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Basketball. What does it mean to you? It might mean Michael Jordan soaring through the air, tongue sticking out as he goes for a tricky lay-up. Or it could mean street ballers trash-talking each other at New York’s famous Rucker Park as excited spectators look on. It may even bring back memories of you watching a buzzer-beating three-pointer that clinched victory, leaving you screaming at your TV with joy. Whatever basketball means to you, it’s all thanks to the NBA, which has driven the sport to the furthest corners of the globe and established it as one of the most popular and exciting sports in the world. A big reason for its success is that the NBA refuses to sit still. From re-examining its rule book to welcoming new teams…

VICTOR WEMBANYAMA STANDS TALLEST TO LIVE UP TO ‘LE HYPE’ HIt was the most anticipated NBA debut in a generation. And the Wemby era in San Antonio commenced with a blocked shot in the opening minute, and 15 points and five rebounds in a loss to Dallas. The Frenchman racked up plenty of historic milestones en route to becoming the eventual Rookie of the Year, including becoming the youngest center in NBA history to record a tripledouble and the youngest player without any turnovers. “He’s already a pro,” underlined Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. MEXICO PRIMED FOR NEXT NBA EXPANSION? HA late winner from Dejounte Murray gave the Atlanta Hawks a 120-119 victory over the Orlando Magic in November in the NBA’s 32nd game in Mexico, a diversion now underpinned by…

It’s impossible to write a definitive list of the 50 greatest players in NBA history. Measuring an MVP from the 1950s against the achievements of a great player in today’s league is a futile task; the game of basketball has changed and evolved so dramatically throughout the NBA’s long and illustrious history. Instead, what we have here is a list of 50 NBA icons, all of whom made an indelible mark on the league in some way or another. Each of the players here have left a legacy that endures today, be it through amazing statistical achievements, unquestioned leadership and winning mentality, extraordinary endurance or, more often than not, all of the above. From George Mikan – the league’s first superstar – to stars of today like LeBron James and…

In 2021, the Hawks made the Eastern Conference Finals. Last season they finished tenth in the conference with a 36-46 record. The Hawks weren’t terrible, but they seldom looked like any kind of threat. Their 8-7 mark after 15 games was the last time they could point to a winning record, and they finished on a dreary seven-game losing streak, including a Play-In defeat to Chicago. The harsh fact for the front office to face was that the trade for Dejounte Murray had been a failure. It wasn’t as if he brought nothing to the team – he was their second-best player and averaged 21.5 points per game over his two seasons in Atlanta. But he never slotted in with Trae Young, and that had been the hope when he…

Steve Clifford’s second spell as coach of the Hornets came to an end with an absolutely miserable 21-win season. Of course, losing is nothing new for Charlotte – they have posted a losing record in seven of the last eight seasons – but Clifford was undeniably unlucky. Over his two seasons in charge, LaMelo Ball played in 58 of 164 games, while Cody Martin managed just 35 over the two years and Mark Williams played in only 19 games last season. And these were just the headliners of a treatment room that must have resembled an emergency department at times last year. This was undoubtedly a problem, and no team could shrug off the number of injuries the Hornets had to deal with, but they also exposed a weakness –…

Signing Kyrie Irving during free agency in 2023 was supposed to win the Mavericks a ring, but it had the opposite effect. During the last two months of the 2022-23 season, the Mavericks slumped out of the playoffs and even missed out on the Play-In tournament. The Mavs seemed to have been stung by a really bad deal. Thankfully, Irving returned to the court for the new season a changed man. He formed a great partnership with Luka Dončić, and the addition of talented rookie center Dereck Lively only helped the two guards gel. So, the Mavs management were bold in free agency again. They loaded up with PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford – and this time, it pushed them up the standings from eighth to fifth. Although four teams…

They did it. The Golden State Warriors broke up one of the best big threes of all time, by trading Klay Thompson away from Stephen Curry and Draymond Green, along with four championships’ worth of chemistry. It needed to happen. Sadly, Thompson had not been himself since returning from two of the worst injuries a basketball player can suffer and it had become tough for him to see the franchise pivot, so now he gets a fresh chance in Dallas. In the multi-team deal, the Warriors received Buddy Hield – giving them another good shooter – and Kyle Anderson, another savvy playmaking veteran. It signals an intent to make the most of Steph’s prime, with the continued expected rise of youngsters Brandin Podziemski and Jonathan Kuminga, who will also be…

The LA Clippers blamed their performance on the Collective Bargaining Agreement and its punitive second apron penalties for teams that spend too much on salary. While that is a factor, the real issue is that this team, led by two of the best players in the league – Kawhi Leonard and Paul George – were together for five seasons yet they only managed to win just three playoff series. Last season they pivoted slightly, bringing in James Harden, and the team reeled off an impressive 26-5 win-loss record during the middle of the season as a three-headed monster. Things leveled out slightly after that, but they still finished with a 51-31 record, as the Pacific Division champions, and with a team that looked dangerous. That is, until Leonard once again…

Heat fans might have been dizzy trying to keep up in a season where they saw 37 different starting lineups in 89 games. No fewer than 18 players started at least one game. A big contributor to that turmoil was the number of injuries sustained during the season. A prime example of this was Terry Rozier, who joined at the trade deadline and was hampered by knee and neck injuries, eventually missing the playoff series with Boston. Head coach Erik Spoelstra had to scheme his way to success and that was especially so on defense, where the Heat finished with the fifthoverall ranking despite Bam Adebayo being their only really great defender. On offense, Spoelstra had to switch systems depending on who was available, and the unit never found its…

It has been a dramatic offseason in New Orleans following the disappointment of the first-round playoff loss to Oklahoma City. The Pelicans were a puzzling team – at times looking elite, at other times looking downright bad. They were woeful when playing from behind (they lost every game in which they trailed after the third quarter – all 24 of them) and the setup of the team looked out of whack. It is true that they were hit hard by injuries, especially at the end of the season, where Zion Williamson missed the playoff series against the Thunder, but at times they looked like a bunch of individuals taking turns at having a shot, rather than a cohesive team. This was especially true of their top trio of point-scorers: Brandon…

The Magic’s season ended in bitter disappointment, losing Game 7 of their Eastern Conference First Round series against Cleveland after leaping out to an 18-point lead. But the season deserves to be remembered as a success for a young team that found its way back into the postseason. They topped the Southeast Division and grabbed the No.5 spot in the Eastern Conference. There were doubters when Orlando built a solid 30-25 record, but those doubters were silenced by a 17-10 run after the All-Star break, which proved the Magic were not an illusion. The team’s trajectory under Jamahl Mosley has been impressive, as he has overseen consistent improvement – 22, 34 and 47 wins in his three seasons at the helm. Under his guidance, the Magic have built a fearsome…

When you slip to last place in the standings, the only way is up. But in the case of the Portland Trail Blazers, there’s another option to consider: stay where you are. And while Portland fans hope for better days ahead, it makes perfect sense to play the long game and pursue abject mediocrity. With Duke’s Cooper Flagg highly touted as the number one pick next summer, here is a gilt-edged prospect who is expected to make an immediate impact when he turns pro. Yet, other teams covet Flagg and history shows there’s no guarantee the Trail Blazers will win the lottery. However, there’s not a great deal the franchise can really do right now. The worst team in the West is over the NBA salary cap, with very little…

The Toronto Raptors found themselves in possession of two picks as they headed into the 2024 NBA Draft. Through a couple of trades, they managed to convert those picks into six young players: three draft picks, two trade additions, and an extra pick in 2025. All of that added significant and very much-needed depth to a roster that had just put together one of the worst seasons in franchise history. The 2023-24 Raptors finished with a 25-57 record and 12th place in the Eastern Conference. It was clear the season was going nowhere when the Raptors traded away OG Anunoby to the New York Knicks in December. That same day, the Raptors were defeated 127-129 on the road to the Detroit Pistons – a team that had just lost 28…

Two peach baskets in a gymnasium. It’s hard to think of a less glamorous start for any sport and yet that’s exactly where the story of the NBA begins. Basketball was invented by Dr James Naismith, who studied at the YMCA International Training School in Massachusetts in 1890 and was asked to join the PE department a year later by Dr Luther Halsey Gulick. It was in this role that Naismith would eventually create basketball. Gulick wanted a sport that was easy to play and could also be played in the harsh Massachusetts winter, while Naismith also wanted a game that could be played without their gym’s hard wooden floors causing injuries. Naismith’s initial attempts at creating a new sport were failures among his students, as they showed no interest…

Normally the build up to the NBA Draft involves a clear consensus around who the top two picks are going to be, speculation over who’s going to round out the top ten, and wild guesses about who will be the biggest fallers, risers, winners, and losers on the night. Not so much 2024. Yes, there was plenty of talent on show, but there wasn’t a Victor Wembanyama or Zion Williamson. As it was, the draft still provided plenty of intrigue. Atlanta Hawks were the big winners of the draft, getting the coveted top pick despite qualifying for last season’s Play-In Tournament, while last year’s worst team, the Detroit Pistons, only got fifth. The Hawks used their good fortune to make Frenchman Zaccharie Risacher the overall number one pick. Forward Risacher…

FIRST ROUND A calf strain kept Giannis Antetokounmpo in street clothes for the entirety of what turned out to be a brief playoff run for the Milwaukee Bucks. In the superstar’s absence, his team proved acutely vulnerable and sustained a 4-2 series ousting to the Indiana Pacers. The Greek Freak was not the only walking wounded. Damian Lillard sat out two games with an Achilles problem and although he returned to score 28 points in Game 6, it wasn’t enough to save a Bucks season that had been turned upside down with the mid-year replacement of Adrian Griffin with Doc Rivers. “Go to each team and take their two best players away – it’s going to be hard,” Rivers said. “We understood that, but what I loved about our guys…

The history of NBA basketball is littered with momentous milestones, epic rivalries and unforgettable games throughout its 70 eventful years. Choosing only ten games that stand out is a near-impossible task, but the ones we’ve chosen are all special in some way, whether it’s the culmination of a rivalry, the moment a player becomes a superstar, the end of an era for a player or team, or a record-breaking game in some way or another. We tend to overvalue the recent and devalue the past, so we’ve included games from most eras. Most of them happen to involve a seminal superstar in NBA league history in an important role. Finals games make several appearances, because when the pressure is most intense, the real heroes are revealed. So let’s roll on…

At the start of the 2023-24 season, the Celtics were expected to make a postseason run but to ultimately fall short of success. It was a relatively easy prediction to make – over the past eight seasons, the Celtics had been to the Eastern Conference Finals six times, but have never got over the line with an NBA Championship. In 2022-23, they came agonizingly close to beating the Miami Heat in the Conference Finals, becoming the first team to force a Game 7 after going 3-0 down in the series. But the miracle comeback wasn’t to be. The Celtics choked. Again. But Celtics GM Brad Stevens rolled the dice. He traded away popular Marcus Smart, a former Defensive Player of the Year, to bring in Kristaps Porziņģis. He pounced to…

One of the most storied franchises in NBA history, it hasn’t been the best decade for Chicago Bulls. Only two postseason appearances in the last nine years has left fans starved of success that came on an almost annual basis back in the glory days of the 1990s. They’ve only had one winning season in the last eight, but that did come in 2021-22 so were the green shoots of recovery starting to appear in Illinois? Last season saw them record a 39-43 season that earned Billy Donovan’s side a place in the Play-In round. They got past Atlanta Hawks but came up short against Miami Heat. Scoring-wise they struggled, ranking 22nd for points scored and 27th for three-pointers. They were masters of the hustle, though, recording the third-most turnovers…

Repeating as a champion is a difficult task to carry out. The Denver Nuggets found that out the hard way last spring on their own floor. Having managed to dispatch the Los Angeles Lakers in five games to open up the playoffs, the Nuggets then found themselves tangled in what can only be described as an epic battle with the Minnesota Timberwolves. In a wildly unpredictable series, Denver fought back from losing the first two games on their home court, before going on to win the next three. As if all this wasn’t dramatic enough, the series would eventually run to a seventh and deciding game. For a while it all went perfectly. The champs found themselves up 20 early in the third quarter and a date with Dallas was…

Since trading away James Harden a few years ago, the Houston Rockets have been in rebuilding mode. It’s obviously still early days yet, but all of the signs suggest it might be starting to work. The team has put a focus on drafting high, and selecting players with potential. Shooting guard Jalen Green was the second pick in 2021; power forward Jabari Smith Jr was selected third in 2022; and wing Amen Thompson was the fourth selection in 2023. All of these players were stars at their high school and college, and will be expected to do well in the long term, but there have also been some pleasant surprises picked later in recent drafts. Alperen Şengün was picked 16th in 2021, and is one of the craftiest post players…

By drafting LeBron James Jr – known as Bronny – with the 55th draft pick, the LA Lakers can do something that’s never been done before in the NBA: see a father and son play together in a competitive game. Bronny was a good player in high school and college, but had a scary health scare in the summer of 2023 that slowed his trajectory slightly. There are some that don’t consider him an NBA-level player this season and the story of him potentially joining the LA Lakers for a few games this year has overshadowed Dalton Knecht, who was selected 17th overall. The LA Lakers have made few changes compared to last season. The big one is a new head coach. If you’ve watched or listened to LeBron’s podcast…

It must be such a frustrating time for Milwaukee Bucks fans. Eight straight seasons in the playoffs, top of the conference on three occasions in that time, one of the best players in the NBA on their roster, but only one appearance in the Finals – albeit an appearance that resulted in the title. With an aging roster, this could be the last big chance that the Bucks have of claiming a third title and justifying the huge outlay in wages that have seen them operate at the very top of the budget cap. Giannis Antetokounmpo is 29, but Damian Lillard is 34, Brook Lopez is 36, Jae Crowder is 34 and Khris Middleton is 33. This is not a team with endless legs and energy and could explain why…

The 2023-24 season was a huge success for the Knicks – although Jalen Brunson disagrees. He attended a press conference after the Game 7 decider in the Conference Semifinals with his wrist immobilized, having sustained a fracture in the 130-109 loss to the Indiana Pacers – and he refused to see any positives in the loss. In truth, the Knicks would probably have been knocked out in the next round anyway, had they got there. The banged-up Knicks practically crawled off the court in their season finale. Aside from Brunson’s broken wrist, Josh Hart and OG Anunoby were playing through pain, too. Julius Randle, Bojan Bogdanović, and Mitchell Robinson didn’t even make it onto the court. Enough of the disappointing end. Before then, the Knicks had stayed competitive over the…

It’s difficult to know whether to be optimistic or pessimistic about the current state of Philadelphia basketball. The 76ers are one of four teams to have won over 60 percent of their games over the last seven seasons. But the other three – the Milwaukee Bucks, Boston Celtics and Denver Nuggets – have all won NBA Championships, while the 76ers haven’t managed to make it past the Conference Semifinals. The 76ers have an undoubted star in 2023 MVP Joel Embiid. But in Ben Simmons, Jimmy Butler, JJ Redick and Tobias Harris, they’ve also had a conveyor belt of highly paid stars who’ve failed to live up to expectations around Embiid. Put simply, the 76ers are a good team who haven’t yet made the step up to greatness. Their latest campaign…

A two-game dip in a team’s win total does not sound serious, but in Sacramento’s case it was disastrous. In 2022-23, 48 wins were good enough to finish as the No.3 seed in the Western Conference and enjoy home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. A two-win drop in 2023-24 saw the team plummet to the No.9 seed and a place in the Play-In Tournament, where they lost to New Orleans for the sixth time in six attempts over the course of the season. Pinpointing what went wrong is not hard – the Kings threw away too many dominant positions in games and developed a worrying habit of losing to bad teams. Pinpointing why is a more difficult task. The front office decided to ‘run it back’ last…

Decisions, decisions. Is this a pivotal season for the Utah Jazz? The Jazz find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place, and they have a difficult choice to make. As it currently stands, they’re too good to be among the worst teams in the league, but they’re not good enough to haul themselves back into the playoffs. So, if you’re Jazz CEO Danny Ainge – who had a history of rebuilding teams in Boston – in which direction do you go? When the Jazz decided to part company with stars Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert, it was obvious that the franchise would be rebuilding under new head coach, Will Hardy. In a series of bold moves, the Jazz set about collecting draft picks as if they were going…

To outsiders, an NBA game must look like barely organized chaos. There are markings all over the court, bodies flying everywhere, whistles being blown for fouls that are invisible to the untrained eye. There’s a small army of officials armed with video technology to review controversial calls and spot the smallest of infractions among the action. But what you’re watching is the evolution of a fast-paced sport packed with action, strategy and drama. After all, revisiting the NBA in its early years shows a very different game. There was no threepoint line, there was no shot clock, there would be a jump ball after a free throw was scored in the last three minutes. As different tactics and players have dominated over the years, the NBA rule book has changed…

The safest bet in sports is a continuation of the status quo. The canniest investors look at the long-term play: greater risk, exciting upside. And while two relatively experienced crews eventually contested the NBA Finals, two new entrants into the title mix saw their stock rise and their popularity soar during a campaign where some traditional contenders were rocked by injuries and internal discord, while others with high hopes could not develop the tight bonds required as foundations for a championship push. Right until the last day of the regular season, the Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves were punching toe-to-toe with the reigning champs, the Denver Nuggets, for the top seed in the Western Conference. Both fueled by superstars in the ascendant and with youthful cores whose greatest days…

GAME 1: Mavericks 89 | Celtics 107  Jaylen Brown scored 22 points, and Kristaps Porziņģis added 20 in his first game in over a month, leading Boston to victory on their home floor. Porziņģis, sidelined previously with a calf strain, came off the bench and quickly contributed with six rebounds and three blocks as the Cs led by as many as 29 points in the first half and made 16 three-pointers. Despite a 30-point effort from Luka Dončić, Dallas struggled offensively, managing only nine assists on their 35 field goals. Facing boos all night, former Celtic, Kyrie Irving, produced just 12 points as the Mavs offense misfired. The Celtics showed no rust from a ten-day layoff since sweeping Indiana and their ball movement and aggressive offense paid dividends beyond the…

Rebuild mode: on. Decisions made by Nets management just four years ago are coming home to roost right now. The Nets tried to assemble a superteam at the start of the 2020s, splurging on a superstar trio of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden. They gave up a massive amount of draft capital, but the best they could do with it was a solitary trip to the Eastern Conference Semifinals in 2021. Now, the Nets are paying the price. The 2023-24 Nets missed out on the playoffs for the first time in five years. Durant, Irving, and Harden have all moved on to new teams. The Nets went into the 2024 draft as the only team without a first or second round pick, having given both away in their…

Any team would suffer after losing an all-time great like LeBron James. The Cavs made four straight Finals between 2015 and 2018, winning once, before their favorite son left for a second time. That led to a slump where they failed to make the postseason four years in a row. JB Bickerstaff took over midway through 2019-20 and led the team to steady improvement, recording a winning season in 2021-22, the first round of the playoffs the following year, and then the semis last season. That wasn’t enough to save him from the chop – a lot of grumbling from the locker room and front office sealing his fate. In his place this season is Kenny Atkinson, former Brooklyn Nets head coach and most recently assistant at Golden State Warriors.…

It’s a pretty tough time to be a Pistons fan right now. After eight consecutive postseason appearances in the Noughties, including one championship and a Finals defeat, it seems as though the gas tank has run dry. Detroit has been in the playoffs just twice in the last 15 years, losing in the first round both times, and hasn’t had a winning season since 2016. Last season was certainly one to forget with just 14 wins all season, which led to head coach Monty Williams getting the sack after only a single season in charge. This was a huge blow, given that the former NBA Coach of the Year came in to quite some fanfare and a huge contract, but it just didn’t work out. He’s been replaced by JB…

It’s been a lean half-century in Indiana, with their last title coming while they were part of the ABA in 1973. Perennial playoff participants throughout the 2010s, the Pacers only made the Conference Finals once, going down in seven to a LeBron James-inspired Miami Heat side in 2013. They missed three straight postseasons until last year when Tyrese Haliburton inspired them to sixth place in the Eastern Conference. They had an unexpectedly good run, beating Milwaukee Bucks and New York Knicks, before getting swept by eventual champions Boston Celtics. However, this season did represent a huge improvement for a previously-struggling franchise, not least because of their run to the finals of the inaugural In-Season Tournament where they beat Celtics and Bucks before going down to the Lakers. So what are…

The 2023-24 season was not kind to the Memphis Grizzlies. Star man Ja Morant was suspended for the first 25 games of the season after flashing a gun on social media. He crushed his comeback, but that lasted just nine matches as he suffered a season-ending shoulder injury. Steven Adams was out for the entire season after knee surgery, Marcus Smart managed just 20 games after a bad finger injury, while Desmond Bane’s ankle sprain meant he took to court just 42 times. Losing three brilliant players like that would be tough for most teams to contend with, but it was especially tough on a relatively young, inexperienced side like the Grizzlies. They ended the season 13th in the Western Conference, bringing a run of three consecutive playoff seasons to…

The Minnesota Timberwolves exceeded all expectations during the 2023-24 NBA season, achieving a 56-26 regular season record, the second-best in franchise history. Chris Finch’s men won hearts and minds with dominant defense and enough highlight reels to thrill the neutrals. The season marked a turning point for the franchise, shedding years of bad memories and disappointing performances. A bright future surely beckons. Memorable moments defined the Timberwolves’ season: Anthony Edwards’ electrifying dunks; Naz Reid’s standout plays; Rudy Gobert’s defensive brilliance; Mike Conley’s reliable leadership; and Nickeil Alexander-Walker’s clutch three-pointers. Karl-Anthony Towns set an NBA record with 44 points in a first half, while Jordan McLaughlin’s perfect shooting and the team’s impressive defensive stats, including holding opponents under 100 points and 40 percent shooting, added to the excitement. Entering the playoffs…

It’s official – the Oklahoma City Thunder are contenders. After three years in the NBA wilderness, the Thunder not only returned to the playoffs last season, but they did so in style, claiming the top seed in the Western Conference. The signs had been there for a while that the Thunder were on the right path and the first evidence came during the 2022-23 season. A 16-win improvement gave Oklahoma 40 for the season, enough to earn them a trip to the NBA Play-In Tournament. And while their postseason bid fell short, it was obvious that everything they had worked towards was about to pay off. The improvement was even better last season as the Thunder claimed 57 wins, 17 more than the previous campaign. Back in the playoffs, the…

The Suns’ season was not meant to go like that. An inconsistent regular season followed by a humiliating sweep in the Western Conference First Round led to the firing of coach Frank Vogel after just one season in charge. The lack of depth overall and poor squad structure have been cited as reasons behind the dismal underperforming of a starstudded team, and Vogel attracted heat for his limited use of players in the playoffs. There was a problem in having three players combining for around $131 million last year, and the free agency additions that had looked so promising failed to pan out. The Suns were left with a lopsided roster – and the ‘Big Three’ of Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal and Devin Booker only appeared together in 41 games.…

It doesn’t matter how great you are, one day that greatness will end. Between 1999 and 2014, the San Antonio Spurs were one of the standout teams in the NBA. With a joint-NBA record of 22 straight playoff appearances, the Spurs won five championships during that time. It could have been six were it not for Ray Allen’s series-changing basket for Miami in 2013, a shot that still haunts San Antonio. And ever since the last title in 2014, the Spurs have endured a slow, steady decline. Tim Duncan hung up his sneakers in 2016 and Manu Ginóbili and Tony Parker would be gone within two years. Without their star players, the Spurs dropped out of the playoff picture entirely after 2019. The road back to success can be a…

Rebuilds can be painful. The Wizards tried to delay theirs (the huge deal signed by Bradley Beal prior to 2022-23 looked out of touch at the time and proved to be so, as he was gone after just one more season), but there is no denying they are in the middle of one now. And it hurts. The Wizards haven’t won 50 games since 1978. They were the kings of the Southeast Division in that decade, but are now scrambling for a new identity – even their best players do not look like the kind of guys to build a winner around. Fans had been demanding a proper, committed rebuild, but once the losing started last season (and continued) the criticism grew in volume. Team president Michael Winger reads modern…