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Former 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.

For 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.

If 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.

Two-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.

Anyone 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.