How I'll cover the 2024-25 NBA season
What's in store for Season 15
Well, folks… we just about did it. The NBA offseason officially ends tomorrow.
The league itself went through a tremendous amount of change this summer, from players changing teams (Paul George, Mikal Bridges, Karl-Anthony Towns, Dejounte Murray, and more) to teams changing uniforms (the Jazz — thank God) to the rules governing the league itself (the aprons and salary-matching constraints that come with them) changing and making a dramatic impact right away.
Things around here are going to be (very slightly) changing, too. And I want to take this time to explain what’s happening, and how it affects both current (not much) and new subscribers (a little bit).
Beginning Nov. 1, I will be instituting the following price changes (FOR NEW PAID SUBSCRIBERS ONLY), which will both support more sustainable work and provide some additional benefits beyond what was available last season (including but not limited to access to the chat feature and subscriber Q&A/mailbags):
- Monthly subscription: $8 per month ($96 per year)
- Yearly subscription: $75 (22% discount; compared with 17% previously)
- Founding subscription: $150 (2x yearly subscription cost; same as before)
To repeat, for clarity: Everyone who is currently a paid subscriber or who uses the link below to become a paid subscriber sometime between now and Nov. 1 will be locked into the current price of $5 per month or $50 per year. Your cost WILL NOT go up unless you unsubscribe and then re-subscribe at a later date.
In the space below, I’ll describe the new coverage plan first; and then at the bottom of the page, there’ll be a more detailed explanation of why I adopted the new price points for this season.
But before we get to that, testimonials from a few current Last Night, In Basketballers:
Paid subscribers ($8/mo, $75/yr) get all free posts, plus:
Three Things I Noticed on League Pass (Mondays): A lot of people would like to follow the entire NBA but mostly only have the time or bandwidth to watch their favorite team. If that sounds like you, I’ve got you covered. I do my level best to watch a good amount of every single team so that I can keep up with the whole league and actually know what I’m talking about. So each week, I will scour my game notes and highlight three things I noticed while watching basketball the week before. You might have missed it — but I didn’t. And if you read this feature every week; you can pretend that you didn’t miss it, either. The full Three Things archive can be found here but I’ll also link to a few of my favorite examples from last season:
Weekly deep dive (Wednesdays): This is where I dive deep (or at least deep-ish) into a team, player, or leaguewide trend that is worthy of further exploration. Either that or I’ll just write how I feel about a topic that is, shall we say, trending in the NBA discourse. If you’re familiar with my work at FiveThirtyEight and elsewhere (including much of what I’ve written here since this became my primary home for writing about the NBA), you should recognize these types of stories. Here are a few of my favorite examples from last season:
Access to chat feature: This will allow for increased interaction between me and paid subscribers, and between subscribers themselves. I’m going to feel out the best way to use this feature throughout the season because it’s new to me as well, but as a starting point this will include:
Subscriber Q&A/Mailbags: This is pretty self-explanatory.
Discussion threads: Feel free to start your own threads about any topic and see what others think, and I’ll pop in and contribute as well.
Game-night watch-alongs: Come hang out, watch the games together, and talk about things we noticed or anything else that might be going on in the NBA.
We’ll do these once a month during the regular season and hopefully a few times during the playoffs.
Free subscribers get occasional public posts, mostly:
Film Findings (Fridays): Throughout the regular season, I’ll use video clips to break down something interesting that happened (or is happening) in the NBA. Maybe it’ll be a specific set. Maybe it’ll be a concept that is making its way through the league. Maybe it’ll be just one player’s performance in a game that stood out for one reason or another. Or maybe it’ll be something else. But it’s going to focus on the stuff that actually matters on the court. Because despite the fact that we hear more about the drama than we do anything else, what happens on the hardwood really is the most interesting part of the NBA. The full Film Findings archive can be found here but I’ll also link to a few of my favorite examples so far:
Founding subscribers ($150+/yr) get all of the above, plus:
- Ability to request a specific Film Findings topic.
- Ability to request a specific night for game-night watch-along. (Pending my own availability, obviously.)
About the new price points
Before signing off, I do want to explain these price changes.
Simply put: I really like doing this, and I want to continue doing it. But it does take up a lot of time and energy, and last season I found that I was being stretched pretty thin at times in terms of my time and budget. The new price points allow me to feel more comfortable and confident with the amount of work I put into this newsletter — from watching games every night to doing research to writing and editing and creating videos and recording voiceovers and everything else that you’ve come accustomed to seeing here — while also being able to get some sleep and avoid having to drive myself to the point of exhaustion.
I also found last year that the Film Findings videos, in particular, were of much better quality and got much better responses from viewers once I started using a new editing software that comes with more bells and whistles. But that software costs me a bunch of money to utilize, and I want to be able to afford it without worrying about that cost. Having the software throughout the season will also make it easier to do Three Things I Noticed on League Pass, because I will be able to more quickly and easily cut, edit, and upload video clips. The new prices will also allow me to collaborate with more people and be able to adequately compensate them for their work on various projects, and will hopefully allow me to cover more league events like All-Star or Summer League in the future (which I have done at times in the past but did not last year).
I’m really excited about all of this, and about what will be my 15th (!!!) season covering the NBA. Whether you are a paid subscriber or a free one, I appreciate your support and your readership — and I plan to keep earning it throughout this season and beyond.
