Lebron James Network

Frankly, I’m tired of all the buzz around the NHL postseason . “There’s nothing better than playoff hockey.” Oh, really? I’ll tell you what’s better than playoff hockey: April in Paris, Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk, my wife Toni and the NBA postseason. Yeah, the NBA postseason. Besides, who really is watching the NHL postseason? Ratings are way up this year, yet at any given time, twice as many people are watching “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” reunion show on Bravo than watching the NHL playoffs on NBC Sports Network. Heck, most prison TVs will put “Storage Wars” on before they put on a Predators-Coyotes game . Anyway, the NBA playoffs are under way â€" my always-tainted money is on the Oklahoma City Thunder â€" and here are some of the fascinating story lines to follow: * For LeBron James, the Heat is on. Again. We all know how this tale ends â€" no title in Miami. Ultimately, “The Decision” will become “The ...

With this grueling regular season finally in the books, the NBA MVP race has come down to the wire between LeBron James and Kevin Durant. The term itself, most valuable p layer, is one that is always difficult to define. If the award was Most Outstanding Player, things would be much easierâ€"you just give the award to the best basketball player that season which could fairly easily be deduced from statistical analysis. But MVP always has a little grey area. There are several popular arguments that analysts use to build a case for a player, including: 1. The guy with the best stats. 2. The best player on the best team. 3. How bad would his team suck if he weren't in the lineup? Some years it is easy. One player simply rises above everyone else in the league and is the clear-cut winner. But this is not that year. Technically, there are four other candidates with partially legitimate argumentsâ€" Kobe Bryant , Kevin Love, Tony Parker and Chris Paul â€" b...

About the Chicago Bulls, who are suddenly one star guard light … From the Press Box By Mike Lopresti By Marc Serota, Getty Images Miami Heat forward LeBron James says he's all business about pushing for his first NBA title, and he better be, with his path presumably helped when Derrick Rose was lost for the postseason to the Chicago Bulls. By Marc Serota, Getty Images Miami Heat forward LeBron James says he's all business about pushing for his first NBA title, and he better be, with his path presumably helped when Derrick Rose was lost for the postseason to the Chicago Bulls. "Not our concern right now," Dwyane Wade answered when asked by reporters, from the camp of the Miami Heat . About Derrick Rose, who will be watching the rest of the playoffs in civvies … "I'm worried about the Knicks," LeBron James said. "I'm not worried about the Bulls.'' Fine. Tunnel is the preferred v...

Rhona Wise/EPA Tyson Chandler and the Knicks weren't feeling well on Saturday, but after a 100-67 Game 1 loss to the Miami Heat in their first-round Eastern Conference Playoff series, they probably feel worse on Sunday. Remember Saturday morning, back when the Knicks' biggest problem was center Tyson Chandler and his bout with the flu? Well that problem hasn't gone anywhere, but now it's buried under layers of other concerns, such as rookie Iman Shumpert's torn ACL and a 1-0 series deficit following Saturday's 100-67 soul-crushing defeat at the hands of the Heat in Miami. Even if Chandler were to make a full recovery by Game 2, something that isn't a guarantee, the second round of the playoffs would still seem like a fantasy. How bad is the Knicks' predicament? Let's do some reconnaissance with NJ.com's daily aggregation of team news to find out: • How did this happen? Here's The New York Times ' Howard Beck's description...

Rhona Wise/EPA Tyson Chandler and the Knicks weren't feeling well on Saturday, but after a 100-67 Game 1 loss to the Miami Heat in their first-round Eastern Conference Playoff series, they probably feel worse on Sunday. Remember Saturday morning, back when the Knicks' biggest problem was center Tyson Chandler and his bout with the flu? Well that problem hasn't gone anywhere, but now it's buried under layers of other concerns, such as rookie Iman Shumpert's torn ACL and a 1-0 series deficit following Saturday's 100-67 soul-crushing defeat at the hands of the Heat in Miami. Even if Chandler were to make a full recovery by Game 2, something that isn't a guarantee, the second round of the playoffs would still seem like a fantasy. How bad is the Knicks' predicament? Let's do some reconnaissance with NJ.com's daily aggregation of team news to find out: • How did this happen? Here's The New York Times ' Howard Beck's description...

The designer behind LeBron James' Nike shoes has sparked outrage on the Internet by seeming to mock Derrick Rose 's season-ending knee injury on Twitter and suggesting Rose would not have been hurt if he had worn Nike basketball sneakers instead of Adidas. Senior footwear designer Jason Petrie tweeted the 23-year old Rose "chose poorly" and "#shouldasignedwithNIKE #GWS (Get well soon)" after the Chicago Bulls superstar and reigning NBA MVP tore knee ligaments during his club's first-round playoff game against the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday in Chicago. "Jason Petrie has as much class as LeBron has rings," wrote one tweeter. Another tweeted Petrie has "no respect for the game or its warriors." Sunday Nike spokesman Brian Strong confirmed the tweets were from Petrie but declined further comment. In February, Rose signed a 14-year contract extension to be the face of Adidas basketball. His new deal could net him as much as...

Scottie Pippen had a lot to say on Friday. And since it's impossible to talk to the NBA Hall of Famer without asking him about former Chicago Bulls teammate Michael Jordan , Pippen weighed in on Jordan's recent mark in NBA history -- with the Charlotte Bobcats finishing with the worst winning percentage (.106) in league history with Jordan as the owner. "I'm very surprised. I mean, he's a competitor," Pippen said on "The Waddle & Silvy Show" on ESPN 1000 . "But this is a different side of the business. His competitive spirit can't help him out on the basketball court in terms of putting points on the board, but he's a driven guy. He's a competitor, and I expect him to be able to bounce back from it. "You don't expect anything like that to be happening to the greatest player in the game, and you don't want to see that happen to him. It's definitely embarrassing and something you don't want to associ...

The designer behind LeBron James' Nike shoes has sparked outrage on the Internet by seeming to mock Derrick Rose 's season-ending knee injury on Twitter and suggesting Rose would not have been hurt if he had worn Nike basketball sneakers instead of Adidas. Senior footwear designer Jason Petrie tweeted the 23-year old Rose "chose poorly" and "#shouldasignedwithNIKE #GWS (Get well soon)" after the Chicago Bulls superstar and reigning NBA MVP tore knee ligaments during his club's first-round playoff game against the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday in Chicago. "Jason Petrie has as much class as LeBron has rings," wrote one tweeter. Another tweeted Petrie has "no respect for the game or its warriors." Sunday Nike spokesman Brian Strong confirmed the tweets were from Petrie but declined further comment. In February, Rose signed a 14-year contract extension to be the face of Adidas basketball. His new deal could net him as much as...

The designer behind LeBron James' Nike shoes has sparked outrage on the Internet by seeming to mock Derrick Rose 's season-ending knee injury on Twitter and suggesting Rose would not have been hurt if he had worn Nike basketball sneakers instead of Adidas. Senior footwear designer Jason Petrie tweeted the 23-year old Rose "chose poorly" and "#shouldasignedwithNIKE #GWS (Get well soon)" after the Chicago Bulls superstar and reigning NBA MVP tore knee ligaments during his club's first-round playoff game against the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday in Chicago. "Jason Petrie has as much class as LeBron has rings," wrote one tweeter. Another tweeted Petrie has "no respect for the game or its warriors." Sunday Nike spokesman Brian Strong confirmed the tweets were from Petrie but declined further comment. In February, Rose signed a 14-year contract extension to be the face of Adidas basketball. His new deal could net him as much as...

I'm sure you know by now that Derrick Rose 's run in the 2012 NBA playoffs is over, thanks to a torn ACL in the Bulls' first-round matchup with the Philadelphia 76ers . While the debate will go on surrounding  who's to blame for the reigning MVP's season-ending injury  and how losing their star point guard will impact the Chicago Bulls ' pursuit of a 2012 NBA title, there's no doubt that it has a significant impact on the outcome of the Eastern Conference playoffs. Before Rose's injury, we all thought fans were destined to see a rematch of last year's Eastern Conference Finals between the Chicago Bulls and the Miami Heat . Now that Rose is out though, the Eastern Conference title looks like it's not going to be going through Chicago anymore. The shift of the Eastern Conference now focuses to the number two team in the Eastâ€"the Miami Heat. While the Eastern Conference title now appears to be rolling straight through South Bea...