| When I think about what the engaged-but-not-diehard sports fan knows about the NBA this season, my guess is it boils down to a few things. Maybe it’s that ratings are down, and three-pointers are up. Certainly, the fact that Luka Doncic was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. It probably includes a couple of things about LeBron James — maybe that he turned 40, or his son is his teammate, or that on Christmas Day he told the NFL to get off his lawn.  |  | | | What I’m thinking is less likely is that people know about storylines concerning the actual basketball played in the NBA this season, which has been pretty fun! This guess is based on the fact that the three stories I’ve heard about endlessly this week involve Draymond Green mistakenly saying something insensitive about Karl Anthony Towns on his podcast (what a cursed sentence), James confronting industry champion Stephen A. Smith at a Knicks game and Charles Barkley calling ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins “an idiot and a fool” on TNT. Objectively funny insult, especially when said in Barkley’s cadence, but nevertheless: no, thank you. I do not want that. I’m wary of anything that trends toward media criticism because I know there are many, many people covering the NBA who do talk and write about both the drama surrounding the game and actual basketball, all the time, including some of the folks who work for national TV networks. *Shakes fist at sky* “The media” is not a monolith! But the direction things are going is a bit depressing. Is too much NBA discourse focused on locker room drama, tanking and transactions? Yes, but isn’t that what happens when a league rights-holder and arguably most visible content engine, ESPN, lays off a prominent writer whose bread and butter is basketball x’s and o’s and hires a reporter whose specialty is breaking transactional news? Adrian Wojnarowski may have retired after coming to the realization that it isn’t worth giving up any semblance of a life to chase scoop after scoop, but he still changed the game forever. ESPN just leaned in. There’s a tendency to compare the NBA to the NFL here, which does an excellent job promoting games, not drama, and educating the masses about on-field action. Aside from the fact that it’s simpler to do so in a league with an 18-week regular season and games that aren’t on nightly, I don’t necessarily want the NBA to be quite as singularly focused as the NFL. I love the NBA’s reality show tinge, appreciate getting to know players’ personalities and enjoy how interpersonal drama informs on-court action. I’m just seeking a little more balance between the chatter and knowing which games I should have circled on my calendar and why. Also, more Nikola Jokic highlights. And stuff like this. These are reasonable requests. If you’re in more of a college basketball mood, look out for a bonus newsletter in your inboxes after the NCAA tournament brackets are revealed Sunday night! In the meantime, here are all of the March Madness stories we’ve published so far in one handy place. | 
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