Curated playlist
21st-century American sportsmen
- Kevin DurantKevin Durant was born on the 29th of September 1988 in Washington, D.C., and grew up dreaming of one day playing for his favorite team, the Toronto Raptors, and his favorite player, Vince Carter. Few childhood sports fantasies have…
- Dwyane WadeDwyane Wade grew up on the South Side of Chicago, where he described his early childhood as "trying." His mother, JoLinda, struggled with drug addiction and cycled in and out of prison. When Wade was eight years old, his older sister…
- LeBron JamesLeBron Raymonde James Sr. was born on the 30th of December 1984, at Cleveland Clinic Akron General, to a 16-year-old mother named Gloria Marie James. His father was not involved in his life. The family moved through the run-down…
- Clyde DrexlerClyde Austin Drexler Sr. was born on the 22nd of June, 1962, in New Orleans, Louisiana, and by the time his professional basketball career ended, he had become one of only three players in history to accumulate 20,000 points, 6,000…
- Kobe BryantKobe Bean Bryant scored 81 points on the 22nd of January, 2006, the second-highest total in a single NBA game in the history of the sport. He did it wearing number 8 for the Los Angeles Lakers, against the Toronto Raptors, in a 122-104…
- Elvin HayesElvin Ernest Hayes scored 39 points and held Lew Alcindor to just 15 in front of 52,693 fans at the Houston Astrodome on the 20th of January, 1968. It was the first nationally televised regular-season college basketball game in history,…
- Karl MaloneKarl Anthony Malone grew up on a farm in Summerfield, Louisiana, the youngest of nine children raised by a single mother named Shirley. He chopped trees, hunted, and fished as a boy. He would go on to score 36,928 career points in the NBA,…
- Tim DuncanTim Duncan was born on the 25th of April 1976, on the island of Saint Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and he nearly never played basketball at all. His first passion was swimming. His sister Tricia had competed at the 1988 Summer…
- Stephen CurryStephen Curry was born on the 14th of March, 1988, at Akron General Medical Center in Ohio, and grew up shooting baskets on a backyard court in Charlotte with his younger brother Seth. Nobody could have predicted that the slender kid who…
- Joel EmbiidJoel Embiid scored 70 points on the 22nd of January 2024, breaking a franchise record that had stood since Wilt Chamberlain set it in 1967. He did it in a regular-season game against the San Antonio Spurs, finishing with 70 points, 18…
- Kawhi LeonardKawhi Leonard hit a shot on the 12th of May, 2019, that bounced off the rim four times before falling. Game 7. Eastern Conference semifinals. The Toronto Raptors down one with under a second left. As the ball rattled in, Leonard let out a…
- Tom BradyTom Brady arrived at the New England Patriots' old Foxboro Stadium as a sixth-round draft pick, carrying a pizza box and wearing the look of someone who had something to prove. Patriots owner Robert Kraft remembered the moment: Brady…
- Isiah ThomasIsiah Lord Thomas III grew up on the West Side of Chicago, the youngest of nine children, in a household that would eventually be without his father. He started dribbling a basketball at age three. By his early twenties, he was one of the…
- Kevin LoveKevin Love's uncle is Mike Love, a co-founder of the Beach Boys. His cousins Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, and Dennis Wilson were also founding members of the same group. Love was born on the 7th of September 1988, in Santa Monica,…
- Scottie PippenScottie Pippen grew up in Hamburg, Arkansas, the youngest of twelve children, and was not offered a single college scholarship out of high school. He walked on to the University of Central Arkansas, a school competing in the NAIA rather…
- Tony ParkerTony Parker walked into the San Antonio Spurs' summer camp before the 2001 NBA draft as an unknown teenager from France. Coach Gregg Popovich watched him struggle against a scout named Lance Blanks, and after just 10 minutes, Popovich was…
- Magic JohnsonMagic Johnson stood at the free throw line on the 7th of November 1991 and told the world he had HIV. He was 32 years old, five-time NBA champion, and arguably the most beloved athlete in America. The announcement rippled through every…
- Chris BoshChris Bosh once stood at center court in Toronto's Air Canada Centre as fans broke into a chant usually reserved for the league's biggest stars: 'MVP'. It happened on the 7th of February 2007, after Bosh scored a career-high 41 points at…
- Klay ThompsonKlay Alexander Thompson was born on the 8th of February 1990, the son of Mychal Thompson, the first overall pick of the 1978 NBA draft. That lineage would shape everything about who Klay became. But it didn't guarantee anything. What Klay…
- Kyrie IrvingKyrie Andrew Irving was born on the 23rd of March 1992 in Melbourne, Australia, the son of two American expatriates who had followed basketball to the other side of the world. His father, Drederick Irving, had played college ball at Boston…
- George GervinGeorge Gervin scored 63 points in a single regular-season game while protecting a scoring title by the slimmest margin in NBA history: seven-hundredths of a point. That night in 1978, he sat out most of the second half once the math was…
- Big Three (Miami Heat)The Miami Heat's Big Three announced themselves to the world on the night of the 3rd of January 2011, when LeBron James, fresh off a road win over the Charlotte Bobcats, grabbed the microphone and compared his new trio to the most famous…
- Chauncey BillupsChauncey Ray Billups was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2024. The honor capped a 17-year playing career that included five All-Star selections, an NBA championship, and a Finals MVP award. Less than fourteen…
- Dikembe MutomboDikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo arrived in Washington, D.C. in 1987 speaking almost no English. He had grown up in Kinshasa, attended Boboto College to prepare for a medical career, and spoke French, Spanish,…
- Terry RozierTerry William Rozier III carries a nickname meant to unsettle opponents: Scary Terry. In the fall of 2025, though, it was the Federal Bureau of Investigation studying his next move, not an opposing defender. He had built a long NBA career…
- Walt FrazierWalt Frazier posted 36 points, 19 assists, and six steals in the seventh game of the 1970 NBA Finals, while his teammate Willis Reed limped through just two minutes and four points before leaving the floor. That night at Madison Square…
- Kareem Abdul-JabbarOn the road against Utah on the 5th of April 1984, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar caught a pass from Magic Johnson and rose into his skyhook from 15 feet. The ball arced over Mark Eaton, a 7 foot 4 inch shot-blocking specialist, and dropped through…
- Ben SimmonsBen Simmons arrived at the 2016 NBA draft carrying the weight of the highest expectation the league can bestow: the first overall pick. He was twenty years old, born in Fitzroy, Melbourne, the son of a man who had played professionally in…
- Andrei KirilenkoAndrei Kirilenko was born on the 18th of February 1981 in Izhevsk, a Soviet industrial city whose most famous export was a rifle. That coincidence would become the foundation of one of the most memorable nicknames in basketball history:…
- Damon JonesDamon Jones once told anyone who would listen that he was "the best shooter in the world." Not one of the best. Not among the best. The best. For a player who went undrafted in 1997 and spent years bouncing through ten different…
- Earl LloydEarl Francis Lloyd stepped onto a basketball court on the night of the 31st of October 1950, and changed American sports history. He was twenty-two years old, a 6-foot-5 forward drafted by the Washington Capitols in the ninth round of the…
- Joakim NoahJoakim Simon Noah was born in New York on the 25th of February, 1985. He played professional basketball for more than a decade. Though most of his career unfolded in the United States, he wore the colors of the France national team. At the…
- Jesús FerreiraJesús Ferreira came off the bench in the 71st minute for FC Dallas on the 3rd of June 2017, against Real Salt Lake. Eighteen minutes later, in the 89th minute of that 6-2 win, he scored his first professional goal. He had left Colombia…
- Cam Ward (American football)Cam Ward, born on the 25th of May 2002 in the West Columbia-Angleton area of Texas, arrived at his first college with no recruiting stars, no national ranking, and exactly two scholarship offers to his name. By 2025, the Tennessee Titans…