Crossover World

  NEW YORK -- Brooklyn Nets coach Steve Nash and superstar Kevin Durant are "fine," Nash said Tuesday. After the Nets opened training camp, Nash reiterated their message from media day: They've moved past Durant's unfulfilled trade request, and the drama that came with it. Even the it's either me or the coach and team president part.  "Knowing Kevin as long as I have, it didn't really bother me the way maybe everyone would think," Nash said. "That's a part of being competitors. I wasn't overly surprised and I wasn't even overly concerned. It was something that I thought we would address in time, and we did. And here we are and we're looking forward. It's something else that we can grow from as well." Nash said that, when he saw the news that Durant had issued an ultimatum to team owner Joe Tsai, "I never thought that was 100 percent. It's not black and white like that. There's a lot of factors, a lot of thin...

  MILWAUKEE -- When CBS Sports' annual NBA Top 100 list was released earlier this month, Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo stood alone at No. 1. Such lists are more for the fans and media rather than the players, but at Milwaukee's media day on Sunday, Giannis weighed in with his own thoughts.  To little surprise, he downplayed his own standing and declared Steph Curry the best player in the world after leading the Golden State Warriors to the title last season.  "Do I believe that I'm one of the best players in the league in the way I help my team be great and win games? "Yeah I do," Giannis said. "I'm mature enough, I'm old enough to understand that. Do I believe I'm the best in the world? No. I think the best player in the world is the person that is the last one standing, the person that takes his team to the finish line and helps them win games and become champion. "Two years ago when we did that, yeah, when I was slee...

  Kawhi Leonard has been fully cleared to participate in training camp with the Los Angeles Clippers, but it sounds like his load will be managed. Leonard missed the entire 2021-22 season after tearing his ACL in the 2021 playoffs, and Clippers president Lawrence Frank told reporters Thursday that they will take a "very cautious" approach with him.  "He feels great," Frank said, via ESPN's Ohm Youngmisuk. "His plan is, look, he wants to participate in everything. And I think organizationally, we're going to be cautious. So it will be a step-by-step approach." The Clippers will begin training camp with three days at UNLV next Tuesday and then travel to Seattle for a pair of exhibition games. Frank did not say whether or not Leonard would play in the preseason. From ESPN: "When you're dealing with a major injury, you can't predict," Frank said. "I know with him, he wants to do everything, but we'll just kind of let's se...

  Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole were both key members of the Golden State Warriors 2021-22 championship team. Andrew Wiggins established himself as a player that is capable of providing contributions on both ends of the floor. Wiggins is known for guarding the best opposing player while also giving the team supplementary shot creation. Jordan Poole showed that he is a capable shot creator during the season as well, at times being the No. 2 scoring option behind Stephen Curry.   Both players will be free agents at the end of the 2022-23 season. There is no doubt that the Golden State Warriors likely want to keep both of them but will face huge luxury tax penalties if they do so. Andrew Wiggins Wants To Stay, But There's A Chance Jordan Poole Leaves An NBA executive has spoken to Sean Deveney of Heavy.com, claiming that Andrew Wiggins is "pretty well set" on remaining a Warriors player in the future if the team ends up paying him. However, he suggested that Jordan Poole m...

  The Chicago Bulls jersey Michael Jordan wore during Game 1 of the 1998 NBA Finals was sold for $10.1 million at Sotheby's this week, the auction house announced. The bidding went on from Sept. 6-14 and reached a price that was significantly higher than the $3-5 million estimated when Sotheby's first announced the auction. This jersey is now the most expensive game-worn sports memorabilia ever. It surpassed Diego Maradona's "Hand of God" jersey from the 1986 World Cup, as that was sold for $9.28 million in May. A record-breaking day. Michael Jordan's iconic 1998 NBA Finals 'The Last Dance' jersey has sold for $10.1 million, setting records for a basketball jersey, any game-worn sports memorabilia, and most valuable #MichaelJordan item ever sold at auction. One of only two Jordan game-worn NBA Finals jerseys to go up for auction, this particular one serves as a nice souvenir of the five-time MVP's iconic "Last Dance" with the Bulls. Accor...

  Donovan Mitchell was formally introduced as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday. After being greeted at the airport by a legion of diehard fans, he then addressed the media during his introductory press conference. The weeks and months leading up to his eventual trade were, of course, a key subject.  During one answer, Mitchell said he didn't know where he was going to be traded, but assumed it would be to the New York Knicks. "Honestly I had no idea. My agent called me on a Wednesday and said 'You're going to Cleveland.' Like I said my reaction was what it was. All summer I didn't really say much, I kind of just let you guys do what you do to be honest. I thought for sure I was going back home, not gonna lie about that. But when I found out where I was headed, who I was playing with, the group, the team, the coaching staff. I couldn't be more happier to be here, to be a part of this organization, to be a part of this group, to join these phe...

  James Harden was not fully healthy last season, having strained his hamstring -- and then played on it -- in the 2021 playoffs. After the Philadelphia 76ers' season-ending loss against the Miami Heat in May, he said he was "finally starting to kind of feel OK again," but it had been frustrating "trying to get right throughout the course of a basketball season for two years straight." Harden's comments in that postgame press conference took Daryl Morey by surprise, the Sixers president said in an interview on NBC Sports' "Takeoff with John Clark" podcast. Morey didn't expect Harden to be that honest about it.  "More than any player I've worked with, he never says something's wrong," Morey said. "It actually surprised me when he said what he said after the season. For him to say that means that there were more issues than he -- look, he's, you know, 'spit on it, get on the floor, win at whatever cost you can d...

  Thus far in these NBA awards previews, we've been able to identify one or two trends that tend to predict winners. That's not so easy when it comes to Defensive Player of the Year because judging defense is so subjective. Every voter values different things, every race is different, and to be perfectly frank, the voting pool on balance is less qualified to pick a winner here than it is for any other award. Awards that include offense are much easier to vote on because offensive statistics are so straightforward. Valuable defensive metrics exist, but they're based on opaque formulas most voters don't know or don't care to research. Even the best defensive metrics are flawed, and that makes the eye test essential for picking winners here. The problem? No voter is capable of watching all 30 teams play 82 times. The voting pool tends to be divided into categories: national voters, who watch every team, but by virtue of that volume, can't watch them especially freq...

  Shaquille O'Neal played for six franchises over a 20-year NBA career. That's a lot of teammates. Speaking on The Big Podcast with Shaq, the four-time champion and Hall of Famer revealed which one of those teammates was the worst.  "Worst teammate? Dennis Rodman," O'Neal said. "He was a great player, but he made it hard. Like when you try to corral the guys together and the people above you [are] letting this one guy do whatever he wants. So we had to be there an hour before the game. He'd come in fifteen minutes before the game eating chicken and rice. While the coaches are talking, he would jump in the shower. Cold shower. Come and give you 15-20 rebounds." O'Neal played with some characters in his time. We know about his beef with Kobe Bryant, who we know wasn't always the easiest teammate to get along with, though Shaq has long expressed regret over the way he and Bryant handled their relationship as young superstars, and eventually, he ...

  With four championships and multiple MVP Awards to his name, Steph Curry is one of the most well-decorated, and successful, players of his era. But just because Curry has had an amazing run doesn't mean that he doesn't harbor any regrets regarding things that transpired over the course of his career. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Curry revealed that one of his biggest regrets is not boycotting a 2014 playoff game against the Los Angeles Clippers after the team's owner, Donald Sterling, was exposed for racist behavior.  "One of my biggest regrets is not boycotting the game," Curry said. "That was a moment to leverage beyond anything we probably could have said."     At the time, Curry and his teammates wanted to walk off of the court immediately after the tipoff, but they ultimately went along with the Clippers' protest of choice, which included wearing warmup shirts inside out, taking them off and laying them at midcourt prior to the ga...

  The Golden State Warriors just won their fourth title in eight years, and are primed to contend for a second straight title by running it back with the same roster. However, Finals MVP Stephen Curry confirmed a report that surfaced in July about the team's interest in acquiring Kevin Durant after he requested a trade from the Brooklyn Nets. A potential reunion was considered "highly unlikely" at the time, as The Athletic's Marcus Thompson reported that Golden State's stars weren't pressing the front office on the idea, but rather "stunned" that it was even a possibility. Well, Curry just confirmed those rumors during an interview with Rolling Stone, saying that he was "never hesitant" about the idea of playing with Durant again. "There was a conversation internally about 'If he was available, would you?' I was never hesitant," Curry said. "Every team has those conversations, and obviously, they're gonna call me ...

  Of all of the NBA's recent innovations and experiments, arguably none has generated more pushback and debate than the proposed in-season tournament, which commissioner Adam Silver has discussed publicly multiple times. The momentum seems to be there given the undeniable success of the play-in tournament over the past two seasons, but implementing a mid-season tournament presents far more logistical and motivational hurdles for teams, players and schedule-makers. Such tournaments exist in other sports, most notably European soccer, and the idea would be to spice up the early portion of the NBA season and generate more interest for games that might not otherwise seem consequential. Silver said in February that the league was "moving closer" to going forward with the tournament, and now we have some more details about a possible format. According to Shams Charania, the tournament could be implemented as soon as the 2023-24 season and would consist of teams playing "Cu...

  The 2022 class for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame was enshrined Saturday evening in Springfield, Massachusetts. Among the 13 Hall of Fame inductees are a number of former players and coaches who have put together illustrious careers to earn this honor.    Prior to the speeches and induction ceremony, the night started with a tribute to the late Bill Russell, who passed away earlier this year. One of the game's all-time legends, Russell won 11 championships and 5 MVP awards with the Boston Celtics and was inducted into the Hall of Fame as both a player (1975) and as a coach (2021). Following his death, the NBA announced that his No. 6 will be retired across the league.  Here is the list of all 13 inductees set to be enshrined this year: Manu Ginobili  Ginobili, of course, spent his entire career with the San Antonio Spurs, and won four titles alongside Tim Duncan and Tony Parker. A two-time All-Star, two-time All-NBA performer and one of the best Sixth Me...