Source: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7556446/2026/09/01/kroenke-sports-entertainment-acquire-angels-anaheim-mlb/?unlocked_article_code=1.91A.yhIb.UKX8I0y0SN3a&source=user_shared_article&smid=ta-ios-share

Arte Moreno has agreed to sell the Los Angeles Angels to Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke, ending Moreno’s longtime ownership of the Major League Baseball franchise and adding to Kroenke’s large portfolio of sports teams.

The deal, announced Tuesday by Kroenke Sports and Entertainment, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027, pending approval by MLB’s owners.

________

So that’s where the Peyton Watson tax money went.

Full quote
"I do think it's somewhat interesting that he changed agents this offseason. He hired Aaron Mintz from CAA. This last year, Mintz executed the trade for Trae Young away from Atlanta. Walker Kessler trade away from Utah. And Sabonis just hired him. He wants to get out of SAC."

Last season when OKC was eliminated in Game 7 the post about it on Reddit became one of the most upvoted in this subreddit’s history. Now I don’t think this was the most hated team ever, I chalk that up to the social media simply being more readily usable than ever before. But it got me thinking about who that specific team would be?

we have signed Tacko Fall, Jameer Nelson Jr., and Saint Thomas. ✍️

we have signed Tacko Fall, Jameer Nelson Jr., and Saint Thomas. ✍️

https://www.threads.com/share/BAN5ZLTCI9/

You might have heard of this idea already, in fact, credits to the original r/nba thread by hckgod91 (and the Grantland article that further popularized it): what if we trace an unofficial champion or "belt-holder" through the NBA season and playoffs, like a boxing championship belt, king-of-the-hill style tracker?

And slightly different from all the other trackers available out there, what if we started from the 1st NBA game ever, and we don’t reset the belt to the NBA champion at the end of each season?

I made a website just for this:

https://www.unofficialchampions.com/sport/nba

Background / Answering a silly Reddit question

As a passion project, and in an attempt to build my first, basic website, I tried taking on this task which seems complex but approachable. This idea always intrigued me, the above posts plus the Unofficial Football World Champion made me curious as to who the unofficial champion for the NBA is (and the other major NA sports too). In case anyone is wondering, I did use VSCode and Github CoPilot to do a lot of the coding.

What are rules for this? In general, I'm following how the NBA treats its own history. The first game ever is the Knicks vs Huskies, where the Knicks won, and that's our inaugural unofficial champion. The BAA is part of NBA's history, but the NBL and ABA aren't. The franchise stats, which I also maintain, follow the NBA's official treatment as well in terms of relocation and expansions.

Like in boxing, most bouts can count for a championship, but not exhibition matches. In the NBA, regular season, NBA Cup, play-in, and playoff games can count for this unofficial championship tracker, but not exhibition and pre-season games. Sounds simple right?

All 7,504 Unofficial Title Bouts and 1 big hiccup

The Knicks are the inaugural champion, then promptly lose to the Chicago Stags on the next day, making the Stags our 2nd unofficial champion. Tracing all of this to the current day should be easy enough?

Wellll.... On March 29, 1947, the Detroit Falcons beat the Toronto Huskies 66-63 (you can search this in the title bout section). Then they promptly folded, never to play another game again. So the original belt... is lost?!

Yes! There's no other way around it. Like in boxing though, if a champion retires with the belt, the title is vacated and a new championship bout is scheduled. For our NBA games, there are practically two ways to set our next champion:

1) Set the Falcon's next scheduled opponent as the new defending champion. We treat the Falcons as forfeiting the bout.

But problem with this: I can't find the Falcon's next scheduled game since it's 80 years ago. I imagine I'll have the same problem when I compile the other sports.

2) Choose the next NBA game as the next title bout.

Also sounds like an easy solution, except, there are two games played on March 30, 1947, and I have no way of finding the exact start time. So I simply have to choose between the two games, which are:

A) Boston Celtics vs the Cleveland Rebels, watched by a measly 2,000 spectators in Cleveland, or

B) Philadephia Warriors vs the New York Knicks, at Madison Square Garden, attended by 15,152 people.

I think it's obvious which game should be set as our next title bout. (If you're curious about the other game, and why it doesn't really matter in the long run, go to the Alternate Lineages section.)

And so we're off, no more lineage breaks for the rest of NBA's history. After 70,000+ official NBA games, we reach the end of the 2025-2026 NBA season.

Our unofficial champion today is...

The New York Knicks

We've come full circle, haven't we. The original belt may be lost, but the replacement belt has carried on since the first season. If you're wondering whether the season always ends with the NBA champion, no, it does not. Scroll down to the Disputed Champions section to see it yourself.

Some fun facts / Ending

• While they've never won an official NBA championship, these teams have carried the unofficial championship into the off-season: Pacers, Clippers (x2??), Nets, and the Timberwolves. Sorry Suns, Hornets, Grizzlies, Pelicans, Magic and Jazz fans.
• Every NBA franchise ever (30 Active + 15 defunct) have participated in a title bout! Only the pre-1950 Denver Nuggets and Waterloo Hawks have never held the belt.

• Every active NBA team has held the belt in the last two years, except... the Washington Wizards?! The Wizards last defended the title on November 15, 2021. After failing to defend the title 2 days later, they have lost 14 bouts in a row as the challenger.

• I've set up an API to pull new games directly. This should hopefully last for a long time and the website can auto update.

• I'm partially done compiling the NFL, then NHL will be next. As far as I can tell, no one has ever attempted baseball... but I will try.

• Open to any suggestions, and even new sports to compile after the big 4 are done.

Credits / TLDR

In addition to the above people, credits to a Kaggle user, Eoin A Moore, for a mostly complete list of modern NBA games played, as well as Basketball Reference of course, which filled in the remaining games of the early NBA period.

TLDR Starting from the first game ever, if we find the winner, then trace the next team to beat them, and so on, until you reach today, we have the Knicks as both the official NBA champion, and our Unofficial Champion. I list all 7,504 games for free on the website, plus a whole bunch of interesting stats and facts!

Link to an old school screenshot:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BZDPYTtCAAAfyXp?format=jpg&name=small

Source: https://www.theplayerstribune.com/victor-oladipo-nba-basketball-letter-to-gms

“I believe I can be a valuable contributor to an NBA locker room. And what I’m asking for right now is an opportunity to prove it…”

​

According to league sources, the Pistons are offering a five-year deal that would pay Duren in the range of $35 million annually. Duren, who is represented by agent Chafie Fields of The Team, is requesting a deal with an average salary in excess of $40 million.

"From either camp, you can see their side," a West executive said. "You can justify it. That's what makes it hard."

An executive from an East rival disagreed: "[Duren] and his agent aren't being realistic. They're anchored to the max-type offer. But $35 million is not a discount. It's a lot of money."

Only six centers -- Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, Karl-Anthony Towns, Domantas Sabonis, Rudy Gobert and Alperen Sengun -- will make more than $35 million next season. Chet Holmgren, who starts at power forward for the Oklahoma City Thunder but often slides to center, could be considered an addition to that list.

Source: https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/49777992/nba-free-agency-detroit-pistons-jalen-duren-contract-standoff

​

1. Cooper Flagg

2. Dylan Harper

3. Kon Knueppel

4. Victor Wembanyama

5. Amen Thompson

6. Cade Cunningham

7. Anthony Edwards

8. Tyrese Haliburton

9. Luka Doncic

10. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

11. Donovan Mitchell

12. Jalen Brunson

13. Nikola Jokic

14. Joel Embiid

15. Anthony Davis

16. Kyrie Irving

17. Kawhi Leonard

18. Jrue Holiday

19. Kevin Durant

20. Steph Curry

21. Al Horford

22. LeBron James

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/25486973-best-nba-player-every-age-right-now

PHILADELPHIA—Admitting they had not expected the star forward to have such an immediate impact on the team, Philadelphia 76ers officials told reporters Monday they were taken aback by how quickly Jaylen Brown had converted nearly the entire roster to Islam. “Like, one day he’s going around introducing himself, and the next he’s got everybody on prayer rugs and Dean [Wade] is changing his locker nameplate to ‘Dean X’—really wasn’t expecting that,” said Sixers president of basketball operations Mike Gansey, adding that the team’s nutrition staff had to completely overhaul its operation to incorporate halal meals and that the equipment staff had to scramble to source custom kufis in Sixers colors for every player. “V.J. [Edgecombe] seemed like he was just waiting to be asked. He didn’t hesitate at all. And then once LeBron bought in, the rest of the dominoes fell pretty fast. He, Joel [Embiid], and Tyrese [Maxey] all dyed their beards orange. I even saw Jaylen cornering the mascot with a pamphlet. Definitely a different vibe this year.” Gansey then shrugged and said, “Trust the process, I guess,” as the entire roster left practice for afternoon prayers

Source

Source - https://www.eurohoops.net/en/eurocup/2003803/thanasis-antetokounmpo-joins-aris-bc/

Thanasis played in a total of 34 games for the Bucks last season, averaging 1.4 PPG in 4.4 MPG.

The USA suffered their only defeat of the Coach K era, as a star studded roster (LeBron, Melo, Wade, Chris Paul, etc.) could not overcome a team led by Greek legend Panagiotis Giannakis and stars like Vasilis Spanoulis, Theo Papaloukas, Dimitris Diamantidis, Sofoklis "Baby Shaq" Schortsianitis and others

Los Angeles Lakers vs. Washington Wizards - 3/26/2019

Broadcast list:

TNT (English)

unknown (Spanish)

Tencents (Chinese)

This of course is regular season only

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/1LJeEDR96f

Shai was coming off his 1st 30+ PPG (62% TS) season while making 1st Team All NBA

Trae averaged 25/10 on 57% TS and made the All Star team

Interesting how their careers have gone since this point

All numbers from NBA.com tracking, which began tracking touches in 2013-14.

Brunson averaged 9.1 minutes of possession per game this postseason.

Highest playoff time of possession on a championship team since tracking began:

2026 Knicks, Jalen Brunson, 9.1

2020 Lakers, LeBron James, 8.0

2023 Nuggets, Jamal Murray, 7.9

2025 Thunder, SGA, 7.6

2015 Warriors, Steph Curry, 7.3

2016 Cavaliers, Kyrie Irving, 7.2

2014 Spurs, Tony Parker, 7.0

2021 Bucks, Jrue Holiday, 6.6

Only one player in the tracking era has reached the Finals with a higher time of possession than Brunson, which is LeBron James:

2018 LeBron (9.6) and 2015 LeBron (9.5), who lost to the Golden State Warriors each time.

For the Knicks, “Brunson Ball” has been normal for the franchise as they have been running it this way for years since Brunson arrived in NYC.

Brunson has led the playoffs in time of possession in three of the last four years:

(9.9) in 2023, (10.0) in 2024, and (9.1) in 2026. The exception was 2025, when he finished second at (9.2) behind Cade Cunningham (9.9).

Brunson has also led the regular season in time of possession the last three years, at (8.6) in 2024, (8.6) in 2025, and (8.0) in 2026. In his first year with the Knicks in 2023 he was third at (8.5), behind Luka at (9.1) and James Harden at (8.6).

If you’re wondering about touches, The highest touch total for a champion since tracking began belongs to Jokic in 2023 at 111.6. This postseason, Brunson was second at 95.2, behind Jokic’s 123.0.

Luka is the only other current player working at this volume across multiple years. His Finals run in 2024 came at (8.5). In 2022 he took Dallas to the Western Conference Finals at (9.7), with Brunson in that backcourt at (5.4).

So what is it about this Knicks team that makes a hyper on-ball offense work when it usually doesn’t?