Canada on his mind: McGrady regrets leaving Raptors

After a futile career filled with first round exits on teams where he lacked the help to get him over the hump, Tracy McGrady thinks back to the one team he played on that could have potentially contended for a championship: the Toronto Raptors.

“In hindsight … I wish I had stayed in Toronto,” McGrady said while being interviewed by the Toronto Star. “There’s no doubt we could have contended for a championship. I think about that often.”

Spurs’ Game Plan to Win Finals: Crowd LeBron

San Antonio Spurs’ head coach Gregg Popovich isn’t the longest tenured coach in the league by accident.

Sure it helps having Tim Duncan roaming the paint for the past 16 years but Popovich is probably the best at attacking an opposing team’s weakness.

Spurs $250k fine was about TV ratings

NBA commissioner David Stern knows that the San Antonio Spurs are an old team. He also knows that head coach Gregg Popovich will rest his aging starters from time to time.

Stern even admitted as much by saying that he has no problem with teams resting their starters. But when it comes to the Spurs playing in a nationally televised game, he expects all the stars to be playing.

Could Texas teams be LeBron James’ kryptonite?

Two NBA Finals appearances for Lebron James. Two losses. What is the common thread linking both of these losses together? Both teams were from Texas.

James joined the Miami Heat during the 2010-2011 season with one goal in mind and that was to win the championship that had eluded him up to that point in his career.

The San Antonio Spurs can’t lose

The San Antonio Spurs are currently in the midst of a 20-game win streak that covers the last ten games of the regular season and their first ten games of the playoffs. A staggering 75 percent of those wins were by 10 or more points.

Needless to say the Spurs are a much different team than they were last season.

Spurs’ Gregg Popovich still has one thing missing from his resume

Gregg Popovich is the most accomplished head coach in the NBA. He is a two-time Coach of the Year and has coached the San Antonio Spurs to four championships during his time with the organization but there is one thing missing from his resume.

Now I don’t want to give the impression that this missing item is something major that will determine his legacy because it won’t or at least it shouldn’t. Winning four championships is an impressive feat made even more impressive by the fact that no other head coach in the league has more than one.

Could the San Antonio Spurs thwart another title run by LeBron James?

In the 2007 NBA playoffs, the Cleveland Cavaliers led by LeBron James blazed through the Eastern Conference on their way to what many people thought would be the first of many NBA Finals appearances for the league’s most talented and most beloved superstar.

James looked very Jordan-esque as he willed the Cavaliers past the lowly Washington Wizards in four easy games, fought past the New Jersey Nets in six games and then bested the Detroit Pistons in the most epic battle of the entire playoffs setting them up for a Finals’ showdown versus Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs.

Spurs following same path as their ’99 championship season?

There are a lot of similarities with this San Antonio Spurs team and their team from the last lockout-shortened season back in 1999.

Both ended the regular season with the best record in the Western Conference, both were anchored by an aging center near the end of his career and both teams rode their younger players through the regular season in order to keep their veterans fresh for a strong playoff run.

San Antonio Spurs want the Denver Nuggets in playoffs

The San Antonio Spurs are only a game behind the first place Oklahoma City Thunder for the top spot in the Western Conference but it seems that Spurs’ coach Gregg Popovich would rather keep his team in that second place playoff slot.

Home court advantage is a great thing to have but in the playoffs matchups have proven to be a much bigger factor in whether a team advances or not. Last season neither one of the number one seeds made it to the NBA Finals.

Discipline, experience keeping the Spurs on top

Name another team in the league with a superstar tandem that has played together as long as Tony Parker and Tim Duncan have played with the San Antonio Spurs. It’s rare these days to find a team with one superstar that has played ten or more years with the same team, much less two.

Best and Worst of the Western Conference

Seeing the Oklahoma City Thunder sitting atop the West is not much of a surprise. The Thunder are a young and talented team that made it all the way to the Western Conference Finals last season. What is surprising is the teams that are currently sitting in the next few spots in the Western Conference standings.

Lessons Learned from the Last Lockout-Shortened NBA Season

The 2011-2012 NBA basketball season is projected to be a very challenging season, more so than your usual season of NBA basketball. Due to the contracted schedule, shortened mini-camps and free agent period, and the weakness of the draft, this season will have a lot in common with the last lockout-shortened season back in 1998-1999.But first let’s take a quick recap of the 98-99 season.