Editors’ Notes: "Something that Jordan and I want to try to do all the time is bring some empathy into sports,” says Haley O’Shaughnessy, cohost of Spinsters, a weekly podcast in which she and cohost Jordan Ligons explore how basketball influences society and vice versa. “It can be very easy to get lost in stats and what's happening on the court. We love those conversations, but we also want to bring feelings into it and human reactions.” In each episode, O'Shaughnessy and Ligons cover everything from the week's headlines to deep dives on issues affecting the NBA and WNBA—whether they look into the real-life implications of when players get traded, the top breakout players of 2021, or the impact of 2001's defensive three-second violation rule change. O'Shaughnessy and Ligons first met while they were working together for the sports and pop culture website The Ringer. When Ligons started in 2018, she was immediately struck by how O'Shaughnessy “always made the stories relatable and was a woman in the sports industry killing it.” O'Shaughnessy, on the other hand, was drawn by Ligons' initiative to write more in-depth stories about the WNBA—noting her ability to “identify things that people aren't talking about that they should be talking about,” she says. The strength and solidity of their friendship shows in their easy banter. But what they appreciate about their rapport, above all else, is how they've been able to connect with newcomers and seasoned fans alike. “We're not making it so high-level that if you don't study a game film or every single minute of a game, you'd have no idea what we're talking about,” Ligons says. “Having people who aren't super basketball fans say, 'When I listen, I feel like I'm a fly on the wall' or 'I'm in the group chat with you guys and I feel like I'm already your friends,' that's the environment that we want to create.”