September/October 2018

Slam

Your Source For The Best In Basketball

Slam2 min read
The Sixth Man
I like all of our issues, but I think this one is particularly solid, not necessarily for what’s inside it but for each of its three covers. Sure, they look pretty cool, but I’m more psyched about how each one is going to have a little more lasting p
Slam3 min read
Trash Talk
Yo SLAM! Issue 216, The Future Issue, is fire!! Shout out to Howard Megdal and Ryne Nelson (dope pic of A’Ja Wilson, Ryan Young!) for shedding some much needed light on the women’s game. Love y’all for that. Ohhh I can’t forget Russ Bengtson and Jack
Slam3 min read
The Opening Tip
IT’S TIME UNCLE RICK, your longtime SLAM Basketball Evangelist, told a story about being a young hoop nut. Here we go. It was Fort Lauderdale, FL, back in the early 1970s. Some pals of mine and I drove down from Chicago at spring break time for vacat
Slam2 min read
Global Grind
IN 2012, MIKE SWIFT was looking for a way to integrate his love for basketball and his native country of the Philippines. Swift, a rapper who promotes his music through his personal Instagram page, launched @PinoyHoops, a secondary account that displ
Slam2 min read
Make A Movie
AS A YOUNG KID growing up on the West Side of Chicago, actor Milton “Lil Rel” Howery and his friends used to set up crates in the alley to play ball. His passion for the game has remained strong through the years, which is why he jumped at the opport
Slam3 min read
Lucky Stripe
THERE’S SOMETHING fitting about this one, about a franchise so identified with dynasties winning one of the most memorable one-off titles in NBA history, and a team with a famously stubborn fashion sense following up that ’chip with one of the most s
Slam3 min read
Mind The Gap
DESPITE ACHIEVING the goal of playing in the best basketball league in the world, foreign players in the NBA are still immigrants, a situation unique to them and one that most of their new teammates cannot relate to. Many of them have to adjust in wa
Slam3 min read
Speak It Into Existence
I’VE BECOME VERY good friends over the last year with a man who, according to Sports Illustrated’s Andrew Sharp, is a “psychopath.” He’s very nice. His name is Kirk. It started with a tweet he wrote last year. Looking at it now, it looks like a poem
Slam5 min read
Keep That Same Energy
THE GOLDEN State Warriors are a mess. Have you seen these guys lately? Just days after the season ended, the team’s GM, head coach and play-by-play guy—their play-by-play guy—were caught on camera cracking jokes about how their best player hasn’t tru
Slam1 min read
Picture Me Ballin’
Give Clayton Custer a stage and the Kansas native will step up. With the spotlight at its brightest last March, Custer took the rock with the clock winding down against 3-seed Tennessee and confidently pulled up for the cold-blooded game-winner that
Slam8 min read
Greatness
NOBODY IS PREPARED to see a picture of their face blown up two stories tall, not even four-time WNBA champion Maya Moore. “I had heard they were going to do something big,” she says. But she didn’t know that for the Minnesota Lynx home opener against
Slam6 min read
Cole It A Comeback
IN 1998, SPIKE LEE produced what is widely recognized as the greatest basketball movie of all time: He Got Game. Many in the hoops world speculate that the film drew its inspiration from a real-life New York City prospect who just three years earlier
Slam6 min read
A Bronx Tale
ASK THE FATHER, or ask the son, and they will tell you the same thing: If you’re from there—if you claim it—New York City flows through your veins. It’s simple truth, a fact that remains no matter where you might reside. Jalen Lecque is the son in th
Slam5 min read
Bigger Than You
RED 1! RED 1! Kofi Cockburn, then a freshman in high school, heard the play called but stood frozen. It was his first ever organized basketball scrimmage. His first ever experience playing within a system. His first time ever competing in front of a
Slam3 min read
n.y. STATE OF MIND
FANS CRAMMED INTO any open space available. They stood side by side, packed in uncomfortably under the blistering sun. They peaked through tiny holes in surrounding fences. Some sat perched on a neighboring building, their feet dangling freely from d
Slam4 min read
If You Know You Know
THE STREETLIGHTS have already been turned on, but it doesn’t matter. Classic Jay-Z songs blare from a cheap speaker and a group of old heads sit on a bench, angrily debating something about hoops. A few 5-year-olds run around behind them, dribbling w
Slam4 min read
Only One Way Up
ON THE MORNING before the Suns would draft first overall for the first time in the franchise’s history, Josh Jackson finished a workout at the team’s practice facility. There was plenty to chat about after an eventful season, but the first thing I ha
Slam3 min read
Riding His Own Wave
“IT WASN’T LIKE I was sitting at a table or anything,” Darius Bazley says. He’s talking to SLAM on a Friday afternoon at the end of his senior year of high school, looking back on the moment that he knew he wanted to buck tradition and find a unique
Slam2 min read
Yes Indeed
WHEN STEPHEN CURRY’S on the court, he floats in between defenders, darting around with his left-handed dribble or bouncing off screens from his teammates. He never stops moving, always hunting an open three-pointer. Dave Dombrow, Under Armour’s Chief
Slam2 min readDesign
IV The Culture
MICHAEL JORDAN famously hit “The Shot” while wearing a pair of “Bred” Air Jordan IVs, sinking the Cleveland Cavaliers in the ’89 playoffs with a hanging jumpshot from the foul line. He leapt into the air, pumped his fist and continued to levitate, gi
Slam2 min readDesign
Tougher Than Ever
KEVIN DURANT is consistent. He scores at will, he owns the left wing three-pointer and he loves Nike’s Flyknit technology. Ever since getting a pair of the Flyknit Racers back in 2012, KD’s been laced in a pair. He’s also constantly wearing the Flykn

Slam

More Issues From Slam