http://blogs.hoopshype.com/blogs/heisler HoopsHype.com NBA Blogs Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:57:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In praise of Mark Cuban? No, really. In the wake of his team’s resurgence since beating everyone else to the Wizards’ Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood, you have to give it to the Mavericks’ maverick madcap owner. For four years in which his team slid down the West standings, looking like it was ... http://blogs.hoopshype.com/blogs/heisler/2010/03/10/cuban-turns-team-back-around/ As I write this, it’s clear that Amare Stoudemire is headed for Cleveland, reconfiguring the NBA As We Know It. Or he’s going to Miami, which would, at least, reconfigure Miami. Or he’s staying in Phoenix, where the Suns, who’ve been on the verge of trading him since last year at this ... http://blogs.hoopshype.com/blogs/heisler/2010/02/17/cavs-should-go-for-it/ This farce has run long enough, and then some. Can this be over, now? Please? Not that Gilbert Arenas wasn’t riding for something like this as long as he has been riding, but let’s face it, as a Menace 2 Society, he’s the most overrated danger since Killer Bees and Y2K. Only Gilbert ... http://blogs.hoopshype.com/blogs/heisler/2010/01/28/free-gilbert-arenas/ If you want to know who leads this season’s Rookie of the Year race, and who’s likely to stay ahead, the short answer is Sacramento’s Tyreke Evans. If you want to know the significance, that’s another matter entirely and may not reveal itself for years. Of course, Blake Griffin, who’s probably still the ... http://blogs.hoopshype.com/blogs/heisler/2009/12/29/and-the-rookie-of-the-year-is-who-cares/ Gee, who could have imagined Chris Paul’s world going so wrong? Oh yeah, anyone who remembers the Charlotte Hornets’ world going so wrong. For four years, Paul has been like a combination of Steve Nash and Will Smith, an NBA superstar with charisma bubbling out of him, capable of taking a rag-tag ... http://blogs.hoopshype.com/blogs/heisler/2009/11/04/chris-paul-anyone/ It was a great summer for the NBA, with all the controversies and scandals involving other sports. Even if David Stern can’t come out and say it, thanks, Manny Ramirez, Brett Favre and Plaxico Burress. Of course, peace is a transitory state in any league these days, and the NBA isn’t ... http://blogs.hoopshype.com/blogs/heisler/2009/09/21/as-usual-the-referees-are-out-there-alone/ What did they do with the beach, Toto? Actually, Kurt Rambis, who got four rings as a Laker player wearing horn-rim glasses with “Rambis Youth” fans, and three more as an assistant coach, wasn’t exiled to Minnesota, he took over the Timberwolves of his own free will. He’s not out of his ... http://blogs.hoopshype.com/blogs/heisler/2009/08/14/kurt-rambis-in-the-frozen-tundra/ You shouldn’t let the world see who you really are, if you don’t know who you really are. It’s not that NBA stars always yearned for a way to communicate directly with their fans without having to go through the media. Actually, for decades they yearned for the media to come ... http://blogs.hoopshype.com/blogs/heisler/2009/07/28/steph-overload/ Stop me before I suspend again. Before I get into NBA Commissioner David Stern for the umpteenth time this postseason... which he came perilously close to tainting with his over-the-top legalism... I should note I have always had great respect for the way he has run his league. He has brought labor ... http://blogs.hoopshype.com/blogs/heisler/2009/05/31/the-bestworst-postseason-in-nba-history/ Of all the rags-to-riches stories among NBA coaches, there was never one like Chuck Daly, who, for all his larger-than-life style with his big hair, big smile and $5,000 suits, arrived thinking he was the luckiest man they ever let walk the sideline, and left as a giant. In a league ... http://blogs.hoopshype.com/blogs/heisler/2009/05/09/a-genuine-guy/