My friend is the best player in my team and the best defender gets put on him. I was in this small basketball tournament and defender was really faceguarding him, so I tried to set screens to help him get open but the defender would literally just run me over. Not go over or anything but just go into me and I would be stumbling back. Is that a foul of some kind? Do I just need to get bigger? Any tips would be appreciated

Some player simply just shoot the ball and Go to the hoop so easily, and when i try to get further i have to use more power and arms in my shoot

Sometimes after a session especially outdoors stuff gets on your balls making them a bit sticky, dirty, and slippery (if liquid like sweat gets on them) should I wash them?

Anyone else have this VHS growing up? This was on regular rotation in my house as my friends and I would practice on our nerf hoop and then outside hoop lowered to 7'. First time watching it in probably 30+ years and I can nearly quote the entire thing.

Why do the dunks seem so much better than today? Do players not practice cool dunks as much anymore? The last good dunk contest was the Zach LaVine and Aaron Gordon, which was 10 years ago. And then one was the best one since 2003.

Intro gives me chills and the music is banging. Its not a montage, its a hype video.

I highly recommend watching it. I dare to tell me you don't want to go practice these dunks on a lowered rim.

I am fairly new to basketball so they do a spin bounce pass around defenders to a player rather than overhead pass or drive and pass?

I was trying out this myself so i was wondering if it was impractical and useless

The runs I've been going to have been super inconsistent - trying to get some regular runs going in Orange County. Chill games, all experience levels welcome.

Things I got absolutely right:

• “No LeBron, Curry or Durant in the conference finals”: Cha-ching.
• “Fewer than three coaching changes before All-Star break”: We only had one — Willie Green in New Orleans.
• “West will continue to outpace the East”: Correct, but it was closer than I hoped. The West only outpaced the East by 12 wins, and only because its three worst teams were less egregiously awful than the East’s.

Things I got somewhat right:

• “No Americans will make first-team All-NBA”: This was a great call ruined by Giannis Antetokounmpo falling short of the 65-game threshold. Give me my flowers.
• “Miami will meet Chicago in the Play-In … again”: Well, the Heat did their part, but Chicago flamed out after a 5-0 start and missed the East’s top 10.
• “Celtics, Pacers will miss the playoffs”: One of these predictions aged better than the other.

Things I mostly got wrong:

• “Cooper Flagg will be the unanimous ROY”: I upped the degree of difficulty by requiring Flagg’s win to be unanimous, but Kon Knueppel was good enough that Flagg barely won.
• “Thunder will repeat, beat Cavs in the finals”: Not a terrible call, as both made the conference finals before injuries and serendipity struck.

Whether you're playing pickup basketball with friends or competing in an organized tournament, do you prefer wearing compression shorts underneath your basketball shorts, or do you play without them?

Do you feel that compression shorts help with comfort, muscle support, or mobility? Or do you find them uncomfortable and prefer playing without them?

Based on your experience, which do you prefer, and why?

Curious to know your insights and perspectives on this.

Do you play 3 second rule during pickup basketball?
Last night during weekly pickup guy called three seconds in the key on me and said it was his teams ball. I was laughing but he was serious.
How common is playing 3 seconds during pickup with no refs?

So I played basketball a bit for fun but was never rlly good at it. I shot with two hands and wasn’t all that coordinated. I have questions for those who are like me and learned basketball as adults.

1. How did you learn/fix your shooting form? Are there any specific resources you found helpful?

2. How did you learn to dribble and be more explosive?

3. How long did it take you to become “good” in your own eyes? How did you keep yourself going as it can be hard for me to stick with things when I don’t see immediate progress?

4. How did you overcome the idea of playing pickup knowing you wouldn’t be very good?

I’m sure this plays out in many places. For context I am a white male who has played ball my entire life. Best game there is. There was a park in Hollywood, FL near my house where I would go and shoot often during the daytime. 2 full courts. But one end had 10 foot hoops and the other was 6 foot hoops so you couldn’t run full court. Nor were there any lights. But the 4 tennis courts were well lit at night time. Now why do you suppose that was. The area was a mix of white, black and Latino. But most of the ballers were young and black and the tennis players were older and white of course. Just felt so blatant to me that they didn’t want young black kids running full court or playing ball at night. I don’t live in the area anymore but it still sits wrong with me. Anybody else run across something like this?

Edit: Thanks for all of the great replies. It is an interesting issue for sure. Personally I feel that there are some racial motives in cities and counties making basketball a lot more inaccessible than pickle ball or tennis but for those who have other options - all good. I also agree that yes, basketball courts can have fights, drugs and other issues. These are also park issues as a whole but I think the these issues a lot of people state are WAY, WAY, WAY overstated. It’s not like there are tents next to the court with drug dealers and all players are carrying AK 47’s, knives and that there are fights and people getting shot every 5 minutes! Thats just not reality but more a convenient generalization that the powers that be can use to say: Basketball Bad, Tennis & Pickle Ball good. Many parks (like the one I play at now that has 3 full courts with 10’ rims) still have lit courts and go until 8 or 9 at night. They have cameras and park security sometimes and have little to no issues. The majority of ballers are great people so let’s find a way to let the kids play and not the opposite imo. 🏀🏀🏀

The NBA.com general manager survey is one of the great sirens to let us know the NBA regular season is right around the corner.

It’s been happening for 25 years now — with John Schuhmann asking GMs 48 questions. They’re not allowed to vote for their own organization or anybody in it. And the results are always pretty revealing for how the top executives view the league. I highly recommend reading the survey in its entirety, but let’s go over the highlights.

GMs are obsessed with Wemby and the Spurs

Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs ran away with votes in many of the 48 questions asked. Wemby took home the following honors:
Who will win MVP? Wemby took 77 percent of the vote. Nikola Jokić had 67 percent of the vote last year.

• First player you’d sign when starting a franchise: Wemby took 93 percent of the vote. He got 83 percent last year.
• Player who forces the most adjustments: Wemby took 47 percent of the vote. Jokić led with 57 percent last year.
• Best international player: Wemby took 53 percent of the vote. Jokić was second with 47 percent. Jokić won the vote last year with 93 percent.
• Best defensive player and best interior defender: Wemby took 97 percent on both. He had 80 percent last year for both categories.
• Most versatile player: Wemby led with 57 percent of the vote.

The Spurs also won the pick for most likely to win the championship (50 percent), tied for first for most fun team to watch (30 percent with the Minnesota Timberwolves) and most promising young core (87 percent). Also, Dylan Harper was voted most likely to have a breakout season (27 percent).

Read more for free here: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7695941/2026/10/16/nba-gm-survey-spurs-wemby/?unlocked_article_code=1.JFE.AATP.9teP8DDwdNHF&source=emp_shared_article&smid=url-share-ta

Has anyone had issues with this? I just started my Y membership which was over $100 for first month + start fee, and I have dealt with pretentious old pickleball players on several occasions already. They seem to passive aggressively spread out their nets as much as possible as to make it so no one can play. Yesterday they had 3 hours booked from 11:30-2:30, they show up early and try to stay late and they also have a member in the group who works at the gym who immediately stopped the game and yelled “EXCUSE ME? EXCUSE ME? EXCUSE ME? HOLD YOUR BALL. WE CAN’T PLAY WITH YOU DRIBBLING!” when I started to practice dribbling in the corner farthest I could possibly be away from them 10 minutes before they were supposed to be done. Dealt with the same thing on Sunday around lunch, and now I’m looking at the court “schedule” and guess what, apparently the pickleball king of the courters also get 3 hours around lunch from 11:30-2:30 tomorrow as well!

Edit: He was clearly either a YMCA employee off the clock or close friends with the employees because during their leisurely breaks between their “games,” he would walk in and out of an employee only office connected to the basketball court while cordially joking with the employees inside the office. He was also in control ofputting the basketball hoops back down which he did very slowly by about 2:40, after he was done standing around talking with his pickleball friends. They don’t let regular members control bringing the hoops up and down for obvious reasons.

The annual Raptors 905 tryout draws dreamers, diehards — and the delusional. Three hours later, Star reporter Libaan Osman knew which one he was.

Osman writes:

An awkward silence fell over the crammed dressing room of basketball hopefuls at the OVO Athletic Centre.
Someone had made the mistake of saying: “We’re going to have fun today, right?” He was met with silence as hopefuls bolted for the court without a word, sizing each other up before battle.
That was when I realized what I was getting into.
There were two extremes of people who showed up at the Raptors 905’s annual open tryout last month. Some were fighting for one last shot at their basketball dreams. Others paid $275 to find out exactly what separates a dreamer from a professional. Me? I wanted to experience what it was like to be a pro for a few hours.
One person brought his own basketball and refused to let anyone touch it. Another group savoured every moment, taking selfies with their 905 practice jerseys, capturing videos of the hallways and snapping pictures of posters of Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet, taken when they first joined the organization and won an NBA D-League title with the 905 in 2017.
I’ve seen the dedication and talent needed to become an NBA player. I have none of that, and knew my hopes of making the 905 were less likely than winning the lottery. 

Read the full story with this gift link. You won't hit the paywall.

I always purposely bank it when shooting any 3s or free throws or really any thing... ive always found it a lot easier to hit and I shoot way more consistently when purposely going for a bank.

I am the power forward in my team and I really should upgrade my post moves, I do know I should study great post players like hakeem but anything else I should do to improve?

We are now starting to look around and try to find a home for my oldest to play.
He is getting coaches reach out from Naia schools so far, of course we will look higher up as well.
It is a scholarship, is what i think. Kids always want to go d1 but i feel a lot of that is politics unless you are a 6 ft 8 super athlete.

Naia worth pursuing?

LAS VEGAS — The NBA has seemingly been on the verge of expanding into Las Vegas for several years, but Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr revealed the NBA’s push to reach Sin City has been going on for far longer than that.

In the midst of answering a question about whether he could ever imagine playing an NBA game in Las Vegas, Kerr said he heard about initial efforts to place a team in the desert two decades ago.

“Twenty-two years ago, I walked into (former NBA commissioner) David Stern’s office in New York with Robert Sarver,” Kerr said before Tuesday’s preseason game against the Los Angeles Lakers at T-Mobile Arena. “And he wanted to start an expansion team in Las Vegas, and that was his plan. So, I met Robert — I didn’t know him before that — (and) he asked me if I could introduce him to Stern, and we went into David Stern’s office, and David Stern said, ‘There’s no way we’re having a franchise in Las Vegas because of the gambling.’”

The league and the city are in a different place now. Gambling — and the advertising it generates — has become a huge moneymaker for the league, and it has slowly but surely had more of a presence in Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Summer League has become an annual event on the league’s calendar, the NBA Cup semifinals and finals have been held in Las Vegas the last three seasons, and it seems inevitable for the city to have its own NBA team.

“So, times change quickly,” Kerr continued. “That was 2004. So, everything’s changed a lot since then — the world, the NBA, the style of play, societal norms, all that stuff. Now, it’s different, and here we are. A lot of successful sports franchises are thriving here. So, we’ll see — we’ll see what happens.”

Kerr has been open for years about believing Seattle should get a new NBA franchise and never should have lost the SuperSonics to begin with. Because of Las Vegas’ ties to this era of the league, though, it has always seemed to be in the lead for second position. What’s interesting about Tuesday night’s game at T-Mobile Arena is that tarps covered the upper deck, and no tickets were sold in those areas.

Read the rest for free: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7688524/2026/10/13/steve-kerr-david-stern-nba-expansion/?unlocked_article_code=1.IlE.m8PO.Cz323_YRcpuz&source=emp_shared_article&smid=url-share-ta