'Twas a tremendous NBA Trade Season
Please accept my heartfelt thanks for joining me on this journey
I love the homepage feature provided to content creators on Substack because, at the touch of a button or two, it enables a tech-challenged publisher like me to run a website that organizes itself so professionally without having to move things around myself.
Some of my colleagues have even snazzier homepages because, me being less-than-tech-savvy me, I still haven't mastered all the intricacies of dressing up the page available to us.
Yet I can proudly point to the column titled "Most popular" down the right-hand side. It's an automated list that perpetually displays the six stories, in order, that rank as the most-read in any given Substack's history.
And all six of mine, I am prouder to report, were published just since Jan. 7.
That means that, for two Januarys in a row now, your appetite for my coverage of NBA Trade Season has been record-setting … at least in our record books. Thank you so much!
Even after all these years, I still tend to underestimate how much interest there is in the NBA's Transaction Game.
The good news for you: That coverage doesn't end now. Far from it. The playoffs are obviously the primary focus leaguewide from now through June, once we get past the forthcoming All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake City, but those who followed closely throughout Year 1 for The Stein Line on our new media planet will surely remember how thoroughly we covered the buildup to the NBA offseason ... and how far ahead of free agency and the coaching carousel we consistently stayed with our reporting.
At month's end for new paid subscribers only, I will restore the original price of a monthly subscription — $5 — but only until May. The monthly subscription fee for new subscribers will then be re-raised for the two months leading up to the start of free agency, when this cyberspace is sure to be filled with countless stories (Monday Musings, This Week In Basketball, etc.) that look ahead while also lasering in on the playoff present.
We'll be trying some new things in coming months as well to complement all of the weekly staples you've come to expect and the various avenues for us to connect directly through our community comment sections and the Substack Chat functionality — check out the link to the latter in the next section if you haven’t tried it yet. I hope to make more frequent use of the Audio Dispatch format in tribute to the great Grant Wahl. There might even be some photography surprises, too.
The goal is to only add to the premium independent coverage, as personal as I’ve ever assembled it, that I have strived to provide over the past 18-plus months. It’s been an absolute blast to cover #thisleague this way … and an honor and a privilege to do so while maintaining the closest possible connection to you.
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 the league. 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.
Chatter Box
Besides the four (or more) posts that you get from me in this format on a weekly basis, there are other ways to connect with me.
The new one is the twice-a-week #thisleague UNCUT podcast produced by iHeart that I co-host with Chris Haynes of Turner Sports. Enclosed is a link to Monday's edition in which we break down the buyout market, discuss the four-way trade that brought Gary Payton II back to Golden State and routed James Wiseman to Detroit and hit enough topics to keep you plugged in until our next pod drops Thursday:
Fully fledged subscribers to this Substack can also chat with me and our whole community via the Substack Chat functionality available exclusively on the Substack app. The latest room poses the question: Which team out there did not do enough at the trade deadline?
Numbers Game
🏀 8
Repeating the eyebrow-raising stat that topped Monday's around-the-league via This Week In Basketball: The 2022-23 NBA season will go down as the first in league history in which three players with at least eight All-Star appearances were traded in-season: Kyrie Irving, Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant
🏀 4
Only two MVPs in NBA history have been traded four times: My beloved former Buffalo Brave Bob McAdoo ... and now Westbrook.
🏀 20-0
The Nuggets are 20-0 this season when Nikola Jokić registers a triple-double. According to my fellow Substacker Justin Kubatko, Jokić is one of only five players in league history to post at least 20 triple-doubles in a single season. The others: Oscar Robertson (five times), Russell Westbrook (four times), Wilt Chamberlain (twice) and James Harden.
🏀 34
Jalen Brunson's regular-season scoring high before joining the Knicks was 34 points. Brunson has scored 34 points or more in nine games already as a Knick and has been especially prolific offensively since he was snubbed from an All-Star spot in the East.
🏀 2021
Quite a reminder from my pal Fred Katz of The Athletic: In September 2021, it will be two full years since Knicks president of basketball operations Leon Rose has granted an interview to anyone in the media apart from the team-owned MSG Network. And the NBA continues to sit idly by, refusing to step in even though 29 other teams make their top basketball decision-maker available to independent media multiple times per season.
🏀 3/23
Mavericks coach Jason Kidd and new Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving share a birthday: March 23. Kidd turns 50 this year; Irving will be 31.
🏀 57
My alma mater Cal State Fullerton opened in 1957. I thus have a considerable soft spot for the number 57. Which means I suddenly find myself rooting for the newest Boston Celtic after Mike Muscala chose to wear No. 57 in green. Muscala told Boston reporters that he chose the number in honor of his mother, Mary Maiden, who was born in 1957 and died shortly before the start of the season. "I thought it would be a nice way to remember her while I’m here," Muscala said.
🏀 57
Muscala is just the second player in NBA history to sport No. 57, joining Hilton Armstrong, who wore it as a Golden State Warrior in his final season in the NBA in 2013-14 and is now a Warriors assistant coach.
Grant Wahl was the best and I support your audio-format tribute
In a few years, your kid will be running all those tech aspects for you😤