Getting to Ten Times Better
Vikram briefly examines three domains governed by power-law distributions: basketball, programming, and money
Tagged: Basketball
Politics, Culture, Discourse…and College Basketball?
Feel free to enter our Ordinary Times competitive bracket pool for NCAA Basketball Tournament
Gotta Be the Shoes, and That Might Be the Problem
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that happen in a basketball game before. As a metaphor for college athletics and college basketball in particular, it’s amazing.
Briefly, On Watching Basketball and Advertising
I’ve been watching the NBA playoffs this year. The matchups have been good, but not great, and some of the teams that I’ve wanted to advance – San Antonio, I’m looking at you –...
The San Antonio Spurs Have Won Their 5th NBA Title
The San Antonio Spurs have won their fifth title in the last fifteen years, a remarkable level of achievement, especially considering the way that they’ve done it, winning with a mix of stunning international...
Not So Briefly On Aging, Arvydas Sabonis, And Being Sworn About
My wife and I took our children to the park. There was a newly poured concrete slab with a basketball hoop at one end. Nearby, a father and his son were eating sandwiches. On...
Three Short Essays: One About Jason Collins, One About Basketball, And One About Waiting For Bigots To Finally Be Right
Sam on Jason Collins, basketball, and bigotry.
The Finals
Sports have never been a focal point for the League, so I’ll put this one below the fold . . .
Defending Basketball Mysticism
I know I should be talking about Four Loko or Thomas Friedman’s latest column on the horrors of deliberative democracy, but the start of a really compelling NBA season demands some sports blogging. Despite...
Is winning everything? (for an athlete)
I’m not much of a basketball fan – correction, I’m not a basketball fan at all – but the heavily-reported saga of Lebron James’ free agency has struck a bit of a chord with...
Quote of the Day
“What the heck is Yahoo? Is it one of those computer things? Is that like Twittering?” – The inimitable Gregg Popovich, demonstrating his technological savvy right before tip-off.
Don’t disenfranchise foreign NBA fans
In lieu of discussing more serious matters (Citizens United, health care, “Jersey Shore”), I’d like to direct your attention to the pressing issue of NBA All Star voting. After Tracy McGrady’s hobbled corpse nearly...
Can’t we all just get along?
A nice vignette from the Grizzlies-Kings game (via): Grizzlies center Hamed Haddadi , the first NBA player from Iran, and Omri Casspi, the first Israeli player in the league, met at midcourt and shook...
Daft Draft Analysis
The fact that teams frequently overvalue a player’s potential while devaluing actual production has been amply documented elsewhere, but I’m consistently baffled by sportswriters who exhibit the same tendency. Here, for example, is SI’s...
5-And-A-Half Stories About The Same Thing
Coleman Collins, D-League journeyman, former Euro-basketballer, and a pretty entertaining author, is now contributing to TrueHoop. A taste: I was walking through Amsterdam the other day when I crossed paths with two German women,...
As if you needed another reason to hate LA
How arrogant are the Lakers? Thanks for asking. So arrogant that they feel free to change the lyrics of the national anthem. Now, fans cheer different parts of the anthem for partisan reasons all...
Torture vs. Steroids
A cogent point from the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Mark Madsen: When the congressional hearing of Jose Canseco vs. other MLB players created questions about steroid use, Congress acted quickly and decisively and spent the next...
“I knew right then we were f—ed.”
A great anecdote from an otherwise mediocre article on Knicks Coach Mike D’Antoni, whose tenure in Phoenix is the modern sports equivalent of Greek Tragedy:
