Basketball News

The score is 106-105. It’s the fourth quarter of a game between the Capital City Go-Go and the Santa Cruz Warriors at the 2022 AT&T Winter League Showcase, an annual scouting event held in Las Vegas. Capital City leads, but Santa Cruz is on an 11-0 run. The game clock reads…well, there is no game…

This story appears in the SLAM Presents All-Star Vol 3: Stockton To Malone Newspaper. Frank Jackson was 12 years old when he first arrived in the small city of Lehi, UT. After growing up in the Washington DC area and spending two years in Hood River, OR, the Jackson family made the move to the…

On November 3rd, 2004, an eight-year-old Yuta Watanabe sat inside his home in Miki, Kagawa Japan with his eyes glued to the television. With 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter of the Phoneix Suns vs. Atlanta Hawks matchup, he began screaming as Yuta Tabuse – the first Japanese-born player to play in the regular…

In celebration of Utah’s basketball legacy, the 2023 SLAM All-Star Newspaper chronicles all levels of hoops throughout the Beehive State, from high school on up to the pros. This special-edition publication features original artwork by Tyler Upchurch on the cover and much, much more. SLAM Presents All-Star Vol 3: Stockton to Malone is available now….

Hey, you know, everybody’s talking about the “good old days,” right? Everybody! The good old days. Well, let’s talk about the good old days! February 9th 2003. How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days was the number one movie in the world. “All I Have” by Jennifer Lopez featuring LL Cool J was sitting…

The word “genius” is used far too freely. It’s a platitude at this point, at risk of losing the grandeur that helped it survive its Latin etymology, where it went from referring to a guardian that watched over a chosen person, to a prophetic individual, to someone naturally capable of great deeds. Its current definition…

We don’t necessarily do a whole lotta numbers over here, a whole lotta statistics over here at SLAM. We like the eye test more.  Here’s a nice and simple number, though:  Five.  Jayson Tatum has had five 50-plus-point games in his career. That’s more than Larry Bird, more than Paul Pierce, more than John Havlicek,…

Many NBA defenders have now felt the left shoulder of Paolo Banchero. And they have really felt it. When he drops it down into their chests on his bulldozing drives to the rack, he’s pushed them all the way out the way. Banchero’s stronger than your average rookie, better at ball than your average rookie…

Nestled in the Sanpete County Valley sits Mount Pleasant, UT, whose population is just a fourth of the capacity of the University of Utah’s Jon M. Huntsman Center. The small central city is widely known for its 19th-century style architecture and hosting one of the country’s top high school teams. And in early July, the…

If you want a reminder that “failings” on a basketball court cannot dim the spirit of a well-balanced ballplayer who knows what life is all about, give Bryon Russell a call.  “How you doing, man?” the 52-year-old Russell answers jovially when I call the number that Utah Jazz Director of Alumni Relations Quincy Lewis gave…