Podcast

Three memories of a magnificent 7

Published

6 months ago

June 22, 2025

Your Sports Nation

By David Aldridge, Marcus Thompson II and Joe Vardon

Sunday night, the Indiana Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder will play in the 20th Game 7 in NBA Finals history.

Of the previous 19, the last Game 7 in 2016 between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors had countless subplots, numerous memorable moments and one stunning outcome.

Three writers for The Athletic were there on that fateful night, a night that paused a dynasty, burnished a legend and changed the course of the NBA.

Marcus Thompson II, now a lead columnist for The Athletic, was a Bay Area News sports columnist when the Warriors and Cavs met in Game 7.

The Warriors didn’t lose. Not that year. They’d drop a game here and there, but when it mattered, when they absolutely had to have it, they got the W. This was their calling.

They were known for their 73 wins. For blitzing through the league. But that season got increasingly arduous for Golden State. Pursuing history is an exhaustive endeavor.

They chased the NBA single-season wins record and ran into a youthful buzz saw in the form of Boston and Minnesota down the stretch. So much so, it looked as if the record was off the table. But they got it.

They lost Steph Curry for most of the first round. The season was hijacked by his MCL sprain. But they advanced.

He was forced back into action when the Blazers won Game 3 in the second round, threatening to make a series of it. Curry returned in the most epic fashion: a record 17 points in overtime, a 40-spot in Portland. The Warriors moved on.

Golden State lost Game 1 at home in the West finals. Then got blasted in Games 3 and 4 in Oklahoma City. It seemed as if they’d met their match. The weight of expectation, the fatigue, the pressure, finally seemed to catch up to them. They trailed 3-1 to Kevin Durant, an MVP, and the loaded Thunder. Somehow, the Warriors won the series.

So when they got to the waning moments of Game 7, the expectation of their success warred against the obvious. Their beautiful game had been reduced to a brutal grind. Their demeanor marred with fatigue. Their starting center knocked out with injury. Their starting point guard hurting. Their resolve wilting against a LeBron James-led revolt against the odds. Still, against reason, the Warriors were going to win. Because that’s what they did. Always.

This was the pervasive thinking as Kyrie Irving got the switch into Curry and side-stepped into a 3 from the right wing. It wasn’t until it splashed with 53 seconds remaining — breaking a three-minute, 46-second scoring drought fueled by perhaps the most intense display of competitive resolve from two teams in Finals history — that the aura of Warriors inevitability cracked wide open.

They could really lose.

Then Curry, rattled by the monumental reverb of Kyrie’s shot, hurried into a stubborn approach on the ensuing possession, missed a desperate 3 over Kevin Love, who used his length and a rare display of defensive intensity to deny Curry a good look. LeBron grabbed the rebound and the whole arena changed. The scene inside Oracle Arena suddenly had a new hue, a surreal sensation. The filter of history colored the moment.

What felt unthinkable was happening. The unbeatable Warriors would finally succumb.

One thing I’ll never forget happened shortly after the final horn. The Warriors immediately left the court. Stunned. Angered. Exhausted. They retreated to the locker room as the black jerseys of Cleveland celebrated on the hallowed hardwood of Oracle. Moments later, however, Steph Curry gradually made his way back to the court. So did Draymond Green. And Andre Iguodala. They stood by the Warriors’ bench and watched the Cavaliers dance on their soul. They were waiting for LeBron and Cleveland to have their moment, soaking in the torment, until the visitors were ready.

Then they walked over and hugged the foes with whom they just made history. Because even in their heartbreak, they understood what was unmistakable inside that arena. One of the greatest moments in NBA history just went down. No one would ever forget this game, this series, this season. And even though they lost, epically, they were obligated to lose like winners.

— Marcus Thompson II

Andre Iguodala and Steph Curry returned to the court after Game 7 to shake hands with the Cavaliers. (Nhat V. Meyer / Bay Area News Group via Getty Images)

Joe Vardon, a senior NBA writer at The Athletic, covered the game for Cleveland.com that night. He was also host for The Athletic’s “A King’s Reign” podcast series. This is excerpted from that series.

The tour buses sat idling in the stillness of that Sunday night, in an emptying parking lot shared by the Golden State Warriors’ Oracle Arena and the Oakland A’s Alameda Coliseum.

“NBA Media Shuttle,” on placards in the front window of the two buses, let us know we were in the right place.

As we climbed aboard for a ride back across the Bay Bridge, our hair smelled of cigar smoke and our skin was sticky from champagne. We weren’t the ones celebrating — but we were in the room when the Cleveland Cavaliers started their party. It seemed to last for years.

On June 19, 2016, the Cavs won Game 7 of the NBA Finals, 93-89, to capture their first championship and the first for any major pro team in Cleveland since the Browns won an NFL title in 1964 (before there was such a thing as the Super Bowl). The Cavs were also the first team in NBA history to win a finals after trailing 3-1.

At the center of this historic moment was of course, LeBron James, the finals MVP, the kid from Akron, about 40 miles south of Cleveland, who fulfilled his promise to bring a title to the region of his birth. He produced a triple-double in that last game (27 points, 11 rebounds, 11 assists), and delivered what is most likely the most clutch defensive play in NBA history — chasing down Andre Iguodala for a block to preserve an 89-89 tie with about 1:50 left.

No one does — or should — feel bad for those of us who were there that night in Oakland to cover Game 7. But I can attest it was… stressful.

There was a walkway behind the best media seating, about halfway up the lower bowl in the arena, and during the timeout following the block, I remember getting out of my chair and walking from one end to the other, just to relieve the tension.

When Kyrie Irving drained that stepback 3 to break the tie, I’ll never forget the collective gasp from the scribes around me, or the stunned Warrior fans in front of us who had heckled the Cleveland-based writers not just all night, but all series.

I remember LeBron trying to put perhaps the greatest exclamation point on a Game 7 triumph with a facial dunk, bricking that dunk as he got fouled, watching him flopping and writhing in pain on the court, holding his wrist, and then, of course, getting up and making one of two free throws.

And then I remember seeing the clock tick under five seconds, the Warriors miss another 3, and realizing they were out of time, it was over, the Cavs were champions. My hands trembled briefly as I tried to type.

The next two hours were a blur, from writing the game story on deadline, to fighting our way into the Cavs’ locker room for the champagne celebration, to wading back toward the interview room, to (for me) catching majority owner Dan Gilbert in one hallway for an interview, to spending a brief moment with LeBron as he walked from one international TV interview to the next, carrying the Larry O’Brien trophy.

What awaited us on the other side of the bridge that night, back at the media hotel, the Marriott Marquis, would be a long night of writing and wine drinking — putting the finishing touches on our deep dives and analyses of an American sports story for the ages, while sipping the wine and eating the prime rib the NBA put out in the media hospitality suite.

But as we filed onto the buses, and the lights inside were out, just the hum of the idling engine could be heard. When the man driving our bus released the parking brake and shifted into gear, and the bus rolled toward the highway, I looked for U2’s “A Beautiful Day” on my phone, found it, and pressed play. I wasn’t wearing headphones – so either the whole bus heard it, or at least the people sitting in the last several rows, near me.

It was beautiful — not a cloud in the sky that afternoon before Game 7. The game was unforgettable. For those of us who were from northeast Ohio, maybe even Akron, there of course was a streak of sentimentality to have been there for LeBron’s crowning achievement, and for someone, literally anyone, to break the decades-long curse of Cleveland’s sports teams.

But if you were there, for work, and not from Ohio, with no nativist connection to LeBron or to the team, the bus ride across the bridge was still a necessary moment of reflection for what you’d just witnessed.

— Joe Vardon

Eight years after their epic Game 7 showdown, Curry and James paired up to win gold at the Paris Olympics. (Aytac Unal / Anadolu via Getty Images)

David Aldridge is a senior columnist for The Athletic. For 2016’s Game 7, Aldridge covered the contest for NBA.com and Turner Sports.

The undercurrents of the 2016 finals flowed below the surface of Warriors-Cavs like an Atlantic riptide. They crashed over the shoals in Game 7.

There was LeBron James, a kid from Akron raised by a single mother, whose family bounced from place to place as he grew up, achingly poor, not knowing where they’d call home in a few weeks or months. Needing assistance, public and private, to find any beachhead on which they could hold onto a dream of future stability.

And there was Stephen Curry, who grew up in a comfortable two-parent household, with a mother who was a three-sport athlete in high school and a volleyball player in college, and whose father starred in the NBA in the 1990s, as one of the best shooters of his era. Of course, Stephen and his brother Seth had challenges growing up. But nothing approaching the searing ones James faced.

Yet both James and Curry – who were, incredibly, born in the same hospital in Akron – became two of the greatest players in NBA history. Each led his teams to multiple championships. Each established himself as a fierce competitor and leader. The two of them were noble successors to Kobe Bryant as the faces of the league, and the TV ratings and attention each garnered were the best thing the NBA had going for it for almost a decade.

So when they started regularly meeting in the finals, there was not just a championship on the line. There was an unspoken gauntlet laid down: Who’s running this s— in the NBA? Me or you?

Sure, James had famously gone to watch Curry while the latter started to become a star in college. But this was the pros. The big show. Alpha-Alpha stuff.

The competition/animosity was real, even though Curry didn’t bear any public ill will toward James, he nonetheless wanted to knock his head off when they squared off. And James, of course, didn’t share any bonhomie toward Curry.

“I got a text today from someone in Chicago who said, ‘The whole city of Chicago is pulling for ‘Bron,’” James’ agent, Rich Paul, said the night of Game 7. “And that has nothing to do with the Bulls. But it has everything to do with where we come from.”

The 73-9 Warriors were well on their way to becoming the greatest single-season team of all time when Draymond Green, inexplicably, elbowed James in the groin in the last minutes of a 108-97 win in Game 4, which put Golden State up 3-1. Green was called for a flagrant foul, triggering an automatic one-game suspension for accumulated flagrant points during the playoffs.

That was the opening James needed.

Cleveland came roaring back, beating the Warriors in Game 5 in Oakland, and routing them in Game 6 in Cleveland — a game punctuated by James blocking Curry’s layup out of bounds in the waning minutes, and then snarling at him afterward. Hell yeah, it was personal.

So Game 7, back in the Bay, had a lot more than a championship on the line. And James responded, with a triple-double and another iconic block, his chasedown of Iguodala in the last two minutes. The Cavaliers became the first team in NBA history to come back from a 3-1 deficit to win the championship. James delivered the title that Cleveland fans had been waiting 52 years to celebrate. He got his get-back from losing to the Warriors in the finals the year before. And he beat Stephen Curry to do it.

“He’s the best player on his team every time they get (to the finals),” the Cavaliers’ general manager David Griffin said. “It’s amazing how willing he is to sacrifice anything to win.”

Triple revenge, served ice cold.

“People in Northeast Ohio, it’s really like you have to work for everything you have,” Paul said. “And there’s no Fifth Avenue. There’s no beach. It’s a grind, grind, grind city. And a lot of people wake up with the mindset of, I can’t. People wake up saying, ‘I can’t.’ So if you’re eating ‘I can’t’ for breakfast, how can you be successful?”

In the intervening years, as they aged and understood they had a lot more in common than what separated them, James and Curry have come to like each other very much, the same way that Magic Johnson and Larry Bird came to a place of respect and mutual admiration as their careers came toward the end. James pushed for Curry to be on the 2024 Olympic team; what developed in France was a “total bromance” between the two former adversaries.

“We are not enemies, but friends,” Abraham Lincoln said in his first inaugural address. “We must not be enemies.”

— David Aldridge

(Top photo: Nhat V. Meyer / Bay Area News Group / Bay Area News via Getty Images)

Podcast

Better rookie season

Published

3 months ago

September 4, 2025

Your Sports Nation

As the clock wound down in a recent contest, the Golden State Valkyries’ Veronica Burton and Kaila Charles swarmed Paige Bueckers on the perimeter to deny the Dallas Wings rookie from even getting off a shot. The 3.2 remaining seconds ticked away, and the ball remained in Bueckers’ hands as the buzzer sounded.

That type of attention has become common for Bueckers in her debut WNBA season, especially as the firepower in the Wings rotation has thinned because of injury — eight of 12 players on the opening-night roster have missed seven or more games — putting more offensive burden on her. Bueckers has also proven increasingly capable of dissecting single coverage and has demanded star-level defense.

“She lets the game come to her, and she takes what the defense is giving her all over the floor,” Wings coach Chris Koclanes said. “She doesn’t get sped up, and it’s really impressive for a rookie in this league to be able to maintain her own speed and tempo.”

But the game was already in hand when the Valkyries corralled Bueckers at the 3-point line. Golden State led by nine and the heightened defense wasn’t because the game was in balance; it was because Bueckers needed one more point to reach double digits, as she had done in every prior game of her rookie year.

With Dallas long since removed from postseason contention and playing out the string over the second half of the season, these are the stakes for Bueckers. She hasn’t been put in position to chase wins; she can only pursue individual accolades while the Wings build for the future. Nevertheless, despite a constantly changing supporting cast, Bueckers has thrived, putting herself in conversation for one of the best debuts in league history.

Bueckers has been the leading rookie scorer every month of the 2025 season, and her average of 18.9 points is seventh in WNBA history among rookies. With three games left, a late surge could move Bueckers past her teammate Arike Ogunbowale, who is sixth on the list at 19.1.

Paige Bueckers in August:

🪽 20.3 PPG | 3.7 RPG | 5.0 APG
🪽 44-point performance: highest by any W player this season
🪽 @Kia Rookie of the Month#KiaROTM | #WelcometotheW pic.twitter.com/Cx09czcFhi

— WNBA (@WNBA) September 3, 2025

As was the case during her college career that culminated in a national championship at UConn, Bueckers has been efficient in the process of scoring at a high volume. Among rookies who have averaged at least 17 points per game, Bueckers is sixth in field-goal percentage at 46.7. The only two guards in front of her are Chennedy Carter, whose first season came in the friendly offensive environment of the WNBA bubble, and Cynthia Cooper-Dyke, who was a 34-year-old rookie during the league’s inaugural season.

Bueckers has been an elite playmaker as well. She is on pace to finish the season as one of 12 rookies to ever average five assists per game, and one of two to pair that with 15 points, joining Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark.

Clark became the standard-bearer for rookie guards during her historic 2024 season, and her production is the only realistic point of comparison for Bueckers. Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi were also first-year All-Stars, but neither displayed the same combination of elite scoring and creation as Clark and Bueckers. The new generation of rookies has the advantage of playing in a more offensive-minded league. Still, their numbers relative to the rest of the league stand out.

The last two No. 1 picks both delivered individual historic moments. Bueckers tied a rookie record last month with 44 points against the Los Angeles Sparks, on a night when she started alongside two players who were signed midseason to hardship contracts. Clark set the single-game assist record of 19 about midway through last season.

But Bueckers trails Clark in most of the counting stats: 18.9 to 19.2 in points, 3.7 to 5.7 in rebounds, and 5.3 to 8.4 in assists. Other than points, those differences cannot be explained by the extra two minutes Clark averaged as a rookie. The major advantage Bueckers possesses is in turnovers, where her 2.1 per game is significantly better than Clark’s 2.8.

Bueckers has a better overall field-goal percentage, but since so many of Clark’s shots came from 3-point range, the Fever guard’s effective field-goal percentage (which weights the point value of each field goal) of 52.2 percent bests Bueckers’ mark of 50.4. Clark also shot better from 3-point range (34.4 percent to 33 percent) despite attempting them three times as frequently.

Those box-score numbers don’t fully account for the surrounding situation of each rookie. Clark’s assists, for example, were easier to come by with All-Star Aliyah Boston in the middle of the floor; the 2023 No. 1 pick was the recipient of 105 of Clark’s helpers, or 2.6 per game. Both Clark and Bueckers had an All-Star guard sharing the backcourt in Kelsey Mitchell and Ogunbowale and a relatively similar level of talent on the rest of the roster, at least to start the season, but Dallas didn’t have anyone resembling Boston.

Another feat for PB5 🙌

Paige Bueckers joins Caitlin Clark as the second rookie in WNBA history to record 500+ PTS, 150+ AST, 100+ REB, and 50+ STL in a season. #WelcometotheW pic.twitter.com/G1rooMRgLo

— WNBA (@WNBA) August 23, 2025

Although Bueckers had a worse net rating than Clark (minus-5.0 compared to minus-2.4), her on-off differential has been better in her rookie season. The Wings are 8.1 points per 100 possessions better with Bueckers on the court, demonstrating her impact, even if it hasn’t translated to victories. Win shares favor Bueckers as well, and she can build on her 3.5-3.0 lead in the final three games.

However one chooses to assess the statistical impact of Bueckers and Clark in their first years, there is one point of comparison that works in Clark’s favor. Bueckers’ production has come in the context of a largely meaningless season, as Dallas hasn’t even spent one day in playoff position. Clark and the Fever, on the other hand, rallied from a 2-9 start to pursue a postseason berth.

That is the next frontier for Bueckers: not be a spoiler, but to play in games of real consequence. Clark’s rookie season ended with a big chasing her on the perimeter as she launched a 3-pointer because a playoff win was on the line. Bueckers’ rookie season could be lost to history if Dallas doesn’t put her in that position sooner than later.

(Photo of Paige Bueckers: Ron Jenkins / Getty Images)

NIL

Christian Gonzalez misses Patriots practice, 'working' to return from injury

Published

3 months ago

September 3, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Christian Gonzalez misses Patriots practice, 'working' to return from injury

FOXBORO — Christian Gonzalez quietly folded and put away some of the clothing in his locker at Gillette Stadium.

While his Patriots teammates prepared for a fully-padded practice just four days before their season opener, the third-year corner did not. He understood the plan for him on Wednesday was to do some conditioning work on the side and not much more.

“I’m working,” he said softly.

Gonzalez is inarguably his team’s best player. He was named a Second-Team All-Pro last season after routinely matching up with and shutting down opposing No. 1 receivers. He was expected to be one of the linchpins of Mike Vrabel’s defense in 2025, allowing for extensive man-to-man looks and aggressive calls for pressure because of his lock-down coverage skills.

But after Gonzalez missed Wednesday’s practice, his status for Sunday’s game is in doubt, despite Vrabel not ruling him out. Gonzalez hasn’t practiced since injuring his hamstring on July 28.

“He’s continuing to work,” Vrabel said prior to the practice, “and he’ll do some stuff on the side, but I’m not going to rule anybody out. … We’ll continue to work and treat and make sure that we’re doing everything that we can to help him, and he’s doing everything he can to get back out on the field. That’s the only update I have right now.”

Gonzalez rode a stationary air bike on the upper fields behind Gillette Stadium while his teammates practiced on the lower field. He pedaled under the watchful eye of assistant strength and conditioning coach Brian McDonough before pausing and watching the action on the fields below.

“I mean, I do like where he’s at from an engagement standpoint,” Vrabel said. “We’ve been through this with other players, and I like where he’s at from that standpoint. In the meetings, locked in, following along at practice, which is difficult. To think that a player that’s not in there can follow along, I’ve been through that as a player and a coach, and I think he’s done a nice job of being able to do that.”

While Vrabel surely would like to have Gonzalez for Week 1 against a Raiders offense that features second-year standout tight end Brock Bowers and former Patriots wideout Jakobi Meyers, he didn’t indicate that he would be rushing Gonzalez back onto the field, either.

When asked if it was important for him to allow players to get back to “100 percent” before returning to the field, Vrabel shed some light on his thought process.

“I mean, I don’t use percentages,” Vrabel said, “but, again, I’ll remind you what we talked about as far as, when I try to make decisions about players and returning, one, can they make it worse? Can they, two, protect themselves?

“We can all say what we want about this game, but it’s violent, and can you protect yourself? And can you do your job up to the standard that we expect and that the player is used to? So, those are the things that I’ve tried to use when making decisions. Maybe I’ll add some to that, but that’s what I’ve tried to use in my other experience in this position.”

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Podcast

Steve Smith Moves His Podcast, 'The 89 Show,' to Blue Wire

Published

3 months ago

September 2, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Steve Smith Moves His Podcast, 'The 89 Show,' to Blue Wire

Steve Smith Moves His Podcast to Blue Wire

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Podcast

Andy Roddick returns to tennis on own terms with successful 'Served' podcast

Published

3 months ago

September 1, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Andy Roddick returns to tennis on own terms with successful 'Served' podcast

Andy Roddick’s journey back to tennis began during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Tennis Channel asked him to remotely appear on studio programming while the sports world was shut down.

“I didn’t really play. I would come [to the U.S. Open] to do corporate work once a year, and that was it,” Roddick recently told Sports Business Journal. “Tennis Channel was great because I could do it from home. My one thing was, I never wanted the game to control my geography ever again.”

Five years later — and 13 after announcing his retirement from play on his 30th birthday — Roddick has established a pillar of the tennis media ecosystem on his own terms with his “Served” podcast.

Launched in January 2024 with veteran producer Mike Hayden and journalist Jon Wertheim, the show began with ambitions as simple as “a fun side project that I thought no one would listen to,” in Roddick’s words. But since its debut, the show has garnered more than 150,000 YouTube subscribers, 185,000 social media followers and 3.5 million audio downloads while attracting marquee sponsors such as Amazon Prime (2025 French Open, U.S. Open), Mercury Financial (2025 Wimbledon) and ServiceNow (live shows at the upcoming Laver Cup) for events. It also joined Vox Media’s network of sports podcasts last year.

As it’s grown, “Served” has earned bona fides with tennis diehards for long-form interviews with Rafael Nadal and Andre Agassi; laid-back but incisive analysis of tennis’ entire calendar of events (not just the Grand Slams); and the versatility to dig deep into topics such as, in an early sitdown with longtime IMG Tennis agent/executive Max Eisenbud, the economics of tennis player development.

“What makes him special, specific to his podcast, is his ability to transcend the deep tennis insiders, but also the casual tennis fans,” said Eric Butorac, a former doubles player on the ATP Tour and the USTA’s senior director of player relations and business development.

“He’s [Roddick] exactly like he was on tour. You walk into the locker room, and you just hope he’s sitting there, because he’s going to be jabbering away, super engaged, super competitive. … It’s the same way when I turn on ‘Served.’”

Served Media — the media company atop “Served” co-founded by Roddick and Hayden — is now a seven-figure revenue business. Since the debut of its eponymous podcast, it has launched a women’s tennis-focused show hosted by Kim Clijsters, daily recap program hosted by Hayden, active social and newsletter channels, and a merchandise line, with yet-to-be disclosed plans for further content expansion.

“We thought there would be a lane for it for, like, super nerds,” Roddick said. “But I don’t know that we thought it would grow like this.”

NIL

Postgame Podcast

Published

4 months ago

August 29, 2025

Your Sports Nation

RALEIGH, N.C. — NC State needed a fourth-down stop in the red zone to survive, but came away with a 24-17 win over ECU to start the season. The Wolfpack (1-0) finished with 423 total yards behind CJ Bailey’s 318 yards passing with one touchdown through the air and one on the ground.

Cory Smith and Michael Clark share their thoughts after the game, including Bailey’s performance, Wesley Grimes’ career night, Hollywood Smothers’ solid outing, and the defense’s up-and-down night. Get all of that and more on the latest Postgame Podcast.

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