OKC's Sam Presti is an overrated draft savant
Sam Presti is the only NBA executive ever to draft three future MVPs and he did it in three consecutive drafts. It’s a maniacal stroke of luck and an exercise of risk/reward, chance and foresight. By doing so, Presti at the time guaranteed short-term success for the soon-to-be relocated Seattle Soni...
Who is the best point guard in the NBA?
What is a point guard in today’s NBA? The role and term has evolved so much from the 1990s when the position was defined by midrange scoring, playmaking and limited athleticism. Today’s concept of a point guard runs the whole gamut, across all five positions, where a center in Denver is the best pas...
It's make or break for the Los Angeles Clippers
Curses run deep. They fester in bloodlines, foundations and scorched Earth and are lamented in prose, lyric and declaration. From Shakespeare to Dostoevsky, curses are a part of the canon of human creativity. After the Boston Red Sox broke theirs in 2004 and LeBron James brought a championship to Cl...
Who is Mr. Franchise for each NBA team in the 21st century?
Michael Jordan will always be synonymous with the Chicago Bulls. Same thing for Magic Johnson with the Los Angeles Lakers and Larry Bird with the Boston Celtics. But since the turn of the 21st Century, some teams have gone a decade without a face of the franchise (think the Detroit Pistons and Orlan...
As the Thunder return to contention, let's not forget the Supersonics
The Oklahoma City Thunder have executed one of the shortest rebuilding periods in NBA history. Since the breakup of the Kevin Durant/Russell Westbrook pairing, leading into the current Thunder 2.0, only lasted three seasons of extreme tanking. Those losing efforts netted them the sixth pick in the ...
The Knicks are back after 2 decades of James Dolan terror and ineptitude
The New York Knicks won the NBA trade deadline, fleecing the Detroit Pistons for Bojan Bogdanović and Alec Burks. They added the backup playmaker and off-the-bench scoring they were missing to reach championship contention. Fully healthy, and despite their recent injury-induced hiccup, the Knicks ca...
SB LVIII even too expensive for the rich; A Swifties guide to the game; Poor Mama Kelce; What's Brock Purdy have to do with Lee Harvey Oswald?
Unfettered capitalism is putting some restraints on the top one percent enjoying one of its biggest parties of the year. With the Super Bowl in Las Vegas, luxury suites have reached the highest of high-roller prices. These seven-figure suites are out of the price range for even some of the biggest s...
The NBA trade deadline was a bit of a dud, but here's a look at who won and who flopped horribly
After last year’s insane trade deadline, which featured Kevin Durant being dealt to the Phoenix Suns, this year brought a bunch of smaller, shrewd moves that moved teams into contention. We have tracked the trades and broken them down by time-tested winners and losers rubric to track how the day wen...
It's time for the Mavericks to fire Jason Kidd and Nico Harrison
No team in recent memory has failed to build around a generational superstar more than the Dallas Mavericks have with Luka Dončić. We are not talking about Anthony Davis in New Orleans. Dončić is a consistent top-five MVP candidate and First-Team All-NBA every season, one of a handful of players of ...
These are the current and former NBA players who need their own podcast
A decade ago, who would have thought that current and former players would be the best analysts and commentators in the NBA? A novel idea, eh? Former players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson’s “All The Smoke” and Gilbert Arenas were early purveyors of player-run podcasts. It’s since evolved to includ...
Jalen Brunson is the best point guard in the NBA
At his introductory press conference on Sept. 22, 2022, Jalen Brunson sat at a podium, decked out in a crisp number 11 New York Knick jersey, and said the following, “I’m not a savior in any way, shape, or form. I just want to be able to contribute to the team.”...
Looks like the new 'Steroid Olympics' are actually going to happen
There’s good news for steroid fans: juicers will finally get their day on the field. A who’s who of extremely online investors pitched in to fund a series of events called the Enhanced Games, which describes itself as “the 21st Century Olympics without drug testing.” The list includes Christian Ange...
The NBA 'superstar' landscape has shifted
There is no greater conduit for NBA hyperbole than the conversation around “superstars.” To have a rational, substantive debate, there must first be basic groundwork for what constitutes superstar status. First, the bad news: former Finals MVPs Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, LeBron James and Kawhi Leona...
Who's the best at each position in the NBA? We have answers
Before you jump down our throat for ranking by position in a positionless NBA, take a deep breath. It’s fun. So, let it happen, and let’s talk hoops. The rest of the world is catching up to America’s basketball dominance. Out of the five positions, four of our picks are not from America. On the flip...
Isn't it about time the NBA forces James Dolan to sell the Knicks?
I did not know what I was getting into when I became a Knicks fan. I got into it to find a bond between my father and me. He grew up as a New York street ball legend who listened to the Knicks on transistor radios with his buddies, huddled around a car drinking tallboys and sharing a joint. As a chu...
Alperen Şengün has a chance to be as good as Nikola Jokić
Every other generation, a player changes how his position is taught, scouted and played. For the current generation of players entering their prime years, that dude is Nikola Jokić. The “Joker” has taken the passing acumen of former bigs Vlade Divac, Yao Ming, Bill Walton and Arvydas Sabonis and com...
What do you think about that lousy Rudy Gobert trade now?
From the moment it happened in the summer of 2022, the Minnesota Timberwolves’ acquisition of Rudy Gobert from the Utah Jazz looked like an all-time terrible trade. But suddenly, the Timberwolves have the NBA’s second-best record, the best in the West, and the best defensive rating at 108 this seaso...
In honor of Martin Luther King Day, here are some of the best HBCU athletes to make it in the pros
We’ve already highlighted some of the famous Black celebrities who are HBCU alumni, but what about the athletes?...
As the NBA season approaches the halfway point, let's look at the winners and losers so far
With 2024 in full swing, let’s award the winners and losers of the first half of the NBA season. It’s been a banner year, but not without controversy and major development. Many questions are left unanswered. Will the Lakers regain their contender status? Can the Thunder compete this year? Are the K...
It's NBA trading season and these are the players who should be dealt next
Nobody expected the NBA trade season’s first domino to fall on New Year’s Weekend. When OG Anunoby, Precious Achiuwa, and Malachi Flynn were traded from the Toronto Raptors to the New York Knicks for RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, and a 2023 second-round pick (from Detroit), the trade season officia...