The Atlanta Hawks find themselves at the top of our rankings this week, thanks to a five-game winning streak against some strong competition -- a gritty overtime win over the Blazers and a road win in Boston were both impressive. Now, let's see if they can avoid the top-spot-jinx on Wednesday night, when they'll host Miami in a rematch of last year's first round playoff series. As for the other 29 teams? Read on to see how they stacked up.
Some people never learn. D.J. Mbenga may be one of them.
Now, D.J. is a good guy and he makes a decent living as the backup center for world champion Los Angeles Lakers, but there's a reason he's a backup center. Besides a talent deficiency, Mbenga is not quick and therefore slow to rotate on help defense and recover on pick-and-rolls.
This often puts him in an awkward position, that position being Mbenga on a poster on his keister.
Such was the case again Friday when Nuggets rookie Ty Lawson went medieval on Mbenga.
(The pair of pliers and the blowtorch after the jump.)
Don't completely rule it out. At least that's the word from Nuggets coach George Karl, who said Tuesday the team would consider bringing back the guard if there were to be an injury on his team.
"A.I. for us is an injury discussion,'' Karl said. "I don't think it's a discussion right now for us... But just say somehow (guard) Ty Lawson is out for the season, I think speed and quickness is what Ty gives us. A.I. would be on the list of speed and quickness.'
For now, though, Karl said the Nuggets aren't eyeing Iverson, who played for them from 2006-08, when he had his last two impressive NBA seasons.
DENVER -- Final four week turned into a flop of finalists.
Meetings of last season's conference finalists got started Wednesday when Cleveland took a huge lead and clobbered defending East champion Orlando 102-93. An even bigger dismantling occurred Friday night at the Pepsi Center.
The way the Nuggets demolished the Lakers, you'd have thought they tried to smuggle coke into the building.
The Nuggets got some revenge against the defending West and NBA champions 105-79. It wasn't even that close.
"Hopefully, this is a big message, not just to the Lakers but to the whole NBA. We're a legit team,'' said Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony, who scored a game-high 25 points and outscored Lakers star Kobe Bryant 18-0 in the second half (no, that's not a misprint).
DENVER -- Andrew Bynum was talking to his brother early this week when he got the news.
Amare Stoudemire, despite being Phoenix's starting power forward, was listed on the All-Star ballot at center for the Western Conference. That happens to be the same position played by the Lakers' Bynum, and many had considered him the favorite to be the starter after Houston's Yao Ming was lost for the season due to injury and Shaquille O'Neal was traded from Phoenix to Cleveland of the East.
"I was definitely surprised,'' Bynum said in an interview with FanHouse about Stoudemire being listed at center even though he's started every game this season at forward, with Channing Frye having opened at center for the Suns.
Hawks buzzard Josh Smith has famously wasted quite a few Atlanta possessions over the years by taking ill-advised three-pointers. That phraseology is actually redundant when it comes to Smith: it would be considered ill to ever advise Smith to take a three.
Thankfully, someone showed Josh the light, and he hasn't attempted a trey all season. He convinces when he tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he hasn't even felt tempted to fire up a bomb. He found Basketball Jesus! Like a good son of the word, he should spread his experience. Which players would most benefit from a Brother Smith knock at the door?
Great game in Chicago last night, where the Nuggets and the Bulls went down to the final ticks of the clock to decide the outcome. And if you were rooting for the home team, you likely found the ending to be more than a little bit controversial.
With the Nuggets up by one, and 0.3 seconds showing on the game clock, the Bulls inbounded to Brad Miller, who caught it, quickly turned, and appeared to beat the buzzer as the ball left his hand and went through the basket. But after going to the instant replay, the officials ruled the ball was still in his hands as time expired.
We're just eight games into the season, but there's no doubt who the surprise team is at this point. The Phoenix Suns are off to a 7-1 start, and have road wins over two of the three remaining one-loss teams. They've done it with Steve Nash leading the league in assists at almost 13 per game, and with the team leading the league in three-point shooting at a ridiculous 47 percent. But all of that only got the Suns to No. 2 in this week's rankings -- read on to see who's on top.
Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the lig. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.
If you're not a close follower of the NBA, then just six games or so into the season, we can't necessarily hold it against you if the name Tyreke Evans doesn't ring a bell. Besides being a rookie, Evans plays for the Sacramento Kings, a team that won just 17 games a season ago, and figured to be about as bad this year with stud scorer Kevin Martin sidelined indefinitely with an injury.
But after what Evans did to Deron Williams in leading his undermanned team to a road win in Utah on Saturday, he won't remain anonymous to basketball fans for much longer.
Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the lig. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.
The last time we got together, three different players scored 40 points or more on the same night. Well, maybe it's not as rare of an occurrence as we thought, since we were just a single point away from it happening again on Wednesday.
DENVER -- Allen Iverson back in Denver?
DENVER -- Final four week turned into a flop of finalists.
DENVER -- Andrew Bynum was talking to his brother early this week when he got the news.
Hawks buzzard Josh Smith has famously wasted quite a few Atlanta possessions over the years by taking ill-advised three-pointers. That phraseology is actually redundant when it comes to Smith: it would be considered ill to ever advise Smith to take a three.
Great game in Chicago last night, where the Nuggets and the Bulls went down to the final ticks of the clock to decide the outcome. And if you were rooting for the home team, you likely found the ending to be more than a little bit controversial. 
Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the lig. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.
Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the lig. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.
