For much of NBA history, building an elite defensive team came down to simply employing one of the league’s handful of generational defensive bigs. Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics regularly lapped the field defensively. David Robinson instantly made San Antonio a top-three defense during his rookie season in 1989-90; the Spurs wouldn’t dip below the top […]
When the Chicago Bulls acquired two-time All-Star Nikola Vučević midway through the 2020-21 season, they saw him as a cornerstone of yet another franchise remodeling during yet another playoff drought. They swapped Wendell Carter Jr., Otto Porter Jr. and two first-round picks for the steady production of Vučević, who joined Chicago amid the highest-scoring season […]
The 2020 NBA bubble was, for many reasons, unlike just about anything else in the history of pro sports. After an abrupt pause in the season that meant putting their skills on the shelf for almost five months, players had to quickly ramp back up to peak form while also isolating from their families, miles […]
There have been 672 NBA games played so far this season, which means we’re just south of 55 percent of the way through the year. That makes this as good a time as any to check in on the annual awards races — but with a twist. Rather than Most Valuable Player and Coach of […]
Chris Herring, author of “Blood in the Garden: The Flagrant History of the 1990s New York Knicks,” is a former senior writer for FiveThirtyEight who previously covered the Knicks. This is an excerpt from his book, which is available today. The one play that perfectly crystallizes the 1990s Knicks isn’t the famous dunk by John […]