9:00 AM ET ESPN staff You hold in your hands The Mag’s 18th NEXT Issue. (They grow up so fast. You blink, and your little baby NEXT is old enough to vote.) So perhaps you think that by now you know what NEXT is all about. You’re probably wrong! Is NEXT the issue where we
NBA
7:06 AM ET Magic Johnson’s impromptu news conference before the Los Angeles Lakers‘ final game of the season Tuesday was another fitting event for an organization consumed with its own narrative. The broadest smile in basketball was stepping down from his position as team president because the job was no fun. Millions of fans would
8:47 AM ET At 24 years old, Giannis Antetokounmpo is the best basketball player in the world. He is the best offensive player on a top-five NBA offense. He’s the best defensive player on the No. 1 defense. As the catalyst of an incredible basketball system, Giannis has led the Milwaukee Bucks to the best
3:07 AM ET Playoff basketball is back! It has been a long regular season (177 days, to be exact), but the postseason has arrived, and it looks a lot different than it did a year ago. For the first time since 2010, a team not led by LeBron James will emerge from the Eastern Conference,
1:43 AM ET LOS ANGELES — The Golden State Warriors will begin their three-peat quest against an old rival in the LA Clippers while the Denver Nuggets will look to prove they’re legitimate challengers to the champs as the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference playoffs. The West playoff seeding was finalized late Wednesday
12:53 AM ET EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Looking into the rearview mirror at a season that went awry, several members of the Los Angeles Lakers spoke openly about the affect trade-deadline rumors surrounding the team’s pursuit of Anthony Davis had on the locker room. “At the trade deadline, everybody kind of lost themselves,” Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
11:47 PM ET Playing without an injured Blake Griffin, the Detroit Pistons beat the New York Knicks 115-89 on Wednesday to secure a playoff berth. The Pistons (41-41) finished in eighth place in the Eastern Conference and will face the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the playoffs. Detroit needed to win on
10:13 PM ET Dirk Nowitzki gazed at the floor as he limped through the tunnel and toward the American Airlines Center home locker room, his sore knee throbbing and thoughts swirling in his head that he might have just played his final playoff game after his Dallas Mavericks were on the wrong end of a
1:36 AM ET MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Golden State Warriors forward Kevin Durant picked up his 16th technical foul during the first quarter of Wednesday’s regular-season finale against the Memphis Grizzlies, but he will not be suspended because the amount of technical fouls does not carry over into the postseason. The technical foul was called with
12:45 AM ET Tim BontempsESPN NEW YORK — After Dwyane Wade went for 30 points in the final home game of his career Tuesday night, Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra tried to downplay expectations for what Wade would be able to do for an encore Wednesday night in the final game of his NBA career.