Be careful of easy diagnoses, especially applied to teams that nobody likes, but: the Nets seem as if they were swept due to a bone-deep or perhaps cosmic apathy. Read more »
Colin McGowan - Basketball Analysis
Brooklyn's Crisis Of Definition
The NBA's Bigfoot
Zion Williamson came into the league a physical freak that college players couldn't handle and almost immediately it became apparent that 30-year-old pros didn't know what to do with him either. And now he's something between a myth and a punchline. Read more »
It Is Time For Ben Simmons To Become A Less Aggravating Version Of Himself
With Ben Simmons having gotten that trade he wanted, we can finally stop twisting ourselves in knots, stop calibrating what benevolent or rotten people we are by examining our role in the possibly fraudulent plight of a rich and famous athlete. Read more »
The Implausible Love Of Superstar, Executive
James Harden and Daryl Morey likely see themselves as mercenaries at this point. They only want to win a ring. It doesn't matter where or how, just so long as they get a solid share of the credit. Read more »
DeMar DeRozan Is In The MVP Conversation
Receiving MVP votes is a way of saying that a player touched greatness, that for a spell he was about as good as anybody else. And memory is fuzzy, memory is generous. Its appoximateness is appealing. Read more »
Haliburton, Sabonis Stuck In A Trade
When you are young and skilled in the NBA, you have the whole world in front of you. The whole world viewed through the prism of whatever town you're stuck in. Read more »
Andrew Wiggins Has Finally Become An All-Star But Not Quite
This is comfortably the most successful season of Andrew Wiggins' career, and it's been exactly successful enough to get him a piece of recognition he doesn't deserve. Read more »
Orlando Remains Strangely Unreal
As Markelle Fultz and Jonathan Isaac remain on the shelf and the rest of the squad can't quite get right, this is turning into a brutal wash of a season for the Magic. Read more »
De'Aaron Fox's Prolonged Funk
There is so much in front of De'Aaron Fox, and yet it feels at this particular time in his career that he's going to play through all of it smacking slightly of disappointment, not quite lining up with our early expectations. Read more »
The Shared Construction Of A Mosaic
Dirk Nowitzki played 21 years. You could spend a lifetime dissecting a tenure that vast. It's spirit-salving, especially when everybody's down, to spend at least a few days on it. Read more »
The NBA's Apocalyptic Season
Using cheap and strange nostalgia to brighten a season that started promisingly but has now taken on the same grim perfunctory stink as the last one feels appropriate, perhaps even metaphorical. Read more »
More Hope Than Anticipation For Mavericks
It's hard to imagine Dallas going on a half-hot, half-lucky playoff run like the Suns did last spring. And so what are they accomplishing? What are they striving toward? Read more »
Dame Lillard And The Blazers Have No Idea What They Want To Be
Damian Lillard is an irritatingly tentative star at the center of an irritatingly tentative organization. Read more »
Kemba Walker Ended Up Where He Belongs Too Late
Kemba Walker's knee had eight good seasons in it, and he gave them all to a franchise that hardly anyone except the most committed League Pass dorks paid attention to. Read more »
Let's Ignore The NBA's Grumpiest Team Until April
The Lakers have told themselves they can beat the mundane task of the regular season, get into the playoffs at whatever-and-whatever, with nothing more than professionalism but the drudgery has already set in. Read more »
Ben Simmons Has Become Thoroughly Abstracted
Ben Simmons has accidentally, tragically found a new way to play the game. It is more painful to witness than passing up a playoff dunk. There has to be basketball at the end of this. Read more »
Evan Mobley Looks Like A Glue Guy With Gifts Like A Star
Evan Mobley seems to be what Cleveland has been looking for, a player who with his abundant and adaptable skills, casts the play of everyone around him in a rosier light. Read more »
Scottie Pippen Is Ornery And All Over The Place
Scottie Pippen didn't get exactly what he wanted a long time ago, and has let those minor slights govern the entire back half of his life. He wears his disappointments about as heavily as any retired athlete in recent memory. Read more »
Twelve Characters: Russell Westbrook
Is Russ spitting nonsense when he says he's a Pau Gasol acolyte? Yeah, probably. But a tamed Russ, who is ferocious yet under his own control is an exhilarating concept. Read more »
Twelve Characters: Zach LaVine
While that natural athleticism obviously helps him on the court, it has perhaps also made us slow to appreciate the fulsome layers of polish Zach LaVine has applied to his game over the past few seasons. Read more »
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