John Wall recently made news when he said he believes the Wizards can make the playoffs next year. They added Nene towards the end of last season, and then made a splash with their offseason additions: the No. 3 overall pick in last month’s draft, Bradley Beal, and established vets Emeka Okafor and Trevor Ariza. The pieces are there, and now it’s just up to Wall to make the next step. We believe he will. Wall has helped unveil our next issue – Dime #70 – by tweeting out the cover to his 544,141 followers earlier today.
We are not really one of those magazines that feels the need to hang a theme on every single edition of the book. You see them on newsstands all the time, magazines with headlines blaring stuff like “The Summer Issue!” “The Style Issue!” “The Body Issue!”
Themed issues are not really Dime. We prefer to consistently try to balance our magazine somewhere between timely and timeless – a goal of ours that was laid as a foundation at the very origins of Dime.
Yet, sometimes these things happen, even if not entirely on purpose. Our Director of Content, Patrick Cassidy, took a step back from this issue as we were building it and noticed a very clear theme running through the major content pieces. The vast majority of the book seems to boil down to the weight of great expectations, and how those saddled with those expectations deal with them. Fight or flight, stand tall or crumple under the bright lights; almost all of the athletes featured in this issue are either currently wrestling those pressures or will come face to face with them very soon.
How each player handles those expectations will shape this magazine and basketball in general for years to come.
Besides the awesome cover, we’re extremely proud of how this issue turned out. We got up with Wall for the second straight summer to talk about what it’ll be like going from the unofficial summer MVP to hopefully an All-Star and eventually, a superstar. There is also a feature with Joe Johnson, the newest Net, who took us into his Atlanta crib to show off one of the craziest sneaker collections we’ve ever seen, and a Q&A with Evan Turner, who’ll forever be linked with Wall and his own great expectations.
Plus, we took an in-depth look at the recent NBA Draft and breakdown this year’s rookie class, giving you the top 30 first-year NBA prospects, as well as the big names and what you can expect from them. In addition, there is a Q&A with John Henson, as well as a feature on Dion Waiters, who brought us into his home in Philly to show where he developed his rep as one of the nastiest off-the-dribble guards to come out of college in years.
And as you have come to expect from us, we help you out by showing off the best styles of the summer, the hottest trends, and where you’ll find the best games and talent while you’re waiting for the NBA to return.
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In addition to Washington, D.C.’s John Wall, the issue includes features on Joe Johnson, Evan Turner and Dion Waiters. It also looks at this summer’s epic Red Bull Midnight Run, Anthony Davis, Austin Rivers, and Mark Titus, one of the most interesting D-I walk-ons ever, as well as our special, definitive look at the recent NBA Draft and this year’s rookie class, which promises to be the best one in nearly a decade. Check it out!
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