The Lakers hosted a preseason game Thursday night at the MGM Grand Garden, but there was no Bryant and a definite lack of buzz. Imagine the E Street Band showing up to play without Bruce Springsteen.
Basketball
With new ownership, the promise of a new arena in downtown Sacramento, new leadership in the basketball operation with general manager Pete D’Alessandro and coach Mike Malone, perhaps the days of the Sad Sac Kings are over.
He’s a four-time NBA All-Star and may be a future Hall of Famer. But at age 33 and despite an impressive resume, Pau Gasol has a lot to prove. Not to the world. To himself.
UNLV center Khem Birch was voted to the preseason all-Mountain West first team, and the Rebels were picked to finish in a second-place tie with Boise State, according to a basketball media poll released by the league.
It was a move the Los Angeles Lakers likely would have made years ago — had their new Las Vegas preseason home had a basketball court.
Behind the scenes, a talented UNLV basketball team was torn apart. Carlos Lopez-Sosa was unhappy and unsure if he wanted to be a part of it anymore. He was falling apart, too.
It was Friday morning at Cox Pavilion, and USA Basketball women’s national team mini-camp practice was winding down — or so I thought — when Diana Taurasi walked out as I was walking in. Taurasi apparently had some sort of business to attend to in the tunnel linking Cox Pavilion to the Thomas & Mack Center.
On Friday, Elena Delle Donne and Geno Auriemma were on the court together, in Las Vegas of all places, as USA Basketball held its women’s national team minicamp at Cox Pavilion.
NBA legend Michael Jordan believes he could beat LeBron James in a one-on-one basketball game when he was in his prime. He’s not sure about Kobe Bryant.
At least for one game, King James, Jesus Shuttlesworth, The Truth and KG may be headed to the backs of NBA jerseys.
Dannielle Lois Diamant, Jerry Tarkanian’s 6-foot-5-inch granddaughter, was caught in a whirlwind Saturday. She was scurrying from one function to the next in Springfield, Mass., to celebrate her grandpa’s long-awaited induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame when her cellphone lit up.
For years, Jerry Tarkanian never gave it much thought. He figured what was the point?
Gary Payton talked a lot of trash during his storied 17-year NBA career. But he didn’t have to talk his way into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. His play on the court did that for him.
In 1975, Rick Pitino was a year out of college, working as a graduate assistant coach, making $13,000 a year and sharing a Honolulu apartment with five other guys. But part of that life was crossing paths with well-known, established college basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian.
A billboard on I-215 near Buffalo has Lon Kruger back at the helm of the Rebels basketball program, which must be a shock to Dave Rice, who has coached the team since Kruger left for Oklahoma in 2011.
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