Lowe’s arrival at The Ringer signals more: we’ve just watched a monumental shift in basketball plate tectonics quietly slide into place. The smartest voices in basketball no longer work for its biggest partner.

Crescendo after crescendo, one increasingly outrageous 27-footer after the next. Fans spilling into the aisles, bench players spilling onto the court, opposing players staring into space. Unmitigated, exponential euphoria, reaching a level of collective delirium typically reserved for performative healing in revival tents.