Kevon Looney has paid specific focus in his development on the grimier skills that matter for a Warriors center: rebounding, screening, passing, being a bit of an asshole in the paint. Looney is thriving in the role Wiseman, Bell and Ezeli could never figure out. Read more »

As the Lakers overtook the Grizzlies, the most staunchly anti-LeBron minds of his generation warped in real-time, before us, into the Boomers they so gleefully mock. James is now a totemic mirror for elder millennials in a way that no other American athlete has been. Read more »

Jimmy Butler and Tom Thibodeau remain linked. Not only because of their overlapping histories, but because of their shared approaches. Now they will do battle in an unexpected series. Read more »

The primary knock against Ayton is that he wants more. For the Suns to beat the Nuggets, let alone reach The Finals, they need Ayton to narrow his role - then thrive in it. Read more »

Our capsules show the matchups along with the Net Rating, Offensive Rating and Defensive Rating for each team. Read more »

There is a more holistic power Jimmy Butler has access to, involving his fearlessness and his great strategic intelligence but not limited to these things. Read more »

There aren't many NBA big men that play both ends of the floor at a high level, while also being able to fit with pretty much any type of player. Jarace Walker may never become a star, but he could become a star in his role. Read more »

Several turns, steps back, fired coaches, controversial trades, and losses after he was drafted to change the culture, De'Aaron Fox and the Kings have a series lead over the dynasty-echoing Warriors in large part due to his masterclass performance. Read more »

This team will likely remain in the middle, which is hellish to many, but it need not be- a decade ago, Bulls fans found joy in this place, because they loved the team's inspiring characters; their medium-sized triumphs, the brief but indelible dazzles of their Sisyphean quest. Read more »

Amen Thompson is a truly elite athlete with an incredible feel for his game, but whether he can make dramatic improvements with his perimeter shot will determine if he's a star or merely an exciting role player. Read more »

Our capsules show the matchups along with the Net Rating, Offensive Rating and Defensive Rating for each team. Read more »

The Celtics finished first in Net Rating ahead of the Cavaliers, who jumped up from 13th last season and 28th as recently as 2021. Read more »

Klay Thompson embodies both the zombie-like malaise of the Warriors, and that of the league in general as we end another long season in its most laborious, most unstable era ever. On the opposite end is probably the most-disliked person in the modern NBA, who ended his regular season with maximum indignity. Read more »

Jeremy Sochan breaks the convention and structure of the game. He plays a hyperactive, improvisational style that feels like watching a basketball randomizer. Read more »

James Harden is having a year that only seems underwhelming when compared to his past self. But what we are seeing is not exactly a lessening of ability as much as it is a shift in priorities. Read more »

The more fractured, more brief series of men's youth recruitment pipelines has made it so that women are now more consolidated in, and committed to, the college game. They are the new stars of March Madness. Read more »

Here's James Harden: the work-hard, play-hard perma-bachelor who traffics in such excess that he's never made room for the seemingly perfect partners. There's Joel Embiid, the hardened romantic who's learned to rely on only himself after a long-term relationship went sour. Read more »

With intelligence and perspective, we've dulled our pleasure centers and curbed our ability to produce meaning for ourselves. Read more »

Damian Lillard has been the rare superstar in today's era that stays. The question is whether continuing the partnership serves either's own interest. Read more »

In just a few years, the sports-betting industrial complex has wedded itself to professional American sports in a Too Big To Fail kind of way. What's happening with Bradley Beal is tiny beans compared to what could be next. Read more »