The reasons the Pelicans have given for restricting Zion Williamson's minutes are not the explanation your basketball-starved brain wants to hear. The sensible option is rarely the fun one. Read more »

Expansion franchises usually feel weird and fake for a while, because they are, but eventually over time become ordinary and identifiable- something with a history, something you know. The Hornets lack that familiarity, even with 16 seasons and counting in the rearview. Read more »

Zion Williamson is the star the NBA is most relying upon as it returns to television with the pandemic still raging, peddling a stranger, more austere version of the product its audience is used to. Read more »

The NBA's return is the product of a bunch of people who love basketball trying to figure out how to bring it back, drafting proposals as thick as infrastructure bills. Read more »

Precious Achiuwa looks like the exact type of prospect whose combination of physical profile and athletic ability wows decision makers who join the process late. Read more »

Beyond re-signing Malik Beasley and Juancho Hernangomez, and maybe finding a new home for James Johnson, it's probably going to a quiet offseason for the Timberwolves after making their big move at the deadline. Read more »

Dwight Howard means well, but he unfortunately can't be relied upon to say the right things for more than a few days- or even a few sentences- in a row. Read more »

Ray Allen's ahead-of-its-time talent early in his career was one of the most dynamic players the league has ever seen, someone equally comfortable running off screens like Reggie Miller, pulling up like Kobe, or lunging at the rim like McGrady. Read more »

Cleveland has young building blocks worth building around and already made their big offseason move by trading for Andre Drummond at the deadline. Read more »

Everyone's favorite moment chasers are teammates, and this isn't a small victory. It's an enormous one. Of course, it comes at a moment of blinding uncertainty. Read more »

Michael Finley wasn't going to be Jordan, or really anything like Jordan. But at 24, 25, 26, his career was still a splintering branch of possibility. Read more »

Unless the Warriors make a major move for a star, they will likely focus on replenishing their depleted depth. Read more »

We look at the trajectory of every team in the NBA in terms of how they rank in the category. Read more »

In the mid-to-late 90s, player movement among young players exploded when the NBA abolished restricted free agency. Read more »

James Wiseman has the potential to become a pure center who is special enough to escape the league's deemphasizing of the position over these last few years. Read more »

Tim Duncan was not actually a computer program; we had been discussing him in metaphor. He was a guy, an extraordinarily talented and temperate guy, choosing to put in the work and make all the right decisions. Read more »

Damon Stoudamire was successfully scolded into becoming what other people wanted him to be. Hopefully, though few in the media thought to ask, this is what he wanted for himself too. Read more »

Given the recent history of the union, it is significant that Kyrie Irving is listening to the player body and giving them his voice. It has never been so transparent to see who this players' union chooses to fight for, and what "player empowerment" really looks like. Read more »

When Josh Howard was caught on camera making a tossed-off remark about the national anthem in 2008, the reaction was lazy umbrage-taking and recrimination. Read more »

Shawn Kemp obviously delighted in throwing down dunks, but he was wary of the perception that he was a one-dimensional player. The depressing aspect of this is that he truly was more than a dunker. You only had to watch his games to discover as much. Read more »