Born Earvin Johnson, Jr. on August 14, 1959, in Lansing, Michigan, Magic Johnson was a point guard for the NBA and widely revered as the best in basketball history. Having won championships in high school, college, professional, and international levels, his professional career ended after thirteen seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers. During this stint, he won five NBA Championships and was named to the All-Star team twelve times. His induction to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame took place in 2002.

Magic Johnson is also well known as one of the first public figures to make public his HIV-positive status, which he uses to the advantage of others, promoting education and awareness of the disease and the truth about how it can be spread. His announcement took place on November 7, 1991, shocking Americans with this news and the combined announcement of his official immediate retirement from basketball.

Though officially retired and having not played a single game during the 1991-92 season, he returned to the sport to play a final All-Star game due to being voted to the team. Johnson’s West team dominated and outshined the East with the final score of 153-113, Johnson scoring 25 points and nine assists. The game earned him is second All-Star Most Valuable Player Award, after which he continued his career by playing for the 1992 Olympic Dream Team with fellow superstars Larry Bird and Michael Jordan. The team was undefeated, won the Olympic Gold, and is revered as one of the greatest collections of basketball talent in history.

Every NBA fan would love to have an autograph from their favorite athlete, but often the cost of basketball autographs are out of reach for many. Whether it’s the cost factor or the concern as to whether or not a paid autograph is authentic, many are looking toward the athletes themselves for free basketball autographs.

One of the best places to start with, or build on to, your basketball autograph collection is through the Basketball Hall of Fame. As a general rule, halls of fame are very accommodating to fans and their request for autographs. The halls do not personally provide the autographs, but they will generally forward all fan mail to the athletes for handling.

Quite often, the best time to request autographs is after an athlete has retired from the game of basketball. During the height of their career, most basketball stars are flooded with requests for their autograph, which can make it difficult to respond to each one individually. When requesting an autograph, always send a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) with enough postage to accommodate the return mailing costs. If you are sending your own basketball collectible to be signed, including a photo or trading card, make sure that the envelope size will accommodate the item without it having to be bent. For investment purposes, basketball autographs will be their most valuable if they are in mint condition.

When addressing your envelope for mailing, make sure that you place the basketball player’s name at the top, which would be followed by the address for the hall of fame.

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
1000 West Columbus Ave.
Springfield, MA 01105

Born in Leeds, Alabama, on February 20, 1963, Charles Wade Barkley made a name for himself in the NBA as a power forward. Earning himself the nickname Sir Charles, Barkley carries the title of NBA Most Valuable Player for 1993 and, in 1996, was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. He was a member of the famed 1992 US Olympic Dream Team and holds gold medals in association with both this team and the 1996 team.

Though Barkley is only about 6’4” (his listed height is 6’6”), he is well known as a tenacious, rugged rebounder, an excellent scorer, and a conscious team player. He played basketball in college for Auburn University for three years, leading the league in rebounds each year. He mainly played center in college, then left the school a year early to enter the NBA draft. He began playing for the Philadelphia 76ers.

During the early years of his career, Barkley was well known for a weight problem, topping 300 pounds and earning a nickname of “The Round Mound of Rebound” back in college. Every year that he played with the 76ers, except 1988 and 1992, they reached the playoffs. However, in 1992, Barkley was traded to the Phoenix Suns.

Patrick Aloysius Ewing was born August 5, 1962, and was a famous NBA basketball player, spending most of his professional career playing center for the New York Knicks. Born in Jamaica, he came to the United States with his family at the age of 12 and was settled at Cambridge, Massachusetts. After high school, he attended Georgetown University in Washington, DC, where he became known as one of the greatest college basketball players of his era.

Ewing was taken by the Knicks as the first overall draft pick in 1985, and, though he had a less than perfect season due to injuries, was named the NBA Rookie of the year, averaging 20 points and 9 rebounds per game. He was soon to be recognized as one of the top centers in the league. An 11-time All-Star, he was also a member of the 1992 US Olympic Dream Team, winning a gold medal.

Though he earned many honors and is renowned as a great player, Ewing never led the Knicks to a championship game. In 1993, it seemed that this situation would change, but even with the best record in the conference, they were knocked out of the finals by Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls.

When arcade games gained popularity in the 1970s, they were the traditional type like the first pinball games, Pac-Mac, Pong, and Space Invaders. However, over time, the creators of these games realized they had to innovate and improve constantly to retain the attention of their players. This led to them diversifying into games like the High Impact Football game series. This was a completely new format for arcade games. However, these games did not do as well as their ancestors. Perhaps players took time to adjust to them.

It was not until the release of basketball arcade games that this type of game really caught on. The first that really took the arcade games by storm was NBA Jam. This genre got noticed immediately with its release and became popular worldwide.

NBA Jam was unique in a lot of ways. First of all it was more expensive than the other games, where finishing a game required no less than $2. It was also the very first game that used real teams, real players with their real names, with the digitized version of these players playing the game on screen.

Playing the game was akin to watching a game on TV, only better, since here the game players could make control every move of their favourite basketball players. More so, one could defy gravity to make them do what a player wanted them to do. This has been one of the criticisms of the game, that it featured unrealistic effects, with the players flying as much as their heights to score a point. Fans of the game however maintained, that this was actually a great high.

However, the game continued to climb on the popularity charts and featured basketball greats of their times like Karl Malone, Chris Webber, Colbert Cheaney, Jeff Hornacek, David Robinson, Charles Oakley among others. After a time people discovered other features of the game like Easter eggs and other special features to be activated by use of buttons and joysticks.

The game saw many sequels and spin-offs, including the NBA Jam: Tournament Edition, NBA Jam Extreme of 1996 and even a 3D version of the game featuring a commentary. The other games in the line were NBA Hangtime and NBA Hangtime Extreme. A college version of the game, called College Slam was also introduced in 1995.

The huge success of basketball games also gave rise to other sports games, which centred on games like football and baseball.

When Electronic Arts set the bar fairly high with the release of Madden 2008, they knew they had to raise it even higher in NBA Live 2008. The game is slated to be on all the major consoles such as the Xbox 360, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, and the Nintendo Wii. This year’s iteration seems to hearken back to the fundamentals of basketball. One new feature in the video game is an online tournament mode. This will be a 32 team tournament style playoff that plays similar to fantasy football.

Electronic Arts has not corroborated if this mode will entail any e-mail support, but it looks promising. The online choices appears to have some variety to it. Gamers can play a versus mode and quick play to name a few. Versus is playing against other players online and quick play is using your own customizable team. If you choose to create a team with Shaq and Kobe as teammates, you can do that. The ESPN heavy presentation gives NBA Live 2008 a more authentic television experience. Players will also notice a scenario mode (ala Madden) where you can generate a bizarre situation any way you want. Last seasons modes such as the mini-games, dynasty mode, and NBA all star weekend will no doubt be making a return.

In terms gameplay, there looks like there will be more maneuvers being performed in the paint. The low post game is a point of emphasis in this years version of NBA Live 2008. Putting your back against the defender and executing fakes/shots will be strategic. A wide variety of shot selections can be used at the touch of a button. Another new feature in the game are the various cross-over dribbles and spins that can be utilized in conjunction with each other. Since the game an NBA simulation, you cannot expect to see extravagant dribbles by Tim Duncan.

You will have significantly more success if you are doing cross-overs with Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. These moves will be mapped to the right analog stick (ala NBA Live 2003). A shadow button has been included for better defensive positioning. Furthermore, expect to see players like Dirk Nowitzki and Paul Pierce attempt fade away jump shots. Conversely, players like Dwayne Wade and Allen Iverson will drive towards the basket. The NBA Live series is always a step behind the critically acclaimed NBA 2k series. Will this year be different? We will have to wait and see when NBA Live 2008 is available in October.

Have you ever asked yourself is it possible to watch NBA games online? Because I have and I found that you can indeed watch NBA games online. And I found out that I don't even have to pay any monthly fees. These days, I find that many of my friends that love basketball keep asking me the same question because they know I don't miss a single game. For this reason I have written this article, which will hopefully enlighten everyone and no one will ever have to miss a single basketball game again, that is my hope.

Okay so let's get to the good part, how do I watch NBA games online? Well I have a service called Satellite TV for PC, which allowed me to watch all the NBA games online on my computer. The best part was I got a sweet deal, not only do I get all the NBA games but I also get all the channels and programs that any other normal satellite subscriber like dishnetwork offers and I only payed a one time charge of $50.

I did some research before I got my Satellite TV for PC service, and I found out that there are a lot of services that allows you to watch NBA games online and there are even some free ones. But truth is all the free ones I tried were absolute crap. Crap quality, like really crap, massive delay time and I didn't even get the playoffs. Then I read many reviews about payed services and from all the reviews I read one service really stuck out and that's the one I got. I've had my service for over 6 months now and I have no complaints. Everything was so easy I told my 62 year old dad to get the service so he could watch England in the cricket world cup and he was able to set it up by himself.