National Basketball Association

Grim Signs for Brooklyn Nets from Media, Spike Lee

Teens Spit for Prizes Tonight at Knicks Poetry Slam

It is a shock and a pleasure to see the Times use the phrase "spit poems from the depths of their tortured teenage souls" in a lede, though they find it necessary to explain later that the verb is "the teenagers' favorite term for performing their work." The reporter, Liz Robbins, refers to youths ... More >>

IT'S KOBE! LEBRON! . . .

. . . And, sigh, the Knicks

SLAM DUNK

Where to see the Knicks if you don’t want to go to Jersey

Chain Link: From Around Village Voice Media

While naturally the current edition of the Village Voice will be of prime interest to you, thanks to the magic of the internet our other publications around the country are available to you, too. The Miami New Times has a great story about R. Allen Stanford, white-collar crook extraordinaire, on wh ... More >>

Getting Old's a Bitch in Gotta Dance

While naturally the current edition of the Village Voice will be of prime interest to you, thanks to the magic of the internet our other publications around the country are available to you, too. The Miami New Times has a great story about R. Allen Stanford, white-collar crook extraordinaire, on wh ... More >>

IBO Report: Atlantic Yards to Cost City Big, Rain Cash on Ratner

​This just hasn't been a good week for Bruce Ratner, the Nets owner who'd rather be the Nets' landlord. First, he unveils a new vision of his much-derided Atlantic Yards arena plan — now with more metal mesh! — and gets slammed by Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff for cr ... More >>

HOOP DREAMS

Well, Knicks and Nets fans can always hope

Meadowlands to Swap Nets to Newark for Concerts?

​Rumors of the Nets moving to Newark to join the Devils are as old as Jason Kidd's knees, but hoops-by-the-Ironbound may finally be a reality, as early as next season. After the Newark Star-Ledger reported yesterday that unnamed team sources were saying the Nets would consider a temporary relo ... More >>

A Suggestion to Remedy the Injustice of Jay-Z Performing "Empire State of Mind" at Game One of the World Series

​Is it Jay-Z's turn to ether a Philadelphia sports team? 76ers fans will not forget the day, back in 2001, when Beyonce and the rest of Destiny's Child emerged at halftime for Game Two of the Finals, IN PHILADELPHIA, wearing Laker jerseys--the prelude to first a tremendous amount of booing, an ... More >>

Jockbeat: Why This Year with the Knicks Will Be Worse Than the Isiah Era

​ In a way, for Knicks fans this is worse than the Isiah era. You know, in the way watching a train wreck is a lot more interesting than watching paint dry. At least in the bad old days, there was drama, larger-than life personalities and some good basketball players, albeit gone horribly w ... More >>

LEBRON BRINGS IT HOME?

Not if the 'Dynamic Duo' have anything to say about it

As Atlantic Yards Gets Pricier, How Much Red Ink Can Ratner Absorb?

​Uberdeveloper-turned-Nets-owner Bruce Ratner better have some good meds, because this is rapidly shaping up to be a month of rapid mood swings for him and his Atlantic Yards project. While Tuesday's granting of a desperately needed investment-grade rating for the Nets arena bonds must have be ... More >>

Find cheap seats to the Knicks vs. Indiana Pacers

​Uberdeveloper-turned-Nets-owner Bruce Ratner better have some good meds, because this is rapidly shaping up to be a month of rapid mood swings for him and his Atlantic Yards project. While Tuesday's granting of a desperately needed investment-grade rating for the Nets arena bonds must have be ... More >>

Reggie Miller Back to Torment Knicks Fans

​To the entertainment and delight of Knicks fans everywhere, Reggie Miller is back. Filmmaker Dan Klores, director of acclaimed documentaries as Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story, Crazy Love, and Black Magic -- the history of the rise of basketball in historically black colleges and uni ... More >>

MSG Reno to Exile Liberty ... to Newark?

​Proving the old line that the best way to find real news in the Times is to read the stories end-to-beginning, the Paper of Record offers up a classic buried lede in its article today about the upcoming renovations to Madison Square Garden. Round about the sixth paragraph, sportswriter Richar ... More >>

Why LeBron James (Probably) Won't Be Coming to New York

​Terry Pluto, sports columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, has been covering LeBron James since his first high school game. His latest book, LeBron James: The Making of an MVP (cowritten with PD Cavs beat writer Brian Winters) is the definitive work to date on how James became the best pla ... More >>

The James L. Dolan Honorary Scholarship for Media Reporting: A Kickstarter Project

​Prolific blogger, re-blogger, and columnist Anthony "SoupSoup" DeRosa is trying to harness the awesome power of KickStarter - a website that helps facilitate people who are looking to source out funding for their own projects - for the power of "good."

Sports Guy Bill Simmons Takes Swipe at Knicks Ruiner and 'Loser' James Dolan

​The list of Cablevision owner James Dolan's enemies is ever expanding: there are long-suffering, abused employees, any and all reporters, especially his own sports reporters, and extra-especially bloggers. And though the Voice -- Runnin' Scared in particular -- has had its disagreements with ... More >>

Ryan Skeen Hosts a Cooking Class; Joey Campanaro Heads to Philly

​ Ryan Skeen is launching a bi-weekly supper club and cooking class at 5 & Diamond. The first is a $55 Spring Lamb Fest next Monday, which will include a primer on how to butcher and prepare lamb in a variety of ways, from smoking to braising. [Eater] Joey Campanaro of Kenmare, Market Table a ... More >>

Video: Mayor Bloomberg's Embarrassing "Come On, Lebron" Campaign Has Begun

Click to enlarge and see the ridiculousness in a bigger size. ​New Yorkers should want for nothing, and when we do, we kvetch about it, and then go get it, because that's what New Yorkers do. We shouldn't look desperate, preening, pathetic, or in-need. It just doesn't seem to fit the spirit of ... More >>

How Last Night's Pitchfork Office Party with Beach Fossils Really Went Down

No photos because they searched us for photographic devices on the way in. So Pitchfork had a party in their Greenpoint office last night. The young exuberant fellas of Beach Fossils played. Pitchfork.tv taped it. There was a keg and some awesome vodka made by a neighborhood guy named Tito. Some pe ... More >>

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rudy Giuliani, Friends Forever: AHNOLD Comes to New York

​The LA Times' Gregory Rodriguez worried this morning about New Yorkers dominating the national media conversation and if Los Angeles was a city in need of finding itself needing to "do better to think a little more provincially." Maybe that's what Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was trying to rese ... More >>

Nets Billboard Really Is Unnerving Knicks Brass, Reportedly

​We woke up this morning and saw the first item on eTrueSports' "Sports Shorts" and thought it was real before we realized we were being spoofed again by sports prankster supreme Frank Coffey: "This is like a belt in the Borscht," said Knicks colorful owner James Dolan in his first comments ... More >>

When the Knicks Were the Best Team in Town

​Clip Job: an excerpt every day from the Voice archives. April 10, 1969, Vol. XIV, No. 26 Only the Knicks Can Make Us Respectable Now by Joe Flaherty and Ross Wetzsteon After years of false pregnancies, the New York sporting crowd may at last father a legitimate champion. For a long time now ... More >>

Knicks Win First Championship; Voice Lauds Wilt Chamberlain

​Clip Job: an excerpt every day from the Voice archives. May 14, 1970, Vol. XV, No. 20 A Word for Wilt by Andrew Sarris I am convinced that if Wilt Chamberlain appeared on the floor of Madison Square Garden with a supporting team of four arthritic midgets against a team of NBA All-Stars, the ... More >>

Seven at Seven: Would-Be Governors Debate Tonight

​New Yorkers get their first look at The Magnificent Seven gubernatorial candidates tonight, and if you can't find someone to embrace on this stage then you're a choosy beggar who doesn't even deserve true democracy and you might as well head straight for Tehran. The assortment includes a bos ... More >>

What's Poisoning the Air at Madison Square Garden?

​When's a good time to clean your building of asbestos? More like when isn't it a good time to clean out your building of asbestos? Unless the basketball season just started and you're the New York Knicks, in which case, what could possibly go wrong?

The 114 Most Important Lessons I've Learned at The Village Voice (Or: "2010, The Year I Ruined Your Media Outlet")

​After a 285-day stint, I am abdicating my post here at The Village Voice. I'm going to work for Esquire.com, so I may -- as one commenter noted -- continue my work as a "a twentysomething angel of death." Yet, while I was here, I learned some very important things, and had some very memorable mom ... More >>

HOT SHOT

Give LeBron James a New York welcome

Homeless Man With Stellar Radio Voice is Taking His Talents to the Cleveland Cavaliers

Yesterday the internet was ablaze with praise for Ted Williams, a Brooklyn-born homeless man in Ohio with a special talent. His voice, as it turns out, is that of a male angel, deep and booming, perfect for voice-over work, which Williams said alcohol and drugs had derailed him from landing. Now two ... More >>

Carmelo Anthony to the Knicks: Was the Price Too Steep?

​So now that Melomania has reached its peak, it might be time to reflect on whether or not the Knicks made a good deal. Last Friday ESPN's Stephen A. Smith probably expressed the sentiments of most Knicks fans when he wrote "When you have a chance to get one of the top five players in the ga ... More >>

Nets Outscore the Knicks on 'Melo's Big Night

​"Defense," Carmelo Anthony told reporters at his first New York press conference yesterday, "I want to really focus in on that. All that takes is a lot of effort. Once we get everyone to buy into that mentality, we're good to go." Thus the first superstar in a long time to choose New York man ... More >>

Knicks Show Off A Passing Game!

​Here's a statistic that jumped out of the Knicks box score in last night's blowout win against the Utah Jazz, which may bode well for the long-beleaguered team: 32. As in 32 assists. That's right, the team with Amare' Stoudemire (12 for 15, 31 points) and Carmelo Anthony (pictured at right), ... More >>

Is There Crying in Basketball? On the Heat's Tears

​Is there crying in basketball? Was there, in fact, crying in the Miami Heat locker room after their 87-86 loss to the Chicago Bulls? No one would be talking about this at all if Heat coach Erik Spoelstra hadn't told reporters, "There are a couple of guys crying in the locker room." No sooner ... More >>

Knicks Somehow Manage Four Foul Shots ... And Still Win

Another tidbit from our periodic examination of the Knicks' latest box score: Against Memphis on Wednesday night, Carmelo and Amare and the rest of the fellows somehow scored 110 points in a last-second victory, while managing to attempt just 4 foul shots. (Luckily, they made all four.) Just 4 fo ... More >>

FACE OFF

New York Knicks host Boston Celtics

1 in 8 New Yorkers is on Oxy

​If you were wondering why 13% of the commuters on your subway car this morning were drooling and looking into space, the Wall Street Journal may have a clue: prescriptions for oxycodone, the generic name of the powerful pain pill OxyContin, have doubled in New York City between 2007 and 2010. ... More >>

Knicks Castoffs Shaking Up NBA Playoffs

​What do Zach Randolph, Trevor Ariza, Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Al Harrington, Antonio McDyess, Marcus Camby, Nate Robinson, Eddie House, and Jamal Crawford have in common? Well, they all were let go by the Knicks at one point or another in recent years, and, unlike t ... More >>

Live: Machine Gun Kelly Throws Himself A Homecoming Of Sorts At The Gramercy Theater

Machine Gun Kelly Gramercy Theater Sunday, May 22 Better than: Going to the gym. Machine Gun Kelly onstage is like a Nintendo character, if someone kept pressing the B button. His feet touch the ground about as often as his knees hit his chest; he looks like he learned to walk on a Dance Dance Re ... More >>

Reminder: Dallas Mavericks Won a World Championship; It's Not All About LeBron

If the NBA Finals confirmed one thing, it's that like him or love him - and an ESPN color map compiled before the sixth game with Dallas indicated that the majority of fans in 45 of 50 states hate him - it's a LeBron James League. Look at today's headlines: The Daily News proclaimed "LeBust: King ... More >>

NBA Owners Will Lock Out Players at Midnight

​Labor negotiations between NBA team owners and players broke down this afternoon as the two sides couldn't reach a new collective bargaining agreement. The players union presented an offer that was rejected by the owners at their three-hour meeting in New York. This comes after one of the lea ... More >>

NBA UNWRAPPED

New York Knicks host Boston Celtics

Brooklyn Nets Set To Go All Disney On Their Employees

​When you have to open an arena that seats a crowd of 18,000 skeptical New Yorkers, there's really only one person you can call to give you advice -- dear old Mickey Mouse. The House of Mouse entertains visitors with extreme robotic precision and that's what the Brooklyn Nets are looking to em ... More >>

Q&A: Cloud Nothings' Dylan Baldi On "Blog Rock," Cleveland, And Having "Lo-Fi" On His Tombstone

​Clevelander Dylan Baldi is making like the indie rock LeBron James. Except instead of pinpoint passing ability, Baldi's hands are able to noodle a fine lo-fi pop tune out of a four-track or ProTools like an all-star from an early age. His early cassette releases garnered him what's referred t ... More >>

The Islanders Are Coming! The Islanders Are Coming!

​Things have been mostly quiet on the New York Islanders arena front since their public vote for a new home in the 516 crashed and burned spectacularly last summer. That all changed yesterday afternoon, however, with the announcement that the team has scheduled an exhibition game against the D ... More >>

Who Does Michael Bloomberg Love On Twitter? We Find Out With Twit Amore

​Because love is at least nominally in the air (Valentine's Day is Tuesday), the Internet has brought you a new tool to discover your digital crushes. Twit Amore is an app that allows you find out who you or someone you like to stalk loves on Twitter by simply entering a user's handle. Accordi ... More >>