Sports Then and Now

Mike Gminski

The Sports Then and Now Vintage Athlete of the Month was a star big man who achieved great success at Camden Indoor Stadium in the era before Coach K and the One-and-Done big men became the norm at Duke University.

Much like recent Duke big men Marvin Bagley III, Jayson Tatum and Jahlil Okafor, Mike Gminski made an immediate impact for the Blue Devils. However, because he played 40 years earlier at a time when few players left college early, Gminski spent four years racking up stats and success in Durham. Read the rest of this entry →

The Nets have been unable to get started this season opening with a record 18-straight losses.

With a 117-101 loss to the Dallas Mavericks, the New Jersey Nets have set a new NBA record for futility at the start of the season.

Their 18th straight loss to open the season breaks the previous mark set by the Miami Heat in 1988-89 and matched by the Los Angeles Clippers in 1999.

What isn’t particularly encouraging as the Nets look to try to end their run sometime before Christmas (or more preferably before Chanukah) is that few of the losses have been all that close.

The margin of defeat by the Nets has been under-10 points only five times all season. Their most recent single digit loss was on November 21 when the New York Knicks defeated the Nets 98-91 for one of their four victories on the season.

As it turns out, their best chance at victory was actually in the season opener against the nearly as awful Minnesota Timberwolves. The Nets led by 19 points in that game before the Wolves rallied to win in the final seconds. Minnesota went on to lose their next 15 games.

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