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After a report emerged Friday afternoon suggesting that Atlanta Hawks coach Nate McMillan is strongly considering resigning amid a disappointing 17-18 start, the Hawks coach responded to the report prior to his team's game against the Lakers.  "I read that article briefly, I've never spoke to that reporter before," McMillan said. "I think the last two weeks he's written a couple articles with some sources in our organization that are making some comments about me, and some things that I'm saying and doing. Look, at the end of the year, I'll do as I've always done, at the end of the season I talk with my family and see if I still have that flame, that fire to continue next season. That's the end of the season. All of us think about retiring, but that's at the end of the season. So we'll move on past that." Based on that response, McMillan didn't really ref...

Wednesday night's contest between the Orlando Magic and Detroit Pistons turned ugly just before halftime as Moe Wagner, Killian Hayes and Hamidou Diallo were all ejected for their roles during an altercation near the Pistons' bench.  With just over 30 seconds remaining in the first half, Hayes and Wagner were chasing a loose ball in the backcourt. As the ball was about to roll out of play, Wagner shoved Hayes in the back, sending the Pistons' guard tumbling into the bench. Diallo raced in and shoved Wagner in the back, then Hayes popped up and punched Wagner in the back of the head.  Wagner immediately collapsed into the Pistons' bench and appeared to be knocked out by the punch . Magic head coach Jamahl Mosley said during his post Game press conference that Wagner was "fine." "We'll have to go back and look at the film to see exactly what happened," Mosley said. "I wa...

As we get further into the season we're seeing more parity on this weekly Rookie Rankings list, which just shows that every player gets going at their own pace. The usual suspects of Paolo Banchero and Bennedict Mathurin still appear regularly here, but we're also seeing guys like Jeremy Sochan, who has quietly become one of the best defenders in his rookie class and is beginning to expand his offensive Game . There are also names like Jalen Duren, who has been the best rookie rebounder on a Pistons team filled with young talent. It's a good sign that shows the 2022 NBA Draft was more than just the top five or six guys, and while Sochan and Duren were lottery picks, we're starting to see them, as well as guys picked later in the draft, get more comfortable at the NBA level and as a result, they're having more notable performances.    Now it's time to break down this week's Rookie Ran...

Welcome back to  NBA  Star Power Index: A weekly gauge of the players getting the most buzz around the league. Inclusion on this list isn't necessarily a good thing -- it simply means you're capturing the NBA world's attention. This is also not a ranking. The players listed are in no particular order. This column will run every week throughout the regular season.  ...

Joe Mazzulla has exceeded expectations as interim coach of the Boston Celtics. He is 24-10 through 34 games, leading the Celtics to the NBA's best record thus far this season. Caesars Sportsbook has him as the early favorite to win the NBA's Coach of the Year award with strong odds at plus-175. For a coach who took over in September, it would be hard to ask for much more. And yet, the Celtics don't plan to rush into a long-term commitment. According to The Boston Globe, the Celtics do not plan to remove the interim tag from Mazzulla during the season . More simply, this means that the Celtics are not ready to make Mazzulla their full-time head coach . That is still a decision they could eventually make. However, they do still have suspended coach Ime Udoka under contract for next season and beyond. He was initially a candidate to replace Steve Nash with the Brooklyn Nets, but they ultimately decided ...

Sacramento Kings star Domantas Sabonis has been diagnosed with an avulsion fracture in his right thumb, the team announced on Monday. He will attempt to play through the injury and has been listed as questionable for the team's next game on Tuesday against the Denver Nuggets.  Sabonis suffered the injury during the team's loss to the Washington Wizards on Dec. 23. As he was trying to slow down Bradley Beal in the backcourt, he put his hand on Beal's back and immediately winced in pain and started shaking out his hand. The initial reports from ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski on Christmas Eve suggested that the injury would be a matter of pain management and that Sabonis may be able to continue playing. Following further evaluation and imaging, that has turned out to be true. It's still unclear, however, how the injury will impact Sabonis' performance and whether he'll actually be able to pla...

Things are growing increasingly dire for the Los Angeles Lakers. After clawing their way back into the playoff hunt following a 2-10 start, they've now lost four in a row with Anthony Davis out injured. It's a frustrating turn of events especially considering how well LeBron James is playing. The four-time MVP turns 38 this week, and has scored at least 30 points on 50 percent shooting or better in seven straight Game s. Yet the Lakers continue to surround him with minimum-salary players and nonsensically small lineups. Fans have been waiting for a trade all season, but as the losses pile up, it's seemingly growing increasingly unlikely that a trade comes. According to The Athletic's Jovan Buha, the team does not want to compound its past mistakes with more win-now moves. The implication, of course, is that the Lakers do not want to trade their 2027 and 2029 first-round picks to support a 13-20 tea...

The legend of Dirk Nowitzki will live forever in Dallas, and on Christmas Day he was further immortalized with a statue bearing his likeness. From now on, visitors to the American Airlines Center will be greeted by a bronze, 23-foot sculpture of the Hall of Famer doing his signature move: the one-legged fadeaway.  Feast your eyes on this thing:  that’s a statue for sure pic.twitter.com/sfgXVYamLo — tim cato (@tim_cato) December 25, 2022 In front of a crowd of fans -- and players, including Luka Doncic, the heir to Nowitzki's throne, and former teammate Shawn Marion -- Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban unveiled the statue. "Three, two, one," Cuban said. "Bam!"  Loyalty Never Fades Away. @chime // #AllFourOne pic.twitter.com/mKsvlBHywP — Dallas Mavericks (@dallasmavs) December 25, 2022 Nowitzki was drafted No. 9 in 1999 and booed...

Blow. It. Up. They are NBA Twitter's three favorite words, but they tend to be far less realistic than critics want to accept. Fans think in terms of the championship binary. They want teams to either be directly com Pet ing for one or rebuilding toward that end. Owners treat winning as a spectrum. Championships are nice. Turning a profit is a necessity. Get most owners a couple of home playoff Game s while avoiding the luxury tax and they're going to be pretty happy. Unsurprisingly, this kind of inertia tends to keep teams together well beyond their expiration date. There might be a dozen teams that need to be blown up in a given season. We're lucky to see one or two teams actually pull the trigger. So let's look through the standings now and attempt to figure out who should and shouldn't push that big red button and start over again. We'll rank all 30 teams, starting with the NBA's ...