1) How Dwight Howard Can Improve The Hawks

Summary: He might not be the two-way force he once was, but he still has the tools to make a difference on a team looking to compete in the Eastern Conference. He even helps them in certain areas they've been lacking over the last two seasons, such as rebounding, cutting and rim-running. (from Scott Rafferty) http://www.sportingnews.com/nba/news/dwight-howard...

2) Pau Gasol Can Be A Better Tim Duncan Replacement Than You Think

Summary: He's both unselfish and incredibly smart, and his ability to beat teams in a variety of ways through his passing and scoring make him a perfect fit in San Antonio.(from Scott Rafferty) http://www.sportingnews.com/nba/news/pau-gasol-spu...

3) Karl-Anthony Towns: The Perfect Storm

Summary: Standing 7-feet tall, the Timberwolves’Karl-Anthony Towns can bang in the post, shoot from deep, run the floor and defend inside and out. He’s got one of the best personalities in the League, too. What more could you possibly ask for? (from Adam Figman) http://www.slamonline.com/the-perfect-storm/

4) Driven to improve, Thunder rookie Domantas Sabonis is his own harshest critic

Summary: "I try to have fun, but improving is fun for me. Being in the gym, playing with the basketball and getting on the court with the guys, that's fun for me. I might seem serious, but that's because I care. I want to win. I want to get better." (from Brett dawson) http://newsok.com/okc-thunder-driven-to-improve-th...

5) The happiest day in Malcolm Delaney’s life turned into the worst night

Summary: A night of celebration ended in gunfire.

Malcolm Delaney’s world turned upside down on what had been the greatest day of his young life last summer. Hours earlier, he signed a contract with the Atlanta Hawks, ending five years of toil overseas and reaching his NBA aspiration. And then suddenly, he was cradling the body of his older brother Vincent after he was struck five times in a drive-by shooting.(from Chris Vivlamore) http://www.myajc.com/news/sports/basketball/the-ha...

6) Tom Thibodeau's T'wolves Era About to Tip Off

Summary: “When the season starts, you get going,” Thibodeau said. “It’s hard to sleep, so you go.”

Such is life for a basketball lifer set to start his second NBA head coaching gig, this time armed with final say on roster decisions as the team’s president of basketball operations. He is tasked with turning a roster dominated by some of the NBA’s best young talent into a playoff competitor in the near future — and a championship contender in the long term.(From Jace Frederick). http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/sports/basketball...

7) Kevin Garnett: Most Valuable Player Of His Generation

Summary: No player in the NBA was more valuable from 2000 – 2012 than Kevin Garnett.

How was he doing it? The answer lies in the inordinate number of things that Garnett did that don’t show up in the box scores. (from Andre Snellings) http://nyloncalculus.com/2016/09/26/kevin-garnett-...

8) An Oral History of Kevin Garnett, the Player Who Changed the NBA

Summary: On a spring day in 1995, the most powerful men in professional basketball gathered in a Chicago gymnasium to see the future of the NBA.They had come to see a prospect, a teenager who stood nearly seven feet, with the wingspan of a prehistoric bird, who ran like a cheetah and leaped like a gazelle. He looked like a center, but moved like a point guard. Gangly, yet graceful. He could pass and run and shoot. He could guard all five positions.Until that day, no one had ever seen anything quite like him. Before them stood a basketball player for a new age: Kevin Garnett, The First of His Kind.Here was a big man who could rise to defend the rim, grab the rebound, lead the fast break and dunk at the other end.Here was a high school student daring to turn pro, at a time when the draft was strictly populated by collegians.Here was an audacious, uniquely skilled young man who would, quite literally, change the NBA forever.(from Howard Beck) http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2421236-a-man-i...

9) Unlocking Willie Cauley-Stein's Potential

Summary: Few players are ever sure things in the draft. It’s why so many talent evaluation models use a ceiling v. floor outcome-based sliding scale in analyzing prospects. Translatable skill-sets and projectable NBA roles weigh heavily on the analysis process. The 2015 NBA Draft was absolutely stacked in the lottery with high projectable floor players, and perhaps no one player’s skill-set was easier to project than Willie Cauley-Stein’s.

Outlier athletes with positional size at the 5 position are safe bets to succeed, if there is a reasonably high defensive floor. It’s the one position in the league where the combination of size & athleticism can compensate for lack of skill and feel on offense, mostly because of role. Centers can thrive as screen-setters and finishers in lieu of on ball skills or shooting in ways that other positions cannot. Simply setting a screen and rolling hard to the rim for lob catches is more than enough (even deadly) to get by in the league, if you defend at a high level as a 5, and no one fits that archetype better than Cauley-Stein.(from Cole Zwicker) http://upsidemotor.com/2016/09/29/willie-cauley-st...

10) The True Meaning Of Media Day Quotes

Summary: Listening to athletes and coaches speak is like listening to the redacted version of their mind. You get just enough to make your column, but not enough for it to stand out. In order to interpret what each player really meant to say, you almost have to have a BS in BS. (from Alex Roig) http://dailythunder.com/2016/09/the-interpreter-lo...

11) Jordan Clarkson embraces Luke Walton's challenge to become a good defender

Summary: Clarkson has embraced the challenge Lakers coach Luke Walton has outlined for him to become “a very good defender.”

“I was just terrible on that end, taking wrong angles, wasn’t there on tags and wasn’t there on late closeouts,” Clarkson said. “It got to the point where it was bad. We were a bad defensive team as a whole last year. But I take it upon myself really to improve on that.” (from Mark Medina) http://www.ocregister.com/articles/clarkson-730479...

12) Steve Kerr Podcast

Summary: Zach Lowe talks to Steve Kerr about losing the Finals, signing Durant, and what comes next for the Warriors. (from Zach Lowe) http://www.espn.com/espnradio/play/_/id/17664037

13)Bulls expect growth from coach Fred Hoiberg — and so does Hoiberg

Summary: "This is a high-pressure job, and I understand that," Hoiberg said. "Nobody looked at this thing harder in the offseason than I did and was harder on themselves than I was.

"The biggest thing that I have to improve on is to get our team to play more consistently. We had a 7-1 record against the top two teams in the East that were playing in the Eastern Conference finals (the Cavaliers and Raptors), and we missed the playoffs. That shouldn't happen." (from KC Johnson) http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/basketball/bu...

14) Milt Newton’s sights are still set on NBA general management

Summary: “A former GM who was successful and who once told me some years ago when I asked him, ‘Why is it difficult for minorities to get interviews for the top jobs?’ He told me that we have to be in a position where we can talk to owners,” he said. “They can sit down with us. Maybe have a beer with us. Get to know us to see that we’re capable and see that I can have a beer with this guy and relate to this guy.

“Those opportunities are few and far in-between. It’s very rare for a final decision-maker to feel comfortable that a person not like them is capable of running their team.” (from Marc J Spears) http://theundefeated.com/features/milt-newton-nba-...

15) Steph Curry: 'I want to be better than I was last year'

Summary: As he drifted into an offseason filled with the disappointment from surrendering to James an NBA title and his brief hold on the title of the game’s best player, Curry said he wouldn’t allow himself to wallow in the what-coulda-beens related to being at full strength. The Golden State Warriors lost. He lost. And that was enough to keep him motivated and focused on trying to avoid duplicating those feelings next June. (from Michael Lee) http://sports.yahoo.com/news/steph-curry-i-want-to...

16) Steph Curry's Trainer Brandon Payne Q & A

Summary: “What you saw was pretty elementary,” Brandon Payne told SB Nation. “He’s got some other stuff that’s really creative” (from Mike Prada) http://www.sbnation.com/2016/9/28/13093904/stephen...