This week, the Clippers revealed that Blake Griffin broke his hand fighting with the team’s assistant strength coach.  The details are sketchy but, according to a Los Angeles Times report, Griffin and the coach are good friends and that the two got into an argument over teasing while out to dinner in Toronto.  Griffin is expected to be out somewhere in the neighborhood of six weeks. It is hard to give any sharp insight into this incident.  Griffin was wrong to pound on a smaller man and is … [Read more...] about Blake Griffin and other NBA Punchers

What to make of the short tenure of David Blatt with the Cavs?  The team was 30-11 and leading the East but had struggled against the best of the best, having been waxed by the Warriors and Spurs.  Was Blatt’s abrupt firing the usual overreaction of management or was there something below the surface that justified this seemingly weird decision?  We can’t know the answer for sure but let’s take a look at the facts, as we know them, and see if we can draw some conclusions. Before even turning … [Read more...] about Did Blatt deserve to be fired?

Putting aside the Warriors, the biggest surprise success stories of 2014-15 were the Milwaukee Bucks and the Atlanta Hawks.  The Bucks morphed from deep Lottery team to a bona fide playoff team, while Atlanta went from fringe playoff team to number one seed in the East.  Both teams were considered strong candidates to decline this year based upon Bill James’ Plexiglass Principle, which states that teams that tend to have huge improvements regress the following season.  The assumption is that a … [Read more...] about Plexiglass Review: Milwaukee and Atlanta

Most fans, me included, hate it when legal issues affect the game on the court.  Still, these lawsuits can create a nice little record of a place and time and remind us of what was (see our review of Donald Sterling’s legal travails).  Periodically, we find from some nice little time capsules that we have all forgotten.  By popping up some of these old bubbles, we sometimes can have a little fun and learn a bit players’ careers on the court too. Such is the case with a forgotten lawsuit filed … [Read more...] about Chris Childs v. the Nets

This week, the Suns suspended Markieff Morris for throwing a towel at coach Jeff Hornacek while on the sideline during a loss to Denver.  There has been much frustration to go around between the Suns poor start this year and Morris’ pre-season trade demand after his brother Marcus was traded to Detroit.   Coaches and players fight all the time but the dreaded towel toss usually pops up when things are particularly messy.  Does the towel toss really mean things are really so dire?  Maybe.  … [Read more...] about Markieff Morris and Throwing in the Towel