Howard Beck

We are so back." 🥲💚🤞

JT's back with the signature arrival Q&A ahead of his season debut!

DAL/BOS tips at 7pm/et on ESPN 🍿

Joe Mazzulla says Jayson Tatum will start tonight

Read this gorgeous essay about this gorgeous song: "Your Ghost" by Kristin Hersh. If you don't know it yet... you should. C'mon, Michael Stipe sings on it too - would love for them to work together again. I probably CC'd Conan the night this aired.

Thanks to Annie Z for this great read!

Adam Silver, at Sloan, says NBA has to address tanking.

"We are going to make substantial changes for next year. On one hand you can completely divorce the draft from teams' records...That would be a major shock to the system. Not to completely forecast where we're going but I am an incrementalist"

Oh hey, did someone say tanking has been destigmatized? Like, maybe we’re all complicit?

www.theringer.com/2026/01/15/n...

Hornets SHOCK Celtics + Thunder NBA's Villains?!? YouTube video by Run It Back on FanDuel TV

Had a blast chatting with @michellebeadle.bsky.social, Chandler Parsons and Lou Williams on "Run it Back" today, discussing the MVP race, Giannis' future, tanking and much more:

Also this, from the NBPA's executive director Andre Iguodala, speaking on the CBA's "second apron" provision:

“At the end of the day, the second apron is a hard cap. No one wants to admit that.”

He Was a Critic of the N.B.A. Players’ Union. Now He’s Leading It.

Some *very* interesting quotes in this NYT piece from my pal @taniaganguli.bsky.social:

First up, players association president Fred VanVleet on the NBA's gambling partnership:

“It’s not substantial enough to make it worth any of this. For us or for the league, quite frankly.”

I continue to be gobsmacked at 1) how common this formulation is 2) how antisemitic and generally bigoted it is 3) and how for all the talk of anti-semitism this is never cited as an example even though it’s quite literally the original incarnation.

Yoooo #NBASky / #SkyHoops ...
And FYI for the NBA starter pack gawds @shamsbot.bsky.social @velodus.bsky.social @howardbeck.bsky.social @mikevorkunov.bsky.social

Boston Celtics Make Announcement That Suggests Jayson Tatum Is Coming Back The long wait for Jayson Tatum to return to the Celtics appears to be coming to an end.  For the first time since his injury, the Celtics injury report lists Ta

The Celtics have taken the first step towards clearing Jayson Tatum to return Friday night vs. Dallas. www.si.com/nba/celtics/...

GREAT new resource from us:

You can now flip through the financial disclosures of Trump officials.

See what they own --and how much they're worth.

See who's worked where-- and how much they banked.

Want the folks connected to Palintir? Please enjoy.

projects.propublica.org/trump-team-f...

And as someone who closely monitors both websites I can assure you that X is a right wing radicalization pipeline, including for people who consider themselves smart and progressive, while Bluesky is just an overwhelming left leaning platform. Those are very different things.

If a bunch of people who agree who hang out together is an echo chamber then sure, we’re all in echo chambers all the time. But what’s actually bad is a platform that the world’s richest man has weaponized to make people including “elites” who still use it bigoted and hateful and conservative

I’m so tired of seeing people bash Bluesky for being an echo chamber when X is an actual intentionally constructed echo chamber that is demonstrably radicalizing people across the political spectrum who still use it

Bluesky now has 40M users. X has 600M. Figure 300M of those are bots. 100M more are various disinformation offices of nefarious governments (including ours). 150M are corporate marketeers trying to sell crap. That leaves 50M real people, all of whom bitch incessantly about Bluesky not being "real."

How Worried Should We Be About Nikola Jokic? Jokic doesn’t look like Jokic. With the playoffs looming, is this a slump, an injury, or something else?

i wrote about nikola jokic, the denver nuggets, and how much of their recent struggle is an actual concern: www.theringer.com/2026/03/05/n...

Fun fact: LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller, Kon Knueppel, Moussa Diabate & Miles Bridges have a +30.7 net rating in their minutes together this season.

That's on pace to be the highest net rating by any five-man lineup with 250+ minutes in 19 seasons of lineup data.

Hornets have won 6 straight games by 15+ points, the longest streak by any team since the 2017-18 Warriors.

It's tied for the 2nd-longest streak in NBA history.

ht: @stathead.com

The federal judge overseeing the case said he wants the trial to begin Nov. 2 and has asked DOJ lawyers to work towards that.

For a president who ran for office promising to keep the United States out of wars, Trump has already launched attacks during his second term in:

Ecuador
Iran
Iraq
Nigeria
Somalia
Syria
Venezuela
Yemen
and on civilians in boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.

Wolf Blitzer on Covering Mideast Wars, Monica Lewinsky, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump Spotify video

New PRESS BOX pod:

I went to CNN's Washington headquarters and interviewed Wolf Blitzer about five big stories he covered: the Gulf War, Clinton-Lewinsky, 9/11, and Obama and Trump's first campaigns for the presidency.

There are lots of stories.
open.spotify.com/episode/5LlG...

Milwaukee Bucks guard Ryan Rollins makes an NBA career after 's‑‑‑ hits the fan' - Andscape Released by the Wizards in 2024 after facing larceny charges, Ryan Rollins took accountability and has become the Bucks' point guard.

“I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing. It’s just bad habits, kind of picking them up from a young age for whatever the reason may be. You just pick up bad habits, and that was one of them. It bit me in the a–,” Bucks’ Ryan Rollins on Wizards bit.ly/4u41Nqd

Wolf Blitzer—and Monica Lewinsky's lawyer—had to outwit the paparazzi. Here's how they did it.

Full interview:
open.spotify.com/episode/5LlG...

'I went over the limit': Lu Dort regrets flagrant foul on Nikola Jokić

Lu Dort to @theathletic.com on the play that got him ejected in Friday’s game vs Denver:

“That’s a physical game and there’s limits to it. And I went over the limit.”

More here: www.nytimes.com/athletic/708...

Howard Beck Thanks for listening to Reiter Than You!

Thank you to my friend @howardbeck.bsky.social for being on the show today. Lots of great stuff here - from doubting Houston to Giannis' future to LA's next moves to parity & tanking in the NBA. And, yes, tried to talk him into the existence of aliens. Listen here: open.substack.com/pub/billreit...

How NBA's conference gap has shrunk this season, playoff impact ESPN analyst Zach Kram explores the Western Conference's recent dominance and how the East's underrated strength could surprise in the postseason.

Everyone keeps talking about how much better the Western Conference is. But the East has four really good teams (and Charlotte!), too.

Here's why the conferences have surprising parity this season, and what that means for the playoffs:

After play on Jan. 21, the Charlotte Hornets were 16-28. They're now 31-31. No team in NBA history who had 16 or fewer wins through their first 44 games of a season has finished with a winning record. Hornets can achieve that status if they go at least 12-10 the rest of the way.

Federal prosecutors in the rigged poker game case said they could reach plea deals with nearly two dozen of the 31 people charged in October. That case led to charges for Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones. It's not clear who the people seemingly close to plea deals are www.nytimes.com/athletic/708...

Trump helps MAGA influencers flee Middle East war zone on private jet Trump adviser Alex Bruesewitz, dogwalker Sarah Daither, former lobbyist Jay Footlik, and others managed to escape on a private plane thanks to the White House.

The White House has helped MAGA influencers escape the Middle East on a private jet while more than a million ordinary Americans are still trapped with no way out.