On Thursday, J. J. Redick, the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, was asked about the N.B.A.’s decline in ratings, a topic that has led to hand-wringing in basketball circles. Ratings of N.B.A. games on ESPN were down twenty-eight per cent compared with last year, and nineteen per cent on all networks, in November—just months … Read more
One upshot of the current glut of streaming platforms is a flood of programming to fill them: something for every attention span, something to plug every potential gap of viewer inactivity that might render a certain streaming service irrelevant while some other service pulls ahead. And so stories get told and retold. The romantic comedies … Read more
Two years ago, during All-Star weekend, LeBron James told a reporter that he would spend the final year of his career, whenever it arrived, playing on the same team as his son. “Wherever Bronny is at, that’s where I’ll be,” he said. At the time, Bronny, LeBron’s oldest son, was a junior in high school. … Read more
As the Boston Celtics have romped through the N.B.A. regular season and playoffs, Jaylen Brown, one the team’s two young star forwards, has been asked, many times, to expound on the team’s success. He has usually given a variation of the same answer. It’s a matter of “mind-set,” he said. He had told his teammates … Read more
.jpg "There Was a Model for Luka Dončić. Now He’s Broken It")
Six months ago, James Harden sat in front of reporters at a cramped press conference, his first since being traded to the Los Angeles Clippers. His face was half hidden by his famous beard, his eyes were unreadable, and his voice was soft. He was talking about how he had been handled by his previous … Read more
It was hard not to see, and to feel, the joy. To judge from the swell of sound at the end of the Memphis Grizzlies’ last-second win over the New Orleans Pelicans, as cries of “Defense!” gave way to a low roar, it was hard even for some in the opposing New Orleans crowd. Joy … Read more
