The Word of God

In high school, I started to become like a local legend. A hood celebrity, if you will. And you really gotta understand how poppin’ New York City basketball was at that time. I’m playing against Stephon Marbury, Skip 2 My Lou, Alimoe (rest in peace), all these guys who would become household names, they were just kids from around the way. Man, even Cam’ron was super nice!!!

I knew all these guys from when we was little kids playing church basketball, and now all of a sudden we got Jay-Z, Puff, Dame Dash — all these guys are showing up to our games. That’s how insane New York City basketball was at that time.

Ball Don’t Lie

For a rebellious, Korean-American teen like myself who was awkwardly trying to situate himself, without much success, Jackson’s writing, with its rap and jazz references and its relentless, engaging voice, provided a vision of Black agency that felt almost illicit.

Maya Moore's Extraordinary Quest for Justice

On Feb. 5, 2019, Maya Moore made an announcement on The Players' Tribune that would upend the WNBA: She would be sitting out the 2019 season to focus on "the people in my family, as well as on investing my time in some ministry dreams that have been stirring in my heart for many years." It was a stunning declaration. This was Maya Moore, in her prime.

The Game Inside the Game

Stare at the game long enough and the distance between everything—players, league, game, court, self, other—begins to collapse. Everything becomes a metaphor for everything else, the league and your life each generating infinite layers of meaning for the other.

Loyalty Over Everything

He sawed out the bottom. Nailed the crate to the telephone pole out in front of the house. New hoop. ... I’d be out there shooting until 10 at night. That’s when I started getting really good. The pole was round so you couldn’t bank the ball in. And you weren’t getting a friendly bounce on a square rim. You had to hit it dead-on, wet.