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Tag Archives: Sam Presti

Summertime Serenade

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July 31, 2025
Sports
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One of my greatest weaknesses is an inability to remain calm; even when silent, my hands are shaking, or my feet are bouncing, or my eyes are darting. Because of the prolonged, unnecessary chaos happening in previously functional communities here and abroad, this is now my default state.

When the going gets tough, sometimes the going has to come to a complete stop. In a summer sponsored by atrocity, brought to you by the same people who convinced your bosses to lay you off or, better, yet, convinced you to get a STEM degree a decade ago before eliminating the sciences in favor of the bomb, it’s been a little difficult to focus on any one thing and even more so for the good.

Acknowledging all of that, though, means acknowledging the rest, the aforementioned good. The candle of joy, wherever and however possible, is now the daily pursuit of millions of us. Maybe we even shared in one of these instances.

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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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Tomorrow: The Future

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May 19, 2024
Basketball, NBA
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Today: the now. The Dallas Mavericks closed out the Oklahoma City Thunder, everybody’s favorite “look at this team!” team for the second decade in a row, in a sixth game on Saturday night to advance to the Western Conference Finals, where they’ll meet the winner of the ridiculous Denver Nuggets-Minnesota Timberwolves series, those teams entering a Game 7. 

With MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the now-underrated 2024 rookie do-everything big Chet Holmgren in tow and singing Aguilera to their hearts’[1] content, OKC dropped a 17-point lead. Melding at just the right time, Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving and the rest of the Mavs had come into the series operating an offense which countered Harden-era Rockets isolations with Curry-led dictation in Golden State circa-2017 to great success.

Against a calling-all-cars Thunder defense, the Mavericks offensive plan fell apart, but Dallas kept pushing. Its stars shining, and role players inhabiting exactly their spaces, they put a mirror to the slightly younger, slightly-brighter Thunder. In so doing, they put away a new-era league darling, one that calls to the past while looking toward a different future.

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Division of Labour

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July 12, 2017
Basketball, NBA, Sports
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Akrotiri Thera Fresco, c. sixteenth century BCE

Likely dating back to the first interaction between civilizations of Homo sapiens from different geographic origins, the trade system is both as simple and complex as one wants it to be. An entity has something; another entity has another thing; each one wants what the other has, giving up as little as possible in order to gain it. With the exception of a few law-making scandals here and some ethical creativity there, that is all trade has ever been, whether it be Mycenaeans utilizing the Danube River, or your possibly drug-addled stockbroker gambling your retirement on the latest cryptocurrency.

Though the exchange of humans themselves largely, mercifully went out of fashion over the past two centuries, it remains a compelling means of business in the public arena of professional sports. We watch the games for a variety of reasons, but in the age of social media, reaction has become nearly as important as action. A team wins, and another loses. The former has to maintain its formula, while the latter has to figure out an antidote.

For the Oklahoma City Thunder, Russell Westbrook’s MVP campaign was the coldest consolation prize for the first season since moving from Seattle spent without Kevin Durant. To paraphrase ESPN staff writer Royce Young, as eye-poppingly ostentatious as it was, for the Thunder to succeed with him, Westbrook’s 2016-’17 season can never happen again. The Monolith needed help, and on Tuesday, that help officially arrived.

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