Silicon Valley’s founding myths and the NBA’s great reinventions share a structural twinship — the sprint toward a vision the rest of the world can’t yet see. One side builds devices and ecosystems, the other builds spacing, timing, and flow. Both chase elegance. Both weaponize pace. Both rely on teams who believe in the impossible long before the world catches up.

Those Who Would Run the World begins here, the opening chapter of a nine-part journey through the ideas that rewrote basketball’s DNA. This project traces the lineage of rebels, engineers, and madmen whose courage to accelerate reshaped the sport itself. These weren’t people waiting for a green light.
They ran — and the game had no choice but to follow.

Every December, Team USA walks into the Mosconi Cup hoping this is the year the math changes. It never does. Europe doesn’t just win — they colonize.

Fourteen titles in sixteen years, and this year’s lineup might be their cruelest yet.

Torsten breaks down the five-man wrecking crew that turned a pool tournament into an annual hostage situation.

The U.S. Mosconi Cup billiards team is basically a Hollywood script that refuses to read the room.

Five perfect American archetypes. The tortured genius. The young phenom. The beer-soaked captain with a heart of gold. The grinder who “just wants his shot.” The chaotic wildcard who was “born for this moment.” It’s all there — every trope, every beat, every setup for triumph.

But the script never changes: the Americans rise, rally, roar… and then the cue ball betrays them, physics files for divorce.

This article is the autopsy of a franchise that keeps expecting Hoosiers and keeps getting Requiem for a Dream.

Every empire falls the same way. First, sell the lie. Then build the dome to echo it. Ballmer’s Clippers are the latest sermon on the cost of ego and the myth of control. We take you through Steve’s alibi, how it was potentially destroyed this week, and then show that this isn’t new. This is just the same old Ballmer.

Heroes get murals. The rest get receipts from the bullpen bar tab. Torsten raises a glass to the guys who weren’t supposed to be there — Klein, Henriquez, Rojas — the ones who turned “oh God no” into “holy hell yes!” Because every World Series needs its saints, and somebody’s gotta clean up after them.

Once upon a time, refs made bad calls and life went on. Now we stop the game for six minutes to find out whose pinky brushed the ball at 1/16 speed. The TSA of Basketball is an indictment of the over-officiated era — where the NBA swapped rhythm for red tape.

After years of promises, surgeries, and luxury tax therapy sessions, the Clippers have driven one loyal fan to the brink. What started as devotion ends as detachment — and maybe freedom. “We Need to See Other People” is the most tender breakup you’ll read all season.

What happens when a basketball analyst, his co-writer, and his wife test a fantasy model built for chaos?
Explosions, obviously. Yahoo High Score rewards heat checks, not consistency — so we tracked every pick, every questionable decision, every statistical betrayal. This isn’t just a fantasy draft; it’s a referendum on luck, love, and math under pressure.

Social media didn’t just ruin sports discourse — it nuked the last shred of empathy left in the bleachers. Reiner de Ridder fought through illness and broken bones, and the internet called him soft. Every coward with Wi-Fi became a warrior. This isn’t analysis anymore — it’s a mob.

Three men, two FBI operations, one dying illusion.

Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier and Damon Jones find themselves caught between Vegas card tables and mob backrooms. 120 Proof Ball unpacks how the Mafia, the NBA, the FBI, and the myth of fairness ended up in the same deck.

Shohei Ohtani hit three homers, struck out ten, and somehow made a jaded Dodger fan believe again. A dispatch from Tokyo about the man turning baseball into modern mythology.

We learned some things about Mike Trout we wish we hadn’t this week. And it’s led us to ask, are there any heroes left? Were there ever any?

Last call for dynasties. The next generation already ordered the top shelf.

The 2025-26 NBA season tips off with the old guard holding on by their fingertips while the kids blow past the velvet rope. Oklahoma City, Minnesota, Houston, and Detroit aren’t just arriving early—they’re rewriting the guest list. From the Lakers’ time-share with destiny to the Clippers’ billion-dollar denial, 120 Proof Ball’s Power Rankings pour one out for the kings… and crown the heirs.

Vegas odds, whiskey math, and Yahoo’s new fantasy format that rewards chaos instead of efficiency. The 120 Proof crew fed a spreadsheet whiskey and watched it explode. Here are your top 24 picks for ’25 — and the last math you’ll ever trust.

If you replaced your favorite team’s manager or coach with a random drunk fan with passable knowledge of the applicable sport, how would that impact the team’s record or performance? The assumption is negatively, but what if…

“I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed.”

Here are the five fantasy football expected studs who likely have you feeling like the dad who just had the cops drop off his 12-year-old at home after finding him at the local nudie joint.

Before Beijing gold, there was Athens bronze. We Got This: Kobe Bryant and the Redeem Team is the story of how a generation of NBA stars found their leader in the one man willing to dive first, shoot last, and shoulder whatever was missing.

Once upon a funkadelic time, goggles weren’t a punchline, they were the show. This is the story of the bespectacled spectacles who turned corrective lenses into a fashion statement and a competitive edge. Raise your glasses — literally.

Bobby Bonilla may be the ubiquitous Bernie Madoff equivalent when it comes to players fleecing their teams but what if we told you that his is hardly the most noteworthy of one-sided contracts?

In battles between David and Goliath, we always cheer for David. But, what if David is a an asshole?