Substack writers on their favorite '90s hoops memories

Basketball Substack is not done with the nineties.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m too old and too busy to keep up with what’s trending with the youths. However, something that did cross my path back in March was the “We’re done with the ‘90s” movement (was it a movement?). I’m sure you’re all familiar with it, so I won’t go into any detail (

Ethan Strauss

did that much more eloquently than I ever could in his newsletter here). And as readers of this newsletter know, Basketball Shorts is not done with the ‘90s.

To that end, I reached out to some of the best hoops writers on Substack to share their favorite hoops memories from the post-Cold War decade.

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Katie Heindl

// BASKETBALL FEELINGS

This memory feels like it would be more accurately described as my favourite preemptive 90s NBA memory, but it was so formative to me and to a literal NBA franchise that everything else pales in comparison to it. I voted in the mail-in contest, run by a local Toronto newspaper, to name the new expansion franchise coming to the city: Jurassic Park had just come out, there was only one option. I had loved watching the Detroit Bad Boys era of basketball and Dennis Rodman, in pop culture more broadly — all that bravado — and the thought that my city could have its own version of that was thrilling. When the Raptors arrived in Toronto the closest the team had to matching Bad Boys basketball was Damon Stoudamire. But of course when you're a kid you don't know what bad is, you don't care, you just latch onto the team and declare them the greatest. You embody the bravado yourself.

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Royce Webb

// 🏀 5x5

My favorite NBA memories from the ‘90s are plentiful and scattershot — Penny's dazzling debut seasons, the somehow balletic Barkley,  the elegant grit of the Bulls. Plus the Run-TMC Warriors, the Nuggets' 8 vs. 1 upset of the Sonics, and a hundred more. 

But for one personal memory, let's go back to Iowa, where I was a student in the '90s, and the Hawkeyes’ home showdown vs. the Fab Five of Michigan — Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, and the rest.

For once, I was rooting against the Fab Five, my favorite team of the moment. That’s because of the collective feeling in the building — twelve days earlier, the state had been stunned when Iowa star Chris Street was hit and killed by a snow plow while driving away from a team dinner. 

It was Iowa's first home game since the tragedy, and the emotion in Carver-Hawkeye Arena was beyond anything I'd ever experienced. It was accentuated because of the challenge of overcoming the power and talent of the Fab Five, on their way to a second straight NCAA title game.

I remember only a few facts from that day 31 years ago. I do recall the game was a rollercoaster, with Iowa coming from behind late to win a tight game, though not many individual moments.

But I remember the feeling. I remember the waves of excitement in the arena, with so many able to gather for the first time since Street’s death, and how those waves seemed to carry the Iowa players over the top for a day. And I remember the melancholy that remained, realizing that a young man was gone, and his team would suffer for it, even if his influence would live on.

It was one of those times when sports and real life merge.

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Jared Dubin

// Last Night, In Basketball

My favorite 90s hoops memory isn't so much a single memory as it is a feeling. Watching the 1990s New York Knicks is what made me fall in love with basketball. Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley, Anthony Mason, John Starks, Hubert Davis, Allan Houston, Latrell Sprewell, Larry Johnson, Marcus Camby... those guys were as much of my childhood as any of my friends. I wouldn't be where I am or doing what I'm doing today without them. That's the type of impact a special team can have — even if it falls short of its ultimate goal.

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Neil Paine

// Neil’s Substack

After rattling things around in my brain, one '90s hoops memory that particularly stands out is actually from college -- Scotty Thurman's high-arcing 3-pointer to beat Duke in the 1994 NCAA championship game: 

I wasn't much of a fan of Duke even then, and this was the first NCAA title game I can remember being allowed to stay up and watch. Plus, Arkansas' "40 Minutes of Hell" press defense under coach Nolan Richardson was exciting because anything could happen every trip down the court, so those Hogs were a fun team to root for.

Basketball-Reference says Arkansas was favored in that game, but that's not at all what it felt like to me at the time. That was especially true when Duke went on a big run out of halftime and took a 10-point lead in the second half. While the Razorbacks chipped away and eventually took a lead of their own late in the game, it still felt like Duke would win after Grant Hill hit a 3 with 90 seconds to play. As the shot clock wound down on the next possession, the ball found its way to Thurman, a sophomore who had been Arkansas' second-leading scorer behind Corliss Williamson that season.

Putting a TON of air under the shot, Thurman barely got it off over the outstretched hand of Antonio Lang as the shot clock expired. Somehow, it went in. At the other end, Chris Collins' attempt to answer rimmed out, and after a few fouls and free throws, Arkansas had beaten Duke for the title. I'll never forget just how much arc Thurman put on that ball -- one of the most incredible examples of a shooter adjusting to the defense to still hit a clutch shot that you'll ever see.

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Jacob Sutton

// JSuttHoops

Growing up in Houston, Hakeem reigned supreme far after those back-to-back '94 and '95 titles. I distinctly remember passing by a group of Rockets fans just a few years ago, adorned with those crisp white/red/yellow jerseys that have become some of the most iconic in NBA history. Hakeem Olajuwon's legacy wasn't just being good, but bringing together an entire city that hadn't seen success on the hardwood for so long. In being drowned out by MJ for a time, much like the rest of the league, Houston came out with a need to usurp the throne. Hakeem embodied that to a tee. One of my favorite NBA videos ever is simply a highlight reel of Hakeem's Dream Shake, because of course it is:

The slight double-fake, the pivot, and rising up to consistently hit one of the most satisfying signature shots the league has ever seen. In essence, it's beautiful basketball, only found in a time when three-pointers were less common and defenses were allowed to be a little rougher around the block; it fully mustered up a creative artistry that few players today could hope to have. Robert Horry once quipped that Michael Jordan only feared Hakeem, or, as he called him, "The Big Nigerian". While it's unknown whether that was actually the case during the 90s, to be respected by the man who is potentially the Greatest Of All Time is something to be heralded. And yet, that isn't quite the point. Instead, Hakeem "The Dream" Olajuwon brought the dream of success to life for us here in H-Town; the effects of that still reverberate, 30 years later.

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Mike Shearer

// Basketball Poetry

"I was born in the late ‘80s, so while I started watching basketball as soon as I could walk, my memories of the ‘90s are painted in broad strokes and bright colors. The most vivid involve my hometown Miami Heat’s battle against the dreaded Chicago Bulls in the 1997 Eastern Conference Finals. The Heat lost that series convincingly. But in the unreliable, Instagram-filtered recesses of my childhood mind, I only remember the triumphant feeling of bringing down the mighty Michael Jordan in Game 4. Was there ever a real chance for a comeback? No. In the moment, though, did I care about that? H-e-double-hockey-sticks no. The Heat beat the unbeatable Bulls! Michael Jordan shot 9-for-35, stifled by a smack-talking Voshon Lenard, Alonzo Mourning, and the rest of the Heat’s snarling, muscle-bound monsters. Even as a kid, I remember Jordan’s frustration as shot after shot rimmed out. It was glorious. Very, very short-lived, but glorious."

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Allen

// BASKETBALLWEATHER

Oh man, favorite 90s hoops memory. That’s such a tough one, so bear with me as I try to figure it out.

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I gotta be honest, there’s something about Patrick Ewing that really sticks out for me. As a kid, he seemed so extraordinary. He had that pretty little floater, which seemed unblockable. I loved his wingspan, but also his haircut. There was just such an undeniable vibe to him that when I think back to the 90s, it’s impossible to reminisce about it without seeing an image of Patrick Ewing in his orange and blue jersey in my head, shifting his feet, leaning back, and getting that gorgeous jump-shot of his up. All of my other basketball memories from the 90s, including Marv Albert’s iconic voice, seem to take shape at the gateway of Patrick Ewing and his years on the Knicks.

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Quinn Everts

// The Broken Press

I grew up on the West Coast in the 2000s, meaning most of my memories of NBA teams in the PNW are related to the Blazers and the Blazers only. So maybe this pick is steeped in nostalgia for a time when three teams occupied the upper left corner of the US, but I’m going to pick Game 7 of the 1996 Western Conference Finals between the Sonics and the Jazz. Seattle won this game, 90-86, and advanced to its first NBA Finals in almost 20 years.

Those Sonics were incredibly cool– Gary Payton won DPOY that year, and he and Shawn Kemp were deserving All-Stars.  The whole game is on YouTube (I don’t actually remember this game, considering I was -1 years old, so my frame of reference comes from that video) and a lot of things stand out to me when I watch it.

Firstly, that Seattle crowd was rowdy. Even on a 1996 TV broadcast, you can tell that the roof on that stadium was a few decibels away from blowing completely off. That city no longer having an NBA team is a crime.

Secondly, I don’t remember a time when NBA games would interview a losing player on the floor before interviewing a player from the winning team, so NBC cutting to Karl Malone after the final buzzer was a shock to my senses the first time I watched this game. There’s something kind of sadistic about that, but also, you’ll probably get way more honest answers from someone who just lost a game. Honestly… bring that back.

Finally, though I love today’s NBA with all (or most) of my heart, there is something satisfying about a 90-86 final score. I love this game because that year, 1996, was the last time Seattle watched its hometown team rise to this level of success. It's a sad reason, sure, but the people in that stadium in 1996 and watching on NBC that day didn't know or care - and they never will. They'll always be in KeyArena, nearly breaking the sound barrier, or at home, hooting and hollering on their own. That day, Seattle basketball was at its best.

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Chris Shorts

// Basketball Shorts

This is going to be a little too on the nose, considering the subject matter of this newsletter. But, as a growing NBA fan, my intro to hoops wasn’t through watching games or reading box scores in the newspaper; it was through discovering NBA Inside Stuff on a random Saturday morning in the early 90s. Basketball had always been on my periphery (baseball was my sport of choice as an adolescent). I knew of the greatness of Michael Jordan and those early 90’s Bulls teams, but it wasn’t until I watched Inside Stuff for the first time that basketball became something that I genuinely cared about and started obsessing over. I had never seen anything like Inside Stuff before (no baseball highlight show on television had made baseball look as cool as Inside Stuff did for basketball). I watched it every opportunity I had and pored over the magazine while at the grocery store with my family. I was hooked.

I fully credit Ahmad Rashad and Willow Bay for my love of basketball.

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