Aloha,
I’m very excited to announce the launch of my new website and newsletter: Chad Ford’s NBA Big Board.
NBA Big Board is a NBA Draft newsletter with Mock Drafts, Big Boards, scouting reports, draft reporting, weekly podcasts and cool interactive community features that allow us to be in dialogue over everything related to the NBA Draft.
And … I’m going back to my roots.
My work with the draft started when I co-founded Sportstalk.com and NBAtalk.com with my good friend Jason Peery. In 1996, we launched our draft section by aggregating the draft news found around the Internet. The goal was to be an independent voice about the draft, not hampered by the corporate relationships so many sites felt beholden to. People loved it and when, in 2001, Jason and I sold Sportstalk.com to ESPN, a lot of my readers felt like our coverage just wasn’t the same.
I spent more than a decade working with ESPN.com to anchor their draft coverage. I’m grateful for my time there. But the opportunity to cover the draft on my own terms and have more direct engagement with my readers is too appealing to pass.
I love the NBA. But there’s something special about the NBA Draft that eclipses my love for the game itself. There’s so much hope, so much possibility and so much mystery around what makes a great high school player, a college star or an international prospect a successful NBA player.
I’ve been working on this project for over a year. It started with the launch of my podcast of the same name on the LockedOn Podcast network last year. I love doing the podcast and will keep it up. But I also wanted to do more.
I knew I wanted to write again.
There was more to be reported on the draft than a podcast allowed. More scouting reports. More commentary on my Big Boards and Mock Drafts.
And I wanted a place where I could be in actual dialogue with you. In the early days at Sportstalk.com and ESPN.com, we had regular chats and forums for me to connect with readers. I know Basketball Twitter has become the primary place for that, but to me a couple of hundred characters doesn’t foster real dialogue.
I wanted to do more. So, in the coming months we will have discussion topics for you and me to weigh in on and Zoom hangouts to talk NBA Draft. And I’m hoping for a robust comment section that brings your ideas and thoughts into the discussion.
For the month of April, everything on the site will be free. Feel free to click around. We have our 2020 draft archives, lots of cool podcasts to listen to and some early 2021 NBA Draft work. My first big draft piece will be my Big Board 4.0 (published April 8) with analysis ... on all 30 first-round picks in the draft. In the coming weeks you’ll get Mock drafts, updated Big Boards, stock watch columns, scouting reports, discussion topics and more.
Starting May 1st, much of that content will turn premium. Your subscription to the site will help fund my work and allow the website to be sustainable. Subscribers will be the only ones to have the ability to comment, participate in discussions and live events and get access to special content free readers won’t. No ads. No gimmicks. Just really good draft content at a really cheap price: $7 per month, or $70 per year. It’s the cost of an Extra Value Meal at McDonald’s and I think it will be a lot more nutritious.
I will continue to offer free work as well. I want to bring my work to as many people as possible. But your subscription will help a ton. I promise I’ll make it worth your hard-earned cash.
So check us out. Give us your email so I can email out each post and podcast directly to your inbox and -- if you like what you see -- you can be a founding subscriber to NBA Big Board.
Thank you for all the years of support and all the hours you’ve spent in the past two decades reading and listening to my work. I believe the next 10 years will be even better.
Mahalo,
Chad