HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Few players divide the room the way Carmelo Anthony does.
To some, the New York Knicks’ superstar is a scoring marvel to behold in a league that has always cherished guys who could put the ball in the hole at a record pace. Yet to others, Anthony is an elite scorer but little else and needs to expand the boundaries of his game if he wants to be mentioned in the same breath as friends and contemporaries like LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Kobe Bryant.
But if he was a better rebounder, set-up man and finally “won the big one” then we wouldn’t have anything to debate on Episode 111 of the Hang Time Podcast, where we also debate and discuss the Brittney Griner to the NBA (instead of WNBA … she’s all for it, by the way) drama, the Mike Rice-Rutgers basketball flap, Shaquille O’Neal‘s retirement ceremony, our Final Four picks (GO BLUE!) and a whole lot more.
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As always, we welcome your feedback. You can follow the entire crew, including the Hang Time Podcast, co-hosts Sekou Smith of NBA.com, Lang Whitaker of SLAM Magazineand Rick Fox of NBA TV, as well as our new super producer Gregg (just like Popovich) Waigand and the best engineer in the business, Jarell “I Heart Peyton Manning” Wall.
– 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.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – All streaks must come to an end.
Chicago Bulls fans would love it if their team was the one to put an end to the Miami Heat’s streak at 27 games tonight at the United Center. Anything to punch a hole in the championship aura of the LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh-led Heat, whose rise has come at the Bulls’ expense.
Plus, what better way to make the pain of the ongoing Derrick Rose saga (will he or won’t he play this season …) go away, at least for a few hours?
We also discuss the rash of injuries making the rounds around the league with just a few weeks left in the regular season, whose March Madness bracket is the ugliest heading into this weekend’s Sweet Sixteen, the pros (Nicole Eggert and HT fave Keshia Knight-Pulliam) and cons (Hall of Famers (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and comedian Louie Anderson) of a celebrity diving competition, why Heat coach Erik Spoelstra deserves to be Coach of the Year and why it’s so tough to stomach coaches who are more emotional than their players.
Check out all of that and more on Episode 110 f 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 Sekou Smith of NBA.com, Lang Whitaker of SLAM Magazineand Rick Fox of NBA TV, as well as our new super producer Gregg (just like Popovich) Waigand and the best engineer in the business, Jarell “I Heart Peyton Manning” Wall.
– 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.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – The Los Angeles Lakers just can’t stay out of the headlines, and off of the Hang Time Podcast, these days.
From the firing of Mike Brown to the hiring of Mike D’Antoni, and the dalliance with Phil Jackson between the two, the Lakers have served as one-stop shopping for their fill of the reality-TV-style melodrama that surrounds their basketball.
The quiet but powerful force behind the scenes in this whole affair is longtime Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak, whose voice never seems to rise above a regal whisper even in what looks like a crisis. Kupchak joins us on Episode 93 of the Hang Time Podcast to clear the air on all things Lakers.
Whose bright idea was it to install the Princeton offense?
Why D’Antonio over Phil, or was it instead of Phil?
Is anything less than a title this season viewed internally as a failure for Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash and the crew?
And, perhaps most intriguing, is his putting to rest the debate that our TNT colleagues Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley have waged over the past 15 months about the unquestioned best big man in the league, Dwight Howard or Andrew Bynum?
(Hey Shaq, spoiler alert, you’re not going to like Kupchak’s answer …)
Feast on all that and more on our Thanksgiving special, Episode 93 of the Hang Time Podcast, with your hosts Sekou Smith, Lang Whitaker and Rick Fox (well, you’ll have to listen up to see what happened to Rick).
– 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.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS –Mike Brown out. Mike D’Antoni in. Phil Jackson still on the sidelines. And (Jim and) the Buss family in the crosshairs until further notice. Those are the main plotlines for this week’s episode of “As The Los Angeles Lakers Turn.”
We’ve gathered our own panel of experts, insiders and observers of the situation to try to help you make sense of it all on Episode 92 of The Hang Time Podcast, featuring super agent Warren LeGarie (who represents both Brown and D’Antoni) and Broderick Turner of The Los Angeles Times (who had an afro when the first Shaquille O’Neal/Kobe Bryant/Phil Jackson era began, and currently sports a skin-tight dome these days after 17 years of drama).
We broke down the situation from every angle and ended up in the same place as everyone else — totally confused at how this all went down and convinced, as our resident Lakers expert put it, that this season is “Championship or Buss” for these Lakers.
Check out all that and more on Episode 92 of the Hang Time Podcast, with your hosts Sekou Smith, Lang Whitaker and Rick Fox.
– 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.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Four or five games is not enough of a sample size to make any lasting judgments on any player or any team in the NBA.
But when has that ever stopped us from trying on the Hang Time Podcast?
We’re going all in on Episode 91, trying to figure out what’s going on with this rash of injuries taking down one star player after another — from Amar’e Stoudemire to Danny Granger to Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki and so many more — and making a mess of the standings. We’ll tackle that and more in Headlines of the Week around the league. We also take a listen to some of the best voices in the business on “Nat Calls of the Week” and finish things off with “Bragging Rights,” which includes the crew picking winners from select games to be played over the next week.
Check out all that and more on Episode 91 of the Hang Time Podcast, with your hosts Sekou Smith, Lang Whitaker and Rick Fox.
– 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.
LAS VEGAS – For at least a few more days, this sweltering city will serve as the center of the basketball universe, with a small satellite in Orlando orbiting the action here.
With USA Basketball training camp in full swing at UNLV, complete with Thursday night’s exhibition opener against the Dominican Republic, and 24 NBA teams converging upon the Las Vegas Strip for Summer League action that kicks off Friday, there are no basketball needs that can’t be satisfied here.
Two of basketball’s biggest power brokers, Summer League co-owner Warren LeGarie and USA Basketball chairman and managing director Jerry Colangelo, the two men most responsible for all of the attention focused here right now, joined us on Episode 86 of the Hang Time Podcast to talk Summer League, USA Basketball, the upcoming London Olympic Games and more.
When we say “more” we’re talking Day 200 of the Dwight Howard watch (don’t get excited, he still hasn’t been traded), the open of the free agent signing period and the day The Deron Williams Brooklyn Experience officially began and the day two-time MVP and Phoenix Suns icon Steve Nash joined the dark side in Los Angeles.
Check out all that and more on Episode 86 of the Hang Time Podcast featuring Las Vegas Summer League czar Warren LeGarie and USA Basketball bossJerry Colangelo (who actually joined us from courtside at the Olympic team’s Wednesday morning workout, as you’ll hear in the background).
– 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.
HANG TIME PLAYOFF HEADQUARTERS – Just when you thought things couldn’t get any crazier on the Dwight Howard front, free agency kicked off and a whole new round of madness began for the Orlando Magic and their superstar center and his season-long trade request to Brooklyn.
And you can stop scanning the list … Howard is not actually a free agent right now. He gave that opportunity up in March when he waived his opt-out clause to remain with the Magic one more season.
Yet somehow, he’s still become the center of attention in the midst of the free-agent frenzy going on now.
That’s why we tracked down Orlando Sentinel Magic insider Brian Schmitz, who has been there ever step of the way since Howard was drafted in 2004, to help us make sense of the story that never seems to run out of plot twists and turns.
While Howard is fighting to escape the Southeast Division, new Hawks general manager Danny Ferry is trying to reshape it by dramatically altering the Hawks’ roster. In his fist eight days on the job he shed $105 million in contracts (trading Joe Johnson to the Nets and Marvin Williams to the Jazz) and put the Hawks in a position to be major players in free agency next summer, when Howard and Chris Paul could headline the crop of stars teams are stepping over each other to sign.
Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com knows Ferry well, from their shared time in Cleveland (Ferry ran the Cavaliers and Windhorst covered them better than anyone for the Akron BeaconJournal and later, The Plain Dealer), and joins us to discuss Ferry’s master plan.
Check out all that and more on Episode 85 of the Hang Time Podcast featuring Brian Schmitz of theOrlando Sentinel and Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com.
– 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.
HANG TIME PLAYOFF HEADQUARTERS – Kentucky power forward Anthony Davis is going to be the first player to hear his named announced Thursday night in New York.
Beyond that tidy bit of information, there are no certainties involved in the 2012 NBA Draft.
We know this here at headquarters because we’ve asked just about everyone you could imagine and canvassed the basketball globe on the eve of the Draft and found that no one, and we mean no one, is certain of anything other than Davis walking across that stage first.
What’s it like living through this process from the inside out? We find out from North Carolina’s Tyler Zeller, a projected lottery pick. Who are the biggest movers and shakers in the Draft? Well, it is a fluid list that will change several more times before the start of the Draft, says NBA.com’s Draft guru Scott Howard-Cooper. The Houston Rockets remain the team most eager to move their way up the Draft board, their master plan (Dwight Howard in a Rockets uniform) is clear for all to see. We go behind the scenes on their motives with NBA.com’s Fran Blinebury (rhymes with grime and scary).
Check out all that and more on Episode 84 of the Hang Time Podcast our Draft Special, with Tyler Zeller, Scott Howard-Cooper and Fran Blinebury. And make sure you to tune into the Draft Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.
– 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.
HANG TIME PLAYOFF HEADQUARTERS – It seems like we were in this same space last week, with seasons on the brink, legacies on the line and eras on the verge of ending and beginning.
The teams might have changed but the circumstances stay the same during the NBA’s playoff season. It’s win-or-go-fishing time for both the San Antonio Spurs (tonight in the Western Conference finals) and the Miami Heat (Thursday night in the Eastern Conference finals).
We’re going to find out in the next 48 hours if Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, James Harden and the rest of the Oklahoma City Thunder are ready to replace the Spurs’ Tony Parker, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili (not to mention the Lakers and Mavericks) as the new power of the Western Conference. And we’re also going to find out if Rajon Rondo, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and the rest of the Boston Celtics are ready to make one last stand in The Finals by taking down Miami’s LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
– 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.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – We’re not the only ones glued to the flat screen every night watching the playoff drama unfold all around the league.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are not alone.
NBA players like Jamal Crawford, whose Portland Trail Blazers missed out on the postseason this season, are locked in on the action every night as well. So when there’s a wild ending to a game or series, or both, as we had in Philadelphia and Boston Thursday night, Crawford is watching each and every second just like we are.
The only difference is, he knows what it’s like to be in that huddle when there are 3.5 seconds left and the play that either saves or ends a season is being drawn up. He knows what it’s like when those game-winning free throws drop through the bottom of the nets. He knows that euphoric feeling of seeing the plan come together as well as he knows that empty feeling when you come up short.
And that’s why we couldn’t think of a better guest to share his insights than our main man and Hang Time favorite @JCrossover (on Twitter) to give us the lowdown on what he’s seen so far.
Check it out on Episode 78 of the Hang Time Podcast featuring Portland Trail Blazers guard Jamal Crawford:
– 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.
