Each year during the June NBA Draft, new players enter the league’s ranks. Decades ago, many were college seniors, coming into the pros in their early 20s after graduation. More recently, though, that trend changed and often new entrants are only in their late teens.
Here below, we wanted to take a look at the youngest players ever to be drafted into the NBA by each of the 30 franchises.
Read MoreEvery chance he gets, Kevin Durant talks glowingly about Seattle. He said recently that he wants to be part of the franchise in the future. (And Seattle’s mayor hinted that the team could be back soon.) Many in the city would welcome Durant back with open arms. Maybe the team would even retire his jersey, even though he only played for it for a single season in 2007-08.
Below, we talked with a number of Seattle basketball figures to get their take on Durant’s rookie year, from the promise of his early career to the devastation from his departure months later.
Read MoreIt’s 4 am somewhere and James Edwards’ alarm begins to shriek. Bleary-eyed, he tries to remember where he is: What city, what hotel and what time does his plane take off? Can he take a shower, and get a quick breakfast? And where is he headed next – Toronto, Atlanta, L.A.?
Edwards, who is the beat reporter for the Detroit Pistons, employed by The Athletic, has been covering the team for seven years and it’s another losing season. It’s an epic poem of a losing season. Detroit is the worst team in the league and it recently endured a 28-game losing streak. Yet, Edwards dutifully tracks the team, coming up with stories and wondering both aloud and in print if there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Read MoreThis year, several players are on the brink of the very real opportunity of making their first All-Star team. Here, we’ll rank 11 such talents – from speedy guards to nimble big men – who are making a real case for themselves to be added to the 2024 All-Star roster.
Check it out below.
Read MoreIt’s January 5! And do you know what that means? Well, for NBA executives it marks the first day they can officially sign players to their roster on 10-day contracts. For those unaware, a 10-day deal allows a team to sign a player for three games or 10 days, whichever lasts longer. This, in turn, can help a franchise fill a need caused by injury or just bolster its bench depth.
When a player signs a 10-day contract, it’s unlikely he will earn a significant amount of time on the court. But that isn’t always the case. Sometimes a 10-day can showcase a young, developing talent who can then earn a permanent roster spot for the season once coaches are able to see him up close. On other occasions, however, it’s a chance for an aging veteran to earn one last opportunity in the proverbial NBA sun.
Below, as teams seek out which players they might want to sign to 10-day deals for the 2023-24 season, let’s examine the Top 13 players to ever sign one.
Read MoreI don’t remember the exact time I made it into Houston, maybe around 3:30 or 4 in the afternoon Texas time. But I was ready. A team assistant coach, Larry Smith, picked me up. His nickname was “Mr. Mean,” but he was great to me. After we shook hands, I told him I had to go to baggage claim to get my stuff. He said, “Earl, there’s no time to wait for the bags. We have to go now.” All I had was my carry-on in my hand. He said, “We’ll get someone to get your stuff later. Let’s go!” So, I jumped in a car with him, and we went straight to the arena. By the time I made it to the locker room in Houston, the rest of the team was already on the court warming up. The team had my jersey all ready, name printed on the back and everything, hanging in a locker. I jumped into the uniform, number 35, warmups and all, and I got a quick physical examination from the doctors right there in the locker room.
Read MoreWhat happens when an iconic community pillar begins to fade away? Well, in the case of the St. Cecilia gym in Detroit, there are two options. First, those in the area can let it deteriorate, remaining only in memory, until that all but disappears, too. Or the locals can do something about it. Resurrect and refurbish the historical basketball hotbed. They can take control of the gym’s future. They can come together and breathe the Saint back to life. And as of Wednesday (October 4) that is exactly what’s started to happen.
Read MoreIn the hallways of the Detroit Pistons’ arena years ago, two-time NBA champion Earl Cureton ran into someone he vaguely remembered. It was during a game in the early 2000s. And the man he encountered was especially pleased to see him. But Cureton, now in his late 40s, scratched his head. He needed a minute to remember where he knew this tall, long-haired fella from.
Read MoreFormer All-Star Charles Oakley is one of the most candid, consistent and forthright people in the NBA community. A longtime friend and former teammate of Michael Jordan, Oakley became a legend in New York City with the Knicks. Often a seemingly immovable object, Oakley defended, grabbed rebounds and did the dirty work in the Big Apple as the team made deep playoff runs with the likes of Patrick Ewing and John Starks.
As such, Oakley, who recently released a new memoir, enjoyed (er, endured) many battles in the postseason. In 1997 and 1998 that meant going up against the Miami Heat and their formidable roster of players like Alonzo Mourning, Tim Hardaway, Dan Majerle, PJ Brown and more. Those matchups each went the full amount of games and resulted in major brawls, from Brown flipping Knicks guard Charlie Ward to New York’s coach Jeff Van Gundy holding onto Mourning’s leg mid-boxing match.
We caught up with Oakley to ask him about those playoff wars. We also asked him about his time in New York City, if he’s watching the playoffs now, what he thinks about the upcoming next chapter of the Knicks-Heat matchup, how much of Jimmy Butler he’s seen this year and much more. And for more on these battles, check out Blood in the Garden by author Chris Herring or The Knicks of the Nineties by Paul Knepper.
Read MoreFor anyone who became a fan of the National Basketball Association in the 90s, the name Ahmad Rashad is closer to Holy than a mere entertainer. Rashad was the host of NBA Inside Stuff for the entire decade and into the 2000s, captivating fans with his joy and chemistry with seemingly every NBA star, from Michael Jordan to Muggsy Bogues. But before he was a mainstay on Saturday morning television, Rashad was an NFL star.
Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Rashad went to the University of Oregon and was drafted fourth overall in 1972. He later became a four-time Pro Bowl selection with the Minnesota Vikings. He was also married to the dazzling actress Phylicia Rashad. Rashad, who is known for his close relationships with the likes of Jordan, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing and others, has recently jumped back into the NBA television scene with the new show, NBA Rewind, available on the league’s app. We caught up with the iconic broadcaster to ask him about this new endeavor and to take a stroll down memory lane.
Read MoreIf you haven’t heard of college standout basketball Antoine Davis, you’re not alone. But for basketball fans, it’s clearly time to start brushing up. Davis is on the cusp of breaking one of the most unbreakable records of all time: Pistol Pete Maravich’s all-time NCAA scoring record. Maravich tallied 3,543 points in his three-year career at LSU in the late 1960s.
As of today, Davis, a senior at the University of Detroit, is 124 points away with two regular season games left and (at least) one Horizon League tournament games after that. Today is Senior Night for his Detroit Mercy squad and after the game, Davis will have his jersey retired by the school—a big and rare honor. Going into the game, Davis is also 22 three-pointers away from Stephen Curry’s single-season NCAA record.
For many, this would be a blur, even an impossible task to complete. But Davis, the son of a coach, Mike Davis, formerly of Indiana University (first an assistant under Bob Knight and then as the school’s head coach from 2000 to 2006) and then University of Alabama at Birmingham from 2006 to 2012 and then Texas Southern University from 2012 to 2018 before taking over at Detroit, poise isn’t a problem. For the 24-year-old Davis, the sky is the limit.
Davis, who was the first freshman to be named to the First Team All-Horizon League team since Gordon Hayward, has broken scoring records, shooting records and has put the University of Detroit, a school formerly coached by Dick Vitale, back on the map in a major way. Here, below, we caught up with the star collegiate player to ask him about his roots, his style, LeBron James and which NBA player he patterns his game after.
Read MoreTwo-time NBA All-Star Victor Oladipo says it’s on his “bucket list” to perform the National Anthem at a game. Indeed, for Oladipo, who has now released three records, including his latest, Tunde, on Friday (February 17), music is in his blood. He grew up singing, doing so both in school choirs and in church. In fact, he says, his family would often ask him to quiet down around the house, he was making so much “noise.”
In 2017, the All-NBA player released his debut album, Songs for You. A year later, he released the LP, V.O. And in 2019, he performed on the second season of the popular singing competition television show, The Masked Singer, as the character, Thingamajig, placing fifth. Starting in 2022, Oladipo began releasing new singles ahead of Tunde, starting with the romantic song, “Symphony,” last fall.
A lover of Afrobeat music, Oladipo, whose family is Nigerian, worked with the producer Harmony “H-Money” Samuels (Ariana Grande, Jennifer Hudson) on his latest release. His most recent single is the song, “Exercise,” which also features Oladipo’s amorous side. Here below, we caught up with the athlete-musician to talk with him about the relationship between the NBA and music, who in the league he’d like to collaborate with and what he loves most about the art form.
Read MoreAnyone who has watched an NBA basketball game knows the script for the final minutes. It goes like this: the margin is either too wide for a team to try and make a comeback or the game is so close that there is either a chance at a last-second buzzer-beating shot or the team that is losing has to attempt to repeatedly foul the leading team in the hopes they miss their foul shots and the losing squad can attempt a miraculous comeback. In the end, the result is often a lot of foul shots signifying nothing—they merely draw out the inevitable. It’s common, thus, that the final, say, 45-seconds of an NBA game can last 20 minutes with all the breaks for free-throws.
But Nick Elam had an idea to change all that. Ever since 2007, Elam has been working to flip the game-ending script with his “Elam Ending.” With this concept, the final quarter of a basketball game is not timed (or at least a large chunk of it is played without a clock). Instead, there is a “target score” added to the leading team’s total. And to win the game, either team has to hit that final target score, rather than hold off its opponent from coming back as the seconds tick away.
In this interview, we caught up with Elam to ask him about the origins of his idea, which has been used in various leagues around the world, including most recently in the NBA All-Star game since 2020. We also asked what his plans are for the concept moving forward, how he goes about promoting it to new leagues and more.
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