1. It makes us happy to know we’re not the only ones hyped about NCAA basketball before the season starts.  Go Blue Devils.
2. Speaking of which, nice ACC preview.  If you’re in the US, and can make it there, check out the Missouri/Georgetown game… that will be a barnburner.
3. HoopSpeak has a sexy new banner, and a great post on Andre Miller.  Can you name which team Miller won a championship with?
4. If you’re a passionate fan, you usually love not only your team but the organisation around it.  So it must SUCK if you’re a Knicks fan to hear that your cross-town rivals are dissing your management… granted, this is the same organisation that managed to annihilate their last Finals team (Spree, Camby, Grandmama), trade for a million point guards, sexually assault their female staff and basically turn the Mecca of Hoops into a sad footnote… and they traded away Lee.  Sigh.
5. We all know that one player that manages to sneak in the extra step on drives to the bucket.  While we curse and flout our knowledge of the NBA and FIBA rulebooks, the simple truth is that we all wish we had that extra step… behold D-Wade.
6. Can Dwight become MVP this season?
7. 2K11.  Now in real life.
8. Get on with the game, Stephen Jackson.
   “Charlotte Bobcats coach Larry Brown needs Stephen Jackson to stop getting himself tossed from basketball games… Seventeen games into the season Jackson has committed six technical fouls, tying him with Orlando’s Dwight Howard for most in the league. If he reaches 16, he’ll serve an automatic one-game suspension, but it might not take that long.”
9. Reason #647 why the NBL is just plain strange.
10. Does LBJ need to just grow up?
    “The fundamental problem for Spoelstra isn’t that James doesn’t respect coaches – he doesn’t respect people. Give LeBron this, though: He’s learned to live one way with the television light on, and another with it off. He treats everyone like a servant, because that’s what the system taught him as a teenage prodigy. To James, the coach isn’t there to mold him into the team dynamic. He’s there to serve him. Wade was one of the Team USA players who’d watch incredulously as James would throw a bowl of fries back at a renowned chef and bark, ‘They’re cold!’ Or throw his sweaty practice jersey across the court and command a team administrator to go pick it up.”
11. On that note, James wants his jersey retired in Cleveland?  Really?
12. Home sweet home… sort of.
    “The novelty of Oklahoma City serving as the New Orleans Hornets’ temporary home from 2005-07 seems to have all but disappeared. Crowd reaction during pre-game introductions drew only polite applause for Chris Paul and David West.”
13. Texas on top in SI’s NBA power rankings.
14. The Spurs are taking it back to their ABA roots, playing up-tempo and making magic happen on the court.  Just sayin.

Now we know there are some loyal (fanatical?  you say tomato…) fans out there who love to read bits and pieces about their team every second of every day, so just for you NY Knicks fans we’ve been lucky enough to get some extra insider news and videos:

With a new starting lineup for the New York Knicks, Coach D’Antoni is ready to take the court with his star players in hopes of a magical season in hoops! All it takes is some practice and a couple of basketball spells! Spells…you ask? Check out Coach D’Antoni in this magician’s outfit and enter MSG.com‘s photo caption contest! The funniest captions for the photo featured below will be shared with Coach D himself on The Mike D’Antoni Show on October 26th @ 8PM on MSG! http://www.msg.com/tv/shows/the-mike-d-antoni-show/mike-d-antoni-photo-finish/coach-d-caption-contest-1.51935

Be sure to check out the Knicks Season Preview Bonus clips of Knicks members Danilo Gallinari, Amar’e Stoudemire, and more from the team exclusively on MSG.com: http://www.msg.com/our-teams/knicks/knicks-season-preview-bonus-clips-1.52236

Enjoy.

1. Been a heck of a summer for superstars.  The NYTimes has a look at what the movements mean not just for the teams involved, but the NBA as a whole.
2. Ater Majok is no longer a Uconn Husky.  Is it just us here at 3MW that worry about why he withdrew?  Was it the lifestyle?  Pressure?  This kid has declared then withdrawn from the NBA Draft, held out on NBL interest and finally went to a storied, venerable program in the hoops mecca of the USA, yet comes out the other end with a 2 sentence press release?  We’re staying tuned on this one…
3. Timberwolves are longing for Ricky… is the feeling mutual?
   “Rubio dismissed the notion that he did not want to play for Minnesota, one of the league’s smaller markets.  ’Everyone is talking like Minneapolis is not a good city to live, but I think that it’s a great city to live,’ he said. ‘O.K., the weather is not so good. But there’s a lot of things to do there, a lot of sports to watch and centers to go. I think it’s a great city.’”
4. Great article in Hoopspeak about the NBA losing money.
5. Aussie humour and basketball.  Awesome combination.  We’re looking forward to “Jim’s Decision“.
6. If you know nothing of the WNBA, shame on you.  SLAM has a nice write-up of the 2 teams in the finals.  Yes, it’s finals time for the WNBA.
7. Smack the ball off the rim, NBA… c’mon, FIBA does it…
8. We love history at 3MW… how Starks became a Knickerbocker.
9. Beyond words.  Respect given, though.
   “Artest finally won a title in June after 11 regular seasons of trying … and now he’s planning to sell the championship ring as a fundraiser to put more psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists in schools.”
10. A player’s recounting of the D-League.
11. Dwight Howard makes a wish come true.
    “Some people get a choir that sings them into heaven and some people get a chariot that rolls them into heaven. Not me. I want to be slam-dunked smack, dab into the middle of heaven by Dwight Howard.”

1. Best dunks from the NBA Summer League.
2. Making the jump to NBA officiating.  Via Truehoop.
3. Australia beat the USA in wheelchair basketball.  Nice write-up from A Stern Warning.
4. Remember the Starbury shoes?  Stephon was the first guy who decided to make his shoes really cheap, around $19.99 from memory, and mass market them… and people went nuts for them!  Basketball shoes that looked good at a great price?  Might as well have sprinkled a little crack on them, they were THAT addictive.  Yet somehow, despite great press, signing other NBA players to endorse (Wallace, anyone?) and a reputation for being surprisingly decent shoes, the company just couldn’t last.  Now the latest:
   “Stephon Marbury — who once made tens of millions to ride the NY Knicks‘ bench — is now in a legal battle over the sale of his company … for the grand total of $1, according to court documents.  In the lawsuit, filed Friday in L.A. County Superior Court, a woman named Thuymai K. Ungclaims Marbury agreed to sell her 100% of his company — which includes a piece of property in L.A. — back in December … for the sum of one American dollar.”  Via Slam.
5. Penny Hardaway wants to play for Miami?  Sorry homie, that reeks a little of desperation…
6. Are you a stat geek like us?  Check out ALL of the NBA’s salaries and cap situations on one glorious spreadsheet.
7. We love a great, heated, animated discussion over the value of players.  Joe Posnanski and Dan Shaugnessy go at it over how good Tim Duncun is.  Posnanski with the last word:
   “Great players influence games, seasons, championships. And few in basketball history have influenced games, seasons and championships more than Tim Duncan. You could argue about his place in the Top 10, and there are enough great players in NBA history to put an imposing Top 10 out there without Duncan on it. But, and it’s just my opinion I think he’s the best power forward in basketball history and the indispensable player on a four-time champion.”
8. Remember this name: Jeremy Lin.  This kid took over the crowd in the recent Mavs – Wizards Summer League game, taking it to John Wall and co in a variety of ways, earning not only the support of the locals, but also commentators around the League:
   “”The kid from the Ivy League refused to back down from the YouTube sensation and while Wall walked away with the highlight reel, Lin walked away as the fan favorite”.  From the Washington Post.
   

1. Not sure who to root for in the NBA Finals?  DJ Gallo has some ideas of how to choose.
2. Legacies on the line; Ian Thomsen looks at the ripples these finals will have on the stream of basketball history… (how’s that for imagery?)
   “For most of his career Bryant has been identified as a potential successor to Michael Jordan, but before he can incite that debate he must first equal the achievements of Magic. How can Bryant be compared favorably with the greatest player when he hasn’t outdone the greatest Laker?”
3. Little Knicks fans in Ghana...
4. Newspapers.  Radio.  TV.  Websites.  Blogs.  Now Twitter.  All ways you can be updated about basketball games…
5. Australia’s chances pre-world championships… their best weapons may not be who you think.
   “While Jawai has had limited opportunities to play since his NBL Rookie of the Year season in 2008, in his 10 minutes per game with Minnesota last season he grabbed an offensive rebound every eight minutes – a rate better than the NBA’s best offensive rebounder Joakim Noah.”
6. We miss you, Coach Wooden.