Author: Fox Doucette
Summer Reading

The NBA Draft Rules Are Stupid And Bad

- by Fox Doucette

The worst place to be in the NBA draft is picking late in the first round, after the lottery picks and the mid-first-round steals are off the board. What you’re going to be stuck with is a guy on a guaranteed contract who may never play a game at the NBA level and who is just as likely going to be a garbage time staple who maybe, somewhere down the road, might crack your rotation. Now imagine picking early in the second round, like picks 31 through 35 overall. All of a sudden, the risk is gone; you are playing …

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Summer Reading

DeMarcus Cousins Is My New Favorite Player

- by Fox Doucette

I have a great deal of respect for any athlete who comes out firing in Eff You Mode with both barrels, and DeMarcus Cousins joining the Golden State Warriors on a $5.3 million midlevel exception is absolutely the most fantastic case of Eff You Mode I have seen in recent memory. This is not Kevin Durant playing mercenary in the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” NBA tradition. It’s not LeBron James doing the same thing in 2010, or Bron going Hollywood for reasons other than basketball or Carmelo Anthony doing the same thing when his media-obsessed wife took …

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Editorial

LeBron on the Lakers—What on Kyrie’s flat Earth is he thinking?!

- by Fox Doucette

LeBron James is a Laker. 4 years, $154 million, take-the-money-and-run Los Angeles Tinseltown Lakers. And his supporting cast? Well, he’s just traded the Canton Charge for the South Bay Lakers, with Lonzo Ball, Lance Stephenson, JaVale McGee, and whatever other curios and relics a 35-win team in 2017-18 can drag off the bottom of the ocean off Long Beach and suit up in a Lakers uniform. Paul George re-upped with the Thunder. The Spurs would rather surrender the Alamo than trade Kawhi Leonard to Los Angeles unless it’s to the Clippers. And the Rockets are one Trevor Ariza short of …

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Summer Reading

The Indiana Pacers Are Blowing the 2018 Offseason

- by Fox Doucette

I trust Kevin Pritchard. Anyone who can boldly go into a trade negotiation, fleece the Oklahoma City Thunder for two guys who have turned into two of the best young players in the league at their respective roles, and not be laughed out of the room when he says it went according to expectation is a guy not to be questioned lightly. That said… ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FLIPPING MIND?! AARON FREAKING GORDON FOR $20 MILLION?!?! Put another way, I’m not on board with the Aaron Gordon offer sheet rumors. Gordon was great in the 2016 dunk contest. But …

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Summer Reading

The Indiana Pacers Need To Pay Julius Randle

- by Fox Doucette

It has been a bit of a running theme here at Pace and Space that Julius Randle is too good for that rotten Lakers franchise he’s been toiling for, usually when he does something Breakfast Special-worthy in the course of a game. But with Randle clearly not in the Lakers’ long-term plans as they look to dump salary and create room for the alleged superteam involving Paul George, LeBron James, and Kawhi Leonard, admittedly a superteam that has about as much chance of happening as I have of winning the Powerball and re-enacting Charlie Sheen’s midlife crisis in my own …

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Summer Reading

Carmelo Anthony Killed Paul George’s Career

- by Fox Doucette

It is the general consensus in Indiana at least that “the Pacers won the Paul George trade.” After all, the Pacers got Victor Oladipo, who didn’t need anyone to drop out due to injury in order to get into the All-Star Game. They got Domantas Sabonis, who went from statistically one of the league’s worst rookies in 2016-17 to an emerging star at center in 2017-18. And they also got a team that won 48 games in the regular season, gave Cleveland their toughest test on the road to the Finals (sorry Boston, you guys had home court advantage and …

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Analysis

The Last Glory of LeBron James

- by Fox Doucette

Once upon a time, I used to be a boxing writer. I covered the sweet science both as a journalist, with ESPN’s old Friday Night Fights show as my beat—a great gig that got me ringside seats in Reno, where I met Teddy Atlas in one of the coolest total-fanboying moments of my life—and as a romanticist, writing historical fiction in the only sport besides maybe baseball where you can do that for a sports news publication and not be thought terribly unusual. (Unless you’re Jon Bois from SBNation. I am not Jon Bois.) And boxing was at the forefront …

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Highlights

Breakfast Special: Pack It In, Boys, Kevin Durant’s Finals MVP

- by Fox Doucette

Not since D-Day in 1944 has a group of people defending their turf been so thoroughly shot to pieces on the sixth of June as the Cleveland Cavaliers got at the hands of the Golden State Warriors in a 110-102 second-half comeback Wednesday night. Dub Nation is just one win away from sending your columnist into hibernation for the next four months (this is a lie; there will be Pacers talk and free agency talk and draft talk. The hiatus won’t start until early July, and the previews will be back like they always are starting shortly after Labor Day.) …

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Highlights

Breakfast Special: Steph Gonna Steph On LeBron

- by Fox Doucette

Well, Golden State is up 2-0 on Cleveland. Again. And after Game 4 in Cleveland, the Warriors will probably be up 3-1 in the series. Again. After all, in a five-game series, the losing team wins Game 3. And the Warriors will win the series in five. Again. Game 2 featured Stephen Curry breaking the Finals record for three-pointers by shooting 9-of-17 from out there, Contrast the Jordan era… 3-POINTERSStephen Curry tonight: 9/17 Bulls entire 1991 Finals: 5/21 — Tom Haberstroh (@tomhaberstroh) June 4, 2018 Oh, the times, they are a-changin’. And in case you don’t want to be arsed …

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Highlights

Breakfast Special: JR Smith is the WOAT.

- by Fox Doucette

J.R. Smith is the Worst of All Time. LeBron James scored 51 points, grabbed eight rebounds, dished eight assists, and put up one of the greatest NBA Finals performance in the history of the sport. He singlehandedly pushed the Cleveland Cavaliers to a point where they could steal a game from the Golden State Warriors on the road. Then the Warriors got overtime because George Hill choked at the free throw line and Smith dribbled the clock out because he thought the Cavs had won the game. And Tyronn Lue stood on the sidelines and watched rather than call timeout …

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