Posts by Brett Edwards at FanHouse

Sad news out of Portland this morning, as former Trail Blazer and two-time NBA All-Star Kevin Duckworth has passed away at the age of 44. The cause of death is unknown at this time.

Duckworth was a member of the Blazers from 1986-1993, and was a fan favorite who played a substantial role on two Blazers' Western Conference Championship teams in 1990 and 1992. Blazers' fan Henry Abbott of TrueHoop shares this fond memory of the Blazers' big man:

I'll always remember Duckworth for his starring role in the most exciting basketball game I have ever seen in person: Portland's come-from-behind Game 7 win over Larry Brown, David Robinson, Rod Strickland, and the San Antonio Spurs in the second-round of the 1990 playoffs.

Duckworth played in that game against doctor's orders, and while his stat line proved to be average, he managed to make things extremely difficult for Robinson, helping Portland keep things close. Portland found themselves down seven in the closing minutes, but made a late and thrilling run to send the game to overtime, where they were able to secure a crucial victory on the road to the Finals.

Duckworth remained active in the Portland community, and in fact "was on the Oregon Coast representing the Trail Blazers as a Heritage Ambassador" when this occurred. He will certainly be missed.

The way that the players of the USA Basketball team were staring at their freshly earned gold medals after defeating Spain in the epic final game, it appeared that those pieces of hardware would be something they would cherish for the rest of their lives. That's not the case for at least one member of the "Redeem Team" however, as Jason Kidd will be giving his gold medal away to ... the wife of one of the wealthiest casino owners in Las Vegas. The particulars:

Kidd promised Elaine Wynn, wife of casino mogul Steve Wynn, that he would give her his newest Olympic medal if the Americans fulfill the redeem dream.

"It's not a (gambling) marker or anything like that," Kidd told The Arizona Republic. "She's just a great friend and a really great person."

They met last year when Kidd and the USA team stayed at the Wynn while training in Las Vegas.

"Last summer, we stayed at the Wynn for (what seemed like) a lifetime, close to three weeks," Kidd said. "We met at a banquet, we got to talking, and she really understands the game. I told her I'd make a deal with her, that if we won the gold medal, I'd give it to her. She thought I was kidding. But I told her I had one already, and the way they treated us at the Wynn, it was the least I could do."

I have so many questions about this, but let's just discuss one of the most obvious ones, shall we? Kidd has been an NBA star for a long time, and surely owes debts of gratitude to a lot of people. People that he's undoubtedly known for more than a year or so. So what makes Mrs. Wynn so special?

I'm not sure where exactly Cris Collinsworth was trying to go in this interview with Kobe Bryant, but thankfully it's a place that Bryant wouldn't allow Collinsworth to take him. Listen to the way Collinsworth asks Kobe if he thinks it's "cool" to say he loves his country, because to me, it seems like Collinsworth is expecting a much different answer than the one Kobe responds with.



Note to Collinsworth: it's the Olympics, dude. Athletes are representing their country against athletes from other countries around the world. Of course it's cool to be patriotic and say what an honor it is. I don't know if Collinsworth meant the question to be a legitimate one in the context of our country's current political climate, or if he was just looking to catch Kobe saying something controversial. But either way, Kobe's answer left Collinsworth looking like an unpatriotic, self-loathing American. Probably not the qualities that NBC was looking for from one of its Olympic broadcasters.

[via Awful Announcing]

I don't know about you all, but there's something that I find absolutely fascinating about the inner workings of the lives of players in the NBA. Like, I would think that a player's team, agent, or somebody they were close to would be the one that broke the news to said player that they had just been dealt out of town. But I would be wrong. It didn't go down like that for Ron Artest, and it didn't go down like that for Damon Jones. Observe:

Damon Jones made a guest appearance on ESPN's First Take on Wednesday morning, when he and host Skip Bayless debated about the lack of moves by the Cavaliers this off-season.

A few hours later, as he was getting into a limousine to take him to the airport, the driver told the veteran guard he'd been traded to Milwaukee.

[Jones remarked] "I appreciate the organization for moving me if they weren't going to have a significant role for me in the last year of my contract. At the same time, I'm upset they weren't able to find a role for me."

Going from television analyst discussing your team's off-season moves one minute, to becoming one of those moves and being informed of it by your freaking driver the next? That's cold. As for Damon thanking the Cavs and being upset with them in the very next sentence ... well, I don't know what else you'd expect from someone who lets the fans have a say in his hairstyle, or wears the same jacket to All-Star weekend two years in a row.

[via SbB]

This offseason, NBA FanHouse will address important questions about the league. It will be a Summer of Answers. First up: the biggest draft busts of the decade.

The 2001 NBA Draft was pretty weak in terms of legitimate ballers who would be found contributing meaningful minutes for seasons to come. Sure, '01 gave us Tony Parker and Gilbert Arenas, but they went 28th and 31st overall respectively. Lottery picks that year were far from household names: Eddy Curry, Eddie Griffin, DeSagana Diop, and Rodney White were all selected in the top 10. But all of that doesn't make that year's number one overall selection, Kwame Brown, any less of a bust.

Before we lay out the evidence of Kwame's career suckitude, let's admit that he had quite a bit working against him coming into the league, shall we? He was the first player ever drafted number one overall directly out of high school (KG was taken fifth in '95), and to go along with that he had the pressure of being Michael Jordan's first draft pick as an executive of the Washington Wizards. Considering that Kwame turned out to have the mental toughness of a certain cake he destroyed one fateful night in Hermosa Beach, this was clearly going to be too much stress for the youngster to handle.

This offseason, NBA FanHouse will address important questions about the league. It will be a Summer of Answers. First up: the biggest draft busts of the decade.

Unless you're a fan of the Toronto Raptors or a huge NBA Draft nerd follower, you may have read that headline and thought, "who's Rafael Araujo? Never heard of him." That was my initial thought anyway, and that, my friends, is exactly why Mr. Araujo comes in at number four on our Biggest Busts of the '00s list.

When you look back at the 2004 draft, everyone taken in the first seven picks before Araujo turned out to be productive NBA (or Euroleague) players. Well, except for Shaun Livingston who had the gruesome knee injury two seasons ago. But that's no biggie, right? The talent level could have simply dropped off after that point, and Araujo could have been the first on a long list of disappointments who just happened to be drafted eighth overall. Unfortunately for him (and the Raptors), this was a very deep draft.

Players selected after Rafael (pronounced "HA-f-eye-ell" if you believe NBA.com) include Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, J.R. Smith, Kevin Martin, Sasha Vujacic, Beno Udrih, Anderson Varejao, Pape Sow ... just seeing if you were still paying attention. The point is this: when a player is selected with the number eight pick, with this much talent still on the board, and his career averages over three seasons are under three points and three rebounds a game, I don't know if "bust" is a strong enough word to describe his NBA status.

If you never watch any of NBC's 42 networks, I have a news flash for you: the Olympics start tomorrow. Yeah, who knew, right? Where's all the coverage? Well, in case you're just finding out about this now and need to get quickly pumped up for some USA Basketball, look no further than this new spot from Nike featuring Marvin Gaye's legendary performance of the National Anthem from the 1983 All-Star Game.



The video of Team USA isn't anything that spectacular, but the USA jerseys along with the amazing anthem rendition did it for me. And hey, let's give Nike a pat on the back, shall we? At least this is a bona fide ad for the shoe giant, unlike one of the company's more questionable attempts at putting their brand on the USA Basketball team.

Plenty has been said about the many, um, idiosyncrasies of Ron Artest. But no matter what your opinion is of the man, no one should have to find out about being traded to another team while live on the air on a national sports talk radio show. That's exactly how Ron-Ron discovered he was headed to Houston though. As he called in to wish Sirius radio host Scott Ferrall a happy birthday, he was given the news, and seemed relatively unfazed, all things considered.



I love how, once Artest realized what had happened, he immediately focused his attention on the primary reason for the call: the host's birthday. This proves one of two things: either Artest isn't as self-centered as some people have perceived him to be, or that he's not all there mentally. You make the call.

You may have heard a little bit recently about some controversial billboard ads that were being run by Nike, and were created by ad agency Wieden+Kennedy. Basically, the ads featured a closeup of someone getting dunked on -- with the emphasis of the photo being the dunker's groin mashed into the dunkee's face -- along with some captions that were meant to be amusing, but were instead found by many to be offensive.

A few of the ads can be seen here, although the two with the most controversial tag lines that read "That Ain't Right" (above) and "Punks Jump Up" have been taken offline. (The reason that the former tag line might be offensive to some is fairly self explanatory, and the offending nature of the latter is explained perfectly by Henry at TrueHoop.) Following the controversy, Nike has decided to drop the whole campaign, and the official non-apology-apology went something like this:

On Friday, Nike, of Beaverton, Ore., said in a statement that it "has a long history of supporting athletes regardless of their sexual orientation" and would drop the ad, which "is based purely upon a common insight from within the game of basketball -- the athletic feat of dunking on the opposition, and is not intended to be offensive."

Translation: We're sorry if you were offended. Whatever, at least Nike learned their lesson and they're done with the "junk in the face" line of advertising, right? Well, not exactly. Take a look at their latest ad involving the Hyperdunk Recovery Center after the jump, which sure seems to share the same sentiment as the billboard ads that the shoe giant recently killed.

We can officially cross one name off of the NBA Overseas Defection Watch List (NBA-ODWL from now on, agreed?), and that's because the Lakers signed Sasha Vujacic to a deal this afternoon. The contract is reportedly for $15M over three years, not a bad raise for someone who took home just $1.76M last season.

That was before playing what will forever be known as the Josh Childress card though, which can be defined as "threatening my current team with the prospect of signing a deal to play in Europe if they don't make me an offer that I feel is appropriate." The Lakers' initial offer was for three years, $12M, but apparently the prospect of Sasha heading overseas as early as tonight to begin negotiating (he supposedly had a red-eye flight booked) lit a fire under the team to get a deal in place today.

This is good news for the Lakers, and good news for the league. Sasha's deal is by no means exorbitant for someone with his skill set, unlike the offer that the Lakers declined to match for Ronny Turiaf. And it's very possible that Sasha might have gotten a slightly better offer to play in Europe, but he accepted a fair one to stay and play in the NBA. I think we're likely to see the bulk of restricted free agents do the same thing that Sasha did: use Europe as a bargaining chip, but ultimately, sign with their current team ... as long as they receive a reasonable offer.