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Truth Shall Set Us Free
In honor of SLAM’s Throwback Issue, a tip of my hat to the player who most looks like he was unfrozen after 40 years in a cryogenic chamber and put on a 2015 NBA court: Paul Pierce. His veal-like...
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Voices of Reason
Over the last year I have done a radio program in Washington, DC, with former NBA player Etan Thomas. Thomas played 11 years in the NBA, so suffice it to say he has an extensive Rolodex of former...
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#PrayersForPearl
There are some athletes who will always be forever young. They will always be 19, always be dazzling, always, in some ways, be perfect. This is especially true in basketball, where teenage phenoms...
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SLAM Top 50: LeBron James, no. 1
More than a decade ago, I wrote an entire column about two short quotes credited to LeBron James. It was obvious that this teenager with a headband was going to have immense cultural capital. All of us...
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A Beautiful Mind
Who could have predicted that the most political, thoughtful and consistently interventionist athlete of 2015 would be a 68-year-old Hall of Fame legend, a man who spent most of his career not talking?...
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Silent Treatment
What comes to mind when you hear the name Samaki Walker? Maybe it’s his time on the Lakers during the Shaq/Kobe glory years. Or perhaps it is the fact that the former Lousiville star is part of what is...
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Unforgettable
On this day (Feb. 24) in 1978, a then-New Jersey Nets guard named Kevin Porter set a record by dishing out 29 assists in a single game. (That record was later broken.) In our new issue, Dave Zirin...
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Rock Chalk the NCAA
I made my first trip to Lawrence, KS, in February. Traveling to the land of Rock Chalk Jayhawk was actually less of a “trip” than a pilgrimage. It is part of the Mt. Rushmore of college basketball’s...
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S.A. Smash
I am making it plain: The San Antonio Spurs will beat the Warriors in the Western Conference Finals this year, en route to an NBA Championship. Even though Stephen Curry, the presumptive unanimous MVP,...
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SLAM 201 is On Sale Now!
We have had NBA Finals MVPs who dedicated their victories, through a mask of tears, to their mothers, their fathers and their hometowns. But we’ve never had an MVP say he won the trophy as a statement...
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Where It All Began
In the 1990s and early 2000s, there was a backlash against everything we love about today’s NBA, and standing against this tide, alone in those days before twitterstorms, hashtags and online petitions,...
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Can’t Hold Us Down
There are times when the rock of history gets pushed forward by just a yard and we miss the fact that it’s not just an ordinary yard. It’s one that takes us into new territory. I would make the case...
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SLAM Top 50: Kevin Durant, No. 4
Not since 2011, that first year when LeBron James took his talents to South Beach, has the NBA had a consensus villain. Well we do now. Unfathomably, that villain is a player who disavowed the nickname...
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Message
When Victor Oladipo says the words, you can hear the excitement in his voice. “Oh, no question.” he told Complex Sports. “I truly believe [protests will come to the NBA]. Because at the end of the day...
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What Now?
Today there is a new generation of political athletes in the NBA, comprised of some of the League’s brightest stars. This group of highly influential young black men are leveraging their fame to affect...
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Court Vision
On October 29, legendary 57-year-old rap icon Kurtis Blow went into cardiac arrest, his pulse stopping for five minutes. He survived and is already back on tour, rocking mics for as long as you like....
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Powerful Beyond Measure
There is no NBA All-Star taking our collective breath away quite like 22-year-old Giannis Antetokounmpo. It’s the elastic arms and galactic skill set combined with a rapidly developing basketball...
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#RESIST
“Now we’re judging people by their religion—trying to keep Muslims out. We’re getting back to the days of putting the Japanese in relocation camps, of Hitler registering the Jews. That’s where we’re...
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A Welcome Distraction
As the playoffs—aka the second season, aka 40 Games in 40 Nights, aka “where legends are born”—get set to begin, it’s worth looking back on the most unique NBA season in recent memory, if not ever. I’m...
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The Last Bomb
I started this column over 10 years ago with a notion that the SLAM Magazine audience would be down to read a regular feature on the never-ending collisions between politics and hoops. It was a...
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