TrueHoop

TrueHoop is a digital sports media platform dedicated to sharing authentic stories from the NBA and beyond, offering insights you won't find elsewhere. Originally launched as a blog in 2005, TrueHoop has evolved into a comprehensive network that includes a blog, podcast, digital video series, and more. It has received recognition from prominent outlets like SportsCenter, NPR, GQ, The New York Times, and Charlie Rose, among others. After spending a decade at ESPN, TrueHoop is back, now connecting directly with our audience.

National

English

Media Company

Outlet metrics

Domain Authority

Ranking

Global

#1332503

United States

#444818

Sports/Basketball

#549

Traffic sources

Monthly visitors

Articles

Be on the lookout for wonder

2 weeks ago | truehoop.com | Henry Abbott

Sometimes at TrueHoop we delve deep into dreadful things like Jeffrey Epstein, money laundering, sportwashing—and even flopping. Clearly, I don’t buy the weak idea that sports fans must be coddled. And we’re not ignorant of the fact that right now, so much is terrible. (A close friend of my family has been in ICE detention since March 12 and just missed his daughter’s middle school graduation.) It’s a little debate, every day, if and how we should address … all this.
What we learned from Game 2

2 weeks ago | truehoop.com | Henry Abbott

It's very obvious that the game is played differently now. There's so much more contact. They're not letting you grab and hold and push with your hands, but you can do a lot with your body, and it's just the way the game is being played now. So if you're a skinny dude, you better be hitting the weights. If you're in the draft, be ready. Every team, right now, needs more players like Lu Dort. Ask Tyrese Haliburton. Tyrese is really struggling with Lu Dort. Dort is not gonna win the Finals MVP.
Copy the best-run franchises

3 weeks ago | truehoop.com | Henry Abbott

Over the weekend we asked TrueHoop subscribers to send in Finals questions, which opened a portal into all kinds of Finals talk. Today: why the whole league should be copying the Pacers and Thunder. HENRY: There are several questions that are basically along the lines of, what are the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two coaching staffs? DAVID: The Pacers have a superstar coach on the sidelines in Jenny Boucek. She's basically managing the defense.
Can the Pacers exhaust Shai?

3 weeks ago | truehoop.com | Henry Abbott

BY DAVID THORPE and HENRY ABBOTTGoing into the playoffs, Jalen Brunson was the king of crunch time and the Big Apple. He’s exceptional player and deserves it. But he lost a little sting against the Pacers. It shows up in the video below, and in the statistics. He averaged 2.9 turnovers per 100 possessions of crunch time in the regular season.
Subscribers only: Ask David Thorpe

3 weeks ago | truehoop.com | Henry Abbott

Thursday June 5 the NBA Finals begin with a matchup that almost nobody predicted: The Oklahoma City Thunder against the Indiana Pacers. Yay basketball. From my point of view, it’s going to be crazy exciting. I like how these teams play. They’re both well coached, they both believe in delivering players to the postseason fresh and ready to play. They both believe in young players and deep benches.
The Knicks are almost finished

1 month ago | truehoop.com | Henry Abbott

Eleven days ago David Thorpe published a story called “The Knicks better win Game 1.” The gist: you can’t come from behind, in a game or a series, against a Pacers team that is designed and practiced in playing way freaking harder than you. (The Pacers are destroying the Knicks with speed, racing to open looks that they have made 72 percent of the time early in the shot clock.)The Knicks damn-near won Game 1.
Anthony Edwards was aggressive

1 month ago | truehoop.com | Henry Abbott

People with comically high testosterone levels tend to excel in sports. And that can lead them, in some cases, to jobs analyzing the game for television networks. Their thinking about problem solving can tend to have a certain predictable bent. From now on, I want $5 in cash every time I hear an NBA player has to be “more aggressive.”I want that money for three reasons:It’s a dead horse. I’m 50, I’ve been watching sports since childhood. I swear it has been part of every single broadcast.
The Wolves vs. a brick wall

1 month ago | truehoop.com | Henry Abbott

This is my favorite time of the NBA season. Four teams, games every night, it’s all lively and popping. (The Finals have a far slower pace and half as many teams.) And this year it’s special. Watching the Thunder’s nail-biter Game 4 win in Minnesota, I had all kinds of thoughts that are below. First, though, here’s David Thorpe’s high-level takeaway:Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the second-best player in the world, the best non-center, and the current MVP of this season. He’s 26.
NBA refereeing is so messy

1 month ago | truehoop.com | Henry Abbott

I was in San Antonio for the 2013 NBA Finals–that’s the one that LeBron’s Heat won in seven exciting games over the Spurs–when I bumped into a well-placed guy who was fresh from the NBA’s competition committee meeting. At that time, at TrueHoop and ESPN, we were hardcore into a program we called HoopIdea, which was essentially a program of imagining how NBA rules could be improved. Then, as now, the referees were a constant source of fan, coach, and player anxiety.
Cason Wallace looks wonderful

1 month ago | truehoop.com | Henry Abbott

Am I proud of myself for declaring, back in March, that the Thunder would win this year’s title? Now that all of their most feared West rivals have been retired, and they’re up 2-0 against the Wolves, you bet. One of the coolest things about their first 13 playoff games of 2024-2025 is that it included trials. That Denver series was a pressure-cooker, perhaps even the shadow NBA Finals. The Thunder trailed 1-0 and 2-1, had overtime—and then a mega-stakes Game 7.