Basketball, Listed

A dedication to basketball history, catalogued and presented in convenient list form.

David Stern

The fourth commissioner of the NBA and by far the most impactful, shepherding the league and sport into unprecedented growth while also courting near constant controversy with his policies

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Lucky ticket: 12 unlikely NBA Draft Lottery winners

Over the last four decades, the NBA Draft Lottery has made and broken the fortunes of numerous franchises. We detail the 12 most surprising leaps to the top spot over that time

All the commissioner’s men: Nine enduring NBA conspiracy theories

Like JFK or the Beatles, Michael Jordan is so ingrained in the consciousness of American culture that he was bound to be initiated with at least one conspiracy. But he’s not the only NBA figure or team that’s inspired (relatively) crackpot theories.

Heart of the deal: 10 notable NBA franchise ownership changes

An NBA franchise changing hands in ownership is often a seamless and relatively mundane event but in these 10 cases, it was a watershed moment, either by virtue of its novelty, its sale price, and/or its impact on the future of the franchise and the league itself.

Extracurricular activities: 75 off-court moments that shaped the NBA

Going back to the invention of the game in 1891, we take a look at the 75 innovations, signings, mergers, rule changes, lawsuits, agreements, disagreements, trades, hirings, draft picks, and other off-court events that shaped the course of NBA history.

Basket-brawl: 26 memorable on-court fights in NBA games

For better or worse, we don’t really see big fights on the court anymore in the NBA. But in the past, they’ve been just as threaded into the fabric of the sport as anything that gets logged into the box score. Today, we take a look at the 26 most memorable examples of on-court melees, presented below in chronological order.

In memoriam: 20 prominent basketball people who passed away in 2020

It was an unfortunately robust year for deaths in the basketball community, as we lost the most impactful commissioner in NBA history, a Jazz coaching legend, a Bullets MVP and Finals MVP, a Harlem Globetrotters icon, two NCAA championship coaches (and two others that reached the Final Four), two playing/coaching luminaries in the Celtics organization, and, of course, Kobe and Gianna.

Missed connections: 19 blockbuster NBA trades that almost happened but fell through

Some of the greatest “what if” scenarios in NBA history have been trades that were rumored, agreed to in principle, and maybe even finalized then vetoed, but never happened. Here, we detail 19 of them that would have certainly changed the destiny of the franchises involved, if not the entire league.

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