Author: Mirin Fader

Mirin Fader is a sports writer living in Los Angeles. She is a senior staff writer for The Ringer, and is the author of the New York Times best-selling book, Giannis: The Improbable Rise of an NBA MVP. She can be reached on Twitter @MirinFader.
Hachette Books by Mirin Fader
Read More

GIANNIS: THE IMPROBABLE RISE OF AN NBA CHAMPION, a New York Times BESTSELLING BOOK, PUBLISHED Aug. 2021

Giannis Antetokounmpo and his family didn’t have much time. They had until sundown to get out of their apartment. They had fallen short on the rent. Again. They were being evicted. Again. The landlord, in Sepolia, Athens, where Giannis and his family lived, had been barging into their apartment, telling them they had maybe a day, maybe two, to leave. But this time, the family wasn’t so lucky. Veronica, Giannis’s mother, told him and his brothers to pack their things. Thanasis, the oldest of the four; Giannis; Kostas; and Alex, the youngest, didn’t ask any questions. They didn’t want to add to the burden. So they nodded, kept quiet, gathered their clothes. But after packing all their belongings, Giannis and his brothers looked at each other, staring at their massive fridge in the kitchen, each thinking, What are we going to do with this? Charles, their father, looked around, trying to find something to leverage the fridge with.

The Ringer by Mirin Fader
Read More

In This NCAA Tournament, Lauren Betts Has Been More Than Enough

Lauren Betts lingered in the tunnel, long after the game ended. She was deeply disappointed with herself. Her performance. It was early March. Betts’s UCLA Bruins had just lost to rival USC on their home court, 80-67, in the final game of the regular season, in front of 13,659 fans who were eager to see a showdown between two top-five teams with two national player of the year candidates in Betts and USC’s JuJu Watkins. But UCLA seemed a step behind the entire game, hardly resembling the team that was at one point ranked no. 1 in the country. The Trojans played with more energy, more physicality, more enthusiasm—and were the mentally tougher team. It was an ugly gut-punch of a loss for UCLA—the kind that reverberates long after the buzzer. The kind that makes a team take its collective pulse to see what’s really inside. Every Bruin struggled that night as the Trojans completed a regular-season sweep, but Betts felt as if she alone had let her teammates and coaches down. “I was really mad about how I played and how I showed up,” Betts told The Ringer. The 6-foot-7 junior center struggled to get into a rhythm offensively. Several times she was called for traveling. She scored just 11 points and didn’t register a single block. Her thoughts spiraled as she stood in that tunnel, and she couldn’t stop berating herself. Her mother, Michelle Betts, tried to comfort her later that night, but Lauren was inconsolable. “There were a lot of tears,” Michelle says

The Ringer by Mirin Fader
Read More

IS THERE ANYTHING JALEN WILLIAMS CAN’T DO?

After contact, Holmgren landed awkwardly on his hip and had to be carried to the locker room. It was a play that should have changed the trajectory of Oklahoma City’s season. Holmgren was in the midst of a monster breakout for a rising Thunder team that looked ready to contend for a championship. But when it was announced that Holmgren would be sidelined for at least two months with a pelvic fracture, the Thunder were suddenly centerless. Thunder coach Mark Daigneault knew the right man for the job: Jalen Williams. “He sees challenges as opportunities instead of excuses,” Daigneault says.

The Ringer by Mirin Fader
Read More

THE MANY DIMENSIONS OF DEMAR DEROZAN

Never break. DeMar DeRozan’s father used to say those two words, again and again, as his son was growing up in Compton, California. Many times, DeMar came close. Close to unraveling, close to shutting down. He couldn’t trust many people around him. As soon as he got attached to someone, they would disappear. Uncles, friends, classmates. He would come to school, see an empty desk that remained unfilled for days, and nothing more needed to be said. Gunshots, gangs, and funerals haunted his neighborhood. He almost became numb to the violence, the possibility of death. Every time he left his house, he knew he might not return. He understood, as his mother, Diane, puts it, “You’re here today, and maybe gone tomorrow. You have to make the best of it.”

The Ringer by Mirin Fader
Read More

GREG ODEN’S LONG WALK HOME

Greg Oden is early. Earlier than most of the players he’s about to coach. He steps out of his Denali on this bright, windy February morning in Indianapolis and lumbers into Hinkle Fieldhouse. He slips a tiny red mesh jersey over his gray hoodie, which looks like a baby’s bib on his 7-foot frame, barely covering the top of his chest. But he isn’t the least bit bothered; he’s in his element. He joins the scout team on the court, whispering bits of advice to players between sets. He throws down a dunk, soft and clean, offering up a glorious glimmer of the player everyone in this gym, in this city, remembers him to be.

The Ringer by Mirin Fader
Read More

Can Kara Lawson Build Duke’s Next Basketball Powerhouse?

There’s an urgency about Kara Lawson. You can hear it in the way she speaks, you can see it in the way she moves. Her eyes expand, her shoulders stiffen. When the Duke women’s basketball coach leans forward, you feel the power of her undivided attention. Each word has weight, a hidden parable.“There’s three things that can never drop,” Lawson says, “and that’s your work ethic and your focus and your discipline. Those have to stay high.”

The Ringer by Mirin Fader
Read More

Brittney Griner Came Home. Her Journey to Rediscover Herself on and off the Court Was Only Beginning.

Dozens of little girls in WNBA jerseys lined up to catch a glimpse of Brittney Griner. They screamed as Griner sprinted toward them with a giant smile, extending her hands to high-five as many as she could. The longtime Phoenix Mercury star even returned for one more round of high fives to make sure she didn’t miss a single, tiny hand.

The Ringer by Mirin Fader
Read More

The evolution of paige bueckers

Paige Bueckers glances at the legends gracing the imposing navy-blue walls here in the Connecticut women’s basketball film room. There’s Rebecca Lobo. Maya Moore. Sue Bird. The photos show each of them dominating. Winning. Celebrating. Just outside, Diana Taurasi’s national championship portraits adorn the hallway, too. “This is UCONN,” a large sign reads.
Everything Bueckers aspires to become is on these walls, and they remind her of her purpose. “I want to prove that I’m a winner at every level,” she says. Bueckers leans back in her seat on this summer afternoon in Storrs, Connecticut, thinking of all she has been through to get to this point. She’s a redshirt senior now, returning for a fifth and final season with the Huskies. She could have left UConn for the WNBA this year, but she had been through too much, had come too far—coming back from multiple injuries, including the ACL tear that forced her to miss the entire 2022-23 season—not to return for one last shot at the college national championship that has eluded her.