Miami Heat guard Victor Oladipo is out for the remainder of the 2022-23 season. Oladipo suffered a season-ending torn patellar tendon in his left knee, per Shams Charania of The Athletic.

Oladipo’s injury occurred late in the fourth quarter of Miami’s Game 3 win over the Milwaukee Bucks Saturday. His knee gave out as he drove to the basket for a layup attempt.

Oladipo immediately knew the severity of his injury as he sat near the baseline, holding his knee. As Oladipo got attended to by trainers, teammates were visibly emotional. Oladipo refused the leave the court on a cart. Instead, he got helped off as Heat fans chanted his name.

The 30-year-old, two-time All-Star faces another hurdle in his injury-riddled NBA career. This season, Victor Oladipo appeared in 42 games during the regular season, the most he’s played since the start of the 2018-19 season.

In 2019, Oladipo ruptured a quad tendon in his right knee. He underwent additional surgery in 2021 for the injury.

Oladipo signed a two-year, $18 million deal with the Heat in July. Now, he must rehab and recover to get back on the court next season.

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It wasn’t quite the “Malice at the Palace,” but what transpired Wednesday night between the Orlando Magic and Detroit Pistons was ugly. The chaos started near the end of the second quarter. Magic forward Moe Wagner shoved Pistons guard Killian Hayes into the bench as the two chased a loose ball.

Hamidou Diallo then shoved Wagner in the back before Hayes retaliated by punching Wagner in the back of his head. It appeared Wagner lost consciousness after Hayes’ punch. Magic players intervened, separating Wagner from the host of Pistons players on the bench.

Moe Wagner appeared wobbly once he got pulled away. As the officials sorted out the situation, the Pistons’ PA announcer encouraged fans to remain in their seats.

Immediately, thoughts flashed back to the “Malice in the Palace” that occurred on November 19, 2004, at the Pistons’ old arena, the Palace in Auburn Hills.

Fortunately, the melee Wednesday night didn’t involve fans. Wagner, Diallo, and Hayes got ejected from the game. Presumably, the NBA will review the situation before handing out additional discipline for all involved.

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The NBA Finals just concluded last week. The NBA draft is still days away and free agency doesn’t start for another week. Yet, chatter has already begun about the league’s Christmas Day slate. What’s interesting is the chatter among players. 

Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green and Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant have already engaged in a back-and-forth about playing each other on Christmas. Green and his Warriors just won the NBA championship last Thursday.

The NBA’s Christmas Day slate is viewed as the marquee day of the regular season. The league has always showcased games on Christmas, but it wasn’t until the late 1980s that it became a national tradition. In recent years, the day’s slate has emerged as the day of season before the playoffs.

NBA fans understand the magnitude of the day. Fans clamor for their favorite teams and players to be showcased on the holiday. The league has made it an effort to put the best teams, players and rivalries on display nationally. Occasionally the league will plug a big market — ala the New York Knicks — to get a TV ratings draw regardless of the team’s status. 

With all those factors considered, here’s what the X-Mas day schedule could look like:

12:00 PM – Dallas Mavericks at Miami Heat – ESPN

The first game of the day pits the two Conference Finals runner-ups, the Dallas Mavericks from the West and the Miami Heat from the East.

It’s a hard stretch to put Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks in a noon game on the east coast. However, given the later slots (you’ll see) there are bigger games in place. Doncic is becoming one of the league’s best young players. Some consider him the best under the age of 27 and a potential face of the league.

Meanwhile, the Heat currently have Jimmy Butler at the center of a solid core that includes Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro. That could change depending on the reports of players the Heat are interested in acquiring.

Luka against Jimmy and that Heat defense would be entertaining for fans.

2:30 PM – Milwaukee Bucks at Boston Celtics – ABC

What better way to tip off the ABC tripleheader portion of the day than a playoff rematch between the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics. These two titans clashed in the Eastern Conference semifinals this past season, ending with the Celtics winning the series in seven games. 

For another storyline, this is past two Eastern Conference champions. It will also be a rematch from last year’s Christmas Day slate. That game was played in Milwaukee and won by Milwaukee as well. But it’s Boston’s turn to be at home. The Celtics earned the right winning the playoff series.

Who wouldn’t want to see Giannis Antetokounmpo against Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown in a nationally televised game? And this time with Khris Middleton on the floor to aid Giannis?

These two teams have a rivalry brewing. Both being nominated as favorites to win the East next season will only strengthen the rivalry.

5:00 PM – Brooklyn Nets at Philadelphia 76ers – ABC

Don’t think the NBA can get any better than Milwaukee at Boston, look again. Scheduling the Brooklyn Nets to travel to play the Philadelphia 76ers makes total sense. It’s unavoidable for Christmas Day, especially after the Ben Simmons-James Harden trade.

Simmons avoided the much-anticipated return to Philadelphia with a back injury. He underwent back surgery in May and is expected to be fully recovered by training camp. Yeah, it would kind of suck to have a player booed out of the arena on Christmas Day, but the NBA is a money-making business. Simmons and Nets vs. the 76ers will draw eyes.

Aside from Simmons’ Philadelphia return, this game would be full of superstars. The Nets will have Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving to go along with Simmons. Meanwhile, the 76ers will combat that with Harden and Joel Embiid.

Harden gets to play his former team and buddies, Durant and Irving. His time in Brooklyn ended on a sour note which will only amplify the intensity in the meeting.

8:00 PM – Memphis Grizzlies at Golden State Warriors – ABC/ESPN

The 8:00 p.m. time slot has been occupied by LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers since 2018. But, the game everyone wants to see is the Memphis Grizzlies against the Golden State Warriors. Twitter has already been chomping at the bits for this clash. Green and Morant have exchanged pleasantries about the potential holiday meeting.

The Grizzlies and Warriors have a rivalry brewing much like the Celtis-Bucks and 76ers-Nets. Memphis and Golden State went toe-to-toe in the Western Conference semifinals. The Warriors ultimately pulled away and won the series in six games. Morant suffered a knee injury in Game 3 and missed the rest of the series.

This rivalry had been cooking up long before their playoff series. The two met in the 8th seed play-in game in 2021 with the Grizzlies stunning the Warriors to end Golden State’s season.

Then the Grizzlies took three of four in the regular season and they let the Warriors know about it throughout the season. The Warriors kept receipts, as Warriors guard Klay Thompson revealed after Golden State claimed their fourth NBA title in eight years.

The two teams genuinely don’t like each other. That will make for great TV every time the two teams meet. Why not display the first rematch on the biggest day of the NBA’s regular season?

By the way, the game would feature two-time NBA MVP and 2022 Finals MVP Stephen Curry, Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole to go along with Green and Thompson. The Grizzlies have one of the top-four supporting casts in the league surrounding Morant. That group is led by Jaren Jackson Jr., Desmond Bane and Dillon Brooks.

10:30 PM – New Orleans Pelicans at Los Angeles Lakers – ESPN

It’s hard to believe LeBron James gets placed in the after hours time slot at 10:30 p.m. But, James and the Lakers have struggled the past two seasons. One huge factor is their health, and the league has to protect itself from another Anthony Davis injury, keeping the Lakers out of primetime. Not to mention James will be in Year 20 at the age of 39. 

Once you get past the notion of James and the Lakers being in the 10:30 slot, the potential matchup between the Lakers and the New Orleans Pelicans is very appealing.

The Pelicans were a thorn in James and the Lakers side during the 2021-22 season. New Orleans swept the Lakers in three regular season meetings. The Pelicans claimed the West’s final play-in berth over the Lakers by three games in the standings.

New Orleans already featured Brandon Ingram and CJ McCollum. Now the team expects to have their superstar Zion Williamson back after missing all of the 2021-22 season with injury.

The Lakers are looking to get back on track. While they ultimately will have to contend with a deep group of good teams in the West, the young Pelicans recent emergence has become a measuring stick to the Lakers resurgence.

Meet the Christmas Day snubs

There it is, the 10 teams and five games that should be the NBA’s Christmas Day slate. Certainly there are other potential candidates much like the Phoenix Suns. The Suns won the West in 2020-21, and had the best record in the league in 2021-22. But, some pundits feel they could be passed by other teams in the West next season.

One can argue bumping the Pelicans out to face the Lakers — because no way the NBA is not having LeBron on the slate. And that argument is valid. Another option is the Suns playing the Mavericks in a playoffs rematch. But to do so they’ll have to rearrange the Eastern Conference games time slots. But doable. So we’ll have to wait and see the official announcement.

Two other notable teams left out are the Atlanta Hawks and New York Knicks. Trae Young at Madison Square Garden, antagonizing the Knicks fans there makes for great TV again. The league scheduled this game in 2021. But, Young sat out the game due to COVID-19 protocols.

Originally, the Hawks at Knicks was going to make this list. But the Knicks weren’t a playoff team this past season. And the NBA will capture the New York market with the Nets-76ers game. Having to make a guess, fans will have to wait to see Young rumble in the Garden on Christmas.

Sorry Nikola Jokic. This should be the second straight year, the MVP will be left off Christmas. Jokie and the Denver Nuggets will get Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. back. But, they don’t have a more intriguing rivalry as the others. And Jokic isn’t a bigger draw than Luka.

The Utah Jazz, who are coincidentally the Nuggets’ most natural rivals, face too much uncertainty this offseason to assume a Christmas Day game. Quin Snyder has already stepped away as the Jazz head coach and there are more changes expected. Some see Jazz center Rudy Gobert being moved. Others hint to Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell possibly pushing his way out of Utah. 

The post Predicting the NBA’s Christmas Day games in 2022 appeared first on DC Sports King.

Spencer Dinwiddie arrived in Dallas an outcast from the Washington Wizards’ locker room. Dinwiddie, who signed a three-year $54 million deal last summer, had worn out his welcome in Washington in less than six months. 

Dinwiddie has since been looking for redemption with his play and changing the narrative of him being a bad teammate. On Sunday he took a large step towards his goal. The veteran guard scored 30 points on 11-of-15 shooting from the field to help lead the Dallas Mavericks to a 123-90 win over the Phoenix Suns in Game 7 of the Western Conference Semifinals.

Dinwiddie made 5-of-7 three-pointers. He joined Jalen Brunson (24 points) in an effort to aid Mavericks star Luka Doncic. 

Dinwiddie did it all, coming off the dribble, stepbacks and spot-up threes. The Suns, who had the NBA’s best record in the regular season, had no answers for Dinwiddie.

Meanwhile, Doncic finished with 35 points on 12-of-19 shooting from the field. Doncic also had 10 rebounds and four assists.

Spencer Dinwiddie was “kicked out the door” by the Wizards

When Dinwiddie signed with the Wizards, the hope was he would fit alongside their star Bradley Beal. The Wizards underwent a wholesale change, trading Russell Westbrook and bringing in new faces, Kyle Kuzma, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Montrezl Harrell. 

However, it was evident from the start Dinwiddie and Beal struggled to jell. Dinwiddie struggled through his first season back from a torn ACL. He ignored the Wizards advice of him sitting out the first 15 games of the season. 

As the season went on reports surfaced of dissension between Dinwiddie and his Wizards teammates. Ultimately, he was traded along with Davis Bertans to the Mavericks in exchange of Kristaps Porzingis. 

Dinwiddie felt he was “kicked out the door” by Washington. A short war of words was set off between him and Caldwell-Pope which motivated the latter for a Wizards win over the Mavericks towards the end of the regular season.

All of that was pushed aside Sunday night. All that mattered to Dinwiddie and his Mavericks teammates was his performance in Phoenix’s Footprint Center.

He got off to a strong start when the playoffs began with Doncic out with a calf injury, averaging 19.7 points and 6.7 assists in the first three games against the Utah Jazz. But he struggled to find his footing with Doncic back in the lineup for the next eight games until the last two games of the series against the Suns.

Dinwiddie had 15 points on 5-of-7 shooting in Game 6. In Sunday’s Game 7 he doubled his point total all while shooting over 70% for the second straight game.

Now, he and the Mavericks are headed to the Western Conference Finals to face the Golden State Warriors. Seems the turn of events from Washington to Dallas have worked out well for Dinwiddie.

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Last season the Milwaukee Bucks and Phoenix Suns were going toe-to-toe in the NBA Finals. At the start of this year’s playoffs, it appeared the two were destined to meet again in a rematch. However, the Bucks and Suns both had their playoff runs end Sunday in two surprising Game 7 blowout losses. 

Despite a gallant effort from its star Giannis Antetokounmpo – 25 points, 20 rebounds and nine assists – the Bucks were crushed 109-81 by the Boston Celtics inside Boston’s TD Garden. 

Meanwhile, the nightcap of Sunday’s Game 7 doubleheader delivered the more shocking result of the day. Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks steamrolled the NBA’s top seed Suns 123-90 on the road. 

The two Sunday results ranked among the biggest Game 7 blowouts in NBA history. 

Boston is now headed to the Eastern Conference Finals to face the East’s top seed, the Miami Heat. Dallas will face the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Finals with their eyes set on a trip to the NBA Finals. 

Milwaukee and Phoenix both are left to rewind and reflect on their respective historic drubbings. It’s certainly not the way either team expected their seasons to end.

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While the NBA‘s return-to-play plan seemed to be airtight, recent concerns over racial inequality and social justice in the United States have given many players pause.

However, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James has long spoken out in favor of finishing the season, leading Clippers point guard Patrick Beverley to urge his peers to side with the four-time MVP — with what appears to have been a tongue-in-cheek tweet about how LBJ runs the NBA, regardless of how many voices crop up to start legitimate conversations.

While Beverley is certainly entitled to his opinion, his statement is reductive. The insinuation that James’s opinion is the only one that matters takes away from the platforms of stars like Kyrie Irving, who have made it clear that protesting racial inequality is more important to them than finishing a highly irregular NBA season.

Especially considering the NFL’s shaky handling of the Colin Kaepernick situation, the NBA should allow its players to protest if they wish, as suppressing free expression will only serve to worsen the situation. As Shannon Sharpe pointed out on UNDISPUTED on Monday, Beverley’s comments alienate over 100 NBA players who aired their concerns in a Friday conference call with Kyrie Irving.

While, as Sharpe points out, there is certainly an argument for each side of the problem, Beverley’s comments disrespect the players who feel that basketball is not an effective way to inspire change.

Players who choose to return will assuredly reach a wide audience with in-game demonstrations or post-game comments, but it is irresponsible for Beverley to imply that those who do not want to return to basketball are in some way wrong, and that LeBron James’ voice is more important than theirs. Players who dedicate their time to protests will still be heard, and their actions carry weight among their fans and communities.

The added stress of a pandemic only exacerbates concerns, as players may also choose to sit out as a matter of health. Either way, Beverley owes his NBA peers (and King James) an apology. Returning to play should be a decision that each player makes independently, which social justice and health concerns in mind.

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The NBA finally agreed on a resolution to get the regular season finished within the next few months, as the league will play games at Disney’s Wide World of Sports complex in Orlando. However, what seemed like a plan that was too good to be true has finally started to show some warts, as pointed out by players like Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving.

While several star players are ambivalent about playing the season in Orlando (reportedly up to 40% wouldn’t play), they might have no other choice, as the NBA could use the “force majeure” clause in the CBA that effectively cancels the CBS and forces the players to lose a good chunk of money.

Players are already going to lose a large portion of basketball-related income due to a 10 percent escrow in the CBA and the fact they agreed to 25 percent salary reductions a few months ago.

If the NBA does use the “epidemics” trigger in the CBA to invoke force majeure, the league can recoup around 1/92.6th of a player’s contract per game cancelled. For teams in Orlando, who will miss around nine games each due to the restart, and teams that were not invited, who will miss out on 16 games on average, that really adds up.

The NBA is in a very precarious spot. They can either play games in a virtual bubble in Orlando with more health and safety concerns by the day amid major social unrest, or refuse to play and give owners negotiations to rip up the CBA and cost players dearly.

The post Here’s What Happens If NBA Players Don’t Play in Orlando appeared first on DC Sports King.

Legendary comedian Dave Chappelle dropped a 30-minute Netflix special entitled “8:46,” a reference to the amount of time Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, in the wee hours of the night on Thursday. One of the topics Chappelle touched on was the death of Kobe Bryant. Chappelle considered himself an admirer, fan and friend of the Lakers legend. He claimed the reason he didn’t go to the Grammys in Los Angeles to accept his award was because he was so overcome with emotion after Bryant’s death just days prior that he couldn’t stomach going to the building Bryant called home for his entire NBA career.

In the context of his special, Chappelle claimed that the only reason the country did not descend into mass riots after several police officers were murdered in Dallas was the fact so many people were tuning in to Kobe’s final game, in which he famously dropped 60 points on the Utah Jazz.

He also touched on Laura Ingraham telling LeBron James to “shut up and dribble.” After calling Ingraham a word that’s too vulgar to write out, he defended James as a “friend” and “good family man.”

Even five months after the fact, Bryant’s death is still tough to swallow, as evidenced by Chappelle’s feelings.

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The NBA better brace itself, because there may be a LeBron James dominating the Association for decades to come. The Los Angeles Lakers star’s son, LeBron “Bronny” James Jr., is a freshman high school basketball player with the makings of a future top prospect.

Although he’s still young, plenty of attention has come to Bronny already due to his legendary dad. Now, ESPN’s Paul Biancardi, who scouted both father and son in high school, has some high praise for Bronny that even LBJ Sr. can’t quite match.

Although Biancardi makes it clear that the two are different players, the comparisons are already eye-opening. He notes that the younger James has a similar feel for the game and playmaking IQ as his old man. Combining that with Biancardi’s insistence that his jumper is actually ahead of where King James’ was when he was in high school, it’s clear that Bronny could be special in the NBA one day.

LeBron’s shooting stroke was one of his only struggles early in his career. As a rookie, he shot 29% from three to go with a 43.8% effective field goal percentage. Throughout his career, both those numbers have increased drastically. This season, he’s shot 34.9% from three with a 55.5% eFG.

If Bronny comes in to the NBA with a superior shot to LeBron and a similar basketball mind, he really could live up to the massive expectations that fans have already set for him. Becoming an NBA star is no easy task, but this young prince is on the right path.

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Disney World is often billed as the most magical place on Earth, and there is a chance that it becomes the most wondrous attraction in the sports world for a brief period.

As things grow more optimistic in the sports world (baseball excluded), the NBA is considering using locations at Disney World and the city of Orlando as a whole as a location for the league’s return in the summer, per Shams Charania of The Athletic.

In addition to Disney World, there is a chance Orlando’s Amway Center is used for some games, as Florida governor Ron DeSantis has welcomed sports teams to play parts of their season in the Sunshine State.

Playing in Orlando is by no means a done deal, however, as the NBA is considering several different cities as the league’s temporary home. Las Vegas has been mentioned as a potential bubble city for the NBA, as has Houston, given how both of those states have fewer per capita coronavirus cases than Florida.

The NBA crowning a champion with Splash Mountain lingering in the background might be an unusual sight, but this entire proposal could mean that the NBA is working towards returning to action as soon as next month.

Is it perfect? Of course not. But you can’t have a season plan without a clear location, and the NBA seems to be leaning towards a very isolated spot with the fewest distractions.

The post Orlando and Disney World Emerge as Leading Candidate for Restart of 2019-20 NBA Season and This Seems Perfect appeared first on DC Sports King.