Slam

the sixth man

A quick theory: When things are good, thinking about the future is fun. It can get even better than this? Hell yeah—bring it on! And when things ain’t so good, thinking about the future is trash. You mean, this could get worse? What would that mean? And that’s how I know that the world of basketball and its culture are in a pretty incredible place right now, because when I think about the future, I only think amazing thoughts: about the absurdly talented players who are coming up, about the growth of the women’s game, about the way the internet is consistently changing the way players are discovered and how they build audiences for themselves, about the way basketball sneaker technology is rapidly advancing, and so on and so on. All…

slam

PUBLISHER Dennis S. Page EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER David Schnur HEAD OF CONTENT/EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Adam Figman EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR Susan Price Thomas SENIOR EDITOR Ryne Nelson SOCIAL MEDIA EDITORS Arvind Pitchai, Joseph L. Sherman ASSOCIATE EDITORS Franklyn Calle, Max Resetar, Alex Squadron ASSOCIATE SOCIAL MEDIA EDITORS Camille Buxeda, Ian Pierno, Drew Ruiz DIRECTOR OF ESPORTS DEVELOPMENT Duane Jackson NEWS EDITOR Marcel Mutoni PROJECT MANAGER Ann Akinnuoye EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Rajah Allarey, Habeeba Husain CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Ryan Jones, Abe Schwadron, Tzvi Twersky BASKETBALL EVANGELIST Rick Telander CONTRIBUTORS Russ Bengtson, Ben Collins, Danny Hazan, Michael Pina, Vinay Krishnan, DeMarco Williams ART ART DIRECTOR Lester Padilla DESIGNER Andy Han JUNIOR DESIGNER Patrick Bonoan CONTRIBUTORS Matthew Coughlin, Addison Foote, Jonathan Izquierdo, Atiba Jefferson, Rob McEnaney, Ryan Young VIDEO SENIOR VIDEO PRODUCER Eli Selva ASSOCIATE VIDEO DIRECTOR, HS Bryan LaRussa ASSOCIATE VIDEO EDITOR/SHOOTERS Sean Edwards, Ciara Ingram, Christian Quezada ADVERTISING, MARKETING & BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT SENIOR DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SALES Jesse Goldstein VP, DIGITAL MARKETING Jake Silver ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Michael Yaari HEAD OF BRAND PARTNERSHIPS Ryan Moss JUNIOR CONTROLLER Jake Vitaliano MVP Spiro Maroulis MARKETING & SALES ASSOCIATE Josh Frohlinger MERCHANDISE MANAGER Gerald Truitt For all advertising inquiries, email advertising@slammediainc.com SLAM MEDIA INC. CHAIRMAN Joe Samberg VICE CHAIRMAN…

trash talk

What’s up SLAM! Wanted to say congrats on 25 years. I got distracted and stopped reading when I started college a few years ago…but I was so hype when my childhood homie D-Book made the Hustler’s Ambition cover on 213. I been back reading ever since. Book and I used to have sleepovers playing 2K (I had the upper hand) and he would work me in 1v1 on the mini-hoop (he played from his knees). Now that dude is on the cover of a SLAM mag! I’m excited to see what the next 25 years brings…and hoping for a few more Book articles! Alex Bischoff, Brooklyn, NY How’s a poster sound?—Ed. I appreciate SLAM’s 2019 Black History Month articles. It was amazing to see how different the League was back in the…

i’m ready

IF YOU SAW Mikey Williams hooping under the sun on a San Diego blacktop, you may not recognize him. He’s tall for his age at 6-3, but his height isn’t necessarily off the charts. Like most of the kids in his neighborhood playing outside, he uses the court as an oasis to kick back and enjoy the game at its purest form. He laughs, talks trash and hollers at friends passing through. A year ago, Williams was just another SoCal hooper on the rise. Things changed when he joined the North Coast Blue Chips and played alongside Bronny James. Cameras flooded the baseline for his first game at the Charlotte Convention Center in North Carolina; seconds into warm-ups, Williams threw down an East Bay dunk. “Who’s this kid?” was the unanimous response from…

the skills to pay the bills

“GETTING PAID for your passion is the secret to success.” For Dr. Lynn Lashbrook, this was the inspiration behind Sports Management Worldwide (SMWW). A former NCAA athletic director and current sports agent, Lashbrook has found that he gets as much joy out of preparing others to follow a similar path as he does from performing those jobs himself. So he started SMWW, the first ever online sports management school, in 2002, to help those passionate about working in the industry turn that dream into a reality. “From there we blossomed into 30 eight-week online courses,” says Lashbrook, who has represented hundreds of professional athletes. “The first course was Athlete Management to train people to be sports agents, and now we have 30 that are taught all over the world. We have students from 162…

everything i got

NAPHEESA COLLIER was on a baseball field in her hometown of St. Louis, MO, when a local basketball coach approached her. She told Collier, who was in the fourth grade at the time, that her team was having tryouts and that she hoped to see her there. Collier hadn’t hooped before that point, but she was willing to give it a try. Fast-forward to last month, and Collier, who played soccer and was a softball pitcher, became the sixth pick in the 2019 WNBA Draft. “I just remember how awkward I was,” Collier says with a laugh about her earliest memories of playing basketball. “I played soccer for so long, so working with my feet, then transitioning to my hands, I just remember how weird it was to do that.” There was a…