Hey Dear Adam Silver listeners! We are back with a new interview with writer and New York Times Bestselling author Mirin Fader who is on the show to talk about her new book Dream: The Life and Legacy of Hakeem Olajuwon, which was released earlier this week! Hakeem Olajuwon is of course a former professional basketball player who was a 2 x Defensive…

Dear Adam Silver listeners! It has been awhile. After a cross country move and settling into my new home in northern northern California, we are back with our 88th episode. Author Rafi Kohan joins the show to discuss his new book Trash Talk: The Only Book About Destroying Your Rivals That Isn't Total Garbage (PublicAffairs 2023). Dr. Kyle Green of …

New York Times Bestselling author Andrew Maraniss is back on the show to discuss Inaugural Ballers, his 2022 book that tells the story of the first US women's Olympic basketball team that played in the 1976 games. This incredible team was recently inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and it felt like the perfect time to chat with Andr…

The always charming and witty Kyle Green (Ph.D. in Sociology) and Tunisha Singleton (Ph.D. in Media Psychology) join the show to discuss the sports stories from the summer that are on our minds! Topics range from Las Vegas as a professional sports center point, watching big games and matches at Stadium Swim, the continued failures of UFC as an inst…

Dear Adam Silver listeners! It has been a minute! I am glad to be back at the mic and sharing a conversation that touches on themes of family, expectations of gender and health trauma all via the topics of basketball and astrology......very timely for Mother's Day. I am excited to share my conversation with interdisciplinary artist, educator, mysti…

Journalist, photographer and writer Blake Gillespie is back on the pod to discuss his article for SLAM entitled In War-Torn Ukraine, these Ukrainian Hoopers are Trying to Uplift Others Through the Power of the Game. Follow some of the basketball players mentioned in this story, including Natalia Yudytska who can be found @tasha_shorty and Dmytro “S…

Dr. Johanna Mellis is an Assistant Professor of History at Ursinus College where her research focuses on international sport during the Cold War, namely in the Eastern Bloc and Hungary especially, in order to connect the local voices and experiences of Hungarian athletes to the IOC and broader international sport society. Her manuscript, Changing t…

Mikey Yates is a painter currently based in Kansas City, MO and a resident at the Charlotte Street Foundation, where our interview took place. Mikey paints tiny moments that carry a significant weight to him, sometimes also engaging with historical world events. Basketball, his first love, comes up again in different scenes that he depicts and his …

Blake and Giovanni are on the pod today to discuss pickup basketball and the creative culture around the game. We touch on playing during COVID and post vaccines, including their personal experiences, and the ways they have used basketball and photography as a means to connect with other likeminded people around the world. Thank you to Blake and Gi…

Noah Cohan and John Early who are on the show to discuss their project Whereas Hoops. Noah Cohan is the Assistant Director of American Culture Studies at Washington University St. Louis and is a previous Dear Adam Silver guest from Episode 22 where he joined the show to discuss his book on fandom entitled We Average Unbeautiful Watchers. John Early…

Episode 79 features a conversation with Julie DiCaro, author of the recently published book Sidelined: Sports, Culture and Being a Woman in America. This book unpacks sexism in sports media for fans and non-fans alike. Julie writes about her time in radio covering sports, to the harassment she has received herself from fans and listeners to her tim…

Long time Dear Adam Silver supporter and returning guest Brian Tran is back on the show to discuss our feelings about the first weekend of the NBA playoffs, including the play in tournament, the long standing question of whether refs and players are coworkers or colleagues, and our recent transition to sworn enemies as the Suns vs. Lakers series be…

Glacuo Adorno is back on the pod today (listen to episodes 40, 25 and 3 for more)! Long time listeners will remember that we collaborated in Lithuania on a body of artwork made about women’s basketball pioneer Senda Berenson. We met while we were both in graduate school at Louisiana State university, when I was studying fine art and Glauco was stud…

I am so excited to share this episode, featuring Claude Johnson, founder of the Black Fives Foundation. The Black Fives Foundation’s mission is to research, preserve, showcase, teach, and honor the pre-NBA history of African Americans in basketball. The Foundation is doing incredible things around education and celebration of this history. I have b…

Episode 75 (!!!) features Gabe and Jamie, also known as the Menschwarmers, of the Menschwarmers Podcast. In their own words, Gabe and Jamie are Jews. They also love sports. But most of all? They love Jews in sports. Menschwarmers is their biweekly podcast where they gab about goings-on, interview fascinating industry figures and keep you updated on…

New York Times Best selling author Andrew Maraniss is back on the pod to discuss his newest book, just out on March 2 (!!!!), entitled Singled Out: The True Story of Glenn Burke. The book is about Glenn Burke, the first openly gay MLB Player and the inventor of the high five. This is an incredible and devastating story and couldn’t be more timely, …

Kirk Goldsberry joins the pod to discuss cartography, NBA Stats and how he has combined the two to make (stunning!) graphics that reflect recent NBA trends and the history of basketball. Kirk is a Lecturer in Management and the Associate Director of the Center for Leadership and Ethics at the University of Texas at Austin as well as a staff writer …

Author Andrew Maraniss joins the show to discuss his book Games of Deception, which focuses on the first Olympics where basketball was included as a sport (for men only). These were the 1936 olympic games played in the heart of Nazi Germany during the regime's ascension. The games were used as a way for the Nazi's to show off and receive some valid…

Douglas Hartmann, Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota, is back on the show today to discuss his book Race, Culture and the Revolt of the Black Athlete: The 1968 Olympic Protests and Their Aftermath. This book encompasses the time leading up to the protests during which the Olympic Project for Human Rights, led by Professor of Soci…

Back in February of 2020, I was a project based resident at Lawrence Arts Center and spent two and a half weeks researching the history and current state of basketball in Lawrence, KS. The history of the game runs deep in this college town as James Naismith, the inventor of the game, was the first basketball coach at the University Kansas (KU) and …

Returning guests and Professors of Sociology (aka The Profs) Stephen Suh, Alex Manning and Kyle Green are back on the show to discuss recent sports news that has been on our minds. We speak about the financial impact of the pandemic on local sports teams, MLB's recent decision to recognize the statistics of the Negro Leagues as major league and bre…

Tucson local Zoe Lambert is on the podcast today to discuss her documentary titled Adia, which focuses on the recent history of the University of Arizona women's basketball program and is named for the head coach of the women's basketball team, Adia Barnes. Zoe and I discuss the initial idea for this documentary, how it evolved over time and some o…

As many of you already know, this election cycle I was a volunteer for Mission for Arizona, the democratic coordinated campaign for Mark Kelly and the Biden/Harris ticket that helped to flip AZ from red to blue for the first time in many decades! And today on the pod I am joined by two of the organizers from the campaign, Carly Berke and Ben Horowi…

Eric Nusbaum, author of the recently published Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between, joins the show to share about researching and writing this book and his personal fandom of the Dodgers. The book focuses on the story of the Aréchiga family, who were forced out of their home and off their property by the city, l…

Jessica Luther and Kavitha Davidson join the show to discuss their recently published book Loving Sports When They Don't Love You back: Dilemmas of the Modern Fan. Luther is a freelance journalist, Davidson is a sports writer for The Athletic and they are both dedicated sports fans. This book is an incredible collection of perspectives and stories …

Professor Douglas Hartmann teaches sociology at the University of Minnesota and is on the show to discuss his book Midnight Basketball, which takes a deep, detailed look into the social initiative known as Midnight Basketball, developed in the late 1980s . In this episode, we unpack the racism that was built into this program, which targeted young …

St. Louis based writer and long time (and first!) friend of the pod Brian Tran is back on the show to discuss his championship winning LA sport teams, the magic of baseball and our concerns and hopes for the election. Thank you all for listening! Please share, rate, and leave a review! And vote!

Lori Powers is a Los Angeles based artist that works with found objects collected from neighborhoods near her home to create characters that she installs on the streets where she momentarily impacts drivers to get out of their heads and into their heart while passing through her neighborhood. A passionate, senior, gold winning basketball player she…

A Dear Adam Silver first! Live poetry on the show! Thank you to the writer and poets Cortney Lamar Charleston, Caroline Cabrera and Zain Aslam for coming on the pod to share their poems that were recently featured in Ballerz 2K20, a team of basketball poems edited by P. Scott Cunningham of O, Miami. These three poems are wonderfully rich and add to…

P. Scott Cunningham is a poet and essayist originally from Boca Raton, FL, now based in Miami. He is the author of Ya Te Veo , selected by Billy Collins for the Miller Williams Poetry Series. Scott is a graduate of Wesleyan University and is the founder and director of O, Miami, a non-profit organization that celebrates Miami, FL through the lens o…

Born in El Paso, TX, Ivan Salcido is a Mexican-American artist living and working in Portland, OR. He draws on personal experience, family history and an interest in Mesoamerican mythology for inspiration. His practice covers various skills and media, with formal training in fine art, carpentry and metalwork, including sculpture, drawing, and paint…

H-O-R-S-E, a Comedy by Kathleen Cahill featuring Peter Story and Elisabeth Nunziato.

Bradley Robert Ward is back on the pod (listen to Episode 21 for our previous conversation about bball and some of his older work!!) to discuss his research and new work about the Negro Leagues and his own relationship with baseball, as a fan, former player and image maker. Our conversation was timely for many reasons, one of them being that the 75…

Professor's of Sociology Kyle Green and Alex Manning, at SUNY Brockport and Hamilton College respectively, are back on the pod to discuss the last few days in the world of sports. Please keep in mind that this discussion was recorded on the evening of Thursday, August 27. You can follow Alex Manning on twitter here for discussion on the crossover b…

Seattle based Art Director Dwayne Mansfield is on the show today to discuss his new and evolving brand Hoops and Horticulture and the concept behind his handmade basketball planters. His dedication to exploring the idea of growth through basketball and plants is at the crux of this work. Follow Hoops and Horticulture on Instagram here and please ch…

Ciara Ingram a Videographer and Editor at SLAM magazine. She focuses on using filmmaking to capture life through the lens of the arts, music, and basketball culture. In this conversation, we discuss her beginnings in basketball, her time playing in college, and how she has used the game in a creative way to launch her career as an artist. If you ar…

New Orleans based artist Abdi Farah is back on the show to discuss many things including the highs of bubble basketball, the lows of sideline interviews and how it all relates to current happenings around the rest of the country. As a note, we recorded this episode before it was announced that the Big Ten and the Pac-12 will be postponing their fal…

Professors Kyle Green, Stephen Cho Suh and Alex Manning are on the pod to discuss their collectively written paper entitled Discursive Footwork on the Hardwood. This piece of writing focuses on four NBA players speaking out on the topics of cultural appropriation and both systemic and individual acts of racism through essays published on The Player…

We all remember when Laura Ingraham told Lebron and KD to "Shut up and dribble." Her words, infused with racism and hate, were meant to keep two African-American men from speaking out on issues they care about, beyond their sport. The Speak Up and Dribble movement is a direct response to those racist comments as well as the ongoing protests against…

Kyle Depew is an activist, the owner of Brooklyn Film Camera, a wonderful photographer and a dear friend from my time living in New York City. Kyle and I first met when we worked together at The Impossible Project, which is a company that made new film for vintage Polaroid cameras (now known as Polaroid). After we both left Impossible, Kyle started…

Isaac Scott is a Master of Fine Arts candidate at Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University in Philadelphia where he is studying ceramics. During the recent protests in response to the murder of George Floyd, Isaac turned to photography and began documenting various scenes and instances he saw unfolding in the streets. A friend of m…

Blake Gillespie is on the pod (again!) to discuss the first letter I wrote to Adam Silver, back in the early fall of 2017, regarding the rule that the NBA had/has in place that requires players to stand for the National Anthem. Blake Gillespie is a former journalist and current writer who thinks and makes work about basketball as a force larger tha…

Tay Butler is a multimedia artist based in Houston, TX. He is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, where he is focusing on photography. Tay and I had the chance to discuss our frustrations with mainstream outlets using photography as an often misleading form of representation and his ongoing series…

Noel W. Anderson is a visual artist and Area Head of Printmaking at New York University’s Steinhardt Department of Art and Art Professions. He has an MFA in Printmaking from Indiana University and an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University. Our conversation focuses on Noel's practice and work, much of it in the context of the murder of George Floyd a…

Gina Adams is a multimedia artist who lives in Vancouver, Canada where she is an Assistant Professor of Art at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Adams' studio work includes the reuse of antique quilts and broken treaties between the United States and Native American tribes, sculpture, ceramics, painting, printmaking and drawing. She is a desce…

About a week ago, Blake Gillespie reached out to me with a letter he had written to Adam Silver regarding the reopening of basketball. The letter, written so carefully and tenderly, is about much more than the game. Blake Gillespie is a professional writer. He began his career contributing to Impose Magazine, an independent music and culture public…

Long time Sports Illustrated writer Alexander Wolff joins the podcast to discuss his book (one of my favorites ) Big Game, Small World. In 1998, after the Chicago Bulls had won their sixth title but before Michael Jordan had officially announced his retirement, Alex began a year long trip to see how basketball exists in different places all over th…

I've been close to bursting for the past three weeks wanting to discuss The Last Dance on the pod! Thanks to Brian Tran for coming on to discuss some of his thoughts on the documentary and indulge my long list of talking points. We bounce around between the first six episodes and the most compelling themes and footage so far. Brian Tran is an MFA c…

Today's episode is all about mail and the post office. Fellow artist, mail appreciator/sender and dear friend Melodie Reay is my guest. We talk about what the mail has meant to us in our art practices and the everyday excitement of receiving a handwritten postcard. This discussion stems from concerns over continued funding of USPS and our fears of …

On today's podcast, my dear friend Glauco Adorno and I discuss the book Citizen: An American Lyric by award winning poet, playwright, educator and multimedia artist Claudia Rankine. This book is a masterful unpacking of how racism exists in the United States. Rankine combines poetry, pros, found images and text to express a personal meditation on h…