The Tracy McGrady trade may be the blockbuster of the week, but there were at least seven other trades worth noting. Here are the breakdowns:

The Cavaliers receive: Antawn Jamison
The Wizards receive: Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Al Thornton, and a 2010 first-round draft pick from Cleveland, and the rights to Emir Preldzic
The Clippers receive: Drew Gooden
Mr. T's Analysis: Jamison is a very nice complement to the Cavs' nucleus of LeBron and... well, it's really only LeBron, right? Once Mo Williams gets back, he'll fit into the mix too, but it's pretty evident Shaq is over the hill. The key to me is that the Cavs were able to hold on to budding big man J.J. Hickson. The Wizards are trying to rid themselves as quickly as possible of their elite trio of Jamison, Butler, and Arenas. Knicks fans better hope Arenas doesn't end up with them as a last resort this summer. The Paper Clips are clearing cap space, which is unheard of in the Donald Sterling era.  Keep Reading »

The NBA trade deadline passed about an hour ago, and the big blockbuster of the day is Tracy McGrady is heading to the Knicks. Here's the breakdown:

The Knicks receive: Tracy McGrady and Sergio Rodriguez
The Rockets receive: Kevin Martin, Jordan Hill, Jared Jeffries, Hilton Armstrong, the right to swap first-round picks with New York in 2011, and New York's 2012 first-round pick (rumor is Knicks' 2011 pick is Top-1 protected and 2012 pick is Top-5 protected)
The Kings receive: Carl Landry, Joey Dorsey, and Larry Hughes

Mr. T's analysis: Rockets GM Daryl Morey continues to amaze. This is a serious heist he pulled off when you consider McGrady was banished from the team in December and the other trade components (Landry, Dorsey, and Armstrong) are highly expendable.  Keep Reading »

Earlier today JR rounded up the Best Perfect-'50' Dunks in NBA Dunk Contest History, but everyone knows that even the judges can get it wrong occasionally. They voted Nate Robinson the winner of the 2006 and 2009 dunk contests, though Andre Iguodala and Dwight Howard had better dunks in those respective years. Here's the real top 20 dunks in NBA All-Star Dunk Contest history.

20. Kenny Smith's Reverse Dunk Off the Backboard:
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The NBA All-Star Dunk Contest has lost some luster over the years, considering some of the league's top dunkers choose not to participate. Paging LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Josh Smith. No matter, the contest is still the marquee event of the weekend's festivities. Interestingly enough, only 15 players have achieved a flawless score of '50' on any given dunk. Michael Jordan alone did it seven times. Here are the best of the best, the top perfect dunks in the contest's history.

12. Tracy McGrady's 360
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If you turned off CBS after the late NFL game on Sunday you missed the most eye-opening NBA performance of the season. That would be the "60 Minutes" double segment on disgraced former referee Tim Donaghy, who earlier this year finished serving his nearly one-year sentence for betting on NBA games that that he refereed. Even if you remember reading about Donaghy a year or two ago when the news originally broke -- he was tipping off members of the Gambino family of his picks and the FBI got wind of it -- you really must watch both segments after the jump (and buy his new book, Personal Foul: A First-Person Account of the Scandal That Rocked the NBA, if you're so inclined). They will surely change the way you think about the NBA.  Keep Reading »

If you're like me, you might find Ron Artests hi-jinks, at times, to be hilarious (see: slugging a fan in the face), but other times you think he is just another gifted athlete trapped in the body of a moronic buffoon. Well, friends, you'll be pleased to find out that Ron Artest is at it again. Today, Ron is in the news for making outrageous claims that he used to enjoy alcoholic beverages in the locker room during half time of NBA games.  Keep Reading »

Still, gotta give him an A for effort.

All right, all you Carolina fans, we'll throw you a bone. Here's the Ty Lawson dunk over half the Laker team that everyone's talking about.

There aren't many concrete conclusions to be made about teams just one week into the NBA season, but, teams' initial nuances, when closely examined, can forecast the future of their season. Here are some of my observations from week one that should be staples of the 2009-2010 NBA season.

Melo is on a Mission, but Defense in Denver May be Mission Impossible
As I predicted in my Western Conference preview, Carmelo Anthony has already left his MVP-esque mark early in the season. Melo is not only averaging a league-leading 37.7 points on .536 shooting from the field and .429 shooting from distance, to go along with 7.0 rebounds and 4.3 assists, but more importantly, he's lead the Nuggets to a 3-0 start, posting two wins against division rivals Utah and Portland. The scorching start from Melo may be due, in part, to the absence of the team's third leading scorer, J.R. Smith, who is serving a seven-game suspension, but Melo credits his "unprecedented focus."  Keep Reading »

The 2009-2010 NBA season tips off tonight. Here's what your can expect from your favorite teams, first from the Western Conference (click here for the earlier Eastern Conference preview).

Young, hungry, but still bad:

15. Sacramento Kings
Last season's worst team is probably destined for a similar scenario this year. Kevin Martin will continue to put up big numbers, but with a cast of developing players to support him, the best Kings fans can hope for is for Sacramento to show some improvement on the defensive end and consequently stay competitive.

14. Minnesota Timberwolves
The Timberwolves seemed to be on the right path after trading Kevin Garnett in exchange for a player of equal, if not more, value in Al Jefferson. Picking up a complementary forward in Kevin Love in last year's draft added another piece to a puzzle that was begging to take form. Segue to this year's draft and the Wolves choose to use two high draft picks on not one, but two point guards: Jonny Flynn and Ricky Rubio. To compound the bewilderment of Wolves' fans, Minnesota picked up another point guard: Ramon Sessions from the Bucks. Let's hope that the Wolves' new head coach and former Lakers assistant, Kurt Rambis, picked up some of Phil Jackson's calming meditation techniques; he'll definitely need them this season.  Keep Reading »

The 2009-2010 NBA season tips off tonight. Here's what your can expect from your favorite teams, first from the Eastern Conference (check back for the Western Conference later today).

Enjoy Aaron Rodgers:

15. Milwaukee Bucks
Losing some of their best players -- Richard Jefferson, Charlie Villanueva, and Ramon Sessions -- the Bucks' only notable players are the often-injured duo of Redeem Team alum Michael Redd and Aussie center Andrew Bogut as well as rookie point guard Brandon Jennings. Regardless of their talent level, coach Scott Skiles will have his young team playing to their potential on both ends of the floor, but the Bucks simply don't possess a playoff-ready roster at this point.

Is it Time for LeBron to Decide Yet?:

14. New Jersey Nets
The Nets have a bright future ahead of them, not solely because of a talented young nucleus that includes last year's breakout point guard Devin Harris as well as rapidly improving second-year big man Brook Lopez, but also because the team has been bought by Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov. With a bigger wallet to work with, the Nets could be a major contender in the LeBron James sweepstakes, especially because minority owner Jay-Z is a good friend of James. As for now, Hov and Co. will have to suffer through the growing pains of a young inexperienced team that no longer has the veteran leadership of Vince Carter.  Keep Reading »

When Shaq gets traded to the LeBron James Cavaliers, the Sports Guy is telling Blake Griffin why he should run like a star in a horror movie away from the Clippers, and Minnesota has four picks in the first round, you know the NBA Draft has arrived.

As big as college hoops fans as we are (and as much as we got into the NBA Playoffs this year), we won't pretend to know enough about college or pro ball to put together our own mock drafts. So we've done the next best thing, which is use the old law of averages, and try to predict the draft using the consensus among professional NBA beat writers' mock drafts. Most of Chad Ford's list over at ESPN is hidden behind the Insider barrier, so we'll respect that and skip him. All our mock drafters have thorough analyses for each and every pick and we highly encourage you to read up on them before the Clippers go ahead and ruin Griffin's career tonight at 7 p.m. (on ESPN).

Our mock drafters are Steve Kyler of Hoopsworld.com, writing for USA Today; Ian Thomsen of SI.com; Jonathan Givony of HoopsHype.com; and Sean Deveney of the Sporting News. The New York Times' Howard Beck and Jonathan Abrams both only predicted the first 10 picks, which we used for those picks but of course none of the others.

A word about our completely unscientific terminology below. "Almost definitely" means nearly every mock draft predicted it this way; "most likely" means a player had a strong majority; "probably" means he had a slim majority; "but maybe" usually means at least one mock draft had a player in this slot, unless there's an additional "surprise pick," in which case the "but maybe" means two mock drafters had him going there. Got all that? Good, let's get to it.

1. Clippers: Blake Griffin. A lock. God speed, young man.

2. Memphis: Almost definitely Hasheem Thabeet. Surprise pick would be Ricky Rubio.

3. Oklahoma City: Probably Ricky Rubio , but maybe Stephen Curry. Surprise pick would be James Harden.

4. Sacramento: Probably Tyreke Evans, but maybe Ricky Rubio. Surprise pick would be Jonny Flynn.

5. Minnesota (from Washington): Most likely James Harden, but maybe Tyreke Evans.  Keep Reading »

Also, the sky is blue.

Back in February, we listed the fifteen players not named Michael Jordan who could be joining His Airness in the basketball Hall of Fame this year. We told you David Robinson and John Stockton were shoe ins, and also predicted Dennis Johnson, Bernard King, either Don Nelson or Jerry Sloan, and one more wildcard. Turns out we were half right. As announced today, MJ will share the podium with the Admiral, with the greatest passer of all time, Utah head coach Sloan, and here's your wildcard: Rutgers women's coach C. Vivian Stringer, whose teams have gone 825-280 in 38 years. Ultimately, though, this is Jordan's year, and you should all start getting ready for the onslaught of tributes that will surely come leading up to the Sept. 10-12 Hall of Fame weekend. Let's kick things off with some highlight reels.  Keep Reading »