Player power is still hard-won and selective. Yet as ever, there is a limit to what the league can concede and the grief Karl-Anthony Towns is playing through shows that no player, regardless of their abilities, can stop the machine from mindlessly moving forward. Read more »

With Stephen Curry on his own again, he is unleashed in a way he hasn't been since the 2015-16 season, and though nothing can match the fever dream of that year, there's something thrilling about watching him try. Read more »

While the league liked to talk about the Bubble as a public service of sorts, a comforting sign of normalcy in trying times, little rhetoric of that type has arisen this year. There's no use pretending anymore. Read more »

It's easier to write Kyrie Irving off as immature, crazy, or stupid than actually consider the veracity and validity of what he says. Read more »

The life of a professional athlete is inherently precarious, and stars are justifiably doing what they can to reduce the element of chance in their careers. But what does it mean if the players already most insulated from randomness are the only ones able to take such steps? Read more »

If NBA players are to make further use of their power, they must no longer see the league as a partner in transformation, but as a tool to be manipulated. Read more »

A component of small ball is a type of player that is very hard to find: a floor spacer with the requisite size to keep the team from being destroyed in the paint and on the boards as well as the quickness to switch everything. Read more »

Both the Raptors and Kawhi himself, though separated by the breadth of a continent, have something at stake, a chance to assert that they were the truly indispensable part of last year's triumph and win back-to-back chips. Read more »

Andrew Wiggins is looking more like a modern player and less like an anachronistic throwback to the days of inefficient volume shooters. Read more »

Ja Morant was picked No. 2 overall in 2019, but not so long ago was accidentally found by a mid-major program. What might that mean for his NBA career? Read more »

It's impossible to tell at this point whether players such as Spencer Dinwiddie are establishing a new way of handling money that will become a more widespread trend, or if investing in tech is just the late 2010s version of starting a record label, a misguided indulgence that will pass and become a cautionary tale for future generations of NBA stars. Read more »

The twin fates of Blake Griffin and Chris Paul speak to the fickle nature of player power and to the boom or bust mentality that has taken over team management. Read more »

Danny Green has long been one of the best role players in the NBA, but he'll have to be something more than that for the Lakers this season. Read more »

Russell Westbrook is so domineering, so omnivorous as a player that he plays an outsized role in determining his team's fate even if he is not their best player. Read more »

What Kyrie Irving is striving for remains as opaque as ever. The irony of Irving's move to the Nets is that he now finds himself in a similar situation to the one he was so eager to leave two summers ago. Read more »

A year ago, Zion Williamson was projected to go No. 7. Now he's going No. 1 and expected to be a surefire Hall of Famer. In this way, Zion is more of a myth than a man at this point, more potential than actuality. Read more »

By stopping two potential three-peats by two of the greatest would-be dynasties of the last decade, Kawhi Leonard has established himself as a giant killer, the NBA's version of those legendary dragon slayers of yore. Read more »

The variance in Pascal Siakam's play is hard to explain or make sense of, but he needs to find some semblance of stability, enabling the rest of the team to feel secure and to ensure that good games from other players do not go to waste. Read more »

This trio of secondary stars are all crucial to their respective team's success. Yet they also operate on a level without the burden of legacy building. Read more »

The Raptors need Kawhi Leonard more than he needs them, which makes his impenetrable nature all the more compelling. Read more »