Group Project Time: Please help me assemble an NBA Best Of ... 2024 edition
Register your nominations/suggestions/etc. in the comments below or via Substack Chat. Let's do this together!
Astute readers will surely notice that this is one of those rare Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganzas that is actually publishing on a Wednesday.
In this case, though, that was indeed by design and not caused by some sort of publishing pile-up that forced a one-day delay.
The reason: There are no NBA games on this schedule on this Wednesday night. You will have to get through it with none of #thisleague in your life. After a funky 10 days or so schedule-wise, with the NBA determined to play out the NBA Cup quarterfinals, semifinals and ultimately Tuesday night's championship game in Las Vegas with no other competition from around the league to distract from the knockout rounds on those four nights, things final start to dribble back to normal Thursday.
Yet that leaves some free time this evening. So ...
This newsletter was shifted from its usual Tuesday slot to a day completely lacking games in hopes it will encourage you to carve out some time to participate in our latest idea for a group project.
As we approach the close of 2024, I want to run a Best Of list for the year in NBA basketball from The Stein Line ... but I want to do it community-style.
I want your nominations.
For anything and everything.
Before the calendar year runs out, I would love to run a piece that features a cross-section of standout memories supplied from various readers of The Stein Line.
The floor is completely open. Suggest whatever NBA-wise that comes to mind in the comments section as an unforgettable memory from 2024. No limits. Be as creative as you want.
🏀 Best game.
🏀 Best player.
🏀 Best dunk.
🏀 Best playoff series
🏀 Best pass.
🏀 Best picture.
🏀 Best trade.
🏀 Best trend.
🏀 Best halftime act.
🏀 Best buzzer-beater.
🏀 Best Olympic moment (that involved NBA players).
🏀 Best independent publisher of NBA topics.
🏀 Best idea for NBA Cup improvements, even.
Any sort of Best Of nomination is welcome. All I am hoping for is a cross-section that's sufficiently large to give me enough to assemble a full story.
Please help me properly put a bow on the calendar year by remembering everything that should be considered for a list like this. Collective brain power can only help the ballclub.
The Stein Line is a reader-supported newsletter with both Free and Paid subscriptions available … and those who opt for the Paid edition are taking an active role in the reporting by providing vital assistance to bolster my independent coverage of #thisleague. Feel free to forward this post to family and friends interested in the NBA and please consider becoming a Paid subscriber to have full access to all of my posts.
As a reminder: Tuesday editions, on this and every Newsletter Tuesday, go out free to anyone who signs up, just as my Tuesday pieces did in their New York Times incarnation.
Hark! Please go there quickly now
I recently shared the news that I am contributing three narrations per week to Hark Audio on its new NBA Now series, which collects and distributes standout podcast clips that Hark editors have picked out for its listeners.
If you sign up at the Hark link embedded in this sentence — all it takes is your email address — my three weekly contributions will be dispatched to you directly without you even having to search for them.
Numbers Game
🏀 2024
2024 will be remembered as the year that Stein Line HQ was outfitted with its own POP-A-SHOT setup. Read the full story here:
🏀 7
I'm in sports agony as a fan right now. Beyond the unfathomable slump at Manchester City that has engulfed a Pep Guardiola team like never before, my Buffalo Sabres have lost 11 straight hockey games to sink to the bottom of the Eastern Conference. The same Buffalo Sabres who sport the NHL's longest active playoff drought at 13 seasons and counting.
🏀 5
Regular readers probably remember that I just went to Buffalo to see the Sabres in person ... for loss No. 5 in the skid courtesy of a 3-2 crusher in overtime inflicted by Winnipeg. The ending had me muttering all the way back to the parking lot about the massive differences between the NHL and the NBA.
🏀 7
The Sabres, you see, had four top-two draft picks in a seven-year span. Four! Sam Reinhart in 2014. Jack Eichel in 2015. Rasmus Dahlin in 2018. And Owen Power in 2021. But one hockey player, in a sport where generally no one plays more than 25 minutes in a 60-minute game apart from goaltenders, can't change a franchise quite like multiple top-two picks in pro basketball. Agony!
🏀 40
We've enclosed a breakdown of the league's new format for the All-Star Game in February featuring four separate teams playing games to 40. The 24 All-Stars will be divided up into three eight-man squads, with the team that wins the Rising Stars competition on Friday night completing the four-team field.
🏀 35
Let's just say that I don't disagree with this instant reaction I saw from the Phoenix Suns' No. 35: "I hate it," Kevin Durant said. "Absolutely hate it. Terrible. ... We should just go back to East/West."
🏀 8
The Warriors are Dennis Schröder's eighth team in 12 seasons. Golden State's new No. 71 has played for the Lakers twice.
🏀 13
The two second-round draft picks that Brooklyn netted in the Schröder trade give them 13 second-rounders in the next seven drafts ... to go with 15 first-round picks between June 2025 and June 2031.
🏀 4
Four of those Nets first-round picks will be this coming June in the highly anticipated 2025 draft.
🏀 2
Both Oklahoma City/Cleveland matchups this season have been added to next month's national television schedule: Thunder at Cavaliers on ESPN on Jan. 8 and Cavaliers at Thunder on TNT on Jan. 16.
🏀 6
Remember up high in this story when we described the league's past funky 10 days or so schedule-wise? The explanation: There have been two or fewer games on the NBA schedule six times in the past 10 days to enable the league office to wedge the NBA Cup's knockout rounds into its December dates.
🏀 250
Celtics radio play-by-play ace Sean Grande notes that Boston has never had a player sink 250 3-pointers in a single season ... but also points out that there are three Celtics on pace to do it this season. They are: Payton Pritchard (319), Derrick White (290) and Jayson Tatum (284).
🏀 3
In yet another scheduling quirk spawned by the NBA Cup, Boston has made three trips to the nation's capital this season and is 3-0 on the Wizards' floor. Washington, sporting the league's worst record, is 3-21 overall and 2-11 at home.
Be sure to share the WHY along with your nomination. THANKS!!!
I wanted to share my favorite term introduced this year into the NBA discourse--introduced by our very own Marc Stein:
"Superstack"
This was a word I never knew I needed, but it now enhances everything I Love about this community! Can't wait to read every new post I get in my inbox.
This Superstack is ready to wipe the floor with all competition. Look forward to 2025 and beyond!