I wonder how long these dudes practiced some of these dunks before the finally succeeded! They should try out for Slamball and see how well some of these dunks work in a real game!
Like father, like son? Read more from ChicagoTribune.com:
PEORIA, Ill. - Michael Jordan celebrated another Chicago basketball championship — his son’s.
Marcus Jordan, son of the Bulls’ six-time champion, scored a game-high 19 points to lead Chicago Whitney Young to a 69-66 victory over Waukegan in the Illinois Class 4A championship Saturday.
As Marcus Jordan and his teammates celebrated on the court after the final buzzer, Michael Jordan stood quietly, clapping his hands with tears in his eyes.
“Crying?” the NBA great said in response to a reporter’s question. “I’m not crying. Not for me, anyway.”
The younger Jordan was key down the stretch after two teammates fouled out, hitting 4 of 4 free throws in the final 3 minutes to seal the victory.
“Awesome,” Marcus Jordan said. “Just awesome.”
Michael Jordan, part-owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, skipped his team’s home loss to Indiana so he could attend his son’s game. Another son, Jeff Jordan, plays basketball for the University of Illinois.
In honor of this years March Madness tournament we’re revisiting the Top Ten Greatest College Basketball Programs of All Time as decided by WatchMojo.com. Check it out in convenient YouTube playlist format:
From TSN.ca:
Sam Mitchell was fired as head coach of the
Toronto Raptors on Wednesday, a day after the team suffered the fifth
worst defeat in franchise history, a 132-93 loss to the Denver Nuggets.Raptors President and General Manager Bryan Colangelo called it a “difficult but necessary step the franchise must take.”
“It’s safe to say that after the debacle that we all witnessed last
night against Denver - a 39-point loss - not to mention several other
incidents this early season where we gave up double-digit leads or had
mental breakdowns with respect to the effort on the court,” Colangelo
said in a conference call. ”You come to a point where you realize some
of the things you want to see out on the court are not taking place.”In an exclusive interview with TSN, Mitchell spoke ‘Up Front’ with
Michael Landsberg on ‘Off the Record’ after the firing, and was asked
if he was surprised by the move.“When you have tough games and the expectations are high, and you’re
not meeting those expectations, then you can be subject to something
like this happening,” Mitchell told OTR. “It’s not about being shocked
or not shocked. It’s unfortunate that it happened, but these things
happen.”Landsberg asked Mitchell if he felt 17 games was a fair amount of time for the coach to put his stamp on the Raptors’ team.
“I don’t want to get into what’s fair or not fair,” Mitchell
replied. “I learned a long time ago that the world’s not fair and life
isn’t always fair. I had a great run. I have nothing but respect for
the people at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. I have a lot to be
thankful for. They gave me an opportunity to have a career in
coaching, which is something I always wanted to do after I played.”“It’s a disappointment that I wasn’t going to get a chance to finish
what I started, but I feel like I accomplished a lot of good things
there. I think the players that played for me all got better. Even
the players who moved on to other teams have gotten better, so instead
of looking back at the disappointing part of it, I want to look back at
all the good things that happened.”Mitchell also told OTR he did not want to get into particulars about
whether or not he knew his job was on the line prior to being fired.He did say that he had a chance to talk to a few of the players
before leaving, but that he wanted to move on to avoid being a
distraction.“I felt like the best thing I could do was, once the decision is
made, you need to get on out of there so those guys can move forward
and continue to try to do the things that they need to do.”“You get a sense when people are being heard, or disregarded,”
Colangelo said about Mitchell’s relationship with the team. “I have to
say Sam has always had a relationship with the players…There comes a
time when you feel that the best way to improve a situation is to make
a change at the top and a change in the voice.”Mitchell did offer some gracious parting words to the city that has
watched the ups and downs of the Raptors’ squad since he took the helm
in 2004.“I’d like to thank all the fans in Toronto, who always treated me
well and supported me,” Mitchell told Landsberg. “It’s a great city
and a great sports town and I wish them well.”“We appreciate all that Sam has done for the organization, applaud
him for his successes and wish him nothing but the best with his future
in basketball,” Colangelo added in a statement.TSN basketball analyst Jack Armstrong weighed in on the Mitchell firing on Wednesday.
“I’m a little surprised,” Armstrong said. “When you talk about
today’s economic times and all those types of things, you have to say,
‘Boy, this is a big commitment by MLSE…they have high expectations
for this team’”.“I think some of it always goes on the shoulder of the coach.
You’ve got to get guys to carry out things,” Armstrong said. ”Quite
frankly, this team has not been good enough defensively and there have
been some issues late in the games in terms of clock managements and
strategy…but there are personnel issues as well.”In the interim, Canadian assistant coach Jay Triano will assume the
position of head coach. Triano, the longest-serving member of the
coaching staff, becomes the first Canadian-born head coach in NBA
history. Colangelo said that Triano would likely stay on as coach for
the rest of the season. The remainder of the coaching staff will
continue with the organization.“It’s a little bittersweet,” Triano said in a conference call.
“Sam…gave me the opportunity to work with him, and was great to work
with. When you’re together for three-and-a-half years, as well as being
coaches you become friends, so it’s a little bittersweet that way. But
it’s an opportunity and I look forward to moving forward and seeing
what we can do with this basketball team.”Triano got a ringing endorsement from the Raptors’ former head coach.
“I think Jay will do fine,” Mitchell told TSN upon landing at
Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. ”Jay is a basketball guy,
he’s a good friend and I’m glad that somebody on the staff is getting
the opportunity and I think Jay will do fine.”Armstrong also had kind words for Triano, saying, “He’s a capable
strategist, he’s a good motivator, he communicates well with his
players and, most importantly, he’s a good man. It’s not easy being
an interim coach, but the onus right now is on the players.”“I have a lot of respect for Jay’s basketball acumen,” Colangelo
said earlier. “He will be a fresh voice for the players to listen to.”The Raptors are off to a disappointing 8-9 start to the season, and
have suffered back-to-back defeats on their current road trip - the
Denver game, as well as Sunday’s 112-99 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.“It comes down to an entire body of work that you study,” he added.
“You look at all the circumstances that may have gone into our failures
and there comes a time when you can honestly say it is time to make a
coaching change, and that realization was met over a period now of a
couple of weeks, with finality of (Tuesday) night after the game.”Despite the Raptors’ slow start, power forward Chris Bosh has posted
MVP type numbers this season. He’s second in league scoring averaging
26.6 points per game. The six-year pro is also pulling down 10.3
rebounds per game.Mitchell was named the sixth head coach in Raptors history June 29,
2004. He posted a 156-189 (.452) record in his four-plus seasons at the
helm of the Raptors. He garnered the Red Auerbach Trophy as the NBA
Coach of the Year for the 2006-07 season. In May of 2007, he was
awarded a four-year, $12-million contract extension with the team.He also captured The Sporting News 2007 NBA Coach of the Year
honours in a vote among his head coaching peers. In January 2007,
Mitchell became only the second coach in Raptors history to earn
Eastern Conference Coach of the Month honours.Jay Triano is in his seventh season as a member of the Raptors’
coaching staff. He became the first Canadian born and Canadian trained
coach in the NBA when he served as an assistant coach to Lenny Wilkens
during the 2002-03 season.A native of Niagara Falls, Triano was the head coach of the Canadian
men’s national team from 1998-2004 posting a 52-42 (.553) record. He
led Canada to a semifinal berth in the 2003 FIBA Americas Olympic
Qualifying Tournament in Puerto Rico and to a 5-2 record, second best
to the United States, in the 2000 Olympics.Triano served as interim head coach for one game last season when
Mitchell was away for a personal family matter. The Raptors defeated
the Minnesota Timberwolves, 105-82, on February 10 at Air Canada
Centre.Triano’s first game as interim head coach will be Friday when the
Raptors visit the Utah Jazz. Game time is 10:30 ET. The game will be
broadcast live TSN and TSN HD.
Here’s the latest from ESPN.com:
The shakeup promised by Detroit Pistons president Joe Dumars after last season’s Eastern Conference finals has materialized just two games into the new season.
The Pistons and the Nuggets have finalized a trade that sends guard Allen Iverson to Detroit and Pistons mainstays Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess to Denver.
“We just felt it was the right time to change our team,” Pistons president of basketball operations Joe Dumars told The Associated Press. “Iverson gives us a dimension that we haven’t had here and we really think it’s going to help us.”
The Pistons will introduce Iverson at a news conference Tuesday in Auburn Hills, Mich., at 3:30 p.m. ET. His debut with the Pistons might come Wednesday night in Toronto.
“He was very excited about the trade,” Iverson’s agent, Leon Rose, told the AP.
Young center Cheikh Samb, selected by the Los Angeles Lakers for the Pistons with the 51st overall pick in the 2006 draft, will also be going to Denver in the deal.
The Nuggets are expected to waive the 34-year-old McDyess, ESPN.com’s Chad Ford reports. McDyess has no interest in playing for any team other than the Pistons, meaning he could choose to retire or negotiate a contract buyout with Denver.
Billups is in the second season of a four-year contract worth a guaranteed $46 million with a $14 million team option for a fifth year. The Pistons kept McDyess off the free-agent market by giving him a $13.5 million, two-year contract extension, and they would love to have him back if the cost-cutting Nuggets buy out his contract.
Dumars put the entire Pistons roster on notice after they lost to Boston in the East finals, saying that there “are no sacred cows” on his team and vowing to consider trading anyone — even a major contributor to the Pistons’ 2004 title run like Billups — in addition to firing coach Flip Saunders and replacing Saunders with the untested Michael Curry.
The Pistons could not find a workable deal over the summer after talking with numerous teams — Denver included, according to NBA front-office sources — but it emerged then that Billups, MVP of the 2004 Finals, was the most likely Piston to be dealt.
With Denver’s desire to acquire a dependable point guard growing, Dumars moved quickly to finally consummate this deal with the Nuggets, who acquired Iverson from Philadelphia shortly before Christmas in 2006 but failed in two attempts to get out of the first round with a three-man core of Iverson, Carmelo Anthony and Marcus Camby.
Camby was jettisoned to the Los Angeles Clippers in a straight salary dump in July for luxury-tax purposes. After playing sparingly in the preseason, Iverson was stripped of his captaincy last week and averaged just over 13 shots per game as the Nuggets opened with a 1-2 mark.
The Nuggets will be hoping now that the homecoming Billups, a Denver native who starred collegiately at the University of Colorado, meshes better with Anthony, given that he’s more of a natural point guard than Iverson. Yet there is some risk for the Nuggets, since Billups is 32 and has three more seasons left on his deal after this one, with the four years totaling in excess of $50 million.
Both Billups and McDyess were Nuggets in the 1990s.
The Pistons, meanwhile, will undoubtedly contend that their risks are mitigated by the fact that Iverson, who turned 33 in June, is in the final year of his contract at $20.8 million.
Dumars loves to gamble on players who are reputed to possess as many minuses as pluses, as seen with the trade-deadline acquisition of Rasheed Wallace in 2004 which spurred Detroit to its first championship since Dumars was playing in 1990. If this gamble doesn’t work, swapping Billups for Iverson would give Detroit financial flexibility to pursue a more aggressive makeover next summer, with the highly regarded Rodney Stuckey staying put as the long-term cornerstone of the Pistons’ backcourt.
“Two teams had one common problem, or challenge,” Nuggets executive Mark Warkentien said, according to AP. “I think the Pistons looked at Stuckey and saw him as the point guard of tomorrow, and you have an All-Star in Chauncey who was in his way.
“We’re just thrilled with the way J.R. [Smith] is progressing and he had a Hall of Famer in front of him. You understand the motivation of both teams.”
Iverson brings considerable star power to Detroit. The 20th-leading scorer in NBA history was the league MVP in 2001 — four years after being the Rookie of the Year — and is a nine-time All-Star. He has averaged nearly 28 points for his career and has led the NBA in steals three times, tying a league record.
Philadelphia drafted Iverson No. 1 overall in 1996 out of Georgetown and he spent 11½ seasons with the franchise, leading it to the NBA finals in 2001. He was traded Dec. 19, 2006, to the Nuggets and helped them reach the playoffs twice.
Keep an eye on some of these guys, they could be running the show in a few years, from Sportingo.com:
1. Raymond Felton (Charlotte Bobcats): It is time for Felton to step his game up. Larry Brown is the right kind of coach for this guy. Unlike Stephon Marbury, Felton is known to accept authority and he should be willing to change his on-and-off offense for a pass-first mentality. In all fairness this is sort of a last shot for Felton. He has put up decent numbers, but at this point he has looked more like a backup and less like the starter they were hoping him to be.
2. Gerald Green (Dallas Mavericks): I was waiting for him to have a bust-out season last time around in Minnesota. Well, things did not really go according to plan. The Wolves were loaded with players filling the same position but far more developed than Gerald’s raw game. Why should he manage to make a mark in Dallas? Every team Gerald has played for has praised him, meaning the kid has the right kind of attitude. Dallas will provide him a pressure-free environment as they are only looking for him to bring his athletic game every night. It’s put up or shut up time for this preps to pros star hopeful.
3. Andrew Bynum (Los Angeles Lakers): Bynum was having a breakout party last season before an injury ended it. The real question is, will he come back 100%? My guess is that he will manage to be just as effective as he was in the early stages of last season. With Pau Gasol now helping him out in the low post Andrew could find it even easier to make a mark than ever before. He is under some pressure though, as a Lakers title really depends on whether he can contribute and stay healthy.
4. Randy Foye (Minnesota Timberwolves): The Wolves still believe that Foye is the answer to their prayers at the point. His preseason performance once again has us wondering. It is obvious that Foye has great instincts and can play the penetrate and kick-it-out game, but he is a combo guard leaning more towards being a shooter than a passer. Still with a great passing duo in the low post (Kevin Love and Al Jefferson), a great three-point bomber by his side (Mike Miller), Foye’s point and assist totals are a cinch to go up.
5. Marvin Williams (Atlanta Hawks): Right off the bat I have to admit I do not think Marvin will ever live up to the expectations that his No.1 draft status brought. If he were a 5-10 lottery pick everybody would be talking about how great this Hawks pick was and how much Marvin has improved. He will improve this season once again, and this time around we might take notice. With top sixth man Josh Childress in Europe, Williams is going to be expected to step up his game and reach that next level. He is actually a player who can be used at multiple positions and his talent level is absurd.
6. Darko Milicic (Memphis Grizzlies): Every year at the start of the season Darko fans gather round and start saying: “This is going to be the year when Milicic finally delivers.” Darko is primed to get a lot of minutes this time around. Simply put, the Grizzlies do not have enough able bodies down low, so Milicic will see a sharp rise of his PT. This will not mean that Darko finally starts averaging 20 points and 15 rebounds, but you can expect 10-11 points, maybe 8 rebounds and 1-2 blocks per game. Hey, for DM that would already constitute a breakout season.
7. Luke Ridnour (Milwaukee Bucks): Young master Luke has had previous mini breakouts. One of those has actually gotten him an invite to the Olympic tryouts. Alas, Ridnour lacks any sense of defense. His rendition of a defensive stop requires that he uses a hammer and nails. Yet on the other end of the court Luke is a masterful point guard. He is quick enough to deceive opponents, passes well enough to break down a defense and he understands the game enough to climb into the upper half of NBA point-men. Ridnour will have a breakout year because he has been given weapons he can surely use wisely, namely the three-point shooting of Michael Redd and the fast break athleticism of Richard Jefferson. Too bad Mike D’Antoni is not the Bucks’ coach, then that lack of defense would not matter.
8. Thabo Sefolosha (Chicago Bulls): This will either be a disastrous season for Sefolosha or it will be his best ever. Thabo has shown during the preseason that he is ready to bust out. Problem is, the Bulls are loaded at both guard spots. Someone will have to be shipped from the clut at the position. Still, it is imaginable that Sefolosha gets stuck behind too many guys once again and will not get a decent opportunity to display his skills. He really is an asset as a 6’7” player who can play the point, shooting guard and small forward positions.
9. Jeff Green (Oklahoma City Thunder): Green had a solid albeit average rookie season. Not exactly what the then Supersonics were expecting from their top-five pick. Green will receive some tutoring from journeyman Desmond Mason this season and the decrease of pressure plus the certainty of this place being home finally should help him improve immensely. Green is a great complementary player and the Thunder still hope he can develop into the Scottie Pippen of Kevin Durant’s developing Jordan.
10. Renaldo Balkman (Denver Nuggets): Balkman will never have gaudy stats. He will never be mentioned amongst the elite. He will never average 20 points per game. It is not his style. What this guy does well is hustle and play in-your-face defense - two things the Denver Nuggets badly need. Too bad they got rid of Marcus Camby because the Camby-Balkman inside-outside defensive duo combined with the scoring of Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony would have been a wild experience to see.
Here’s a great list of the 50 best players in the NBA as they’re expected to perform this season. From Fox Sports:
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This kid is only in Grade 5… Depending on how big he gets he could be in the NBA after elementary school! Ok, thats not true, but he does have some sick dribbling skills and seems pretty dedicated…
Shaq is a big goof with an ego the size of North America, but his rap about Kobe not being able to win without him is pretty funny:
PLAY
