Basketball in the Golden State with Legendary NBA Scribe Jack McCallum

Basketball in the Golden State with Legendary NBA Scribe Jack McCallum

Basketball in the Golden State with Legendary NBA Scribe Jack McCallum

Plus: The NFL’s Thanksgiving game, the #MeToo movement, and more.

Dave Zirin
Facebook
Twitter
Email
Flipboard
Pocket

This week, we talk to Hall of Fame NBA journalist Jack McCallum about his new book Golden Days: West’s Lakers, Steph’s Warriors, and the California Dreamers Who Reinvented Basketball. McCallum details the influence Jerry West had on two golden eras of basketball in California and tells you what teams have the best shot to dethrone the Warriors in the years to come.

We have some Choice Words about NFL Thanksgiving and the league’s revealing choice to let the team in the nation’s capital host the primetime game. This week demanded two Just Stand Up awards: Shout out to South Carolina women’s basketball head coach, Dawn Staley, and Marshawn Lynch make a statement in the same country that is synonymous with athlete-activists.

We’ll take you on a trip to the White House for the Just Sit Your Ass Down award and read you a terrific letter from a listener about how we report on the #MeToo movement.

Jack McCallum
Author of Golden Days: West’s Lakers, Steph’s Warriors, and the California Dreamers Who Reinvented Basketball
Twitter: @McCallum12

Zirin
By Having the Washington R*dskins Host a Game on Thanksgiving, NFL Owners Show Their True Colors

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

Dave Zirin Dave Zirin is the sports editor at The Nation. He is the author of 11 books on the politics of sports. He is also the coproducer and writer of the new documentary Behind the Shield: The Power and Politics of the NFL.


Ad Policy
x

Latest from the nation

Today 5:00 am

Skip the Inauguration, Kamala (and Everybody)

Joan Walsh
Today 5:00 am
Executive Branch

Liberals Can’t Stop Gushing Over Trump’s Foreign Policy Team

Aída Chávez
Today 5:00 am

“We Learned Very Little From 2016”: Dean Phillips Is Still Worried About the Democratic Party’s Strategy

Owen Dahlkamp
Yesterday 12:43 pm

Matt Gaetz Is the Best Possible Outcome for Attorney General

Elie Mystal
Yesterday 10:06 am
Campaigns and Elections

Donald Trump Is Waging a Shock-and-Awe War Against His Own Senate

Jeet Heer

editor's picks

VIDEO: People in Denmark Are a Lot Happier Than People in the United States. Here’s Why.

The Nation

Historical Amnesia About Slavery Is a Tool of White Supremacy

Mychal Denzel Smith