LeBron James‘ jaw-dropping year has been much discussed around these parts, not just for his accomplishments, but the scale of them. You know the list by now, with its various MVPs and gold-plated championship accoutrements. This year’s NBA rookie class is looking at what Anthony Davis has accomplished in the last year and believes he won’t be stopped either. The NCAA title, an all-time freshman blocks record, first pick in the draft and an Olympic gold medal are quite the haul for the lanky, 6-11 forward in New Orleans, especially one who wasn’t Mr. All-World Everything out of high school. His fellow rooks aren’t doubting he’ll keep it rolling in the short and the long-term, voting him as most likely to be NBA Rookie of the Year with more than 47 percent of the voting. He got a few fewer votes for best NBA career (which seems like a crazy thing to vote on right now) with 40 percent but he still carried it. Most overlooked went to Draymond Green, Perry Jones III, Tony Wroten and Andrew Nicholson. We will disagree with the rooks here after Nicholson’s standout Summer League play has been coupled with a bigger opening of playing time with Dwight Howard’s exit. He’s soft-spoken and came from a small college but now he’s one of the rookies we’re most excited to watch. Well, maybe Nicholson is just not overlooked by us. … The biggest share of a specific vote was John Jenkins as the best shooter, an obvious pick there. Most surprising was Fab Melo‘s selection as the funniest. It’s not hard to believe Melo’s college coach, stone-faced Jim Boeheim, is a tough room to test a joke on, so he must have felt like Louis CK ripping off one-liners to his fellow rooks by comparison. … Jason Kidd‘s former wife, Joumana, has given her two cents on Dallas owner Mark Cuban‘s promise never to retire Kidd’s jersey as a Maverick. To paraphrase: You might not like it Mark, but fans will. We’re not sure that argument will work with Cuban but it’s the smart play to appeal to his business sense. Cuban will do anything for Dallas fans to be happy, but we’re just not sold that Kidd’s time in Dallas — a title notwithstanding — had enough for Mavs fans to be that worked up about a jersey snub. … Hit the jump to read about one team’s possible move east …
All day we’ve been watching the story about the Kings possibly moving to Virginia Beach develop and loop back on itself. The initial report from Virginia Beach said that Kings and Comcast-Spectacor officials would be meeting next Tuesday with the city to discuss relocating the Sacramento franchise. If they get a deal it was a “guarantee” the Kings would be there. There was even a date that the deal would be done: Aug. 29. Comcast and Live Nation are the supposed drivers behind the deal for a new arena, not that some of the city’s officials knew much about it. The Sacramento Bee had a pretty funny roundup of leaders from the Beach revealing they knew almost nothing about it. One said it was hatched by the mayor and close associates. The mayor said he knew few specifics of the meeting. The local hotel-motel association was said to be supporting an arena by raising rates $1 in the report. Then the hotel-motel association actually said that was inaccurate. The NBA said, uh, no one has filed any paperwork with us about it. Guess we’ll just have to wait until Tuesday to see if either Virginia Beach has its business in order, the Kings are leading talks instead of following Comcast’s lead, or if this is more than a ploy for Anaheim, etc. to sweeten their deals for the team. … It’s too bad to see a franchise’s fan base like the Kings get jerked around like this but, what can they do? They’ve had a bad team ever since C-Webb left whose stars (Tyreke Evans, DeMarcus Cousins, Kevin Martin for a spell) can mitigate only so much. We’ve seen where some people have gotten on the fans. Would you get season tickets to watch that product? An arena seems completely out of the picture after falling apart in the spring. It all seems like Sac-Town will wait out a slow death like drip-drip-drip. … How do you feel if you’re Seattle right now and Virginia Beach might get a deal done? Good thing that city has amazing coffee because lead NBA investor Chris Hansen has to be up all night tonight figuring out what he can do to put Seattle in the running again. … Speaking of the slow release, free agency is grinding to a halt with Martell Webster agreeing to join the Wizards today. Coupled with Donte Green going to Brooklyn, there are only a few guys left getting interest right now. Josh Harrellson worked out for the Heat, for example. We co-sign on that proposed deal: Harrellson’s jean shorts would light up South Beach. … We’re out like Fab Melo‘s jokes.
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