In fifth grade Mirin became the first girl to join her elementary school’s all-boys basketball team. The boys didn’t like it, they didn’t pass her the ball, they guarded her tougher than usual, even pushing her to the ground and sending her to the Emergency Room once. But she loved the challenge, so she kept coming back. She’s still coming back. Hoops led her to writing. Writing leads her back to hoops.
Now she’s a Senior Writer for The Athletic, writing long-form, human-interest NBA features. She dabbles in other sports, too. She’s the New York Times best-selling author of the book, GIANNIS: The Improbable Rise of an NBA Champion. Her second book, DREAM: The Life and Legacy of Hakeem Olajuwon, came out Oct. 15, 2024.
GIANNIS was based off of her profile of Giannis Antetokounmpo and his youngest brother, Alex Antetokounmpo. The book was released August 10, 2021 by Hachette, and debuted at No. 3 on the NYT Best-seller list. It is also a Los Angeles Times Bestseller, Wall Street Journal Bestseller, USA Today Bestseller, Publishers Weekly Bestseller. Jemele Hill called it a “gorgeous portrayal.” Shea Serrano called it “unputdownable.” Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers called it: “Beautiful … As dynamic a chronicle of human spirit as anything I’ve ever read.” The New York Times Book Review, which published an excerpt of the book when it was released, said: “Giannis…captures an endearing portrait of Antetokounmpo by using his family as its primary through-line as he made his way to the N.B.A. and the United States. The framing makes for a more compelling journey than what would normally be expected of a parade of tough coaches, on-court rivals and personal uncertainty.”
DREAM, her biography of Hakeem Olajuwon, was praised by The Wall Street Journal as “[A] deeply detailed biography of the Hall of Fame center. … The book … captures the essence of a superstar.” Hanif Abdurraqib, bestselling author of There’s Always This Year and A Little Devil in America, said: “With storytelling and writing as dexterous and thrilling as the player himself, Mirin Fader achieves something special with Dream. A massively generous portrait of a life, which feels not only informative, but also transportative.” Mo Amer, creator and star of Netflix’s MO said: “Immigrant to an all-time great. From his handles and footwork to the iconic dream shake, Hakeem transformed the center position forever. But what’s most impressive is his faith, community, and entrepreneurial savvy, and Mirin Fader’s DREAM captures it all.”
Mirin’s work has been included in the Best American Sports Writing books, most notably in 2022 (profile of runner Rosalie Fish) and 2024 (profile of former No. 1 NBA overall pick Greg Oden). Formerly a senior staff writer for The Ringer from 2020-2025, her work focuses more on the person rather than the player. As a three-time Dan Jenkins medal nominee in 2020, ’23 and ’24, a prestigious honor in sports journalism, she writes long form stories about people who happen to play sports, telling the interesting and compelling backstories that shape some of our most complex, most dominant, heroes. She’s profiled some of the world’s most prolific athletes across all sports, including DeMar DeRozan, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Davante Adams (three times, first in 2018, then 2021, then 2023), as well as Jalen ‘JDub’ Williams, Cade Cunningham, Brittney Griner, Puka Nacua, Jrue Holiday, Bijan Robinson, Breanna Stewart, Bryce Young, Coco Gauff, Paige Bueckers, and LaMelo Ball (first in 2018 in Prienai, Lithuania, and then in Australia in 2019 to profile LaMelo again).
She gets to the heart of a person’s story, including the emotional comeback from addiction and shame of once-superstar Greg Oden, as well as her profile of Gigi Bryant, writing a story that centered her as a talented player, exploring who she was as a girl, friend, and teammate, as well as her profile of Bronny James, and the pressure and expectations he experienced at USC while waiting to see if he would jump to the NBA and live up to the impossibly high legacy of his father. She’s also profiled Austin Reaves (twice, first in 2021 and then in 2023), Isiah Pacheco, Zack Baun, Amen Thompson and Ausar Thompson, Simone Manuel, Scoot Henderson, Kara Lawson, Brandon Ingram, Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez, Yunus Musah, Ja Morant, Patrick Beverley, Kara Lawson, Jabari Smith Jr., Keegan Murray, Jae’Sean Tate, Courtney Dauwalter, Michael Porter Jr., Immanuel Quickley, Evan Mobley, Marcus Smart , Tyler Herro, Mikaela Shiffrin, Sabrina Ionescu, Derrick White, Sylvia Fowles, and Destiny Littleton. She profiled the late Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs, talking to his mother and wife about his overdose and who he was as a human being, the life he lived.
Her stories, according to Folio Magazine, which named her a “Top Woman in Media” in 2019, “capture the grit, emotion and physical hardships that comes with athletes.” The Los Angeles Times called her a “gifted writer.” The Washington Post wrote: “[Fader’s] biggest skill is her accumulation of details through deep reporting — that’s when she’s in her bag, as basketball fans like to say. Some of these details might seem trivial (the smell in an intern’s car after a trip to upstate Wisconsin to fetch a goldendoodle puppy for Giannis’s girlfriend), but they transport the reader to a place and time. The vividness of the stories she tells, the memories she’s able to pull out of people, unmask facets of Giannis’s playful and endearing personality. Though we see him on television as the king of the court, the book reveals a humble soul shaped by his upbringing.”
Among her favorite stories are those about people who are not “famous.” She wrote about the plight of former top college basketball coach Book Richardson, who was imprisoned and blacklisted from the game after the FBI’s college basketball scandal, and is now seeking a federal pardon. She wrote about the murder of Indigenous women through a profile of distance runner Rosalie Fish; the suicide of a 13-year-old football player named James Ransom, and the questions it raised about CTE, mental health and youth sports; as well as brain trauma and CTE in U.S. Women’s Soccer, and the prejudice that a Black transgender runner named Andraya Yearwood faces to compete. She also profiled Roberto Aguayo, the greatest college kicker who suddenly couldn’t make a kick once he reached the NFL.
Previously she was a staff writer for Bleacher Report’s B/R Mag from 2017-2020 and freelanced for ESPN.com (espnW). She got her start writing sports features at the Orange County Register from 2013-17 after graduating from Occidental College in 2013 with a degree in English and Comparative Literary Studies. Before transferring to Occidental, she played basketball her freshman year at Lewis & Clark College.
Her work has been honored by the Pro Basketball Writers Association, the Associated Press Sports Editors, the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, the Football Writers Association of America, and the Los Angeles Press Club. Her work has been featured in the “Best American Sports Writing” book series, as well as on the websites Longreads and Longform. She won first place in the 2024 Pro Basketball Writers Association magazine-length feature for her story on Greg Oden. She was awarded the 2021 Rising Star award by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association. She was named 2021 Sports Book Author of the Year by The Big Lead. She was also a 2020 and 2023 Dan Jenkins medal finalist.
She regularly speaks about sports feature writing, journalism and storytelling at universities across the country, including Columbia, UC Berkeley, Penn, Boston University, University of Texas at Austin, Northwestern, University of Missouri, University of Virginia, University of Florida, Middlebury College and more. Please ask her to come speak!
Photo credit: Hana Asano
Please feel free to reach out:
Email: mirinfader@gmail.com or mirinf@spotify.com
Twitter: @MirinFader
Instagram: @MirinFader
Substack: https://mirinfader.substack.com/
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mirinfader
Mirin Fader 