Making it rain on Christmas Day.
Basketball
Basketball is a ball game (similar to netball or handball) played between two teams of five players with the aim of each team shooting a basketball at each other’s hoop to score more points than the opponent.
The most popular basketball league is the National Basketball Association (NBA). College and high school basketball is also very popular in the US and Canada and, outside of North America, basketball is very popular in countries such as Spain, the UK, Australia, France, Greece, Italy, and Argentina.
Related tags: Black athletes | Michael Jordan | Dennis Rodman | ESPN | Nike
Here’s a Wikipedia article about “sleep in the NBA“. It feels more like a blog post but it’s cool to have the info. (h/t @juniedreamcast.bsky.social)
TIL: the last 7 NBA MVPs have been international players
Maybe they should change the name to IBA.
For Atlas Obscura, Sam Lin-Sommer wrote about Oaxaca in Mexico and its love of basketball through La Copa Benito Juárez, an annual tournament that takes places in the mountains: At this tournament, there are no corporate sponsorships, no prize money. Just some 6,000 players and fans from the basketball-crazed mountains of the Sierra Juárez, trekking to the Zapotec hamlet of Guelatao de Juárez, driven by, as the tournament’s motto goes, el honor de competir.
I have no opinion on the GOAT debate (so don’t bring it here) but these Michael Jordan plays are ridiculous.
Detroit Pistons's tribute to J Dilla's 50th birthday
Like Dilla said, he was ‘from the D, y’all’
The Conversation on a lack of majority black-owned basketball franchises
How a basketball team in Harlem paved the way but no one is left to walk it.
TIL: Matthew Perry appeared as a secret character in 'NBA Hangtime'
Could I BE any more on fire?
A compilation of incredible ankle breakers and crossovers
Call an ambulance, call an ambulance!
British basketball in ‘untenable’ position due to lack of funding, warns federation: In an open letter seen by the Guardian, [Chris] Grant [chairman of GB Basketball] also questions why basketball receives so little funding compared to sports such as sailing when it is the second most played team sport in the UK after football, with 1.3 million regular participants – 47% of whom are from backgrounds other than white British – and has a women’s team that has broken into the world’s top 20.
The Pudding has created CRUTCH (Championship Revisions Utilizing Top Competitor Health), a new metric for asterisking NBA champions, where injured and inactive opponents from each round add to the asterisk tally.
10× NBA All-Star Carmelo Anthony announced his retirement on social media this week after a 19-season career.