deadspin.com | Staff Report

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...

by Staff Report|Sam Presti

|Mon Mar 11 2024

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...

by Staff Report|the NBA

|Mon Mar 11 2024

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...

by deadspin.com | Staff ReportStaff Report|Los Angeles Clippers

|Mon Mar 04 2024

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...

by deadspin.com | Staff ReportStaff Report|NBA

|Mon Feb 19 2024

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 ...

by Staff Report|Bill Simmons

|Mon Feb 19 2024

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...

by Staff Report|James Dolan

|Mon Feb 19 2024

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...

by Staff Report|Brock Purdy

|Sat Feb 10 2024

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...

by Staff Report|The NBA

|Thu Feb 08 2024

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 ...

by deadspin.com | Staff ReportStaff Report|Nico Harrison

|Wed Feb 07 2024

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...

by Staff Report|NBA

|Mon Feb 05 2024

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.”...

by Staff Report|Jalen Brunson

|Mon Feb 05 2024

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...

by Staff Report|Olympics

|Wed Jan 31 2024

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...

by Staff Report|NBA

|Tue Jan 23 2024

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...

by Staff Report|NBA

|Fri Jan 19 2024

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...

by deadspin.com | Staff ReportStaff Report|James Dolan

|Wed Jan 17 2024

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...

by Staff Report|Nikola Jokić

|Tue Jan 16 2024

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...

by Staff Report|deadspin.com | Staff ReportRudy Gobert

|Tue Jan 16 2024

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?...

by Staff Report|Martin Luther King Day

|Mon Jan 15 2024

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...

by Staff Report|the NBA

|Wed Jan 10 2024

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...

by Staff Report|NBA

|Tue Jan 09 2024

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