Presenting Volume III of Basketball, Listed: Battle It Out, our dedication to on-court and off-court altercations and battles, plus heated rivalries, controversies, feuds, and much more. Chapters were published throughout the ’20-’21 NBA league season.
All previous volumes can be found on our Basketball, Listed Reader, while chapters across all volumes are collected in our full archive.
That guy has one and I don’t?: 42 worst players with a (post-merger) NBA championship ring
Some legends like Charles Barkley, Elgin Baylor, and Karl Malone were infamously shut out of the championship ranks, while Chris Paul looks to finally win his first this year in his 16th season. Meanwhile, these 42 lesser players walked away with one or more rings despite middling careers.
One of these things is not like the other: 13 one-sided NBA rivalries
Can it really be considered a rivalry if one side always gets the best of their opponent? These NBA match-ups, involving both individuals and teams, put that concept to the test to varying degrees over the years.
Gold standards: Ranking the 18 U.S. men’s Olympic basketball teams
From the original “dream team” that brought home gold from Berlin in 1936 (with James Naismith watching) to the legendary 1992 edition to the latest American champions in 2016, we rank the 18 U.S. men’s basketball teams based on both their performance at the Olympics and their roster as a whole.
One team’s trash, another team’s treasure: 14 greatest (post-merger) undrafted NBA players
Un-drafted but still undaunted, these 14 players developed into solid NBA contributors despite being overlooked in their respective draft classes.
Summer reading list: 11 essential books about the NBA or ABA
Whether you’re hitting the beach or pool this summer or relaxing inside away from the heat, here’s a list of notable books about NBA and ABA history that you can enjoy.
Dark horses: 16 greatest NBA Conference Finals upsets
The penultimate series of the NBA’s postseason has produced some memorable upsets, 16 of which were significant enough to make it onto this list
She’s got next: Ranking the 25 greatest players in WNBA history
The NBA isn’t the only basketball league with a major milestone in 2021. The WNBA is also celebrating its 25th anniversary this summer. In honor of the accomplishment, we’ve applied our NBA greatest players metric to count down the 25 greatest players in WNBA 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.
Penalty box-and-one: Five NBA playoff series that were swung by player suspensions
With the stakes at their highest and teams usually evenly matched or close to it, playoff series can often swing on a single player’s availability. Here are five notable cases where a star player missed a critical postseason game due to suspension.
Hollow trophies: 14 early playoff exits by reigning league MVPs
The reigning MVP has led their team to the NBA or ABA championship 26 times in the history of the two leagues. But in these 15 examples, the ultimate regular season honor was sullied by subsequent postseason disappointment. Can Nikola Jokic avoid a similar fate in 2021?
Comeback kids: 12 NBA playoff series in which a team overcame a 3-1 series deficit
With the Nuggets making a thrilling comeback to upend the Jazz, we take a look at that and 10 other playoff series where a team took a three games to one lead only to ultimately lose in seven.
Fraudulent voting: 20 controversial NBA league MVP decisions
As is bound to be the case whenever humans are making objective decisions based on subjective criteria, the NBA MVP winners have not always made sense in retrospect. Sometimes, they don’t even make sense as they’re being awarded. These are the 20 most notable cases.
Corporate restructuring: 11 times the NBA has made changes to its playoff format
From its early speculative days to its middle aged eras of expansion to its current experimentation with play-in games, the NBA has refreshed its playoff format numerous times over the years, with mixed results for franchises, players, and fans.
Early summer vacation: 23 greatest players without an NBA postseason appearance
Most players just have to hang around a few seasons to make their playoffs debut, but these players never reached the NBA promised land.
March sadness: 28 greatest NCAA teams that fell short of reaching the Final Four
Zion Williamson and Duke in 2019 were just the latest in a long line of high-profile, highly talented, majorly hyped teams that cruised into the NCAA Tournament assuming they were bound for the Final Four but got tripped up by the madness of March.
Order on the court: 10 people or entities who have filed notable lawsuits against the NBA
Whether it was due to anti-trust or just a lack of trust, here are ten cases where the NBA league office had to defend itself in the court of law
We’re not gonna take it: Eight NBA teams that openly rebelled against their head coach
When management didn’t move fast enough, these teams took matters into their own hands, undermining their coach and questioning his authority until there was no choice left but to fire him.
Bombs away: 22 all-time greatest NBA All-Star Three-Point Contest competitors
With the NBA All-Star Weekend Three-Point Contest surprisingly happening again in 2021, we take a look back at the all-time greats in the event, ranking them based on the criteria of number of times competing, number of times reaching the semifinals/finals, number of titles, highest score, and average score.
Heat check: 23 greatest players in Suns franchise history
In our continuing series counting down the greatest players for each team, we check in on the oldest NBA franchise without a championship, the Phoenix Suns, from their early days to the thrilling ’90s to the Seven Seconds or Less era and beyond.
Bone dry: 15 all-time longest NBA franchise playoff droughts
With the Suns and possibly Knicks set to break long-time postseason absence streaks in 2021, we take a look at the lengthiest playoff droughts in NBA history.
Challengers to the crown: Eight notable American basketball leagues that competed against the NBA
Though the NBA has been king of pro basketball in America since 1949, these rival leagues have challenged it in some way over the years, to various interesting effects.
An offer he couldn’t refuse: 16 controversial moments involving David Stern
We take a look back at the most controversial moments of David Stern’s long, successful, momentous career as an NBA league executive.
Why can’t we be friends?: 10 notable NBA player feuds
While most player feuds never make it past the cliches “leave it all on the floor” or “let your game do the talking,” these are the ones that actually spilled out into noticeable quarrels, be it physical, verbal, or passive-aggressive.
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.
Bad boys for life: Ranking the 15 players who won a title as Isiah Thomas’ Pistons teammate
In back-to-back seasons in 1989 and 1990, Isiah Thomas led the Pistons to the first two titles in franchise history. Today, we rank the 15 players who were part of those championship runs with Thomas, based on their overall career (not just their time with the Pistons).
Have a holly, jolly birthday: Seven NBA or ABA players who were born on Christmas Day
It’s supposedly the worst birthday a kid could have (combined presents!), but these guys focused that childhood disappointment into a pro basketball future.
Sibling rivalry: 10 lesser-known NBA playing brothers of star players
Though some were pretty great players in their own right, these siblings got lost in the shuffle of their more famous brothers’ NBA success.
Keep your enemies closer: Nine geographically adjacent NBA rivalries
If absence makes the heart grow fonder, then it stands to reason that closeness breeds contempt, as was the case in these nine NBA rivalries, which were all connected by topographical proximity.
Draft dodgers: Eight NBA players who refused to suit up for the team that drafted them
Whether it was the locale, the franchise’s recent history, the roster makeup, the contract offer, or all of the above plus myriad other supposed reasons (just ask Steve Francis), these eight players disavowed the NBA teams that drafted them, with varied results.
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