Jumping to hoops

With A-Rod home signing autographs and hockey players locked out, basketball — and the brand-new Brooklyn Nets — get a little more time in the spotlight. Let’s see which mags are hitting three-pointers and which ones are throwing up air balls.

Slam showcases that other Big Apple team, the Knicks and its gold medalist Carmelo Anthony, in its cover story, “New Jack City.” The NBA superstar hasn’t yet won over that many fans in the city following his switch from Denver, but the magazine thinks his chip-on-the-shoulder court style is just what New Yorkers eventually will want. An in-depth interview shows why Slam is winning a name for itself as the premiere magazine devoted totally to basketball, whether college (it thinks Louisville will conquer all), amateur wannabes or high-pressure pros. You can’t follow the game without it.

ESPN takes on basketball this issue with several solid stories on the coming season. One of them artfully describes how most New Yorkers now feel about Anthony, who had his way with the banishing of point guard Jeremy Lin and coach Mike D’Antoni. The Great Knick of 2012 finally has everything he wants and it’s time for him to prove he was worth it. We only wish ESPN could have expressed this sentiment in the blunt language of the team’s hometown. It would go something like this: Time to put up or shut up, Anthony! The issue shows guts, including bold calls on the coming season. For example, it disputes the view that the Nets are title contenders because owner Mikhail Prokhorov spent all that money on players. Sorry, Jay-Z. We love Brooklyn, but we agree that with the Miami Heat around, a title is just not going to happen this year.

Red Bulletin can be read in less than 15 minutes. A cover story profiling the Nets and point guard Deron Williams has about as much game as a Domino’s Pizza pie on Flatbush Avenue. The article with pictures of Williams driving against playground kids claims Brooklyn gets no respect. Really? Brooklyn has been hipper than Manhattan for years. And the Nets through advance ticket sales have already become a financial success. C’mon, Red Bulletin, give us a break.

Sports Illustrated splashes the LA Lakers on its cover, and for some reason believes that LA will steal fans from our two-team showcase. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, there’s a fascinating tale about pro footballer Tom Dempsey of the Saints, a toeless kicker who’s held the NFL record for the longest field goal ever at 63 yards for an incredible 42 years. He even had a withered, fingerless right arm from birth. Hope no one ever breaks his mark.

Attention Park Slope mothers: if you’ve been long convinced that your moody, self-centered son is suffering from a mild case of Asperger’s, New York has news for you: there’s a good chance he’s just a brat. “A lot of kids are just delayed in development, slow to talk, or anxious, or hyperactive, and a lot of kids are just terribly parented,” says psychologist Bryna Siegel. Nevertheless, we wonder whether the magazine itself isn’t afflicted with some form of Asperger’s. In typical form, the article conjures pages of near-pathological prattle on pop culture before it gets to the rather significant fact that the American Psychiatric Association has proposed to eliminate the diagnosis next May, folding it in with autism. The move could result in between 45 and 90 percent of people diagnosed with Asperger’s to lose the diagnosis, we finally learn, right before our hour is up.

There’s a new Steven Spielberg movie coming out about Abraham Lincoln, and Time really, really wants you to know all about it. On the cover we get a close-up of actor Daniel Day-Lewis lost in deep thought wearing a beard sans mustache. Inside, we get no less than four features about the movie and its subject. “What can the [2012 presidential] candidates learn from Lincoln? A lot,” Managing Editor Rick Stengel says. Basically, Republican Mitt Romney needs to pipe down the war rhetoric, and President Obama needs to deal with his enemies in Washington more effectively.

On that front, Newsweek tells the president that “It’s time to show us — really show us — how much you want another four years.” Indeed, the article reads like a pep talk for a leader who has looked a little zonked out on Xanax during the final stretch. While the president has carpeted the swing states with more campaign offices, the mag frets that lately Romney “seems to be radiating more energy,” a trait that can sway late deciders. One particularly unsettling stat: only 32 percent of white males currently support Obama in the final weeks. And indeed, it’s non-white females who account for Obama’s overall advantage with women voters, according to an op-ed by Linda Hirshman.