Q: “You came out early tonight; aggressive. What was different tonight in terms of setting the tone of your game, in this game?” A: “Ball.” – Hedo Turkoglu, in a TSN interview after a 106-104 win over the New York Knicks. “Ball.” A demand for a bigger role. An explanation for why his team won. […]

Amar’e Stoudemire is an expensive bundle of generously damaged goods, so it comes as no surprise that the New York Knicks are guarding their most recent investment with a desperate passion that only a team weeks removed from the biggest heart-break in franchise history could. It all traces back to a certain microfracture knee surgery. […]

We’ve all been there, combing through the impractically lit carbon-freezing chamber of a landing station on Planet Bespin when out of an ominous-looking cloud of fog comes the silhouette of destiny waiting to smack us in the face with the biggest choice of our lives. It’s terrifying, but more importantly it’s necessary. Since last week […]

It was the best of seasons, it was the worst of seasons. Actually, scratch that; it was really quite in the middle. The 2009-10 NBA season was nothing short of a roller-coaster ride for the Toronto Raptors, where highs were coupled with lows, and the end result was missing the playoffs by one measly game. […]

One of my favorite basketball cliches is that ‘basketball is jazz.’ It’s an especially apt one for middle-aged sportswriters to make since both seem to involve improvisation on top of a structured bottom; what good would Kind of Blue have been if Miles Davis hadn’t just come off the more structured Porgy and Bess? Like […]

These are the days of wine and roses in the NBA. This is the time of the year that anybody and everybody looks forward to: the best-of-seven NBA Finals. Nitpick all you want, but this is the classic Finals matchup, the one that seems universally constant: Lakers versus Celtics. The two teams you’re more likely […]

The best and the worst thing about social media is how it removes the barriers between fans and athletes. There is little – if any – buffer between the two which means there’s no room for error. That’s why when Chris Bosh sent out two tweets a few evenings ago asking if he should leave […]

Fans of the Toronto Raptors are passionate. They live and die by the team with a full range of emotions based on the club’s performance. And while passion has positive results, it also has negative ones too. There are two players in the National Basketball Association – New York Knicks guard Tracy McGrady and Orlando […]

When life hands you lemons, it’s a subtle sign that life really wanted Allen Iverson to start in the All-Star Game. How else would you explain Rajon Rondo coming off the bench in one of the weakest All-Star voting categories in recent memory? Regardless of the injustice, it’s recommended – nay, necessary – that you […]

I find it important to say that I once loved Vince Carter. Just as anyone who has ever lived and died by their favourite sports team loves their team’s star player. It was a love made even more special as his arrival to the Toronto Raptors coincided with my birth into NBA fandom. I recall […]