A few words about Hoops Wire, and where we’re headed

It’s August 29. High school football has started. College football is here. The NFL is right around the corner.

And here at Hoops Wire, we’ve somehow published 21 NBA posts on a sunny Saturday in late August.

These are the types of things I think about this time of year. Mostly, I’ve been thinking about what we want Hoops Wire to be when training camps finally open in about a month.

The answer is pretty simple: More comprehensive than ever.

There’s obviously no shortage of places to get sports news anymore. I use plenty of them myself. I scroll X, formerly Twitter. I check Instagram and Facebook. If I want NFL news, I visit our partners at NFL Trade Rumors. Sometimes I just scroll around because, like everyone else, I’m trying to relax.

NBA coverage is no different. There are websites built almost entirely around generating clicks. There are places such as The Athletic that might publish considerably fewer NBA stories on a given day, but those stories are deeply reported and exceptionally well written.

There’s room for all of it. We’re trying to carve out our own little spot somewhere in that enormous world.

For Hoops Wire, being comprehensive doesn’t mean reaching some arbitrary number every day. Today, apparently, it means 21 posts. During the season, there may be a day when it means eight. If there’s enough going on, maybe it’ll mean 30.

The number isn’t really the point. Covering what’s interesting is.

We’ll aggregate plenty of NBA news, because I personally enjoy aggregation. I like having places where I can go and quickly find out what’s happening without searching every corner of the internet myself.

We’ll have original reporting, too. We’ll have things I hear around the league, particularly once I’m back inside NBA arenas and practices. We’ll have analysis and observations. We’ll write about trades. Lots of trades.

We’ll even write about hypothetical trades, because NBA trade proposals are fun. They’re not meant to be presented as actual reports, and we won’t present them that way. They’re offseason exercises. Sometimes they’re ridiculous. That’s OK. Talking about ridiculous trades has been part of being an NBA fan forever.

We’ll have hard news. We’ll have transactions that probably won’t change anyone’s life. We’ll have stories about the business and media sides of basketball. If somebody associated with the NBA unfortunately ends up on the police blotter, we’ll cover that when appropriate, too.

And every once in a while, apparently, we’ll tell you when the Cavaliers buy a bar. Basically, if something catches my attention as an NBA fan, there’s a decent chance it’ll eventually show up here.

I’ve been covering professional basketball full-time for 20 years now. Throw in the years when I did it part-time, and we’re getting closer to 30. I certainly didn’t envision this when I started.

There was no world where you could reach into your pocket and immediately find NBA news from Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York, Salt Lake City, Europe or anywhere else on the planet. Now there’s almost too much information.

So maybe that’s part of what Hoops Wire can be. Another place to stop.

Maybe you’re sitting around the house on a Saturday. Maybe you’re waiting for your kid’s soccer game to start. Maybe you’re standing in line somewhere. Maybe you’re supposed to be doing something considerably more productive.

Stop by for five minutes. Hopefully, there’s something here about the NBA that you didn’t know five minutes earlier.

I’m entering Year 21 of doing this full-time. I’m obviously not nearly as young as I was when I started, but the strange thing is that I don’t feel any less enthusiastic about it. Actually, I may be more enthusiastic.

I still can’t wait to wake up and see what’s happening around the NBA. I still love finding a story, writing it, publishing it and moving on to the next one. I still can’t wait for training camp. I still love walking into an NBA arena.

I’d probably do this even if nobody paid me. Fortunately, you guys keep showing up, so I don’t have to test that theory.

And seriously, thank you for that. There are millions of things competing for your attention every day. The fact that you spend even a few minutes of it here isn’t something I take for granted.

Without readers, there’s no Hoops Wire. Without Hoops Wire, I’d probably have to go get a real job.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a real job. I’m just not convinced I’d be very good at one. This is what I was meant to do. This is who I am.

Training camp is still about a month away. Until then, we’ll keep doing this. And once the season arrives? We’ll do even more.