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Basketball

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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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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(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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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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The Paul George Finals, And A Word On The Knicks

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June 5, 2025
Basketball, NBA
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I mean, look: if the Indiana Pacers didn’t win this series after how they won Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, they would be the ones asking themselves about the future. They may still be, what with a matchup against the season-long best squad Oklahoma City Thunder. 

With Tyrese Haliburton (mostly) leading from the front – the chip on his shoulder almost verbally evident – and Pascal Siakam being the egg keeping everything together, Indiana didn’t roll through the 1-seed Cleveland Cavaliers with such ease only to sell out to the New York Knicks.

With a resounding 125-108 home win in Game 6, Indiana took care of business, ending both the series and, via collateral media damage, the NBA on TNT relationship. They face the 68-win Thunder in Game 1 tonight, with the series beginning in OKC.

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Josh Hart: “I Was Trying To Order Some Uber Eats”

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May 8, 2025
Basketball, NBA, Sports
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Different, but exactly the same. In a strain of cowardice that echoes fouling Mitchell Robinson for the sake of it when you know he’s burning you, I’m abandoning (most of) what I said after Game 1 except for how that game made me feel, fuck it all: the New York Knicks can do this. Whether I actually believe that…[REDACTED]

The hedges, the ankles, the stomachaches you wait until 3 pm local time to hear about on either team’s injury list; the weirdo, questionable inability to hit open shots at home, as defending champions; and here we are: the New York freaking Knickerbockers lead the aforementioned champion Boston Celtics, having now beaten them twice at home after twice being down by 20 points following Wednesday’s 91-90 win.

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You Know You Sometimes Lie

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February 3, 2025
America, Basketball, NBA, Olympics
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“I don’t do anything that’s scary.” – Nico Harrison, Dallas Mavericks general manager, February 2nd, 2025, right after taking one of the wildest, most inexplicable swings in NBA history.

Firstly, no: I have no idea why the Dallas Mavericks would do this, “this” being trading Luka Dončić for Anthony Davis, which is exactly what they did late Saturday night. Secondly, yes: I do think LeBron and Luka can work it out as an oversized Tatum-Brown spanning generations and leading a dynamite offense, if only anybody on the Lakers could defend anymore. 

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