Archive for June, 2009

MLive.com reports that the Detroit Pistons have fired Michael Curry as their head coach after one season. Not much else to say about it. A little over a year ago when he was hired I questioned the move and…well…I guess I was right. Not much else to add as it was clear during the season that Curry was simply overmatched. He foolishly tried to play Allen Iverson and Rip Hamilton at the same time, then completely botched Rip Hamilton in every single way, followed by his team putting in one of the poorer efforts in NBA Playoff history. His only [...]

Trying to stay away from all rumors as much as possible, partly because some are so contagious with the media that they are starting to feel like a smokescreen, and partly because nothing can happen for a couple days at least. Doesn’t mean we can’t through some food the way of your thoughts: Ric Bucher (who tweeted over the weekend Portland is looking for Hedo signed straight up and a sign-and-trade for Andre Miller) on the latter half (Insider) of his Top 20 free agents. Portland is listed as a “Best Fit” for half of them, and Channing Frye surprisingly [...]

Alright, let’s unravel this odd, kinda-good, very strange 2009 Draft from the Portland perspective. Here’s the final tally of Blazers picks: No. 22 (from Dallas): Victor Claver No. 31 (from Sacramento): Jeff Pendergraph – A pick we called here and here. No. 33: Dante Cunningham No. 55: Patrick Mills As the night got started, there was a sect of Blazers fans that probably wanted to trade up for Ricky Rubio or Stephen Curry. When Rubio startlingly dropped to Minnesota at No. 5, that was the time to strike, but Kevin Pritchard wisely chose not to pay a high price for [...]

According to ESPN, (also being reported by Yahoo!) the Orlando Magic are in serious talks with the New Jersey Nets to trade Rafer Alston and Tony Battie (expiring contracts) and Courtney Lee for Vince Carter. The big storyline here seems since the Nets move to Brooklyn is back on track, Jay-Z is again trying to clear room to bring in LeBron (remember everyone talking about their friendship last fall?). And if the deal goes through, HOVA will have plenty of cap room and the young players to woo Mr. James. For the Magic, well, they’d be sacrificing a little bit [...]

The FanSided.com Sports Network proudly presents our first ever network-wide live NBA Draft blog. That’s right; NBA bloggers from around the league will be checking in to discuss the 2009 NBA Draft and all the news and rumors that go along with it. If you want knowledgeable, real-time commentary on the entire draft, then this chat is for you. Thanks for joining us, and keep the comments and questions coming (but clean and respectful, please). NBA 2009 Draft>

Going to be over at Blazers.com for their Live Blog of the NBA Draft today, starting, I believe, at 3 p.m. Pacific Time. We’ll also be on Twitter all day and will post updates back here in case anything happens, Blazers related. And you better bet your bottom dollar that something will happen. We’ll also be popping in and out of the Fansided.com giant network live blog (above) of the draft, so be sure to get in there as well.

Looks like the oft-rumored Suns/Cavaliers deal has finally been agreed to, with Shaq headed to the Valley of the LeBrons in exchange for magic beans Ben Wallace, Sasha Pavlovic, tomorrow’s 46th pick and, surprise surprise (this is Phoenix after all)…cash considerations. This deal has been talked about for months and for most of today we’ve heard it was any minute now. Apparently Stephen A. Smith broke the news and Yahoo! is running with it, so there’s little reason to doubt the legitimacy of the deal. There’s also little reason to analyze the deal. The Cavaliers just gave LeBron a great [...]

Take this for what it is, but Yahoo Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski reports the following in his draft buzz: “Chicago Bulls guard Kirk Hinrich(notes) is telling friends that he thinks he’ll be dealt to the Portland Trail Blazers, who have interest in pairing him with Brandon Roy(notes) in the backcourt.” So that’s that. Literally. Doesn’t even mean anything else than that just thought I would pass it along.

Trade is agreed to in principle. The Blazers have agreed to send the No. 24, the No. 56 and a 2010 2nd Rounder to the Dallas Mavericks in order to move up to the No. 22 pick. We knew they weren’t going to keep all those second rounders, but just to move up two spots in a first round many thought (including us) the Blazers would trade out of? Curious. The team they leapfrog at No. 23 is Sacramento, a team also looking for a point guard. I’m saying right now this is probably part of some bigger move – [...]

More craziness today, both Yahoo Sports and ESPN are reporting that the Washington Wizards have agreed to send Etan Thomas, Darius Songalia and Oleksiy Pecherov and most importantly the #5 pick in this Thursday’s draft to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Randy Foye and Mike Miller. The deal will not officially be done until tomorrow. ESPN has all the details on exactly what is holding up the process and they report Etan Thomas has to sign some paperwork that he won’t opt out and Minnesota’s owner has to green light it. But as of now it seems as if all systems [...]