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Yesterday, they banned the owner of the LA Clippers basketball team from basketball for the rest of his life. They also said he has to pay a fine of $2.5 million.

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For the first time in six long years they have made the playoffs.

Of the 30 teams in the NBA, only 16 make it to the playoffs. There will be eight teams from the Eastern Conference and eight teams from the Western Conference. The Raptors play in the East.

In the playoffs, each team competes in a best-of-seven series. The first team to win four games moves on to the next round. A team has to win three rounds to make it to the finals. Then, the lone surviving team from the East plays the lone surviving team from the West.

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It's the "Raptor," the team's mascot.

Many people think the Raptor--with his athletic moves, edgy attitude and fun-loving spirit--is one of the best mascots in the NBA. Perhaps even professional sports.

He tore his Achilles tendon during a school visit in Halifax before the basketball season started.

People have an emotional reaction to the Raptor mascot--whoever he/she is.

The coach's daughter cried when she heard the news of his/her injury.

The post Raptor Mascot Out For The Season appeared first on Teaching Kids News.

He’s 34 years old, and he is seven feet tall and weighs 255 pounds.

He is charismatic, intelligent and well educated.

On the court, he is a tough, physical player.

All of those facts describe Collins.

But there is one fact about him that he revealed in Sports Illustrated magazine this week, that relatively few people knew.

Collins is gay.

He is the first male professional athlete, who is still playing a major North American sport, to openly announce that that he is gay.

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This week Andrew Wiggins was awarded the Naismith Trophy and named the Boys’ High School Player of the Year.

Wiggins was born in Vaughan, Ont. and is playing for Huntington Prep School in West Virginia.

Wiggins is 18 years old. His average per game is 23.6 points and 11.7 rebounds.

He hasn’t yet decided where he will go to university; many schools are competing for him.

The Naismith award winner is chosen by basketball journalists in the U.S.

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Nash is a two-time winner of the Most Valuable Player award in the National Basketball Association: for the 2004/2005 and 2005/2006 seasons.

Nash recently achieved another significant milestone in his career.

He surpassed the 10,000 career assists mark.

The post Steve Nash’s Outstanding Basketball Career appeared first on Teaching Kids News.

There are 30 teams vying for the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy, including Canada’s only professional basketball team, the Toronto Raptors.

The Raptors have a new-look team this season.

Three of the five Raptors’s starters this year weren’t with the team last year.

The Raptors’s starting lineup includes two players who have been on the team before: DeMar DeRozen and Andrea Bargnani.

The Raptors believe in DeRozen as a player.

They recently signed him to a four-year, $40-million contract extension.

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Dark and gloomy, that is, until this summer.

That’s when an organization called Waterfront Toronto built something incredible.

Where there used to be garbage and weeds, there is now a fun playground with a safe, rubbery floor, a skateboard and scooter park and a basketball court.

There are also swings, climbers, a teeter-totter and benches for people to relax on.

Underpass Park covers 2.5 acres underneath three on- and off-ramps that lead to the DVP in East Toronto.

Before the park was built, Toronto’s Mayor Rob Ford said he wasn’t sure the space could be transformed.

But when he came to open the park on Aug. 2, he loved it.

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Major League Baseball (MLB) is just getting underway.

Every team is hoping to make it to the World Series in October.

But that’s about 150 games away.

The Blue Jays have a real shot at it this year, and that has some of the American teams nervous.

Will a Canadian team win against the Americans in “their” sport?

It’s happened before—in 1992 and 1993 when the Jays won the World Series. You never know!

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