It seems like every year the usual suspects are lined up as contenders for the best basketball conference in the country.
Big East. ACC. Pac-10. Big Ten.
But the Big 12 never seems to get much love, despite some impressive numbers that suggest the newest of the major conferences deserve to be part of the conversation. No conference has advanced more teams to Elite Eight (13) and Final Four (six) since 2002. The Kansas Jayhawks even cut down the nets in 2008.
FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.
When you're famous, particularly a famous athlete, you're always exactly one step from utter disaster, and one step from rousing success. Michael Beasley has firmly stepped on the former, but the latter is also well within his reach this season.
I don't need to rehash for you the Twitter episode, the questions about whether it was his "stuff" or not, whether that matters, whether the whole issue matters. You've made up your mind.
What you should keep in mind, though, is how quickly a player can go from being considered a "screw-up" or "headcase" to simply a terrific basketball player. And if you don't think Beasley has the talent to make that happen, you better get your head a one way ticket to Straightville on the good train Reason.
Heat forward Michael Beasley, 2008's second overall pick who didn't quite live up to expectations his rookie season, has spent the past month in a Houston rehab program at the behest of the NBA due to substance abuse violations last summer. ESPN's Henry Abbott reports that Beasley will be released at the end of the weekend. The Heat begin training camp on Sept. 28.
But Beasley has already been working with Heat coaches while in Houston, according to the Miami Herald's Michael Wallace. Further, teammates including Dwyane Wade and Udonis Haslem have been in contact with Beasley, letting him know they are ready to support the continuation of his career in Miami.
With any news story, crucial unknown details lead to inflation of attention. Michael Jackson's death was (rightfully) huge news. But the uncertainty about the circumstances has kept it in headlines for weeks. When there's a combination of secrecy and interest, you end with a slow leak of rumors and details, and this can keep a story like Michael Beasley'srehab stint in discussion constantly.
Just in the last two days, TrueHoop's Henry Abbott and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's Ira Winderman reported a new detail: Beasley was already taking part in an outpatient treatment program stemming from his 2008 rookie camp incident when a violation landed him in a mandatory 30-day inpatient treatment program (where he is now). This is a fact folks with the league and the players union have known since the story first broke ... but we're finding out five days later, sparking a new round of conjecture.
While understanding the need for privacy, I must wonder if there's a better way.
The NBA has established itself as the most successful league to integrate itself with social media. The league itself is one of recognizable stars, so it only makes sense that these players further their personal brands through means like Twitter and... ahem... UStream. It's a great opportunity for players to connect with their fans in a meaningful way, on their own terms. As long as they use it responsibly and don't do anything to draw undo negative attention to themselves, it's nothing but a win-win.
In completely unrelated news, Michael Beasley did something that doesn't look too bright right now. Why, do you ask?
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! has a whopper: Miami is apparently desperately trying to trade for Carlos Boozerand trying to sign Lamar Odom away from the Lakers. Incumbent power forward Udonis Haslem is included in the Boozer trade rumor, which leads one to believe Boozer and Odom would both start under such a scenario, with Michael Beasley serving as either the top small forward or the first big man off the bench.
Whatever way it shakes, such a set of moves would immediately vault Miami into contention for the contested Eastern crown.
The Miami Heat made it official on Wednesday. They're the worst team remaining in the NBA playoffs. That's just one conclusion you can draw after Atlanta won Game 5 over Miami 106-91 to go up 3-2 in the series.
How can the Heat be anything other than the worst team remaining when they came into the playoffs as an underdog and, now, Dwyane Wade is not 100 percent? Hey, it's just another way of saying that coach Erik Spoelstra is doing a great coaching job.
Miami was down 23 points at halftime, and the only reason to watch the remaining 24 was to find out who was going to commit the next hard foul and who was going to be on the receiving end of it.
Atlanta 106, Miami 91: Recap | Box Score Atlanta Leads Series 3-2 | Next Game: Friday @ Miami
NBA Playoff 4-5 matchups are often the best of the first round. Usually the two teams are within a few wins of each other. They're not a level of David and Goliath, and both teams are usually mortal enough to make it interesting. Such is the case with tonight's matchup of the Atlanta Hawks and the Miami Heat. As such, we're rocking the live blog action again tonight. Join us after the end of Orlando-Philadelphia for Hawks-Heat. Joe Johnson. Dwyane Wade. Make this happen.
If Cleveland-Detroit is the Rolling Stones, and Utah-LA is the Beatles, then Atlanta-Miami is the Velvet Underground. You're not going to catch it on the radio, but if you dig music, it's essential that you take a listen.
This is the matchup that will get the least publicity but features what may be the closest matchup. The Hawks shocked everyone by actually, (gasp) improving on last year's success. What's more, they finished with homecourt advantage in the first round. And next to the Heat, they're the playoff experienced club. It's a crazy world we live in. Meanwhile, the Heat are a reclamation project. Dwyane Wade 2.0 is a one-man army and the world is his enemy. Something's gotta give.
It's trophy time in the NBA, and the FanHouse crew has submitted its ballots. Find out which players deserve to take home the hardware and which ones don't, in our NBA Awards series. Next up: Rookie of the Year.
Coming into the season, most projected the rookie of the Year race to be fairly hotly contested between Derrick Rose and Michael Beasley, the top two picks in the NBA draft. But it wasn't: while Beasley spent time learning to contribute coming off the bench, Rose became one of the leaders on a team that made its way back to the playoffs. As such, the young Bull was our unanimous choice for Rookie of the Year honors.
FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.
Heat forward Michael Beasley, 2008's second overall pick who didn't quite live up to expectations his rookie season, has spent the past month in a Houston rehab program at the behest of the NBA due to substance abuse violations last summer. ESPN's Henry Abbott reports that Beasley will be released at the end of the weekend. The Heat begin training camp on Sept. 28.
With any news story, crucial unknown details lead to inflation of attention. Michael Jackson's death was (rightfully) huge news. But the uncertainty about the circumstances has kept it in headlines for weeks. When there's a combination of secrecy and interest, you end with a slow leak of rumors and details, and this can keep a story like Michael Beasley's rehab stint in discussion constantly.
The NBA has established itself as the most successful league to integrate itself with social media. The league itself is one of recognizable stars, so it only makes sense that these players further their personal brands through means like Twitter and... ahem... UStream. It's a great opportunity for players to connect with their fans in a meaningful way, on their own terms. As long as they use it responsibly and don't do anything to draw undo negative attention to themselves, it's nothing but a win-win. 
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! has a whopper: Miami is apparently desperately trying to trade for Carlos Boozer and trying to sign Lamar Odom away from the Lakers. Incumbent power forward Udonis Haslem is included in the Boozer trade rumor, which leads one to believe Boozer and Odom would both start under such a scenario, with Michael Beasley serving as either the top small forward or the first big man off the bench.
The Miami Heat made it official on Wednesday. They're the worst team remaining in the NBA playoffs. That's just one conclusion you can draw after Atlanta won Game 5 over Miami 106-91 to go up 3-2 in the series.
NBA Playoff 4-5 matchups are often the best of the first round. Usually the two teams are within a few wins of each other. They're not a level of David and Goliath, and both teams are usually mortal enough to make it interesting. Such is the case with tonight's matchup of the Atlanta Hawks and the Miami Heat. As such, we're rocking the live blog action again tonight. Join us after the end of Orlando-Philadelphia for Hawks-Heat. Joe Johnson. Dwyane Wade. Make this happen.
FanHouse previews the first round of the NBA Playoffs.
It's trophy time in the NBA, and the FanHouse crew has submitted its ballots. Find out which players deserve to take home the hardware and which ones don't, in our NBA Awards series. Next up: Rookie of the Year.
