NBA training camp invites for the 2011-12 season should be more interesting than most considering teams will have just two weeks to install new offenses, get into game shape and whittle themselves down to a 15-man roster before the games actually begin to matter.
Wouldn't it be fun if Kobe Bryant ended up in the D-League for a rehab assignment? It isn't likely, of course, but at least now it's possible under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
NBA training camps open next week following a long delay due to the NBA lockout. They could feature some interesting names, too, as the research in this post will show.
The NBA lockout is a horrible thing, as everyone should know. It may have solid short-term affects on the NBA Development League, however.
The NBA lockout has now been going on for 89 days, or about 88 days more than I can handle knowing Brian Cardinal is locked out of the gym. That said, I've been looking back at the last extended lockout NBA lockout for clues as to what might be in store for us basketball fans when the owners and players get everything together.
Over the next couple of months, I will be a writing a series of articles exploring the depth charts of NBA teams, and more specifically, where the rookies from the 2011 draft fit into those depth...
The Golden State Warriors released their 2011-12 NBA preseason schedule on Monday. If the NBA lockout doesn't prevent said schedule from being played, a press release announced that one of those games will happen against the Utah Jazz in the lovely city of Bismarck, North Dakota.
Next up in our rookie series is the Washington Wizards, who held the 6th, 18th, and 34th picks in the 2011 NBA Draft. The Wizards have one of the youngest rosters in the league which makes predicting a rotation extremely challenging. The fact that the Wizards drafted two small forwards in the first round makes it even more difficult to decipher the depth chart (alliteration FTW!).
The NBA lockout is hurting plenty of people in its current state, most of them innocent, but its repercussions will be felt even when the two sides eventually come to an agreement. The training camp rosters -- whenever they are put together -- will be the first to feel the affects of this summer's labor impasse.
The NBA schedule will be announced this afternoon but, with the NBA lockout, that seems a bit futile at this juncture of the negotiations. So instead, with the help of the best European transactions database this side of the Atlantic, I decided to take a look at the first big game of the upcoming 2011-12 basketball season.
