Two really good recent pieces of basketball writing were "New NBA commissioner Adam Silver is his own man" by Lee Jenkins for Sports Illustrated and "The Birdman's Vengeful Ghost" by Flinder Boyd for Newsweek.
The thing I appreciate most about writing from Jenkins is how he includes tremendously interesting anecdotes in his stories and this feature definitely no exception. The piece from Boyd stood out to me as something that was well-written, but really told just an amazing tale of catfishing or internet deception that could have unjustly landed now Miami Heat player Chris Andersen in jail.
