men's pro basketball

It took a while, but all those people in Staples Center are finally right.Those "MVP!" chants that greeted Kobe Bryant every time he went to the free throw line the past few years weren't just wishful-thinking hero worship this season.

Two days before the NBA season ends, as the Denver Nuggets mount their final playoff drive, Carmelo Anthony is arrested for investigation of drunk driving at 4 a.m. on I-25.

Moments after signing a National Basketball Association contract in 1997, Anthony Johnson knew what he wanted to do with his money.The Sacramento Kings point guard interviewed several accounting firms and settled on one in his hometown of Charleston, S.C., opting to pay top dollar to keep him out of trouble with the Internal Revenue Service.

Want to know one big reason the Boston Celtics just might be the best team in basketball? Besides the additions of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, of course? They are no longer young. Young teams don't win in the NBA. Not a whole lot, anyway.

If Chris Paul is named NBA Most Valuable Player, he just might thank all the little people.Allen Iverson and Bob Cousy would be quite happy to hear that.At 6-foot, Iverson is the shortest player ever to win an MVP, while the 6-1 Cousy is second on the Lilliputian list. Both are rooting for Paul, a 6-foot point guard for New Orleans, to pull into a tie with Iverson.

He has been part of more turbulent seasons, more dramatic seasons, more intriguing seasons. He has been paired with better centers and surrounded by a superior supporting cast. He has been a champion, and a real chump.

Getting cancer has been a blessing, seeing his right leg turn into some high school geometry project of angled slashes a positive, needing knee-replacement surgery because so much of the original joint was ravaged a good thing.

After all the moves the Boston Celtics made last summer, we all knew they were going to be better this year. But this much better? No one expected that. But here they are at 54-13, the best record in the NBA.

He is the basketball version of the Nuclear Football, the doomsday briefcase that accompanies the president everywhere. He is the fire extinguisher encased in glass. He is the Pale Panacea, the solution to all that ails the Minnesota Timberwolves.

NEW ORLEANS -- The task is tall, the challenge stiff. And the Los Angeles Lakers must deal with it, no matter how difficult. They are about to embark on a journey through the competitive Western Conference, playing four teams that all have won at least 40 games, teams that are breathing down the Lakers' neck, teams that are looking to knock them off their lofty perch.