Tom Ziller

Brilliant idea from @teamziller.bsky.social:

"New lottery rule: you lose lottery combinations for every start by a player without an NBA.com profile photo. Full employment for photographers!"

🗞️ bit.ly/4cq90uj

Philly has a Jared McCain problem Daryl Morey could be correct about McCain having no future with the Sixers, leading to his trade. The problem is everything else the team did betrays the real motive here.

Wrote about Morey and McCain and cheap billionaire owners and burning goodwill. Also: scores and highlights and LINKS. This is the free weekly newsletter www.teamziller.com/jared-mccain...

Every line gets more and more unbelievable until the final name drop.

It's Trae Young time The Wizards' would-be star will suit up and will probably sign an extension. Good and good.

Trae time www.teamziller.com/trae-young-w...

Fast Women: A debacle at the USATF Half Marathon Championships Nikki Hiltz continues their streak, Emily Mackay and Addy Wiley earn their first national titles.

wildest sports event of the weekend: the 3 leaders at the USA half-marathon national championship followed a motorcycle which led them off-course, costing them the race, prize money and spots at the World Championships

me two beers into the evening and two minutes into 'decode'

Porch Light is further proof that every band whose origin story includes someone doing Paramore at karaoke absolutely rips. www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA2F...

The Thunder are collecting enemies Lu Dort tripped Nikola Jokic and drew the eyes and ire of a dozen fandoms. Are the Thunder villains? Maybe, maybe not. But they are picking up enemies.

Wrote about the Thunder's growing list of enemies with a side quest on the incorrect idea that Jokic is usually "mild-mannered" www.teamziller.com/thunder-vs-n...

I think "killing children is always bad" is maybe the easiest simplest position to hold.

Unfortunately, Deandre Ayton is indeed 'not no Clint Capela' In building a case for his own prominence and pre-eminence, Deandre Ayton shows he has no clue what the Lakers need or how he could rescue his career.

Deandre Ayton is right: he is not no Clint Capela. He and the Lakers should be so lucky!

Thanks be to DA, in all seriousness, for giving me an opportunity to ramble about how good Capela was for a very, very good team: www.teamziller.com/deandre-ayto...

The '40 before 20' rule is silly Teams with great regular season records are likely to win the title, news at 11.

I don't think the 40 before 20 rule is all that useful or interesting. www.teamziller.com/40-before-20...

new york times headline, "t. rex ran on its tiptoes 'like an 8-ton chicken'"

the only nyt headline you should care about today:

Rick Carlisle is right and wrong The Pacers coach went after the NBA for fining them for tanking-related reasons. He has a point, but not all the points.

Wrote about Rick Carlisle's rant about the tanking fine, and why the NBA policing tanking is totally absurd and absolutely necessary www.teamziller.com/rick-carlisl...

How to replace the NBA Draft Convincing the league to pull the trigger seems like a longshot. But there's a solid path to a viable system if the NBA is bold enough to decouple losing and elite prospect acquisition.

An update concept of rookie free agency. No system is without flaws, but I do think it would end up better for the league and its teams than the draft. www.teamziller.com/abolish-nba-...

How high can you fly? The Pistons and Spurs, two title contenders who were awful as recently as two years ago, face off Monday. Is there a recent precedent for a team to make a deep run without any recent playoff series vi...

Wrote about what the Pistons and Spurs (who meet tonight on Peacock, must-watch) are trying to do, go from no playoff wins in at least five years to a title. One team has done it in the past 15 years. www.teamziller.com/pistons-spur...

The real KD Files are a bunch of clips of Kevin Durant hitting silky jumpers NBA basketball has returned. Let us dispense with all the nonsense!

www.teamziller.com/kevin-durant...

That's not my take, I prefer letting the lotto decide all 14 picks instead of the top 4, which makes it marginally more possible for the worst teams to slide far and ruins all the jockeying for pick protection thresholds. I really prefer abolishing the draft, of course.

locked and loaded if this thing turns on me

The fathers of the Pistons' success It's more complicated than you think.

Always love writing a piece that I'm unsure will result in appreciation or anger from the fandom of the team in focus. www.teamziller.com/detroit-pist...

Sorting all 30 teams ahead of the stretch run We have five tiers to sort teams into with a third of the regular season remaining. Who makes the cut as a title contender? What do the playoff and play-in races look like?

www.teamziller.com/nba-playoff-...

HE DID IT!!!!!!!!

HE PUBLISHED A FREE, DAILY OLYMPICS NEWSLETTER BEFORE THE EVENTS PREVIEWED IN THE NEWSLETTER ACTUALLY TOOK PLACE

THEY SAID IT COULDN'T BE DONE

The broken windows theory of tanking Has purposeful losing become a contagion? Can targeted punishment deter the most anti-competitive behaviors until meaningful reform is achieved, or will it prevent meaningful reform?

www.teamziller.com/the-broken-w...

Mission accomplished (for now) The NBA All-Star Games were actually good. Credit Victor Wembanyama.

www.teamziller.com/nba-all-star...

Sac State could be a sleeping giant. Some high-level talent comes out of the metro region and the Central Valley. There are some people with money around the university, too.

Sac State could also be the worst program in the FBS for the next decade. Probably no in-betweens. #stingersup

good news: more likely that Sac State will get mentioned in @shutdownfullcast.bsky.social or @channel6.bsky.social

bad news: the way in which Sac State is likely to get mentioned

Stingers up (, up and away the ENTIRE autumn).

It's all bad, as I have written many times. It's funny that every team's fans ask me why I'm picking on them.

I'm definitely not implying that this is an unnecessary surgery. That WOULD BE insane. It's all about the timing and the incentives. It's unfortunate that it has to be considered as a part of the whole piece of the Jazz's tank job.

I want to get to a point where NBA owners pay team-employed content creators to show up to Adam Silver's press conference to ask about other team's scandals just to distract him. Jazz employee asking about Aspiration; Clippers employee asking about tanking.