If Bernard King was never the best player in the league at any given time, he was the most powerfully adored. Read more »

If Greg Ostertag is remarkable, it is for representing the stark limits of Jazz fans' capacity to appreciate players who looked like them. They wanted him to be Mark Eaton, and they would have exalted him had he cleared that relatively low bar. Read more »

The Pelicans' situation has been unstable ever since the franchise relocated from Charlotte in 2002, and especially since Katrina. This excruciating state of limbo unfortunately defines the Pelicans. It's difficult to say where they belong. Read more »

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You get the sense Ralph Sampson, if he had been designed by NASA engineers rather than a cruel god, still would have ended up as one of the great Yeah, But guys of his generation: an immensely gifted, lightly snakebitten antecedent to Vince Carter and Chris Webber. Read more »

If you look at Pat Riley's first few years in Miami, you can resolve his contradictions pretty easily. The luxury is the ideal and the crushing work is the method. Read more »

Reggie Miller was determined to become a hero for people who didn't know they wanted him. He took that premise as far as it could go, right up into the rafters. Read more »

Hubie Brown continues to have the requisite spirit to call thirty-odd contests per year. Nobody explains the game- nobody so clearly relishes explaining the game- like he does. Read more »

The Nets' Rocket Pop uniforms were very 1990, a time which was itself a historical nowhere, appropriate trappings for teams that were terrible for one year, then various forms of just-okay for the next several. Read more »

Jason Kidd is one of the most beautifully intelligent basketball players who has ever lived. He also has repeatedly undermined the people around him. Read more »

There was already a sense of narrative fate that the story of the first decade of basketball in Oklahoma City could only end this way, however perverse. That era may not have resulted in a dynastic title run, but there was truth. Read more »

The end of the Sonics was, like the end of many things that matter to people, confusing and wildly sad. In the decade-plus since, there have been only wet gray winters and no NBA basketball in Seattle. 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 »

Where most stars enjoy four or five distinct phases of their career, T-Mac got about two-and-a-half, and bad luck followed him around like a slasher villain. Read more »

Breaking down the games of Deni Avdija, Jaden McDaniels, Scottie Lewis, Precious Achiuwa and Tyrese Maxey. Read more »

For a solid decade, the Mavericks looked in vain for a starting center. They almost never found a suitable one. Until they did and they won a ring, and then he was gone. 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 »

The reason Ray Allen is still making insinuations about the referees and the league office all these years later is not that he had an NBA title taken away from him but that he remembers the sensation of his agency slipping away in the most unpleasant manner. Read more »

Imagine if Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki were never broken up. Now, imagine if Nash were five inches taller and Dirk were three inches taller. That's the kind of potential the Mavericks are looking at. Read more »

With Anthony Edwards, Cole Anthony, Theo Maledon, RJ Hampton and Nico Mannion featuring, 2020 figures to be a bounceback draft for the position. Read more »