Prelude, 2026

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April 17, 2026
Basketball, NBA
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On Tuesday night, the NBA put forth the best opening night of the play-in era by a considerable margin. Opening proceedings, the Miami Heat met the Charlotte Hornets, the former with its ostensibly altruistic #HeatCulture, the latter with a singularly special do-everything point guard who should possibly only drive and also never drive again. 

To the former: a last-second layup from LaMelo Ball extinguished the Heat, setting up a date with fellow division rivals the Orlando Magic, themselves at a team crossroads going into the summer. Charlotte enters ablaze. Well, the thing with Bam, whatever happened there–

In the late game, Jrue Holiday reminded you that he’s won NBA championships, plural, in past lives, delivering the Portland Trail Blazers to a land that nobody promised: the 7-seed, to face off against the San Antonio Spurs. Frustratingly, and despite their best efforts, the Phoenix Suns remain in the present. Courtesy of the Wednesday game, Phoenix now has the opportunity to face the Golden State Warriors, fresh off a deconstruction of Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers.

Standing two games away from us, finally, are the NBA playoffs. Breathe in; exhale.

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Save Tomorrow For Tomorrow

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March 5, 2026
America, Basketball, NBA
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Did the Charlotte Hornets just beat the Boston Celtics so mercilessly on their own parquet that Jayson Tatum is rushing back from injury? If he shows his mug on Friday against the Dallas Mavericks – extremely unnecessarily given all of the smoke AND fire surrounding Achilles injuries and rushing back from them, paging Kevin Durant – then we’ll know: the Hornets let Boston know they are here.

Currently riding a six-game winning streak, each of which have been by 15 or more points[1], the Hornets are the NBA’s hottest team. They’ve also won ten straight on the road, a franchise record. In his second season at the helm, head coach Charles Lee has a healthy roster and a cohesive vision. So far, the players are following suit, and it is coming together. No team has been better in 2026 than the Charlotte Hornets.

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Cavs On The Run

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February 25, 2026
Basketball, NBA, Sports
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In what more or less amounted to a mutual understanding of a lack of confidence in their respective players, the Los Angeles Clippers traded James Harden to the Cleveland Cavaliers on February 4th for Darius Garland and draft considerations. Of the swaps that occurred at this year’s fairly active trade deadline, this was both the biggest headline and the one with the potential to have the most impact.

Following Tuesday’s 109-94 drubbing of the New York Knicks, completed while cosplaying as the Spurrier-era Tampa Bay Bucs, the Cavs are 7-1 since trading for Harden and are 16-4 in their last twenty games. Cleveland’s play with Harden on board in every sense has shifted the balance of the East. 

Although questions remain about both of this Cavs team’s and Harden’s own playoff mindsets, there is no such querying into their talent, or what they could be if Kenny Atkinson can maximize them. Quietly at first and suddenly screaming, the Cleveland Cavaliers are announcing themselves as title contenders.

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On All Cylinders

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January 9, 2026
Basketball, NBA, Sports
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In the midst of a recent game against the surging Orlando Magic, Cade Cunningham strolled into the lane, swapped hands a couple of times, saw Goga Bitadze and said to himself, “SELF: I will have this layup.” With an elegant spin gaining entry to the lane, he excused himself and laid an open layup in to put the Pistons up 114-97. Lay the blessed rock: check.

That this might be the best team J.B. Bickerstaff has ever coached[1] is fantastic for everyone. Detroit won that game 135-116. The Pistons are fresh off a shellacking of the unsteady East favorite New York Knicks, a month after a thirteen-game winning streak – it is neither your horse nor your flying circus that they needed overtime to beat the resilient, pre-Trae Young Washington Wizards.

Even with the Knicks’ victory over a surging San Antonio Spurs team in the [REDACTED] NBA Cup Final, Detroit looks like the serious contender in the East that has arrived slightly before schedule, as the Thunder did a few ticks over longitudinally two seasons ago. As we adjust to “ahead of schedule” increasingly meaning “exactly on time,” the Detroit Pistons have arrived. Finally, J.B. Bickerstaff has a team worth seeing through.

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Live in ’25

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December 31, 2025
America, Music, Politics, Pop Culture, Religion, Rock
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“I have a show tonight for the band that’s probably gonna have my album of the year, but instead of prepping more for that, I spent last night watching Mario Balotelli highlights and listening to ‘Supersonic’ on repeat, then made myself tea for the first time this season because it’s finally not 900 degrees outside. Think it’s fair to say I’m catching up to the rest of you lot in excitement now.” – RKID, the oldest, not older – 27/8/2025

Having plied his trade playing up front in the aughts for Manchester City FC and Liverpool, among many other places, Balotelli provided a comfortable parallel: as the guy who created the unlikeliest Premier League-winning goal in history with what is literally his only league assist to date in five seasons, he has shocked the world, too.

One year to the date of the first official reunion announcement, the aforementioned premier brother texted the group of people who would go on to see a reunited Oasis[1] at MetLife Stadium over Labor Day Weekend, sixteen years after the tumultuous last tour and Paris break-up: Oasis Live ’25 was real. What do you believe in? Here’s one way I found out an answer I’d forgotten.

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One To Remember

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December 22, 2025
America, Basketball, Gambling, NBA, Sports
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TITLE! I meant *title! The New York Knicks were going to win the title this year, and what I meant when I said “2026” was “2025,” and what I meant by “NBA championship” was, actually, the NBA Cup[1], by far the most exclusive and wonderful of the annual basketball trophies. Down twelve in the third against a Victor Wembanyama-led team that had already defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Knicks came back to win the Cup final 124-113.

In what amounted to a single-elimination tournament held far enough away from anything familiar to make it feel neutral in mid-December, New York beating San Antonio in Nevada seems like a warning shot. Along with the rest of the league, NBA commissioner Adam Silver continues to eye Las Vegas as a potential expansion site, if only they would seriously consider it.

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Patterns Fail

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November 22, 2025
Politics, Soccer, Sports
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The craziest thing I saw in the past week – *exasperated, bleeding out of my ears, walking away from the podium* – we’re just going to get this on record.

The craziest thing I saw this week, funnily and tragically enough, involved Cristiano Ronaldo by proxy. Welcome back to the White House, one of the most obviously tan people in recorded history! They know and love you here.

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(Approximately) 30 Thoughts On 30 NBA Teams, 2025-’26 Edition

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October 20, 2025
America, Basketball, NBA, Sports
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While the W was juggling its own expansion considerations over the summer, the men’s league was keeping its fist tight: the long-expected dual announcement of Las Vegas and, crucially, Seattle getting teams[1] came to nothing. Adam Silver has a commission going, and governors are now going to decide how to weigh the long-term revenue sharing benefits of two more franchises against losing all of the special events Vegas now hosts on the NBA’s behalf.

As all of that was happening, though, actual basketball teams put their plans into motion. A decade later than expected, it’s the world against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Frustrations are mounting in every direction, confusion its bunkmate; can you believe the Buss family would ever want to sell the Lakers? Bones Hyland is in Greece Minnesota now. 

We’ll get to this later, but I named my dog in large part after Russell Westbrook, who is now a *checks notes* …Sacramento King? Inside The NBA still exists, albeit on The Worldwide Leader, and “Roundball Rock” is back. In any case: we ball.

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I Walk On Guilded Splinters

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October 17, 2025
America, Auto Racing, College Football, Food, Hip-Hip, Music, Sports
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The interior of LSU's Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, as fireworks shoot in opposing end zones.

I don’t know if the last night in Louisiana was necessarily the time to introduce gator to my body, but as a final taste, it felt apt. As a reversal of fortune the next morning in the Louis Armstrong New Orleans Airport, it still felt apt, but much, much worse.

What happens when you throw four Fordham dudes, one guy who went to Western Illinois and then the only graduate of either of the two universities directly involved? A curious gumbo indeed. Here are snippets of a recent trip to Baton Rouge to see the University of South Carolina Gamecocks football team go against the Tigers of Louisiana State University. If you wanna know the rest, hey: buy the rights.

Special thanks to John, Fati, Tom[1], the oldest-not-older brother, Tom and Gavin for pulling and keeping this together.

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Nothing In The Dark

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September 23, 2025
America, Baseball, Basketball, Gambling, Movies, Politics, Pop Culture, Sports, Television
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You know, it’s the damnedest thing – just the night before, last Monday, I watched Field of Dreams for the first time in a long while, and it reminded me that my favorite part of it is Burt Lancaster’s description of a dream that even the reincarnate hitchhiker version of himself wouldn’t achieve.

A fellow legend of apocryphal baseball ephemera, an erstwhile actor in a Rod Serling joint among many other things that mattered, Robert Redford passed away last Tuesday morning at 89. To echo the masses, we all moved up one slot in the world’s handsomest people rankings at his TOD.

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