Kelly Dwyer on hoops

Good work, Don Nelson

We won't miss Don Nelson too much because his legacy is right in front of us, starting in October and all the way through June. Best players on the floor, always running, taking the best shot for the most points. This isn't Don Nelson's

Worst of the East

The bummer here is not the East, but what they keep doing to our East. Sure, the East won the last title, took the 2025 Finals to seven games, won in 2024 and 2021 and 2019. Nice outputs, poorly sustained so far. At least those teams tried, even if it

The best of the West's offseason

These days, NBA franchises don't need a Lyle gun to grab hold of Oklahoma City. Not only were the 64-win Thunder nearly matched in the regular season by the 62-win San Antonio Spurs, the Thunder were topped by San Antonio in the Western finals. The Thunder

What if LeBron picked Philly over Los Angeles in 2018?

Not this whole time, from 2018 through 2026, that wasn't happening: Los Angeles always was. The one thing we've always known about LeBron James remains true in any imaginary instance, our hero was going hack at some point, he was always going to be a Laker.

LeBron with the Sixer surprise

NBA fans shoulda known once LeBron James' reps refused to limit the remaining clubs to two, declined to omit all but the favorites from Ohio and Florida. Golden State and Minnesota saw their fortunes rise and fall but Philadelphia never left the orbit. That he chose the 76ers is

The worst of the West's offseason

LeBron James turns 42 in five months, no NBA player's been any good at age 42. Until LeBron, Robert Parish was the most effective two-way 41-year old in NBA history, and this is what that looked like: LeBron James could be marvelous at age 42, maybe

Did someone say 'Joe Smith?'

There is a crisis among the 30 NBA owners, soon to be flush with the expansion gifts from teams No. 31 and No. 32. The league's local broadcast lineups are in flux, save for a few major outlets, dipping the league's revenue a few percentage points

That "do-or-die" moment is a strike

There is a hope, admittedly underfed, that the NBA's new insistence on obsessing over every spent penny will result in a rising valuation of the league's middle-class. Maybe, with so many franchises scowling at adding multiple maximum contracts to the ledger, the remaining salary cap

Boston loses [Jaylen Brown] to Philly

Jaylen Brown was traded to Philadelphia for 36-year old Paul George, Philadelphia's unconditional 2031 first-round draft pick, a 2028 first-round pick swap, and two future second-round selections. A little sad, isn't it? The NBA's offseason, all four days of it,

Kawhi Leonard outta L.A.

So, we'll all find out in dutifully-sourced time from Pablo Torre how this Kawhi Leonard "basketball" feint was dropped to dissuade us from paying attention to Washington D.C.'s empty lawns at the America 250 celebration. To stop us from reflecting on the

LeBron wants his seasons back?

According to ESPN, LeBron James is in Ohio right now and I don't blame James for announcing his Laker departure from home: Ohio is beautiful all times of year but in summer especially. It is a full twenty degrees (Fahrenheit) warmer in northern Ohio than it is in

The moves so far: East

Strange, super-intriguing, summer so far. The NBA possibly created more tanking than ever for the three years of this lottery reform, the worst kind, teams diving out of playoff contention and into the greedy arms of the eighth-worst record in the NBA. Then there was this second-round