New York Times, Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Very surprised and excited to be back in the Times so soon! This puzzle was my first NYTXW acceptance, which came in March 2020. I love basketball and movies, so it was really fun for me to hit on a theme that combined the two. I'm happy to see the finished product out in the world!

When narrowing down a consistent set of themers, I decided to rule out any nonplural team name (Magic, Thunder, etc.) so that the clues could all be smoothly worded with a singular-player-focused play on words. I also enjoyed the added constraint of the "The ___ ___" pattern, which ruled out some options I had seen before, like "Raging Bull." If I were making this puzzle today, I'd definitely have wanted to feature at least one W.N.B.A. team in the mix as well, though I'm still pleased with how this early constructing effort turned out.

Many, many thanks go to Sid Sivakumar, who helped me lay out the lower word count grid with the two schnazzy 13s running through all three themers, and to the editing team for their thoughtful clue changes throughout (16-Across, 42-Across and 46-Down are my favorite additions of theirs). Hope you enjoyed!

If you're interested in making puzzles and want help getting started (or you're a crossword veteran who wants help getting connected with mentees), please get in touch! You can find me on Twitter (@1Matthew Stock) or on my blog.

Basketball theme! For us fantasy basketball nerds, this is our time, this is our puzzle. My friend and I have Lonzo Ball on our team, and we debated mightily over Zion Williamson. He's a man playing among boys, yes, but he hasn't been able to replicate his fearsome defense from his Duke days, and he craters free throw goal percentage all on his own. We ended up spending that money on Ben Simmons, who gives us prized assists and even rebounds, plus notching steals and even a few 3s. Free throw percentage is still a worry, but—

Fine, I'll talk about the puzzle!

Unless you want to hear about my punt-two-categories-and-float-five-of-seven philosophy?

Neither did my wife.

I enjoy NBA analysis — not the games, but the analysis, mind you — not surprising given my obsession with over-evaluating everything. I appreciated Matthew's effort to tighten the theme with THE X Y pattern, but it didn't quite work, since I expected THE HORNET'S ___. (Isn't "The Horent's Nest" a thing?) If you're going to go for tightness and consistency, make sure to go all the way.

It's a shame my hometown Warriors aren't representing, especially given Curry's return to dominance. (THE) WAY OF THE WARRIOR? Only works inelegantly; sigh.

With only three themers, I'm glad Matthew opened things up, aiming for a ton of great bonuses. SAY CHEESE and DRAINPIPE work well, and HIT THE WEIGHTS / CUTE AS A BUTTON are great. I bet one more pair is possible, perhaps removing the black square between CHIC and PRICK. (There's a Freudian pairing!)

It'd be interesting to open up the theme to all possibilities, entries like OLD SCHOOL JAZZ (Stockton and Malone), ROCKET LAUNCH (Charles Barkley pogoing over taller players for a rebound), SPUR OF THE MOMENT — will someone please tell my co-manager that we're not going to take a chance on picking up the Spurs's Patty Mills, for God's sake, his ceiling is so low, oh right, you stopped listening.

Fine puzzle, although like this commentary, it may appeal to bball fans much more than everyone else.