Category: The Ringer

The Ringer by Mirin FaderDec 22, 20227:58 am

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 FaderMar 17, 20227:41 am

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 FaderMar 4, 20227:34 am

DON’T SLEEP ON CADE CUNNINGHAM

Cade Cunningham couldn’t sleep. No matter how much he’d try to relax and unwind after games, he’d toss and turn in his bed into the early morning. 2 a.m. … 3 a.m. … “Mind racing,” Cunningham says. It was midway through the 2023-24 season, and the third-year point guard was enduring the worst season of his professional career.

The Ringer by Mirin FaderMar 3, 202211:08 am

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 FaderMar 20, 20218:46 am

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 FaderMar 19, 20219:49 am

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 FaderMar 19, 20219:23 am

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 FaderMar 19, 20217:22 am

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.

The Ringer by Mirin FaderSep 2, 20202:23 pm

The Wait and Weight for Bronny James

A fan wearing a white LeBron James Lakers jersey arrives well over an hour before tip-off. Another man sports a wine-colored LeBron Cavaliers jersey here at Haas Pavilion in Berkeley, California. There are plenty of other James replicas on this Wednesday night in early February: James’s yellow Lakers jersey. His purple one. His black one. But everyone in the building is here to see a different James, Bronny James, the King’s eldest son and USC’s 19-year-old freshman guard. Bronny sprints out of the tunnel alongside his teammates to warm up ahead of their matchup against Cal. Drake and 21 Savage’s “Circo Loco” is blasting, but it appears Bronny can hardly hear it. He has white earbuds in, blocking out the noise. Blocking out the student marching band, drumming and screaming and clapping. It’s Cal’s first sellout since 2017, and it isn’t because of the competitiveness between the two teams; at the time, the injury-marred Trojans had dropped six of their past seven games, dwelling at the bottom of the Pac-12 standings. Fans came to see Bronny.

The Ringer by Mirin FaderDec 24, 201910:12 am

Michael Porter Jr. Finds Meaning After Almost Losing Basketball

Michael Porter Jr. lay on a bed in a patient room, staring up at the ceiling, left alone with his doubts and fears. Not again, he thought. Not again. He felt as if he were in a dream. A terrible, agonizing nightmare. And he felt intense déjà vu. For good reason: He had indeed been in this exact room, in this exact bed, inside this exact Dallas medical facility—not once, but twice before.