For the first time in NBA history, the league’s championship series is being contested between two teams that did not make the playoffs the previous season. The 2018-19 Lakers sputtered to a 37-45 finish amid various ailments, including the first long-term injury of LeBron James’s career and Brandon Ingram’s bout with deep vein thrombosis. The […]
chris.herring (Chris Herring, senior sportswriter): Well, this NBA season that went inside a bubble and is on the cusp of lasting an entire calendar year officially begins its Finals round tonight. Lakers-Heat is almost certainly not the matchup any of us thought we would get. But it’s one full of storylines for any number of […]
LeBron James has spent his career burdened by comparison. He is the poster athlete of the Age of Scrutiny: applauded at 17 for maintaining Magic Johnson’s collaborative basketball legacy, denigrated at 34 for lacking Michael Jordan’s last-second cold-bloodedness, measured annually against contemporaries from Carmelo Anthony to Giannis Antetokounmpo. In just the past few seasons, he […]
Forty years and many analytic debates after the first 3-pointer in NBA history, the league finally understands the power of that arc. Twenty-six of the 30 NBA teams have averaged more than 30 3-point attempts per game this season, and only one (the Knicks) has made fewer than 10 long balls a contest. The three […]
With the top record in the Western Conference — a blistering 24-3 mark — the Los Angeles Lakers have been one of the NBA’s early season success stories. Last year, L.A. finished out of the playoffs after LeBron James was limited to a career-low 55 games and his teammates mostly failed to pick up the […]