Miami Heat guard Tyler Johnson was wheeled off the court with a knee injury suffered during Monday’s game against the Chicago Bulls. It was a terrible sign for the 25-year-old, who has spent all four years of his career in Miami.
Since joining the Golden State Warriors, Kevin Durant’s wishes to own an NBA team have increased, according to a report from ESPN’s Chris Haynes. Currently, there is only one former player — Michael Jordan of the Charlotte Hornets — who holds the majority ownership stake of a team.
On Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, Gregg Popovich and the Spurs were in Atlanta to face the Hawks, and the head coach took some time to talk about the civil rights leader’s legacy.
Popovich spent the interview looking back at King’s resolve and commitment to the civil rights movement. However, his admiration was tapered due to today’s political climate. He says the country still has work to do in order to continue the work King dedicated his life to:
The Cavaliers need some help. After winning 18 of 19 games, they’ve lost six of their last eight. Cleveland is falling off the rails — again — and the Cavs have to fix it if they plan on returning to the NBA Finals for a fourth straight season.
Lineup changes won’t help; the Cavs are what they are. But if they want to shake the roster up, a trade isn’t too wild of an idea.
Heading into Wednesday, the Clippers hadn’t beaten the Warriors since Christmas 2014, losing 12 straight to Golden State. While the Warriors were without Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson Wednesday, Kevin Durant was back to join the full complement of complimentary players. The Clippers, meanwhile, were without Blake Griffin and basically every other player whose name a normal person would recognize other than DeAndre Jordan and Lou Williams.
In a less dramatic rendition of their turnaround last season, when they started 11-30 and finished the season ninth in the East, the Miami Heat are getting better as the season goes along. Winners of their first five games of 2018, they’re creating offense with a floor-spacing, playmaking lineup that can clamp down defensively, going toe-to-toe with most teams in terms of size and grit. With Goran Dragic, Josh Richardson, James Johnson, Bam Adebayo, and Kelly Olynyk, the current No. 4 seed’s most promising lineup features no All-Stars. But it’s packed to the brim with almost-stars.
Chris Paul will return to Los Angeles for the first time on Monday to face the franchise he cemented his legendary status with. It should be a bittersweet return for Clippers fans after the guard’s departure from the team he took to six straight postseasons. That’s because he’s taking his new Houston Rockets team to new heights.
Last offseason saw Paul, J.J. Redick, and Blake Griffin all become free agents, and the latter was the only Clipper to return. These aren’t the Lob City Clippers we’re used to anymore, and injuries have made them even more unrecognizable.
Karl-Anthony Towns is not a unicorn or a hypebeast. His game is not especially fun or revolutionary. He’s a big man with exceptional range, but that’s become the norm rather than the exception. He’s put up absurd numbers in his first few years in the league, but those gaudy stats have been accompanied by a nagging feeling that he still has more to give.
