The Whole Delivery

Welcome to the NBA Preview, to be used constantly on Twitter on the real opening night of the season, October 26.  Rookie of the Year : Prime favorites Ben Simmons and Brandon Ingram have major questions marks to start the season, both with terrible teams and Simmons with his injury.  Dragon Bender and Kris Dunn will be major factors all season, as well as Bender’s explosive Suns teammate Marquisse Chriss. And mature sharp shooter Buddy Hield will not yield on his ability to not down the 3 at this level as he did prolifically at Oklahoma.  The likes of Sabonis, Prince, Malik Beasley, Bembry, Check Diallo, Tyer Ulis, Hernangomez, Diamond Stone, Niang, Gbinije, Kay Felder, Richardson, Jackson and undrafted Ader Nader will make headlines.  But my Rookie of the Year choice is the Nuggets Jamal Murray , who is ready to explode as a dynamic scoreline who has the ability to put the ball in the net at all 3 levels, catch and shoot, and create his own ...

In honor of his last All-Star Weekend and game as a player, take it back to Kobe's first All-Star Weekend and game back in 1998 in Manhattan, and the time he thought that he would be a legend both in basketball AND music. It's the only public music performance for him (and Tyra Banks), and how laugh out loud funny and bad it still is 'til today. Again, from 1998, it's Kobe, with Tyra, with "K.O.B.E." More to come from The Whole Delivery. Stay tuned.

Full discussion with news of the announcements Thursday, and analyzing both teams ad coaching staffs begins with this thread. Stay tuned for constant updates throughout the week.  

In honor of NBA all star weekend, it is the annual Flashback Friday tradition to go back to Kobe Bryant's only live performance of his epically disastrous rap career. With Tyra Banks also providing a memorable guest appearance, it's "K.O.B.E" from the 1998 All-Star Weekend, when the game was last in New York. The performance was as memorably bad as the All-Star festivities were. More to come at The Whole Delivery, stay tuned. 

The victim of Serge Ibaka reportedly has a broken nose and is a game time decision on Sunday against the Bulls. The preliminary evaluation on James from most said that he had a swollen nose, but looks like he will have to ware a mask for the time in his career again for the rest of the season. 

One of baseball's greatest announcers ever, Ralph Kiner , has passed today 91.  Kiner is apart of the "Mt. Rushmore of Great Baseball Announcers and Broadcasters," with fellow long time partner, the late Bob Murphy, along with Vin Scully and Bob Uecker.  More on him and his remarkable career as a player (he hit 369 home runs in his career) and an announcer in a bit.  Enjoy from The Daily News from the terrific Bill Madden.  Original Version Fresh off the most embarrassing loss in a season that has just turned downright ugly, the Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert has fired general manager Chris Grant. Grant takes the fall for one of the most disappointing teams in the league, as the Cavs look out of playoff contention even in the woeful Eastern Conference. The lack of anything from first round pick Anthony Bennett, the dismissal of Andrew Bynum from the team, the dysfunction and anger that both Kyrie Irving and Dion Waters have displaye...

Well this Lakers and Cavs game was so pathetic that these two things happened: The photo of the night, where the Lakers again have injury woes RT @nbarocksstc : Kamans couch pic.twitter.com/kmPQXRwXSi — Andrew Jerell Jones (@sluggahjells) February 6, 2014 Only the woeful Cavs & the Lakers can make us bring out the "Team can't have less than 5 players" rule out the book pic.twitter.com/RMvE9xmmJB — Andrew Jerell Jones (@sluggahjells) February 6, 2014 The Lakers somehow won despite being technically reduced to four men, showing how egregious the Cavs have become in the last month and a half. The Rest In what is shaping up to possibly be the worst winter Olympics ever, Shaun White has decided to pull out of the slopestyle event to solely focus on winning a third straight gold medal in halfpipe. So many problems with this games, making this like an Olympic problem on steroids with how ugly the news continues to be on it. If the NFL and Roger Goodell ...

And he is out for six weeks  after that injury he suffered against the Grizzles. Although I still thought he came back too soon, this was an injury that had nothing to do with his Achilles, especially as he played his best in his comeback against the Grizzlies. More to come at TWD, stay tuned.

He should have become what Tony Parker became, in order to get himself closer to the championship he deserves as he got older. Nevertheless, a future Hall of Famer and real dude from the state of Virginia has retired today. Here is the press conference below. You know it's going to be a painful season for your franchise when a former player's retirement is the best thing about your season. (More to come at The Whole Delivery, stay tuned.) 

In celebration of the start of the 2013-14 NBA season, here is TNT on NBA's montage of the Eastern Conference playoffs from last June with Rihanna.

Having had the pleasure and gratitude of being on Huff Post Live (HPL) four times in the past,  I say with all due respect that unless there is a disclaimer from their host starting a segment that they are not an expert in sports that they would stop doing sports segments until they get a host with a sports journalism background or truly respected sports reporting chops. It's emabrrassing, and frankly, it's pathetic when their male hosts try and do sports segments and look disastrous in doing so with incomplete or antiquated framing to begin the discussion and just wrong statements throughout. Later today as of this post, the HPL-LA with Jacob Soboroff will be doing two more sports related segments, though one of them will be on the Kasandra Perkins tragedy . The first will be about Barry Bonds, Roger Clemons, and Sammy Sosa being eligible for the Hall of Fame , and Soboroff has already framed it with the generic, tired fan cliche argument that if they were to get into...

Your welcome. And they may save the world from ending on December 21, 2012. Or be the reason why it ends in the first place. More from The Whole Delivery on November 26, 2012 in a bit, stay tuned. Including you, Old Spice.

From Getty Images Do to the lockout, things may complicate this. But it appears we have seen the last of the wonderful giant in the Association: Yao Ming has informed the NBA he intends to retire, reports Yahoo!'s Adrian Wojnarowski . It's unclear whether Yao can officially file retirement papers during the NBA lockout. Yao's contract with the Houston Rockets expired on June 30, and he would have been an unrestricted free agent if not for the lockout. One of the nicest guys, and developing into one of the most impact centers the game has ever seen. Really sad to see him go. Rough day for me truly.

Just like with "Subprime Dan" Gilbert's embarrassing tirade towards LeBron James egressing from Cleveland, here is another top level office official making himself look like a whining fool (and hypocrite) for your very eyes to see. It is Toronto Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo in full whinny kid mode, bringing up dirt on Chris Bosh just because he is upset he left him for LeBron, Dwade, and Miami. "Despite limited swelling and any excessive damage on an MRI, he felt like he needed to sit for six more games ... I'm not even questioning Chris' injury. I'm telling you he was cleared to play subject to tolerance on his part, and the tolerance just apparently wasn't there and he chose not to play," Colangelo said. "The fact that our season was spiraling downward and we were hoping he'd come back sooner and we were also dealing with a few other things at that point ... we were really struggling there." Colangelo thinks that Bosh just ...

One of the legends of the game, especially at the safety position, has passed away just now at age 61 : Jack Tatum, one of the most feared tacklers in NFL history, died Tuesday, his alma mater, Ohio State University, announced. He was 61. "We have lost one of our greatest Buckeyes," Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel said in a statement. "When you think of Ohio State defense, the first name that comes to mind is Jack Tatum. His loss touches every era of Ohio State players and fans." Tatum was a two-time All-American at Ohio State, where he began his career as a running back before moving to safety. The Oakland Raiders selected Tatum in the first round of the 1971 NFL Draft and he spent nine seasons with the team. He finished his NFL career with the Houston Oilers in 1980. Tatum made three Pro Bowls during his 10-year career. He is a member of the Ohio State and college football halls of fame. TWD Condolences are in store for this Raiders legends, as cer...

To continue from last night , not only is Chris Paul being an insensitive jerk to New Orleans and the Hornets' community. Moreover, Paul has made a clown of himself towards even Orlando Magic point guard Jameer Nelson. Imagine if Ryan Zimmerman of the Washington Nationals demanded he get traded to the Chicago White Sox for Gordon Beckham, all because he needs to be in a winning better environment and do whatever it took to make that trade occur. "Damn however Beckham feels, because I am a better third basemen then him and I just need to win." Or even better, picture Steven Jackson of the St. Louis Rams, clearly upset with how the Rams are still mired in the NFL doldrums, demanding a trade to the New York Jets without even thinking about that team already having Shone Greene and Ladanian Tomlinson as apart of their running back's list? By Paul and his camp virtually indicating that the Magic are apart of his dream destination list, the former Wake Forest standou...

The saga continues ! According to a source with knowledge of his plan, Chris Paul has requested that the Hornets trade him to the Knicks, Magic or Lakers before the season begins. "He wants out," the source told Ken Berger of CBS Sports. "He wants to play with another superstar. He wants to follow LeBron's model of teaming up with other great players." NBA sources say that members of Paul's camp told them recently, "He's not going to start the season in New Orleans." This is a punk move clearly by Chris Paul, I am just going to be straight up honest here. To force himself out of New Orleans in this fashion because he sees LeBron, DWade, and Bosh playing together with three years on his contract is just pathetic. Now the Hornets can now think about letting Paul go and get pieces in return, since they do have Darren Collison now as capable of at least just being a good point guard in the league next season. But the lack of pride of possi...

He could tell me to my face 100 times and I still would say that he should have announced this on April 1, 2011 : Penny Hardaway, a four-time NBA All-Star guard, told the Bottom Line Sports Show, an online radio program, that he wants to take the court in a small role with the Heat next season. Hardaway, however, is 38 years old and hasn't played in an NBA game since he was released by the Heat in December 2007. "I didn't get a chance to finish my career the way I wanted," Hardaway said on the show, which he co-hosts. Former Knick Charles Oakley is an executive producer. Honesty though, this is all about Lil Penny wanting to star in a commercial and play with Puppet LeBron and DWade's T-Mobile phone.

Photo from Doug Benc/Getty Images Everyone, from Bill Simmons to many others, joked about " Who would play on the Heat's " roster with Miami Thrice, and basically began there "Hate the Heat campaign in full earnest." Well, after Udonis Haslem returned to sacrifice , Mike Miller returning to the Sunshine State , Zydrunas Ilgauskas showing his love for LeBron , and Juwan Howard potentially next , I guess no one is joking anymore.