a career on being different. From the Grateful Dead decal on the lamp in his office to his readings of poetry to his team before playoff games, his approa...
WALKING ON AIR Here's a stylish leather dress shoe that will give your step the cushioning hoopster Michael Jordan gets from his Nikes. Cole-Haan, the high-fashion footwear designer acquired by the...
| Most Viewed | Most Emailed | Top Searches |
| Most Viewed | Most Emailed | Top Searches |
