NBA, Players Reach Deal On New CBA

By Yannis Koutroupis

Multiple sources have reported and the league has confirmed that after a 15-hour long negotiation session that went on from midday Friday to early Saturday morning that a deal has been reached on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Ken Berger of CBSSports.com was the first to report the news. The agreement will lead to the lifting of the lockout after an official vote passes on both sides.

Before an official vote can be conducted, the players must reform the union and both sides must come to an agreement on B-Level items like drug testing, the age limit on entering the draft and NBDL assignments.

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Ranking Teams Helped By NBA Lockout

By Bill Ingram

This week’s HOOPSWORLD poll turned out to be incredibly relevant, as the NBA Players and Owners reached an agreement in the early hours of Saturday morning that should lead to an end to the months-long NBA lockout. This week we asked readers to tell us which veteran team would be helped most by a shortened 2011-12, with the following teams to choose from:

The San Antonio Spurs

The Boston Celtics

The Los Angeles Lakers

The New York Knicks

The Dallas Mavericks

And so, without further ago, we give you the results of this week’s poll:

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Contract Grades: Charlotte Bobcats

By Jason Fleming

The Charlotte Bobcats

This past June the Bobcats hired Rich Cho, recently fired by the Portland Trail Blazers, as their general manager and Rod Higgins moved from GM to President of Basketball Operations. Cho proceeded to make a major trade, sending out veterans Stephen Jackson, Shaun Livingston, and the rights to Tobias Harris for veteran Corey Maggette and the rights to big man Bismack Biyombo. He then chose point guard Kemba Walker in the lottery. Where does that leave the Cats? That is unclear, since Cho also inherited a team with quite a few overpriced long-term deals. How quickly the team can turn around from cellar dweller to playoff contender will be in a large part due to Cho’s future decisions.

Corey Maggette (one year, $10.9 million) – By sending out Jackson and Livingston in the same deal that netted the Cats Maggette, they cut off about $2.8 million in possible salary in 2012-13. That said, Maggette has played in more than 70 games just three times in his 12-year career and his numbers have steadily decreased for the past few seasons. Even his ability to get to the free throw line has decreased by half since 2004-05, a higher rate than his decrease in minutes. On the positive side, Maggette is a respected veteran presence, can still score in the mid-range, and only has one year left on his deal.

Grade: B-

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Top 5 All-Time Houston Rockets

By Joel Brigham

It’s Houston’s turn on the ol’ tour of greatest players for each franchise in NBA history. We’ll keep the introduction minimal this week and just get to the top five. Here they are, the top Houston Rockets ever:

#5 – Yao Ming (2002-2011)

What he did for the Rockets: Aside from the fact that he turned Houston into one of the most internationally popular teams in the league (China, in case you hadn’t heard, is an outstanding market for basketball), Yao also played some pretty solid ball over the course of his career when he was healthy. While he was voted in as a starter in all seven All-Star games he appeared in as a Rocket, it’s not that he was totally undeserving; in five of those seasons he was also named to an All-NBA team. The saddest thing is that the Era of Yao is over. It’s been a pretty good run, though.

Worth noting: Yao holds the franchise’s single-game record for field goal percentage, having shot 12-for-12 in one game back in 2009.

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Videocast: NBA Labor, 2011 Free Agency And More

By HOOPSWORLD

HOOPSWORLD’s Eric Pincus, Yannis Koutroupis, Bill Ingram and Steve Kyler debate the current state of the NBA Lockout, the pending free agents in 2011 and the possible free agents in 2012.

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NCAA: Hummel, MSU Surprising Early

By Yannis Koutroupis

Hummel’s Back

Over the last two years no player in college basketball has had worse luck than Purdue’s Robbie Hummel. Back in 2009-2010 he was one of the premier players in the country, likely on his way to becoming a first round pick in the NBA Draft. His Boilermakers were ranked third in the country and poised to go on a deep run in the NCAA Tournament, but he suffered a torn ACL in a late regular season game in Big 10 play against Minnesota.

As unfortunate as Hummel’s injury was, injuries occur on a regular basis in college basketball and all sports for that matter. It’s just comes with the territory of being an athlete and is something that everyone is at risk of. While it was a big setback for Purdue, they held consolation in the fact that Hummel would be back for the 2010-2011 season. Expectations were high as it would be the final run for their big three, which featured 2011 NBA Draft picks E’Twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson along with Hummel.

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