NBA on Vice

The Mercy Rule

Hearing the Spurs

As I age, my ear is retuning itself; I can finally hear something other than “ugh” watching the San Antonio Spurs play, which is cool, except how it parallels suddenly finding a 'Rod Stewart Sings the Standards' record soulful and great. Full story

Dogmageddon

Jason Collins Shook a Few Bigots Out of the Homophobe Tree

Jason Collins made his big “I'm gay” announcement last week. Big news like this can't help but be met with a vocal minority of the religious-minded seeing this as a “test” from the man upstairs, and the only way they'll pass is by letting their feelings be known to a national aud… Full story

Joe Johnson Is Very Big in China: A Love Story

By day, Yonsan Johnson is an electrical engineer who ekes out the equivalent of $2,400 a year in a factory in northern China. By night, though, he manages the Chinese Joe Johnson Fan Club, and he has accumulated and edited what is likely the world’s largest cache of Joe Johnson-r… Full story

Jason Collins Proves Coming Out Is a Great Career Move

Even if no NBA team picks up Jason Collins for next season, he has a golden career as a public homosexual ahead of him, if he wants it, which shows just how different being gay in 2013 is from being black in 1947—back then, no one was talking about how much money Jackie Robinson… Full story

The Mercy Rule

The Last Kings of Sacramento

On Monday, the Maloofs will find out which of two potential buyers will pay them for the privilege of taking over the Kings, one of the NBA's worst franchises. So let's say goodbye, finally, to this family of avaricious, spray-tanned ghouls. Full story

The Mercy Rule

That's So Jordan

Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player ever, and that being more or less beyond dispute does not make it something basketball fans are less excited to talk about. But in the decade since his last NBA game, talking about His Airness has become a different and stranger th… Full story

The Mercy Rule

The Lakers' Unreality Show

There’s a certain ugly thrill in watching these Lakers fail, but it’s not a lot of fun—it’s tough to take much joy from watching all these great players playing so poorly and unhappily, even with the leavening knowledge that their ill-tempered awfulness is probably preventing Jac… Full story

Metta World Peace Declares War on Good Rap

Metta World Peace's newest single, “Represented,” was released yesterday. Not to get all “Professional Rap Critic” on you, but the song sucks a gazillion dog dicks. It's almost as bad as everything else the guy formerly known as Ron Artest has done. Full story

The Mercy Rule

The Pelicans’ Grief

Team names work best when they’re both goofy and ambitious. The very words Utah Jazz conjure someone pouring a quart of milk into a clarinet; the idea of a Sacramento King mostly just gives you the image of a winking Guy Fieri sitting on a pepperoni throne wearing a crown made of… Full story

Where’s Wallace At? Just Where He Needs to Be, in the NBA

Rasheed Wallace is serious about the game when he’s playing it, but he knows it’s just a game and that everyone will go home and smoke blunts afterward. For all the egos and slap fights and psychotic, drooling Kevin Garnetts and CIA-serious Popoviches, he’s always been one to bre… Full story