Sports Blog

Motivation of Jersey Sales for Professional Athletes

Lebron James recently announced that he will retire his number 23 to honor Michael Jordon. Clearly this is a respectful gesture on Lebron’s part, but is there an ulterior motive? After all, despite his MVP season in 2008-09, the top selling jersey belonged to the Finals MVP, Kobe Bryant. Even if The King doesn’t switch teams, switching numbers will surely catapault him to top-selling jersey status since his biggest fans will buy his new jersey.

Lets look more closely into the motivation behind such a move. We know it’s not driven by money. In the NBA, the total receipt from jersey sales are lumped into one big pool and then all the players are paid equally from that pool. So yes, the Celtics’ Brian Scalabrine gets the same amount as the Paul Pierce and is grateful to Pierce every year for that paycheck.

I’ve done my research and concluded that the number change is definitely not motivated by money. In the NBA, the revenues from all jersey sales are divied up among all of the players. That’s good news for role players like Daniel Gibson, who gets the same cut as Lebron James.  Read more...

Summer of Fan Love – NBA Jerseys Sales Expected to Achieve Record Heights

This summer we will see how the exciting NBA free agent class settles into new teams. Marquee players like LeBron, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Amare, Boozer and more are pursued by teams like Cleveland, Miami, New York, New Jersey, Chicago, and Washington DC. While some of them will win over these stars, some may even win over two, there will definitely be winners and losers after the dust settles. However, I can safely predict that there will be one true winner, and that’s the NBA store, which will have a record season for selling authentic NBA jerseys. Allow me to explain why.

Easy claim: LeBron will win the top spot for sales of NBA jerseys in 2010-11. Before explaining why, let me explain why this even matters for record sales. Sales of player jerseys isn’t a fair thing, not every player sells the same sales. It’s not even realistically close. The top 15 players account for a huge portion of total sales. Having established that, if all things stay the same, and LBJ enjoys a great year for selling his jersey, then we can already conclude that next year’s sales will be better. Now back to LeBron, who was number 2 behind LA’s Kobe Bryant for jersey sales in 2009-2010. Cleveland’s nightmare is that he’ll move to another city, which will guarantee huge sales for the jersey in new team colors. Even if he stays he’ll be wearing a new jersey because he requested a number change (poor Cleveland fans). It’s not difficult to conclude that he will steal that number 1 spot, and that momentum alone will make for a better year for sales.  Read more...

The 1996-97 Steve Nash Rookie Card

Out of the entire history of the NBA, only 11 people have won Most Valuable Player awards multiple times. Steve nash rookie card is one of these people. He stands at six-foot-three and weighs less than 200 pounds.

Arriving from Santa Clara to join the Phoenix Suns in 96, he stood overshadowed by Jason Kidd. In his first two seasons, he averaged three assists and less than 10 points a game. There was only 11 games that he started in within this time.

In 1998, he was traded off to Dallas. While playing in Dallas, his game took a turn to all-star status. In 2004, listed as a free agent, he decided to go back with the Suns. The Suns now, would and could not imagine playing without him.

In 2004-05 and 2005-06, Steve Nash grabbed hold of the MVP title. A lot of this accounted to the improvement in his game. He became much better at layups and three pointers, which seemed to have a lot to do with Mike D’Antoni.

Additionally, it served to make the Sun’s one of the top NBA teams. In the first half of 2006-07, his scoring got even better. Despite all of this, his steve nash rookie card remains way undervalued compared to other greats of his time.  Read more...

The Vince Carter Slam Dunk Contest

Vince Carter is a professional American basketball player, often known for his role in the Vince Carter Slam Dunk Contest of 2000. This was one of the most well known and exciting contests in the world of NBA basketball.

Taking place in Oakland, California over an All-Star weekend, it rapidly came to be widely known as one of the best known dunk contests in the history of the NBA. At the time, Vince Carter was playing for the team, the Toronto Raptors. This team was also the eventual winner. At the time, he was playing with his cousin and also his teammate, Tracy McGrady and Steve Francis of Houston Rockets fame.

The Internet is full of images and movies of this epic contest, showing and detailing Vince’s winning moves. At the time he was playing with the team known as the Toronto Rappers with Tracy McGrady, also his cousin. Also in the game were a number of other especially famous basketball players including Steve Francis of Houston Rockets Fame.  Read more...

Dirk Nowitzki Girlfriend Drama Ends In Her Arrest

There has been a lot of talk about Dirk Nowitzki girlfriend rumors. The truth of the matter is no one knows if anything is true or not about the speculations. Dirk has chosen to keep his mouth closed about his girlfriend drama, but the press has led us to believe different things about this dilemma.

Apparently Dirk Nowitzki whom is a Dallas Mavericks star was actually dating a woman by the name of Cristal Taylor. Taylor is honestly nothing special; she is simply an ordinary woman that has been seen around the star from time to time.

Nowitzki was head over heels for 37 year old Taylor. He proposed to her with a $250, 000 ring. The couple was supposed to tie the knot in the near future. However it seems after the star had asked Taylor to marry him a lot of skeltons began to seep from the woman’s closet.

A lot of Dirks friends were pressuring the star to get a background check done on Taylor. She was always extremely secretive about her past and things she had done while she was younger. Dirk decided that a back ground check would not be such a bad idea.  Read more...

The Key Moments That Have Occurred During The 09-10 NBA Season

The plot in the world of basketball this season has been so twisted, so convoluted in terms of performances of some players as well as some of the news about particular players, it has made it an exciting game to follow.

Let’s look at some of the highlights of the 09-10 basketball season thus far. We’ll cover some good, as well as some bad here.

Two teams seem to have appeared from nowhere and stand out due to the fact that last season they were nobodies but this season they have become very successful and are building themselves a decent reputation with every game they play.

Thanks to Kevin Durant the Oklahoma City Thunder team have shot to a fast success, a success that people didn’t think was impossible but also didn’t think that would happen so fast. They have shot from being one of the lowest to one of the highest-ranking teams this season.

The Memphis Grizzlies may be an even bigger surprise. While people knew that the Thunder had the potential to be a good team, everyone had written off Memphis entering the season.  Read more...

Jason Williams To Return To NBA Action With Orlando

Veteran point guard Jason Williams”nicknamed White Chocolate earlier in his career for his flamboyant play”is returning to the NBA after a season away from basketball. Williams announced that hes re-entering the league this season, and will do so in an Orlando Magic uniform. Williams is tentatively slated to be the backup for starting playmaker Jameer Nelson.

Williams signed a one year NBA contract to play for the Los Angeles Clippers in 2008, but walked away from it without playing a game. At the time, his wife was facing some complications during her pregnancy with their third child and Williams wanted to be able to spend time with her and his family.

When the Clippers relinquished their rights to Williams earlier this summer, he became an unrestricted free agent. Magic General Manager Otis Smith provided these comments on the signing:

“Jason provides depth and leadership to our backcourt. He is a veteran point guard that knows what it takes to help us reach our ultimate goal.”

Williams has become more of a consistent player as hes matured, and should provide some valuable depth in the Magic backcourt. When asked to reflect on his NBA and college career Williams sounded a philosophical tone:  Read more...

Free Agent Iverson Could Be ‘The Answer’ In Memphis

Allen Iverson is one of the most high profile NBA free agents left on the market, though his future plans may be determined in the next 48 hours. On Wednesday, Iverson sent a Twitter update indicating that the Memphis Grizzlies had made him an offer. Later that night, that information was confirmed by Memphis GM Chris Wallace.

Iverson had received the most interest from the Charlotte Bobcats and Miami Heat. Both teams have a lot of upside for ‘The Answer’-the Bobcats are coached by his Larry Brown, whom Iverson played for in Philadelphia. The notoriously hard to coach Iverson has always held Brown in high regard, and on a team struggling to find an identity he’d receive a lot of playing time and be the focal point of the team’s offense. Miami would likely use Iverson in a reserve role-while he bristled at that assignment in Detroit, he’s suggested that he’d be more receptive to it on a contending team.

From a financial standpoint, however, there are problems with both Miami and Charlotte. The Heat is already over the salary cap, and simply doesn’t have the personnel budget to pay Iverson what he could demand elsewhere. Charlotte, meanwhile, is up for sale and would be able to offer Iverson a short term deal with the prospect for renegotiation later, but that may not be something he’s interested in.  Read more...

The Top NBA Rookies

This season has shown us some really good NBA rookies who have definitely started out their careers on the right note. The norm is usually that it can be a lot of seasons down the road until a rookie will do really well, with a bumpy start and many things to learn about this league along the way.

But that’s not the case right now as we have been privileged to watch some very extraordinary rookies who have shown that they have everything a veteran player has. In the long run, this is such a good thing and means that they will most likely have a long career ahead of them.

So let’s review some of them who are at the top of the list for the NBA rookie of the year right now. Here are the ones who have the best chance.

If you asked anyone a month or two ago, Brandon Jennings might have been the consensus answer. He came out with a bang this year, highlighting his impact with an incredible 55 point performance in November.

Unfortunately, Jennings has shot around the 30% mark during the course of the last month so he’s fallen out of contention for the moment.  Read more...

A Basketball Stud Is Born

Every year, there are a few fantasy basketball players who rise out of obscurity, establishing themselves as bona fide must start players through the course of the season.

It’s even more frustrating when you’ve been watching them the entire time, only to have missed out on the chance to own them because you were afraid to drop someone else that you dropped a few days later.

Who wins the crown in this category this year? As we’re a bit less than halfway into the season at this point, we’re beginning to get a clearer picture as to which players might be fly by night sensations, and which will be here to stay.

As far as the winner of this category goes, there’s one player who I specifically have in mind, as I believe he’s done a tremendous job so far.

Kevin Love has simply been phenomenal in Minnesota. No one saw this coming, at least not this quickly and not to such an extent. As the player with the second highest rebounding average in the league, his numbers are exceptional. He’s also a great scorer and a solid shooter too.  Read more...