“Story is a yearning meeting an obstacle.”
Those words from Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler ring true particularly for the NBA, a league whose rich history is made up of the unique stories of players, teams, coaches, and more. We tend to gravitate towards these stories as a way of learning about the game of basketball, and the ones we remember most are those where players overcome the monumental challenges in front of them to achieve their goals. Think Dirk Nowitzki winning a ring for his Mavericks in his twelfth season, or Kobe Bryant leading the Lakers to beat the rival Celtics in 2010 for the first time in decades.