-
Feb 8, 2025 | 
truehoop.com | Henry Abbott |Jarod Hector |Travis Moran |David Thorpe
BY HENRY ABBOTT, JAROD HECTOR, TRAVIS MORAN, and DAVID THORPEThe NBA is popular and has a big PR team armed with facts and figures to prove it. But they’re only so convincing. In last week’s AFC championship game, 57.4 million people watched the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills. Many Super Bowls have had reported viewing audiences in excess of 110 million people.
-
Feb 8, 2025 | 
open.substack.com | Henry Abbott |Jarod Hector |Travis Moran |David Thorpe
BY HENRY ABBOTT, JAROD HECTOR, TRAVIS MORAN, and DAVID THORPEThe NBA is popular and has a big PR team armed with facts and figures to prove it. But they’re only so convincing. In last week’s AFC championship game, 57.4 million people watched the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills. Many Super Bowls have had reported viewing audiences in excess of 110 million people.
-
Feb 3, 2025 | 
truehoop.com | Henry Abbott |Jarod Hector |Travis Moran |David Thorpe
BY HENRY ABBOTT, JAROD HECTOR, TRAVIS MORAN, and DAVID THORPEI’ll bet 10 bucks right now that the Mavs will finish higher in the standings than the Lakers. Any takers? What’s the Lakers’ record? Are they above .500 right now? The Lakers are 28-19 [as of February 3]. They’re 10 games out and currently fifth in the West. The Mavericks are 26-24; they’re 13.5 out in the nine hole. Well, I would never bet on anything.
-
Feb 1, 2025 | 
truehoop.com | Henry Abbott |Jarod Hector |Travis Moran |David Thorpe
BY HENRY ABBOTT, JAROD HECTOR, TRAVIS MORAN, and DAVID THORPEEveryone loves the trade deadline! For contenders, it’s a chance to leapfrog the competition. For rebuilding teams, it’s a chance to offer their fans hope for next season. Sometimes the biggest moves aren’t necessarily the biggest names. Last year, David Thorpe tabbed the Mavericks as winners of the deadline for acquiring Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington. Who’ll come out on top this season? The team that gets Jimmy Butler?
-
Jun 24, 2024 | 
truehoop.com | Henry Abbott |Jarod Hector |Travis Moran
BY HENRY ABBOTT, JAROD HECTOR, and TRAVIS MORANThis week, while waiting for resident expert David Thorpe to return from the Great White North (Toronto), we cooked up a fun idea. Unlike David, the three of us are much closer to the engaged NBA fan—meaning, there’s only so much depth we can add to a draft analysis. But what about looking even further down the road, into a future no one knows? That’s where broken clocks can rule the day.
-
Jun 24, 2024 | 
open.substack.com | Henry Abbott |Jarod Hector |Travis Moran
BY HENRY ABBOTT, JAROD HECTOR, and TRAVIS MORANThis week, while waiting for resident expert David Thorpe to return from the Great White North (Toronto), we cooked up a fun idea. Unlike David, the three of us are much closer to the engaged NBA fan—meaning, there’s only so much depth we can add to a draft analysis. But what about looking even further down the road, into a future no one knows? That’s where broken clocks can rule the day.
-
Jun 21, 2024 | 
truehoop.com | Travis Moran
BY TRAVIS MORANThis week, the Los Angeles Lakers hired ESPN broadcaster and former NBA player JJ Redick as their new head coach. Replacing the fired Darvin Ham, Redick will be the Lakers’ eighth head coach since Phil Jackson left the position vacant following the 2010-2011 season. “High on prestige [but] shit in every other way,” is how one Western Conference scout describes the Lakers job. But anyone who coaches the Lakers receives, if nothing else, professional street cred and global spotlight.
-
Apr 16, 2024 | 
truehoop.com | Travis Moran
BY TRAVIS MORANBack in October, I asked David Thorpe to review my league’s fantasy draft. After he’d analyzed the Hustle’s draft (my team), then everyone else’s, I asked him to assess one team in particular: Triangle, managed by my brother. Triangle had drafted Anthony Davis in the first round and followed with Kawhi Leonard. Davis is in fantasy what he is in real life: a titan of production. When he plays, he’s arguably the most complete weapon in fantasy basketball.
-
Mar 23, 2024 | 
truehoop.com | Travis Moran
BY TRAVIS MORAN“You make your own luck,” the saying goes. Hemingway, speaking to his son, gets popular credit for that phrasing—and for the observation that follows: “You know what makes a good loser? Practice.”I’ve put in a lot of fucking practice in life. Planting my proverbial face into proverbial fans used to be character-defining talent. Many times throughout our lives, for instance, my brother and I have traded actual blows.
-
Mar 13, 2024 | 
truehoop.com | Henry Abbott |Travis Moran |David Thorpe
BY HENRY ABBOTT, TRAVIS MORAN, and DAVID THORPEThe response from last week’s “Best Player in the World” poll had us bubbling when we reconvened for this week’s Monday morning content meeting. “What about five years from now?” asked David Thorpe. You could hear eyebrows scaling foreheads. The best players of today—Nikola Jokić, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Joel Embiid—would hardly be retired. But what would five years do for them compared to this lanky French parvenu taking the league by storm?
