nba

LOS ANGELES--Never mind the nail-biting lead changes down the stretch, or the dazzling display put on by league MVP Kobe Bryant here at Game 3 of the NBA Finals.

Try also to forget Jack Nicholson holding court from his usual spot at Staples Center. Shrug off the fact that Sylvester Stallone, Eddie Murphy, David Beckham, and Hugh Hefner are all sitting a few feet away. One of the biggest stars in Los Angeles Tuesday night stayed quietly out of sight.

Logging the mind-boggling amount of statistics produced in a single National Basketball Association game is an intense undertaking. And the … Read more

Joy Division isn't the only one that's trying to get the timing just right for a special-edition Zune. Allen Iverson's people are apparently hoping to do the same with their own exclusive version of Microsoft's media player now that his Denver Nuggets have barely secured the last spot in the NBA playoffs.

An etching of the superstar will appear on the back of a limited-edition 8GB Zune packaged with a pair of Reebok shoes called the "Answer XI Zune," according to CrunchGear. Weird.

Only 60 of these special bundles will be sold at a … Read more

Technology and new media made Mark Cuban a billionaire.

Why would the founder of Broadcast.com and the owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks force bloggers into a digital ghetto by limiting their access to his basketball team? Isn't he a card-carrying member of the digerati?

By banning bloggers from the Maverick's locker room, that's what he's doing, according to several journalism poobahs, including the Society of Professional Journalists.

The kerfuffle allegedly began when Tim MacMahon, who blogs for the Dallas Morning News, wrote something to the effect that the Mavs needed a new coach. … Read more

Today, we actually get it right! We sucker in Tom Merritt to talk about Amy Winehouse's drunken badness, a guy gets denied an all-star game marriage proposal, unlimited cell phone minutes, and N+, like stick figure lemmings...but for Xbox 360, and Pimp My Ride for Wii. Listen in on the fun!

Listen now: Download today's podcast

OK, folks, here's your chance to show some Playboy bunnies just how good you are at NBA '08.

Wednesday night, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., at Bloomingdale's locations on Beverly Boulevard and on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles and on Market Street in San Francisco, the ladies with the iconic bunny tails and ears will be on hand, ostensibly for the launch of a new Playboy line of clothes, but also to play some video game hoops with fans.

Now, you may be a wizard at using your joystick to make Shaq slamdunk over … Read more

Expensive sports rights are a major cost for the United States television industry. Sports also brings huge ad revenue and a male audience that is much prized by advertisers because it's so elusive.

Now the NBA has signed new TV deals that run nearly a decade. This time the buyers get significant rights to Internet distribution of games, highlights and related content. Clearly, this is just another step toward the Internet becoming a full-fledged alternative to typical TV distribution. An ESPN executive said its Web site had a million unique visitors daily during the NBA playoffs earlier this year.… Read more

Lately, I've been getting into basketball. I know what you're going to say. That I'm jumping on the bandwagon. (I am.) It all started because of a man, of course.

No, not Steve Nash. It's because of a man who loves Steve Nash. He hooked me with the players' back stories, his impassioned declarations about the grace of the game and, more to the point, the way he distinctly pronounces each player's name.

So I started following the Phoenix Suns and then, naturally, my hometown team: the Golden State Warriors. (The last time I attended … Read more

All right, so maybe the mid-season acquisition of Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington had more to do with the Bay Area's Golden State Warriors making the playoffs Wednesday night for the first time in 12 years.

But since we made fun of the team's fortunes in this space last fall, we believe it's only fair to point out that the success comes after a 10-year naming-rights deal inked by software powerhouse Oracle. The company's name and logo adorn the arena in Oakland, and will get some prime-time air during the opening round of the NBA playoffs, … Read more

3D cinema might be considered a corny 1970s gimmick these days, but the National Basketball Association is hoping you'll be willing to shake off that attitude in time for the NBA All-Star Game in Las Vegas this Sunday. The league has partnered with digital-cinema group PACE for live 3D broadcasts of Saturday night's pre-show event as well as Sunday night's game. And, yes, you do have to wear special glasses to see it in full. Thankfully, they're a little less geeky than the red-and-blue lenses so frequently associated with 3D cinema (they're almost indistinguishable from … Read more