From the eastern side of the Atlantic, LiAngelo seemed like the “other” Ball. We had big brother Lonzo Ball, one-year standout at UCLA, now with the Los Angeles Lakers. We had LaMelo, the little brother, the quick one who makes tons of threes, who would be a junior in high school if not for his […]

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In American sports, I will not abide the criticism of two (and only two) men — Vin Scully and, especially, John Wooden. (Here is my obit on him, from 2010.) Wooden coached UCLA’s basketball program to 10 NCAA championships, in the 1960s and 1970s, and he did it with consummate class and sportsmanship, nearly forgotten […]

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Los Angeles Lakers fans presumably saw the stat line from the NBA debut of savior/point guard Lonzo Ball. It was scary. The headline espn.com ran on the Associated Press report began like this: “Deflated Ball”. Couldn’t argue with that. Lonzo was unable to escape the enthusiastic defense of Clippers guard Patrick Beverley and the rookie […]

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Most observers would say the NBA is better than ever. I would say it is worse. Than ever. Certainly, in terms of competitive balance and number of clubs with a shot at winning a championship. Because stars are clustering in a half-dozen teams. Because several NBA teams have little hope of reaching the playoffs and […]

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I already feel sorry for Lonzo Ball. What we can reasonably expect from the Los Angeles Lakers’ 19-year-old NBA rookie bears no resemblance to what most fans and even many “experts” seem to expect from him. One of those self-professed experts is his father, LaVar, who does Lonzo no favors when he suggests — well, […]

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By population, the city of San Diego ranks No. 8 in the country, with approximately 1.4 million residents. By professional sports teams, however, San Diego now ranks perhaps No. 40 in the U.S. It has baseball’s San Diego Padres … and we are done talking about Big Four U.S. sports teams based in one of […]

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What I said a year ago. Nothing has changed.

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The NBA has fans outside of North America, but not tons of them. So the stunning similarity of what soccer’s Neymar has done and what the NBA’s Kyrie Irving wants to do may have gone largely unnoticed in the vast realm of global sports. In short, it is this: Each is is a star, each […]

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Lonzo Ball’s first game with the Lakers, in an NBA Summer League game in Las Vegas last night, was a disaster. The stuff of nightmares. The No. 2 pick in the 2017 draft, the “next Magic Johnson”, stunk it up. Two-for-15 shooting from the field. One-for-11 from three. Welcome to the league, Lonzo. Or the […]

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How hard must it be to be the top brass of the Los Angeles Lakers, at this moment? They have the No. 2 pick in the draft, but no first-round pick next year, and they have some hard decisions to make — with the very real possibility if they get things wrong, come Thursday, their […]

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