The Rocker Step

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Feature

5 Jun 2025

005 // Time Is a Lie: Thunder-Pacers and the Death of the Window 

The window is dead. Success in the new CBA means optionality, flexibility, and readiness, not carefully mapped arcs or the illusion of control. Second-apron penalties and repeat-offender taxes have created a hard cap by another name.

Bennett Keane

Feature, Trades & Rumors

4 Jun 2025

Inside the NBA Offseason: How the CBA Is Reshaping Roster Construction

This summer isn’t a spectacle. It’s a reckoning. Not a holiday for fans, but a pivot point for teams. If the past few years were defined by star chases and superteams, this era is about creativity, timing, and fiscal discipline.

Tyler Chimarusti

Free Agency, Trades & Rumors

29 May 2025

2025 Offseason Preview: Sacramento Kings

“For better or worse, the Sacramento Kings aren’t sitting back waiting for the Western Conference to soften. Notorious owner Vivek Ranadive has shown little willingness to bottom out, instead opting to retool the roster in an attempt to stay relevant in recent years. Outside of a single playoff appearance in 2023, relevancy has avoided this franchise like the plague.”

Tyler Chimarusti

Editorial

15 May 2025

004 // Zach Lowe, ESPN’s Identity Crisis, and Basketball’s Fifth Estate

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.

Bennett Keane

Editorial

8 May 2025

003 // Joe Rogan is Just Keeping the Seat Warm

Somewhere along the way, Rogan went from the friend who just has to show you videos from The Sphere to the uncle at Thanksgiving who suddenly has a lot of thoughts about Kamala, along with new and innovative ways to pronounce her name.

Tyler Chimarusti

Editorial

1 May 2025

002 // Klay Thompson, Collective Delirium, and Basketball as Religion

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.

Bennett Keane

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