Posts Tagged ‘Michael Jordan’

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James Tops Field For KIA MVP Award, Sights Set On More Hardware

May 12, 2012  ·  2:18PM





HANG TIME PLAYOFF HEADQUARTERS – Miami Heat forward LeBron James joined an elite group today as he wins his third KIA Most Valuable Player Award, becoming just the eighth player in league history to win that many or more.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Moses Malone, all Hall of Famers, are the seven players to accomplish the feat before James.

Abdul-Jabbar owns six MVP trophies, Jordan and Russell five each and Chamberlain four. They are the only players with more trophies than James.

This is the third MVP trophy in the last four seasons for James, who won it as a Cleveland Cavalier in 2009 and 2010.
James beat out Thunder swingman Kevin Durant and Clippers guard Chris Paul to claim the top spot, snagging 85 of a possible 121 fist place votes and 1,074 points. Durant garnered 24 first place votes, he was the only other player to hit double digits, while Paul earned six.

For the third consecutive season, the NBA and Kia Motors America gave fans the opportunity to submit their votes by ranking their top five choices through a dedicated Web page on NBA.com. The fan vote counted as one vote and was compiled with the 120 media votes to determine the winner.

Lakers guard Kobe Bryant (two first-place votes) and Spurs point guard Tony Parker (4) rounded out the top five in the voting.

Of course, another Maurice Podoloff trophy is just one piece of hardware James is hunting this season.

He ended his acceptance speech this afternoon in Miami with these words, “I want that championship. That’s all that matters to me.”

The Heat remain on that path, facing the Indiana Pacers in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinal showdown Sunday afternoon in Miami. And they’ll need another (playoff) MVP-caliber effort from James to grab that Larry O’Brien trophy.

James played at a otherwordly level during the regular season, averaging 27.1 points, 7.9 rebounds and 6.2 assists — making him only the fourth player with those totals in at least two different seasons, joining Oscar Robertson (five times), John Havlicek (twice) and Bird (twice). He shot a ridiculous 53 percent from the floor and also averaged 1.9 steals.

James ranks, in this estimation, as the league’s most accomplished player on both ends of the floor. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra calls him “1-through-5,” for his ability to guard all five positions on the defensive end.

James said this latest honor only adds fuel to the fire that was already raging in him.

“It didn’t take another MVP trophy for me to want an NBA championship,” he said. ”I’d give all three (MVPs) back if I could win a championship.”

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23 Years Ago Today … MJ And The Shot!

May 7, 2012  ·  12:48PM

HANG TIME PLAYOFF HEADQUARTERS – I know we are currently in the midst of some fantastic playoff basketball from coast to coast, but you have to make time to appreciate the history of the game.

And 23 years ago today, Michael Jordan burned an image into the hearts and minds of fans in Cleveland, Chicago and beyond with one of his signature moments. Sorry Cleveland and Craig Ehlo, but May 7, 1989 will live forever:


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Union strife irks past NBPA presidents

April 27, 2012  ·  2:13PM

CHICAGO – Serious men tackling significant issues. That’s how some past leaders of the National Basketball Players Association view their group’s history, and that’s why the current power struggle within the union is so troubling to them.

“They’re making too much money,” said Oscar Robertson, a former NBPA president whose lawsuit to prompt free agency in the NBA is nearly as legendary as his Hall of Fame career and triple-double feats. “There are no goals to strive for anymore. They got together and got the collective bargaining agreement resolved. There’s no goals now.”

The CBA that the players and owners ratified in December ended an acrimonious, five-month labor lockout, salvaged a shortened 2011-12 season and got the NBA to eve of what it hopes will be a memorable postseason. The deal also shifted $3 billion from the players to the owners if it runs its full 10-year term, caused factions within the union’s ranks and led to the intramural conflict now between NBPA president Derek Fisher and executive director Billy Hunter.

Fisher has asked for an independent audit of the union’s finances and business practices, which allegedly include compensation and opportunities funneled to Hunter’s family members through direct employment and affiliations, according to stories by Yahoo! Sports and the New York Times. The executive committee of eight current and former NBA players responded by voting 8-0 asking for Fisher’s resignation, which the veteran point guard has declined.

It all has bubbled over, in an age of endless media coverage, at an awkward time of year for those involved, putting the union’s business very much in the sports world’s streets. “What bothers me more than anything,” said Robertson, the NPBA president from 1965-74,  “if they’ve got a problem, why don’t they settle it within their organization instead of going public with the whole thing? We settled all our problems within.”

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Rose Shrugs Off Rusty Return

April 13, 2012  ·  11:15AM





CHICAGO – It didn’t take long for the joke to start flying around the Chicago Bulls’ locker room, crammed as it was with reporters and camera crews after the 96-86 overtime victory over the Miami Heat Thursday at United Center:

With that victory, the smart alecks said, the Bulls improved to 17-7 without Derrick Rose …

The punchline in that was apparent in the box score: Rose started and played 25 minutes, 28 seconds in only his second appearance in a month. It merely seemed that Rose wasn’t involved, given his poor production when he was on the floor (1-for-13, two points, eight assists, three turnovers, no free-throw attempts) and the long minutes he spent off it. The Bulls’ point guard participated for only 2:41 in the fourth quarter and not at all in the five-minute OT session.

But he was laughing along with anyone else who floated the joke. “I’ve had worse games than this,” Rose said. “It’s been a minute, just being in the game, period. It’s going to take a little time. … If I’d have saw this [coming], I wouldn’t have played. Nah, I thought I was going to come out and do all right.”

Rose had been sidelined from March 12 to April 8 with a severe groin strain. He played at New York Sunday but turned his right ankle, missing the rematch with the Knicks Tuesday.

His return to action, as with his turf toe and back-spasms absences previously this season, was monitored as if the Bulls were facing a Game 7. He got the green light about an hour before tipoff Thursday, then had one of his sorriest performances ever. “[The ankle] felt good,” Rose said. “My mind was thinking of something that my body can’t do. But I’ve never had a problem getting my rhythm back for a long time. I should get it back pretty quick.”

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They Paid Him To ‘Watch’ Jordan

March 22, 2012  ·  12:03PM

Lacy J. Banks was a ray of sunshine in whatever newsroom, locker room or media workroom he entered. A legendary Chicago Sun-Times reporter who became the paper’s first African-American sportswriter when he was hired in 1972, Banks became a fixture on the NBA scene during his years covering the Bulls through parts of five decades. He died Wednesday at age 68 after battling a fleet of health issues, including prostate cancer, a brain tumor and heart disease.

Banks, also known for his work as a Baptist preacher, was a character as well as a correspondent, as one of Lacy’s colleagues at the Sun-Times, Toni Ginnetti, wrote Wednesday:

His time spanned all of Michael Jordan’s career and the start of Derrick Rose’s. Along the way, he deftly balanced a reporter’s objectivity with the personal bonds that grew between him and those he covered.

“He was more than a reporter on the sidelines,” Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said. “He cared deeply about the teams he covered and the profession that he represented. While we didn’t always agree with his position — as is natural — we never questioned his enthusiasm for the Bulls or the city of Chicago.”

There’s no question covering the Jordan era was the pinnacle of Banks’ career. In a 2005 column, Banks wrote: “In those glorious days, I could brag, ‘They pay me to watch Michael Jordan.’ Yeah, they fly me around the country — even flew me to Paris once — book me in the best hotels, give me courtside seats and then pay me to watch Jordan.”

Scottie Pippen wasn’t always the most media-cooperative Bulls player but he got along well with Banks. “He was a great friend, and we spent a lot of time calling my mom on Sundays and praying with her and just doing some great deeds for her and my family,” the Hall of Famer said.

Isiah Thomas, a Chicago native and local legend, knew Banks before Thomas began his own Hall of Fame career at the University of Indiana and with the Detroit Pistons. “We knew him from the church and the community,” Thomas, now the coach at Florida International, told Ginnetti. “He and my mom got to be real close. When things would be rough for us at times, he’d pick up the phone and call, say a prayer with us. Our conversations weren’t always even about the NBA or basketball.”

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Williams: Don’t Crown These Bulls Yet!

February 29, 2012  ·  11:27AM





HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – You can count Hornets coach Monty Williams among those taking a wait-and-see approach before anointing the Derrick Rose-led, Tom Thibodeau-coached Chicago Bulls as anything more than just a good, solid contender.

And this notion, no doubt from some diehards in the Windy City and beyond, that the next great era of Bulls basketball is at hand … well, Williams is not ready to crown them just yet.

He suggested to the Chicago Tribune that everyone needs to step back before making comparisons between these current Bulls and the Michael Jordan-led, Phil Jackson-coached Bulls teams that Williams played against early in his NBA career:

“I don’t think it’s even close to that yet,” he said before his team took the United Center floor Tuesday. “They do a really good job and they are on their way, but I played against (Michael) Jordan and (Scottie) Pippen and (Dennis) Rodman, and that was a different beast. If you didn’t watch yourself, when they called out Jordan’s name, you’d get caught up in it.”

Williams, the former Notre Dame star who played for the Knicks, Spurs, Nuggets, Magic and 76ers from 1994-2003, said: “There’s a little bit of that (aura) with Derrick Rose, but it’s not the same. I think you have to win a title first. It’s a tough place to play anyway, but when you have a title, that separates you.”

Williams believes the Bulls are on their way, thanks to the hiring of coach Tom Thibodeau, who also was offered the Hornets job.

“When they signed Coach Thibs, they knew they’d be a defensive(-minded) team,” he said. “He’ll bench a guy for not playing defense, and I think that’s the identity you have to have to move toward a championship.

“They play a physical style. They foul a lot, and it’s not always called. … They play hard. That’s an identity you want to have.”

If our read-between-the-line skills are still intact after a long All-Star weekend, that would appear to be quite a bit of backhanded praise on the part of Williams.

He’s also spot on about one thing in particular, these Bulls (who face the Spurs tonight at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN)  are not close to matching the prowess of the Jordan-led Bulls just yet. And until they win a championship, there’s no need to even entertain the conversation.

The best part? Rose and Thibodeau would be the first people to insist on ending the comparison talk!

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Kobe Bryant Passes Michael Jordan For All-Time All-Star Game Scoring Mark

February 26, 2012  ·  9:45PM





ORLANDO — Kobe Bryant is still chasing Michael Jordan‘s record of six championships, but he’s already snagged another of Jordan’s hallowed records.

Bryant passed Jordan for the All-Star scoring record on a fast break dunk with 4:57 to play in the third quarter here Sunday night, with 264 points. He tied Jordan minutes earlier with two free throws and finished the night with 27 points and total of 271 points

LeBron James is next on the active list with 207 points.

Most career points, All-Star history

Player GP PTS AVG
Kobe Bryant 13 271 20.8
Michael Jordan 13 262 20.2
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 18 251 13.9
Oscar Robertson 12 246 20.5
Bob Pettit 11 224 20.4

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K.J.’s Next Candidacy On The Line

February 23, 2012  ·  1:55PM




ORLANDO – Former Suns All-Star Kevin Johnson is no different than Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Vlade Divac as ex-NBA players with a credible case for the Hall of Fame in the first year on the ballot: known for a very good career but not legendary, with an important role in building a dragging franchise into a playoff regular, while regarded the No. 2 player, at best, on the roster.

One thing about K.J., though, that may have been lost in time. He was the second-best true point guard of his time – Magic Johnson, who jumped center in The Finals and would later work at power forward, gets his own category — and one of the four or five best at either backcourt spot in an era when play there was historically good.

For a time, there was John Stockton, the best true point, and Magic and Michael Jordan as three of the all-time greats, along with the likes of Clyde Drexler and Joe Dumars, future Hall of Famers themselves. Kevin Johnson never made first-team All-NBA, which does not bode well in the induction conversation, but he also essentially had no chance against a stacked deck. Nobody did.

K.J. was a second-team selection by the media four times and third-team once. The full choices in the backcourt in that time span:

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Like Mike? Happy Birthday MJ!

February 17, 2012  ·  1:26PM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – We didn’t splurge for a cake or any real gifts or anything.

But Michael Jordan‘s 49th birthday deserved some acknowledgement here. So we opted for our favorite thing … highlights!



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Hang Time Podcast (Episode 68)

February 10, 2012  ·  5:46PM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – The All-Star reserves have been announced. Some wrongs were made right (LaMarcus Aldridge) while other wrongs remain (Josh Smith).

But making the All-Star team as a reserve is a complex issue that required further examination, which leads us to Episode 68 of the Hang Time Podcast.

We enlisted the services of former Michigan State, 1998 NBA All-Star and current NBA TV analyst Steve Smith to help make sense of a process that often times makes none.  After all, Smitty played in just that one All-Star game during his stellar 14-year career, despite playing at an All-Star level for the bulk of his career.

But when you’re fighting for a berth at guard in the Eastern Conference with the likes of Reggie Miller, Penny Hardaway, Joe Dumars, Latrell Sprewell and others during the Michael Jordan era these sorts of things happen.

We also chatted All-Star reserves, Jeremy Lin and the overall state of the game with Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports, a Bay Area native and current resident. Spears lived in Boston when the Knicks’ point guard sensation (for the past three games at least) was running the show at Harvard, and even though he’d never heard of Lin back then and never saw the Crimson play, he’s “all-Lin” for the new face of the global game — who just happens to share Spears’ Bay Area roots.

For all that and so much more, including a look back at an iconic collection of young stars (below) before they hit the NBA, check out Episode 68 of the Hang Time Podcast …

LISTEN HERE: 

As always, we welcome your feedback. You can follow the entire crew, including the Hang Time Podcast, co-hosts Lang Whitaker of SLAM Magazine and Sekou Smith of NBA.com, as well as our superproducer Micah Hart of NBA.com’s All Ball Blog.

– To download the podcast, click here. To subscribe via iTunes, click here, or get the xml feed if you want to subscribe some other, less iTunes-y way.

1990-91 Playboy All-American Team

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