Us ... for 3!

The Stein Line recently celebrated its third birthday and The Transaction Game in #thisleague has finally slowed down sufficiently to talk about it

I have a major weakness for reveling in (and writing about) historical milestones.

So please brace yourself for (more than) a few sappy recollections now that I finally have an opportunity to do the piece I've been promising since late last month to commemorate this Substack celebrating its third birthday and moving into a fourth full year of operation.

The Stein Line officially launched on June 25, 2021 ... with its maiden story running on July 12, 2021. You guys have undoubtedly heard the speech from me before about how The Transaction Game is churning too wildly in late June to write about anything other than NBA free agency, trade, draft and coaching carousel machinations ... but we can do so at last now. Which means, as an incurable nostalgist, fixating on a slew of personal On This Date memories and markers that no one else is tracking.

Example No. 1: Fast-approaching in mid-August is the 35-year mark since my first NBA article for The Orange County Register, assigned by a desk editor who informed me on a not-so-sleepy Saturday afternoon that I needed to step in for vacationing Lakers writer Don Greenberg, call Lakers general manager Jerry West at home for reaction and write a front-page news story about a threat from the then-Yugoslavian army to try to block 1989 Lakers draftee Vlade Divac from coming to the NBA. (It proved to be an empty threat.)

That same summer 35 years ago was the very first NBA summer league I covered at Loyola Marymount University. (First active NBA player I interviewed at Gersten Pavilion: Utah's Mark Eaton).

A recent Twitter clip that crossed my radar only uncorked more sappiness. It's a mere 10 years old but ranks as another hugely momentous occasion in my career: I was on live duty on the SportsCenter desk alongside Chris Broussard, Brian Windhorst and host Jay Crawford when LeBron James — via his "I'm Coming Home" piece in Sports Illustrated — announced to the world on July 11, 2014, that he was re-signing in free agency with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

I have always regarded that as a transformative offseason for the NBA Insider genre as much as James' abruptly bolting South Beach to return to his home-state Cavaliers proved to be a seminal chapter in Player Empowerment Era history. A major unannounced shift began with the way ESPN covered that news with the three of us flanking Crawford; pretty much from that point on newspaper alumni like Broussard, Windhorst, Ramona Shelburne and I were given ever-expanding NBA coverage roles despite our collective lack of formal TV training. An increased emphasis in Bristol would suddenly be placed on the news-gathering ability we had, prioritized over on-camera polish, which swiftly led to one of the greatest coverage experiences of my life: Thirty-plus days in a row in Spain in the summer of 2014 tracking the United States' World Cup-winning team that featured a couple of on-the-rise Golden State guards named Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson who, without warning, were about to embark on their first championship season together. Just two summers earlier at the London Olympics, I covered the United States' second of four consecutive runs to a gold medal in men's basketball for ESPN.com with virtually no TV assignments from ESPN.

I watched the clip with both fondness and amazement when it reached me ... especially once I started to process how much more has changed in the decade since. I would have never imagined then that there would be a stint at The New York Times in my future (couldn't resist linking to an NYT piece on Eaton a few grafs earlier) and then my own shock free agency move away from the world's most recognizable newspaper title to the world of independent publishing and full-fledged entrepreneur status.

In my 50s!

#thisleague

None of this, of course, would be possible without you. Only with your support — reading along, meeting up with me in Substack Chat and, of course, subscribing in the first place — could this community approach 34,000 residents. This thing just keeps growing and that makes me so proud.

Proud and eternally grateful.

I love the way my Buffalonian pal Tyler Dunne says it in his wonderful Go Long dispatches and so I am co-opting his line here: The Stein Line is "completely powered by you." I pledge to try to bring you as close as I possibly can to the inner-workings of the NBA with reporting you can't get anywhere else.

Dare I say we've been on a pretty good run, too, as this Substack continues to routinely inform NBA fans of major news happenings throughout the league well before they happen. In March I assembled a deep dive on Kyrie Irving's renaissance with the Dallas Mavericks ... roughly a month ahead of the Mavericks embarking on a Cinderella run to the NBA Finals. I wrote the first story about San Antonio's interest in signing Chris Paul on April 20 ... more than two months before they actually signed him. This Substack would then be the first to inform you about the New Orleans Pelicans' serious determination to find a new home via trade for Brandon Ingram (in May) ... as well as the Warriors' aggressive trade pursuit of Paul George (before the draft) .... plus the strong mutual interest between Thompson and the Mavericks (some 48 hours before the opening bell of free agency) that would soon lead to the stunning dissolution of Golden State's Splash Brothers.

Year 3 of #thissubstack was an eventful one personally with some undeniable highs and lows. I won an Associated Press Sports Editors award for my November 2023 news story that revealed Mark Cuban's plans to sell a majority stage in the Mavericks. I also lost a radio show I loved dearly when 97.1 FM in Dallas abruptly pivoted away from sports and talk in a format change that resurrected its rock station identity ... ending The Saturday Stein Line after just 10 months. (Thanks again Panini America for making the show happen!)

I'm gearing up for some new fun audio work that I will be able to expound upon in the very near future and have some exciting plans right here for The Stein Line that I don't want to jinx by saying too much right now. Just know that I have already begun working on one of the coolest features I've ever assembled — truly new ground compared to anything I've written in the past — while I also have some travel plans before training camps open for the 2024-25 season that I hope will yield some highly readable stuff.

Your backing, participation and readership have made this publication a fixture in the Substack Sports Top 10 and, more crucially because of you, I'm able to cover the NBA in the most personal manner that I ever have.

An Eastern Conference executive I've long known did recently chide me about my insistence on printing items about Paul Skenes and Caesar salads on a recent Newsletter Tuesday … but I'm pretty sure he was kidding and actually enjoyed the detours. I am routinely knocking on the nearest piece of wood in recognition of the fact that this wonderfully blank canvas allows me to weave in tales about travel, coffee, food, sneakers and trading cards along with all the NBA coverage.

One of the best parts: It likewise enables me to take you with me wherever I go. Which never stops being so cool to me.

I try to never lose sight of the fact that not everyone can join us here as a paying subscriber. If you prefer to remain a Free subscriber, you will still continue to get a couple thousand words every week from me. Hopefully you will enjoy what you read and can join us eventually and, whether you're Paid or Free, please consider encouraging friends and family to join us. Word-of-mouth sharing is always hugely helpful when it comes to growth.

Paid subscribers, meanwhile, will continue to get every single word I write, attentive responses in the comments from yours truly and the ability to launch your own threads at any time in the Substack Chat virtual sports bar that never closes. Every single word meant more than 220 posts over the past year and more than 600 over the past three years. That's double what I was advised to publish by Substack itself upon launching.

Hanging out in Marc Stein’s ‘virtual sports bar’

All the costs attached to proprietary reporting (like travel, health care, etc.) fall fully on me now, so your assistance is vital in helping me produce the best possible content. Such support enables me to keep chasing the widest variety of NBA news, opinion, commentary, storytelling and historical perspective.

Thank you. THANK YOU. Thank you endlessly for joining me on this journey. I suspect it will surprise regular readers zero percent that your obsessively nostalgic publisher is going to put a bow on this entry in the same way I did after Birthdays No. 1 and No. 2. You're surely well aware by now what happens once we start a tradition around here.

So please take us out, Coach Norman Dale of Hickory High, as only you can:

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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.

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Vegas, baby!

The Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza isn't usually the place for this sort of item, but it also made little sense to hold it until the next around-the-league notebook:

So …

I'm told that the Mavericks are aiming to hold a healthy portion of their training camp in Las Vegas in early October after conducting the usual Media Day that every NBA team stages locally on Sept. 30. Vegas, of course, is home for new Mavericks majority owner Patrick Dumont, who doubles as Sands Corp. president and COO.

The NBA's annual summer league in Las Vegas just wrapped up earlier this month and the NBA Cup semifinals and finals (when the in-season tournament finally starts acting like an actual Cup) will be back in Sin City in December. No protest here if a visit to Mavs camp mandates a third trip to the desert this year for NBA business.

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Numbers Game

🏀 3.3

Think we've got the starting backcourt on the All-Minimum Contracts Team for next season with Phoenix signing Tyus Jones and Milwaukee signing Gary Trent Jr. on one-year, $3.3 million deals. Stunning to see both land with new teams at such bargain prices. Who are your nominees for the All-Minimums starting five?

🏀 2035-36

The NBA's new media rights deal that begins in 2025-26 is scheduled to run through the 2035-36 season.

🏀 43

I will have covered the NBA for 43 consecutive seasons if I make it to the end of that deal. New work goal!

🏀 77

The NBA's new deal, valued at nearly $77 billion over 11 years, indeed came in at nearly triple the nine-year, $24 billion media rights deal with ESPN and Turner that expires after the 2024-25 season. It's why I have consistently said that the obsession with NBA TV ratings is misplaced; ratings declines will only become a real worry when broadcast partners are the ones doing the loudest complaining and/or slashing the billions they're willing to spend on the product.

🏀 22

TNT has aired the NBA's past 22 All-Star Weekends. It aired on NBC from 1990 through 2002 and will return to NBC as part of the new TV arrangement in 2025-26.

🏀 1

There was only one American-born player on last season's All-NBA first team: Boston's Jayson Tatum.

🏀 4

The other four members of the All-NBA first team: Greece's Giannis Antetokounpo (Milwaukee), Slovenia's Luka Dončić, Canada's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Oklahoma City) and Serbia's Nikola Jokić (Denver).

🏀 0

The Jazz have amazingly acquired Russell Westbrook twice now, in separate trades with the Lakers and Clippers, and released him both times without Westbrook appearing in a single game for Utah.

🏀 16

A gem from my pal

Keith Smith

: Even after landing a five-year, $175 million contract this summer, Toronto's Immanuel Quickley will only be the NBA's 16th highest-paid point guard next season.

🏀 27

Canadian-born outfielder Dante Nori, son of Timberwolves assistant coach Micah Nori, was recently selected No. 27 overall by the Philadelphia Phillies in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft.

🏀 29-3

Think my buddy Adam Mares was the first person to spot this after the United States' 110-84 victory Sunday over Serbia: The Serbians were outscored 29-3 in the nine minutes that Nikola Jokić sat. The game was 81-81 when Jokić played. (H/T to BasketNews.com for the graphic.)

🏀 19

While I was summer league in Las Vegas, I missed more than El Toro High's Paul Skenes starting the All-Star Game in nearby Arlington, Texas, for the National League. I also missed Caitlin Clark's 19-assist game against the Dallas Wings ... her fifth game this season with at least 13 assists.

🏀 4

Leave it to my pal Micah Adams to point out that all previous WNBA rookies in the league's 28-season history combined for four games total with 13 or more assists.