Chris Ballard, Kevin Ding, Jason Quick and Marc J. Spears have been named first-place winners in the 2015 PBWA Blumenthal Memorial Writing Contest, which honors the best work by members of the Professional Basketball Writers Association during the 2015 calendar year.
Ballard, of Sports Illustrated, won the Features category for his 30th-anniversary retrospective of the 1985 NBA Draft Lottery — the lottery in which the New York Knicks secured the top overall pick, which was later used to select Patrick Ewing.
Ding, of Bleacher Report, earned first-place honors in the Breaking News category for writing about the Los Angeles Lakers’ intention to draft Ohio State point guard D’Angelo Russell second overall later that day.
Quick received the first-place award in the Columns category for a piece he penned for The Oregonian. In that column, he argued about the impact that LaMarcus Aldridge’s free-agency departure would have on the Portland Trail Blazers.
Spears, of Yahoo Sports, won the Game Stories category for his account of the Golden State Warriors’ victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 4 of the NBA Finals.
Four independent judges evaluated the entries — one judge for each category. The authors’ names and the names of the authors’ news outlets were redacted before the judges received the entries.
