September/October 2020

Slam

Your Source For The Best In Basketball

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The Sixth Man
THIS IS SO WEIRD. Sorry, but I thought that was a logical starting point for this issue. Everything, everywhere, is weird right now—but things are especially weird in the basketball world, where, as I write this, the NBA and WNBA are about to kick of
Slam1 min readLeadership
Slam
PUBLISHER Dennis S. Page EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER David Schnur CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER Adam Figman MANAGING EDITOR Susan Price Thomas HEAD OF SOCIAL MEDIA Arvind Pitchai SENIOR EDITOR Ryne Nelson SENIOR CONTENT PRODUCERS Camille Buxeda, Franklyn Calle ASSOC
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Trash Talk
Last magazine was perfect: My man Ja Morant on the cover, the Raps historic 15-game win streak, and HYPE was on point, as usual. I’ve been reading a lot of my old mags recently and I can read those over and over again. The articles are still great! W
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The Opening Tip
WELL, THAT WAS an interesting four months with no NBA games, right? It was more than a little painful if you had grown used to watching the end of every regular season and the playoffs that follow and a champion always being crowned in mid-June. Whic
Slam3 min readPolitics
Come Together
STEPHANIA ERGEMLIDZE made her way through the streets of Philadelphia, a full-sized basketball hoop dragging behind her. Those same streets, in the days prior, had seen massive Black Lives Matter protests. The air had been filled with tear gas, nearb
Slam2 min readBasketball
Devon Dotson
WAY BEFORE Devon Dotson was the floor general on 2020’s best college basketball team and way before he all but locked up a first-round draft selection, he was just down in the basement with his older brother, dreaming. “We used to always go down ther
Slam3 min readBasketball
Jay Scrubb
THE 2020 NBA DRAFT is expected to be historic for all types of reasons, as the sports world attempts to resume some kind of normalcy during these unprecedented times. In the midst of many milestones will be the selection of a 6-6 sophomore from a com
Slam2 min readBasketball
The Grind Don’t Stop
FOR DECADES, Five-Star Basketball Camp was known to be the gold standard of basketball education for both coaches and players. With the help of the NBPA’s world class grassroots basketball organization, the camp that cultivated generations of brain-p
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Live From The Bubble
IT’S A COUPLE OF days before the bubble is starting as I’m writing this. You’re from the future, so you know either what kind of miracle the bubble is or what kind of incalculable disaster it wound up being. I am, at this moment, some naive idiot fro
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Slamadamonth
APRIL 19, 1999 AIR CANADA CENTRE TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA Vince Carter and Michael Doleac were drafted the same year. Think about that for a moment. Doleac had what you would consider an average NBA career. Selected 12th overall by the Orlando Magic,
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No Mercy, No Fear
THE SUV PULLS up to the back entrance of a nondescript industrial-looking building in the Warehouse District of New Orleans. It’s the last Sunday of June and the downtown streets in The Big Easy are calm and quiet as the car drives up to the discreet
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The Happiest Place On Earth
FOUR MONTHS after the NBA became the first North American professional sports league to close its doors as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the Association is back. Despite the chaos of the times, the NBA and the players’ union agreed to reconve
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That Quarantine Life
“I REMEMBER MY mom always used to tell me, Son, learn how to cook. I’m not going to be there [to do it] for you for the rest of your life,” says Celtics big man Enes Kanter, laughing. Life for an NBA player can obviously be hectic. The traveling is s
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Pack Mentality
EVERY WORK DAY looks different for Robby Sikka, the vice president of basketball performance and technology for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Whether it’s via phone or video conference, Sikka interacts with dozens of people every day, helping with ever
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The Link Up
IN MID-MAY, OVO Sound artist Roy Woods dropped a six-track EP titled “Dem Times.” The Canadian musician, who is the youngest artist on Drake’s label, fittingly named the fourth song in the project after none other than Toronto Raptors All-Star Pascal
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By Example
ON HIS ROAD to Duke, Wendell Moore Jr always felt the genuine love and support of his community. Now, in this time of social unrest, he’s been stepping up to bring that same community together to advocate for racial justice. Moore Jr and his girlfrie
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2020 Wnba Preview
If there’s one team everyone in the League should fear this upcoming season, it’s the Sky. This Chicago group is one of the youngest in the League, so it’s no surprise that they are also one of the most athletic. Behind prolific scorers in two-time T
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Go Legend
IN THE 14TH AND 15TH centuries, the world saw a surge of insanely talented individuals mastering specific crafts, from mathematics to art and science. Leonardo da Vinci, Lavinia Fontana and Michelangelo were some of the influential men and women who
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The People’s Champ
IN 1963, HUNDREDS OF thousands of Black Americans marched in Washington, DC, with one of the country’s Freedom Riders John R. Lewis’ words ringing in the background: “Get in and stay in the streets of every city, every village and hamlet of this nati
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Chi View
GABBY WILLIAMS knows she’s fortunate. As a two-time NCAA champion with UConn and star on the WNBA’s Chicago Sky, she has a public platform to speak out on issues and help bring about real change. “I’ve always been a very passionate and outspoken pers
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Just The Beginning
FOR WNBA ROOKIES, the last few months have been anything but typical, from a virtual draft to living at IMG Academy—the Florida prep school that’s hosting the 2020 season. Minnesota Lynx rookie Mikiah Herbert Harrigan is taking life in the “Wubble” i
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Boys
6-6, SMALL FORWARD CHATSWORTH (CA) SIERRA CANYON HS ATTENDING KENTUCKY BJ MADE THE coast-to-coast move for his senior year, leaving Norcross HS in Georgia for Sierra Canyon in Southern California. At Sierra, he was the leading scorer (19.7 points) fo
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Girls
5-7, GUARD IRVING (TX) MACARTHUR HS ATTENDING BAYLOR ANDREWS EARNED TEXAS Girls Coaches Association Class 6A All-State honors for the third consecutive year after averaging 14.4 points and 6.0 assists per game for MacArthur High School as a senior. T
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Moment To Moment
AZZI FUDD IS driving home with her family through the endless cornfields of the Midwest in early July. Her body aches after having played six games in three days, but the pain is secondary to the joy of having played her first organized basketball ga
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The Warm Up
IS DREAMVILLE JUST a record label? Is it a place? Is it a demeanor? Is it a mindset? Or does it represent something even more simple? Could it be just an idea? Could it mean that the act of dreaming, of imagining the future, of hoping for more, even
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Timeless
KYRIE IRVING HAS been able to distance himself from the rest of the signature sneaker pack because of one thing: his mind. It’s been years of studying for Irving. His references flow through basketball history, sneaker knowledge and a cerebral databa
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2 Step
“WE ALWAYS START with insight,” Ross Klein, Senior Creative Director for Nike Basketball, says. Then, on a Zoom call, he flips through pages of data collected from NBA arenas, as well as multiple points of inspiration, ranging from sculptures to snea
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@slamarchive
THE CRY OF INJUSTICE has been drowned out for a long time. Recent events have suspended basketball and life as we know it. As one normality has been interrupted, another more uncomfortable truth has continued and the world has had time to notice. The

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