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Author: Aaron Fischman (Page 3 of 10)

Denning: LaMelo Ball’s Hornets “Worth the Price of Admission”

November 17, 2021 / / 0 Comments

About a month into the 2021-22 NBA season, Miles Bridges is one of the leading candidates for the Most Improved Player award (Instagram/@Hornets).

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In Year 2 of 20-year-old point guard LaMelo Ball’s NBA career, the Charlotte Hornets are playing with one of the league’s fastest paces while managing to score efficiently. Their successful high-octane offense has provided a breath of fresh air, although their defense ranks among the league worst and they’ve been plagued by long scoring droughts as well as other types of inconsistency. As a result, despite notable improvement from Ball and forward Miles Bridges and a healthy start from Gordon Hayward (not to mention his reliable production), the Hornets sit just a game above .500. Nick Denning, former editor at SB Nation’s At the Hive, breaks down what to expect from this enigmatic team that began 4-1 with three road wins, then dropped six of seven and has since won three straight, including a Sunday night victory over the then-11-1 Warriors. What can we make of this team? Nick will guide us through as we aim to determine that.

7:25-8:07: “Their offense, that’s why people watch them. It’s just how good they are offensively, it’s all the weapons they have, it’s the instinctiveness that LaMelo and others play with. He starts it, but everybody feeds off it, and head coach Borrego really allows that instinctiveness. That’s what’s gonna keep them in games, and then those nights when they can play well enough defensively are gonna be the nights where they can pull off some wins and maybe beat some teams that they don’t really have any business beating.”

13:26-14:02: “You’re aware of just how underwhelming the Hornets have been for much of their existence, so to have a player like him, just for what he does alone, it’s worth the price of admission. It’s worth planning your evenings around watching him Continue reading

“Built to Lose” Book Special With Jake Fischer

October 28, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Jake Fischer’s “Built to Lose” chronicles the league’s “Tanking Era” with a focus on the 76ers, Suns, Magic, Kings and Lakers.


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Enjoy Aaron’s one-on-one conversation with Bleacher Report writer Jake Fischer on his debut book, “Built to Lose: How the NBA’s Tanking Era Changed the League Forever.”

4:47-5:23: “There was a long Google doc of probably 600 names of people that were this player and his agent and the player’s college coach and every single guy who was ever rostered by that team, guys who were in training camp. And then as you get on the phone with other people, you start to ask also, like, ‘Hey, now that we’ve talked for 20, 30, 40 minutes, and you kind of know who I am a little bit, know the work I’m trying to do, and just the honest conversation I’m trying to have, anybody you think you could put me in touch with that would help me further understand, add another perspective?’ Sometimes I’ll even ask for specific people.”     

14:38-15:47: “For me, before I got into this more newsy space at Bleacher Report, at Sports Illustrated, I was working on “Built to Lose” for a long portion of my time there. I kinda developed a niche at SI of being someone who covered left-of-center stories, like I got coffee with Mike D’Antoni ‘cuz he’s obsessed with Starbucks. And my last thing I ever wrote for SI was a profile on Red Panda, so stuff like that. Continue reading

Sarah Todd on Jazz: “It’s Not About the Regular Season Anymore”

October 12, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Donovan Mitchell has improved his scoring and efficiency every season he’s been in the league, yet his team has not made a conference final. Now, year 5 awaits (Instagram/@UtahJazz).


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Sarah Todd, Utah Jazz beat reporter for the Deseret News and host of the Unsalvageable podcast, sheds light on last season’s best regular-season team. How can the Jazz take their pre-playoff success and parlay it into a deep postseason run?

4:48-6:28: “I think it all has to do with versatility and health. Because if Mike Conley is healthy through the Clippers series, if Donovan Mitchell doesn’t have a bum ankle, then maybe the Clippers’ offense isn’t able to break the point of attack as easily as it was able to, which then causes problems on the switch, which is what caused so many problems for Gobert on the defensive side. It wasn’t that he wasn’t good; it was just that the perimeter gave him too much to deal with because they weren’t holding guys out. … Other teams have been exploiting that flaw of the Jazz’s for years. … As far as versatility goes, that’s what they tried to address in the offseason. They got Rudy Gay and Eric Paschall, both guys that can play small-ball 5 and can switch 1 through 5, are versatile defenders.”

12:50-13:06: “They saw firsthand last season how important health is once you are in the postseason and how much it can change things in a really drastic way. And so, in talking with some of these players over the last couple of weeks, they are more open to the idea of resting.” Continue reading

Paul Garcia: The Young Spurs “Finally Get the Keys to the Car”

September 30, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Guards Dejounte Murray (pictured) and Derrick White are the Spurs’ likeliest breakout stars this season, according to guest Paul Garcia (Twitter/@TeamMurray05).

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Gregg Popovich finds himself in an unfamiliar position after a quarter-century of coaching the San Antonio Spurs. For the first time, he’ll be tasked with leading a youthful group packed with promising but largely unproven players – a group projected by most to miss the playoffs by a landslide. In the offseason, the franchise parted with veteran mainstays DeMar DeRozan, Patty Mills and Rudy Gay, and months earlier, it bought out LaMarcus Aldridge’s contract. As a result, the youth movement is firmly here. And Popovich, 72, appears energized for his new challenge, expecting to lead a fast-paced team where playing time will be spread around generously. Project Spurs’ Paul Garcia, who also hosts the Spurscast and writes for Analyzing the League, spoke with OTNB to help preview the young team’s season and further describe the new dynamic. Discussing the youngsters, with special emphasis on Dejounte Murray, Derrick White, Keldon Johnson, Devin Vassell and Josh Primo, Paul gets us ready for San Antonio’s season to tip off in T-minus three weeks.

3:01-3:29: “This is a new thing for the city here in San Antonio and for the fan base, and it’s kind of exciting…that it’s a lot of young players and a lot of these players, they’re gonna finally get the keys to the car. … Now all of a sudden it’s up to Dejounte Murray, Derrick White, Keldon Johnson, Lonnie Walker, all of these young players. It’s their opportunity now to basically see how far can they go, what kind of level can they get to.” Continue reading

Keith Parish: Grizzlies Have “a Lot Riding on Jaren Jackson Jr.”

September 13, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Ja Morant (left) and Jaren Jackson Jr. will be tasked with leading one of the league’s youngest teams, but guest Keith Parish believes the Grizzlies will be competitive once again while simultaneously building toward a brighter future (Instagram/@MemGrizz).


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The Memphis Grizzlies, particularly outside of franchise cornerstone Ja Morant, haven’t received much national attention in recent years, but they increasingly should. They’re a fascinating young team that’s kept quite busy this offseason. According to Keith Parish, host of Grind City Media‘s Fastbreak Breakfast and Grits and Grinds podcasts, Memphis’ flurry of moves were designed to enhance the quality of the youthful core around Morant and power forward Jaren Jackson Jr., who missed all but 11 games with injury last season. But even though the front office’s eyes are trained on the future, Keith doesn’t expect a “big step back” this year. He touches upon the expected impact of the Jonas Valanciunas trade, why so much is riding on Jackson’s upcoming season, the gamble Memphis is making with regard to Ziaire Williams and the team’s pair of promising 23-year-old shooting guards, among other timely Grizzlies topics.

3:50-4:37: “It was perceived that Valanciunas was kind of like a bridge. We traded Marc Gasol for him, and then he was gonna be this bridge into the future where eventually Jaren Jackson Jr. maybe bulked up enough to play the 5. But then last season, Jaren Jackson essentially misses the whole year, and the Grizzlies are competitive and good and he’s putting up these career-high numbers…and everyone’s like, ‘This is one of our building blocks.’ … The front office I don’t think ever thought this is a long-term piece. The ideal form of Jaren and Ja together probably doesn’t include Jonas at the 5. So when they had an opportunity to move him to pick up a future first-round pick and to move up in the draft to get the guy they wanted, they jumped at it.”

12:45-13:06: “I think he [Steven Adams] could fit really well alongside Jaren Jackson Jr. in a frontcourt. And I don’t think the Grizzlies are gonna take a big step back because even if Adams isn’t a big part of the plans, just opening more time for Xavier Tillman, who came on really strong last season, and then Brandon Clarke. I think this team is going to be competitive once again.”

14:48-15:35: “We thought he was gonna come back way earlier, it ended up stretching throughout the whole season, and then when he came back he wasn’t that good. So if Jaren Jackson Jr. is back, and there’s no reason he shouldn’t be totally healthy…if he’s back to that 17, 18 point-per-game scorer, I think people are gonna remember why they were so in love with him. Continue reading

“From Hang Time to Prime Time” Book Special With Pete Croatto

August 24, 2021 / / 0 Comments

“From Hang Time to Prime Time” hit shelves three weeks before the 2020-21 NBA season opened. The author joined the podcast to discuss his debut book.


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Author Pete Croatto, whose work has appeared in the New York Times, GQ and SportsIllustrated.com, among other places, discusses his debut book, “From Hang Time to Prime Time: Business, Entertainment, and the Birth of the Modern-Day NBA.” Check out some of the highlights below:

5:13-5:45: “You know, I’ve been doing this for a long time – I’ve been a professional writer for 23 years; I’ve been a freelance writer for about 15. And one thing I’ve learned is that this is a job, and I don’t really have time to get wrapped up in the theatrics of writing. … I just have to go and just do it. It was almost like being shot out of a cannon, where you’re kind of like, ‘Alright, I’m just doing this.’”

11:33-12:03: “We assume that it’s always been this way. We assume that games have been available with a click of a button. We assume that we can find our favorite teams’ gear or favorite players’ shoes so easily. But that wasn’t [always] the case. It was a long, hard struggle to get to relevance, and as times goes on and the NBA gets bigger and bigger and the players become bigger stars, we’re gonna forget that. And we’re already forgetting that.” Continue reading

Brian Schroeder Recaps Draft: “Evan Mobley Is Like Water”

August 2, 2021 / / 0 Comments

High school teammates Cade Cunningham (right) and Moses Moody, the No. 1 and 14 picks, respectively, pose at the 2021 NBA Draft (Adam Silver/Instagram).


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A couple days after the 2021 NBA Draft, independent draft analyst Brian Schroeder brought his insight and expertise as he ran through the most notable storylines surrounding this year’s class. Among a slew of other topics, he addressed why Sharife Cooper fell precipitously, what makes the Cavaliers’ Evan Mobley so adaptable defensively and why Brian’s the “only person on the internet who likes and defends” a particular pick.

4:30-5:44: “It’s been 10, 15 years since [the Pistons] have had that kind of player. … I really don’t see how [Cade Cunningham] is not gonna be at least very good. It seems almost impossible to me because he’s an excellent shooter. He’s very, very good at defense; that’s not talked about enough. I don’t really care how bad his burst is at 6-foot-8. He’s 6-foot-8. He’s gonna be the guy you build around, and that’s gonna help him. That’s gonna help everyone else on that team, really.”

7:25-8:18: “[Scottie Barnes is] just cool. He’s a really, really likable person. That’s not to say that Jalen Suggs is not likable or somehow teams don’t like him. I think [the Raptors] just fell in love with Scottie as the ‘guy.’ I understand the rationale. The Raptors, maybe arrogantly, really believe in their ability to develop people. They developed [Pascal] Siakam, they’ve developed OG Anunoby. Continue reading

Madden: “Still Pinching Myself” After Bucks’ Title Feat. Jewell Graham

July 25, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton share an emotional embrace after the Bucks win their first championship in 50 years (Bucks/Instagram).

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In honor of the Milwaukee Bucks’ 2020-21 NBA championship, the franchise’s first in 50 years, two longtime Bucks fans share their joyous feelings and thrilling experiences from the past week. First, Frank Madden, host of Locked on Bucks, details his long journey as a fan, including what it meant to witness his very first title alongside the man who introduced him to the Bucks 29 years earlier, his father. Then, Jewell Graham of Gimme a Buck podcast goes through his unforgettable time at the Bucks’ championship parade.

Frank Madden at 4:41-5:03: “For me, having a chance to be in the building and watch the Bucks clinch an NBA title with an historic performance by Giannis, it was pretty much the absolute fantasy of what I’ve always dreamed could be possible. I mean, basically if you had had me write up a script, I wouldn’t even have had the guts to be so bold as to write out what happened in this series and in that last game.”

11:11-12:04: “The day before, my mom had actually texted me, ‘Hey, I don’t know if he’s gonna be able to go ‘cuz big crowds, his balance and going up stairs in a stadium may not be ideal.’ But then on Tuesday, I talked to him. I was just like, ‘Hey, whatever we have to do – if you need to take me by the arm to feel comfortable, whatever we need to – let’s do it. We’ve gotta see this game together.’  Continue reading

Seeking On-Air Contributors

July 15, 2021 / / 0 Comments
Join the Crew

Five years and nine months ago, three fellow basketball nerds and USC alums started this podcast with high hopes and an idea to tell timely and nuanced stories by interviewing the journalists closest to the action, with an emphasis on team beat reporters and national writers covering the league. We’ve (and pardon the switch from third-person to first-) also conducted a number of book interview specials. The founding hosts included Loren Lee Chen, Joshua Fischman and Aaron Fischman, though a few years ago Joshua moved on to focus on other projects. Over the years, we’ve done incredible things, we’ve fallen short in some ways, we’ve learned, we’ve grown, and we’ve had loads of fun along the way, all the while amassing incredible experience and expanding our connections within the basketball journalism community.

((Over 157 episodes, we’ve brought on 110 different guests, and their total Twitter following is approaching 2.37 million. We’ve been blessed to interview some of the very best. While it’s impossible to name all of our favorites, some notable OTNB guests include Alex Kennedy, Jonathan Abrams, Holly MacKenzie, Sekou Smith (He was such a kind soul. Rest in peace.), Tas Melas, Howard Beck, Jake Fischer, Melissa Isaacson, Dave Zirin, Zach Harper, Michael Pina, Lang Whitaker, Kacy Sager, Adam Mares, Kelly Dwyer, Coral Lu, Harrison Faigen, Adena Jones, Seth Rosenthal, Jovan Buha, Michael Levin, Dan Devine, Max Rappaport, Sue Favor, Eric Pincus, Ian Levy, Keith Smith, Sam Vecenie, James Edwards, James Herbert, Katy Winge, John Karalis and Will & Grace co-creator David Kohan. For a comprehensive list, visit our six Interview Central pages sorted by season.)) We’re extremely proud of the show and look forward to its future as a vehicle to tell more illuminating NBA stories via our strong guest interviews.

At this juncture, we hope to transition into emeritus-like roles, where we help coordinate booking and mentor new contributors without being involved in the production every single week. Accordingly, we’re looking for talented, hard-working and hungry journalists who want to do what we’ve done. This opportunity is low-commitment to start and would begin early this offseason, around the start of August. To begin, you neither would need to record every week nor need to worry about audio editing the first show or two on which you appear. Unfortunately, the contributor position will be unpaid until the podcast turns a profit, but it will provide an excellent opportunity to build your portfolio with interview clips and, as mentioned before, gain experience, meet established reporters and show the basketball community and prospective employers what you can do.

For now, we’re looking for four to eight talented and passionate contributors to be involved for a span of 11 weeks, stretching from the start of August through mid-October (just ahead of the 2021-22 regular season). Continue reading

Dan Morgan: “Ben Simmons” Will Be “the Guy Blamed” for 76ers’ Collapse

June 25, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Ben Simmons converted barely more than one-third of his 73 free-throw attempts this postseason, the worst percentage in NBA history for anyone w/ 70+ attempts. (All-Pro-Reels/Wikimedia Commons).

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Dan Morgan of the Process Potables podcast joins Loren and Aaron to break down the Philadelphia 76ers’ unexpected elimination at the hands of the Atlanta Hawks. From Ben Simmons’ offensive disappearing act to Joel Embiid playing through injury to Dan’s faith (or lack thereof) in head coach Doc Rivers to President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey’s offseason task ahead, this episode has everything. Enjoy some excerpts below:

11:57-13:49: “Unfortunately, Philadelphia is one of the most negative markets that I think probably exists in major sports in North America, even when things are going well. People in this city have wanted to tear the team down from before even rising up. … Depending on who you talk to, the process ranged anywhere from three to 37 years, so it’s unclear about when it started, it’s unclear about when it ended and then every season when they lose, it’s “Welp, the process is over.” The process was over three years ago, two years ago, this year. It’s an absolute mess. It’s unfortunate but the reality of it all, honestly, is that the team is in really good shape. It is very unfortunate that they blew an opportunity like this when it seemed like the stars were aligning for them. … It felt like everything was working for the Sixers, and then Trae Young comes in and shuts it all down. But they have Joel Embiid, who if you take out the games played argument was the MVP of the league. You have Ben Simmons who is a 24-year-old transformative player, both sides, should have been the Defensive Player of the Year in my opinion. You have Tobias Harris… They have things they can do. They have promising young players in Matisse Thybulle and Tyrese Maxey…

15:02-16:26: “‘Can they [co]exist, Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid?’ Well, that’s been the question for a long time. They did enough to be the No. 1 seed in an improved East this year, so there’s something to be said for that. I still don’t know that you can say, ‘No, it absolutely can’t work.’ But the problem is year after year, the conversation happens, and of all of Ben Simmons’ shortcomings, this was the worst, and I don’t think it’s close at all. This was far and away one of the most atrocious things I’ve ever seen. … Continue reading

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