If they could, most NBA coaches would simply play their best players for 48 minutes a game, every game. After all, it’s the stars who largely drive team performance, and most teams are at their best when their best guys are on the floor. Of course, we know that can’t happen. The science of minutes […]
The 2020-21 NBA season has been in action for a couple of weeks now, and the stats have begun to stabilize. (Somewhat.) So it is now time for us to roll out the newest edition of our RAPTOR NBA player ratings dashboard, with updated data to help you track the best players in the league […]
We know which athletes are great, but we know less about what makes them great. To help, FiveThirtyEight is compiling The Greatness Files, a compendium of, well, what makes great athletes great. First up, a rising star named LeBron James. This is not another LeBron James vs. Michael Jordan article. Whenever LeBron reaches another NBA […]
Think back to last summer, when the teams that had just played for an NBA title were hit with one bombshell move after another in free agency. The first bolt of lightning struck instantly, when two-time Finals MVP Kevin Durant said he’d be leaving the runner-up Golden State Warriors to join Kyrie Irving in Brooklyn. […]
The championship ambitions of the Los Angeles Lakers naturally centered on the historically great pedigree of LeBron James. But Anthony Davis proved to be the Lakers’ ultimate margin for error throughout its title run. In the six seasons preceding Davis’s arrival, the Lakers missed the playoffs more times than they did in their first 65 […]