The start of a new NBA season puts a microscope on each team and the big decisions made over the offseason.
Each front office made tweaks and some completed a roster overhaul to put their squad in position to take a step forward this year. Big contracts were handed out, significant trades were made and some players had the can kicked down the road when it comes to their long-term future with their respective teams.
Whether it’s for contract reasons or pressure to win now, plenty of players around the league head into the new season with a lot on the line. Some guys need to prove that the front offices who just took a bet on them made the right move. Others need to have a good season to lock in a long-term contract. And, of course, superstars have to win.
Here’s a look at Sports Illustrated’s 10 players with the most at stake throughout the upcoming season for one reason or another, listed alphabetically by last name:
LaMelo Ball, Minnesota Timberwolves
How exactly will this pairing of Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball work? In theory, Ball’s presence, gravity and passing ability should make Edwards’s life easier and play off the ball more. They will likely need some time, though. Plus, Minnesota won’t get anything defensively out of Ball.
What he will do is play unselfishly, knock down shots and take much of the ballhandling duties off Edwards’s plate. The trade for Ball was Minnesota’s move to do something in an effort to compete with the Spurs and the Thunder, who have fully taken over as the class of the West. After two straight trips to the Western Conference finals, San Antonio took care of Minnesota fairly easily in the second round. It’s a good thought to add some juice as both teams remain at the top, but does Ball move the needle that much? His arrival makes Minnesota one of the most fascinating teams to track throughout the season.
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Luka Dončić, Los Angeles Lakers
The Lakers are Luka’s team more than ever with LeBron James’s departure over the offseason. Rob Pelinka completely retooled the roster to complement Dončić with the notable sign-and-trade for Walker Kessler, plus free-agent signings of Sandro Mamukelashvili, Quentin Grimes and Collin Sexton. Most importantly, Austin Reaves got a new deal to continue on as Dončić’s No. 2.
“I think we’re very deep, which is very important, especially going to the playoffs,” Dončić said of the new-look roster to Sports Illustrated’s Chris Mannix. “And we have guys that are not afraid. Some of the new guys, I’ve played against. They are not afraid.”
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Last season, Dončić led the league in scoring with 33.5 points per game, more than MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s nightly output. The biggest question for the Lakers is on the defensive end, which puts pressure on Dončić and Reaves to keep the team afloat with their scoring. Luckily, Dončić is one of (if not the) best scorers and creators in the game.
Once the Mavericks shockingly dealt him to Los Angeles, he immediately became the Lakers’ superstar of the future. He already took over as the top option, but he now fully takes over with the keys to the franchise. We’ll see how high Dončić can take the Lakers this year after the roster was shaken up to fit his game.
Jalen Duren, Detroit Pistons
Duren’s offseason standoff with the Pistons is resolved as he remains with Detroit on a five-year, $200 million contract. The contract dispute went right up to the deadline for him to decide on a one-year qualifying offer because of a reported distance in value between the two parties.
On one hand, Duren was an All-Star and All-NBA player as he helped the Pistons win 60 games last season. On the other, he fell apart in the playoffs and the team already had a max contract for Cade Cunningham on the books. Houston’s Amen Thompson—who has yet to make an All-Star team or receive All-NBA honors—got a $208 million extension. It’s understandable why the Pistons wouldn’t up their final offer as the team aims to maintain flexibility and build a long-term contender around Cunningham, Duren and Ausar Thompson. Still, it was a tricky situation that ultimately ended with Duren’s long-term commitment.
Historically, the biggest question that’s faced Detroit was who would be Cunningham’s second option. Duren looked the part over the regular season, but he needs to come out and right the wrongs from the postseason, even with a new contract. Especially after Detroit didn’t bring in a secondary scorer to put alongside Cunningham over the offseason.
James Harden, Cleveland Cavaliers
The Cavaliers are championship or bust, no question about it. Over the summer, Harden re-signed on a three-year contract, Donovan Mitchell got a max extension and Peyton Watson was brought in through a sign-and-trade with Denver. Plus, the addition of Mario Hezonja in his return to the NBA is intriguing.
With Mitchell, Harden, Watson, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen, the Cavs are going all in on the belief that this roster can take the team to the Finals and eventually hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Although Mitchell is at the top of the food chain, Harden has the most pressure on him to make the whole operation work. Cleveland took a big swing to acquire him at last year’s deadline and the Cavs later made a run to the Eastern Conference finals. They put up a stinker against the Knicks, which wasn’t the end of the world a few months into the Harden experiment.
In his first full season with Cleveland, Harden will need to prove he’s worth $30-plus million over the next three seasons. Should the Cavs disappoint in the playoffs, the front office will have to ask itself some difficult questions next offseason.
NEXT: The Nine NBA Teams That Can Actually Win This Year’s Championship
Chet Holmgren, Oklahoma City Thunder
Holmgren had his best season yet last year as he earned his first All-Star nod, plus third team All-NBA and second team All-Defense honors. He finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting to Victor Wembanyama, too. He stepped up as Gilgeous-Alexander’s second option while Jalen Williams dealt with injuries throughout the season.
The Western Conference finals series against the Spurs was an issue, though. Holmgren struggled mightily, and not just against Wemby. He wasn’t as impactful offensively, and by the time the series got down to the wire, the Thunder were without Williams and Ajay Mitchell to make up for it. Holmgren wasn’t as impactful as a defender either, but that goes for most players tasked with stopping Wemby. Although the WCF was a seven-game thriller, the Spurs had Oklahoma City’s number last year. Should we be in for the second round of the NBA’s best new rivalry this season, the Thunder will need more from Holmgren to get back to the Finals.
Jonathan Kuminga, Minnesota Timberwolves
Two Timberwolves make the list. Kuminga turned down bigger offers to join Minnesota on what’s essentially a prove-it deal. He’ll make $6.1 million this season with the opportunity to become a free agent once again next summer or pick up a $6.4 million player option to run it back one more year with the Wolves.
He had a three-year offer at $12 million annually to join the Lakers, which he turned down for the shorter term opportunity in Minnesota. Presumably, Kuminga wants to prove he’s worth more than that a year from now, which makes this season critical. He’ll get a great opportunity to start on a Western Conference contender, but you there may not be a ton of shots to go around in an offense centered around Edwards and Ball. The Wolves did need help, though, with the departure of Naz Reid in the Ball trade plus Donte DiVincenzo’s injury.
Kuminga was impactful in his brief stint with the Hawks when available, but he’s still yet to prove he’s worth the contract he hopes for.
Brandon Miller, Charlotte Hornets
As the Hornets shifted to a new direction by trading away Ball and Miles Bridges, Miller has to prove he’s a capable first option. Kon Knueppel is there, too, but he needs a primary scorer to play off of. Coby White is back to facilitate, but Miller is Charlotte’s top option as the roster currently stands.
Miller, the No. 2 pick in the 2023 draft, is eligible to receive a rookie contract extension. He’s yet to come to terms on a new deal, though. An extension could happen before the season but either way, he has to prove that he’s a worthwhile star that can take the Hornets to the playoffs and eventually further. He may not do so immediately, but he has to show the front office that he can score in bunches at the top of opponent’s scouting reports each game.
Charlotte is set up well for the future, but an All-Star leap for Miller in his fourth year would make the front office’s job a whole lot easier.
Ja Morant, Portland Trail Blazers
Is a Ja-naissance in store?
This season will, finally, bring Morant in a much-needed new situation after a messy breakup and a bevy of issues from the end of his tenure with the Grizzlies. Portland brings a fresh start that could do wonders for his career, but he has a lot to prove to get back to star status. Morant enters a crowded Trail Blazers backcourt with Damian Lillard, Jrue Holiday and Scoot Henderson. Shaedon Sharpe’s unfortunate injury gives new coach Micah Nori some time to figure out his ideal rotation.
Morant’s health issues over the last three seasons are something to monitor. He should be on the court more than we’ve seen in recent years. He has two years left on his current contract and he needs to prove that he can make an impact and help steer the ship on a winning team moving forward. That may be challenging immediately in Portland should he start next to Lillard as the Blazers will have to keep up defensively. A return of the Morant that we saw three-plus seasons ago in Memphis is exciting, though. If he plays freely and gets back to his prior self, Portland’s buy-low opportunity could pay off massively.
Karl-Anthony Towns, New York Knicks
The defending champs and their star big man have yet to come to terms on a contract extension, which he became eligible for this summer. It appears that Towns will go into the season without a new deal as he’s willing to give the team somewhat of a discount, as long as the money aligns with his contributions since he arrived in New York two years ago.
“It don’t look good,” Towns said this week on extension talks. “… Simply put, I want to do something that can keep the team together and work with the Knicks and also values me. None of those things have come close to happening.”
NEXT: Projecting Karl-Anthony Towns’s Next Knicks Contract As Extension Negotiations Stall
If Towns has another All-Star season and the Knicks repeat, it would be incredibly difficult for the team to brush off an offer that keeps him happy. If he takes a step back, the team’s $45 million to $50 million range for an offer, which was reported by The Athletic, could dip lower. As the roster gets increasingly expensive with a payday for Jalen Brunson on the horizon, Towns is the Knicks’ first big problem in keeping their championship roster together. Another season with Towns masterfully complementing Brunson with wins piling up would make the financial burden palatable, especially as the team desperately tries to avoid the second apron.
Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio Spurs
After everything Wembanyama and the Spurs proved last season, expectations are extremely high. Wemby is a preseason front-runner for MVP while San Antonio appears primed to get over the hump and make a run at the title.
That’s pressure.
If anyone’s built to handle that, it’s Wemby. He’s absolutely incredible and wows us all each time he steps on a basketball court. With MVP and championship expectations, though, anything less could feel like a failure. If the Spurs disappoint, there’s a very real chance it’s not on Wemby. He could do what he does while his supporting cast falters, which could force the front office into some tough decisions.
NEXT: Predicting the 2026–27 NBA Award Winners: MVP, Rookie of the Year and More
At the end of the day, however, Wemby’s the guy with an incredible amount on his shoulders. There’s a strong chance that he scores more, shoots better from three and rights the wrongs of last years showing in the Finals, but you can’t ignore the immense pressure on the 22-year-old phenom.

Brendan Allen is just being himself, and sometimes, in the UFC business, that’s not enough to get a fighter where they need to go.
Allen returns to action this Saturday when he faces Christian Leroy Duncan in the main event of UFC Vegas 122. After winning a shocking piece of matchmaking against Edmen Shahbazyan in his most recent outing at UFC Vegas 118 in June, “All In,” and many others, expected Allen to get a fight with one of the top six names in the division.
While Allen fighting Duncan makes more sense than Shahbazyan did, he was asked if he was suprised by the booking.
“In a way, yes, but in a way, no,” Allen told MMA Fighting. “I was kind of told why it was this way and stuff like that, and it was just kind of the same thing: Nobody really was available, this was the best guy that was ready to go. They said I could fight in December, but it wasn’t guaranteed, and they know I like to stay active. I could sit out and wait for something, but there was no guarantee when it would be, I don’t like those uncertainties.
“If I don’t fight, I don’t make money, so, go get this check. Hopefully, get this win, and then we can communicate about the rest later, but kids got to eat.”
Despite being just 30 years old, Allen already has 15 wins in the promotion, including three straight victories, one of which was a super-impressive stoppage over Reinier de Ridder at UFC Vancouver a little more than a year ago.
As he prepares for his fourth fight in 15 months, and sees active fighters start to get over with the promotion and fanbase, Allen wonders what he’s doing wrong to have such a wide gap between résumé and popularity.
“I think I stay pretty active,” Allen said. “I think I stay pretty relative in terms of fighting and my [social media following] don’t say that. My social media is super low. People don’t really say much about me unless it’s shit, but you kind of like it that way though, right?
“I mean, having a bigger following means more asses in the seats, which means bigger fights and bigger opportunities in sponsorships and fights. There’s many guys that have gotten bigger fights [that] they shouldn’t have got based off of their talent, or their merit as far as fighting-wise, but they get it because they have a big social media following, which means they have a big viewership, which means they bring eyes. More eyes mean more money, like, that’s the business.
“I definitely think I’d have bigger opportunities if, in all realms, if I had a bigger following, but, I don’t know, I’m just not that likable guy, I guess, so it is what it is.”
Allen is a family man, who competes inside the octagon to put food on the table and clothes on his kids’ backs. So there’s a part of him that enjoys having a bit more a private life where he isn’t mobbed by fans every time he goes out for a day out with his family.
But on the other end, having the limelight means more income-generating opportunities, more followers added to the social media numbers, and a better chance to rise up the ranks in a promotion where entertainment and star power has dictated advancement more than quality of work in the modern era.
“Yeah, it’s tough,” Allen said. “It’s hard because it’s like, my résumé is better than, f*ck, I would say 90 or 95 percent of the roster, and just guys come in and get good sponsorships or good opportunities and I’m just sitting over here like, ‘Damn, must be nice.’
“I do this shit by myself. I don’t have anyone backing me f*cking, what? $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, I don’t have someone getting my fights that I haven’t earned. I don’t have any of that. I’ve been doing this shit by myself. It’s also like, yeah, it sucks. It sucks sometimes to think about, or to see, or frustrating or whatever, but at the end of the day, when I walk away, I know I did this shit kind of myself.
“Obviously I had help and I was around good people and they put me on some things, but ultimately, at the end of the day, everything I’ve got, I earned. … But now, I’m at the age and the point in my career, I’m like ‘Damn, I’m trying to get a little bit of that life.’ Like, this stuff’s been hard and stressful, but I want a little bit of that easy life. But no matter what, I always just think my fighting is what has always paid the bills. That’s what always puts me where I need to be.
“So I just need to keep focused on fighting and how I perform in those fights, and hopefully, as long as everything goes right and, God willing, I’ll reach that level at some point. If I stay in it long enough and I stay true to the game long enough, maybe the game will give it back to me at some point.”
Allen now faces the surging Duncan, who is 8-2 in the octagon and has really started to make things happen with five straight victories. In his most recent outing, “CLD” got a decision win over one-time title challenger Jared Cannonier at UFC Oklahoma City in July.
A win over Duncan adds to Allen’s list of accomplishments, although the road seems like it gets longer and longer to that elusive title shot with each win, Allen happens to be on the same team with another fighter who was dealt a similar hand in Belal Muhammad, who eventually hit pay dirt by becoming world champion in his first opportunity against Leon Edwards at UFC 304 in July 2024.
“We’ve had those conversations for sure, but now he’s super popular,” Allen said. “His social media is popping. Every time you go somewhere with him, everyone is always asking him for pictures, no matter where you go in the world. I can attest to that one million percent.
“I don’t know, I just focus on fighting. I just got to go out there and fight. If I go out here and lose this fight, everyone’s just going to talk shit anyway, but then I’m just going to be written off. So it’s like, I just got to go be me. If I go be me, I should win. If he catches me, he catches me. That’s the only way he’s gonna beat me is to catch me. And if that happens, it just wasn’t my time. I have to rebuild myself back up like I’ve done many times, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.
“I think I’m going to go out there and I’m going to put pressure on him, and past the second round, I’m just going to run away with it. We’ll just see how it goes. That’s just my thoughts, but I got to go out there and put them to the test. At this point it’s just a hypothesis, so I got to go test that.”

Food banks are struggling to keep up with demands from their communities after federal funding cuts. Hurricane Isaias barrels toward the Gulf Coast. And Michigan Senate candidates Abdul El-Sayed and Mike Rogers debate gas prices and tariffs.
Here’s what to know today.
Hunger grips a rural community hit by Trump’s cuts
In Dunlow, West Virginia, Bill Likens stared down a half-mile-long line of cars and trucks that started forming before the sun came up over the Appalachian Mountains. He had one job: figure out how to feed them all.
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Some had driven more than 30 miles in aging vehicles. They sat silently as the temperature rose into the 80s, their engines turned off to preserve gas, waiting hours for a few boxes of food. Likens, 51, counted cartons of eggs and sacks of potatoes to calculate how much of each waiting car could get — an algorithm of hunger he is constantly trying to solve.
Increasingly, the job of feeding the nation’s hungry is falling on the shoulders of everyday Americans like Likens, who have become the last bulwark against hunger in a land of plenty. He and others on the front lines of feeding their neighbors say they face unprecedented challenges brought on by Washington. Food distribution programs are getting less supplies from federal programs to feed the hungry after cuts by the Trump administration. At the same time, restrictions on food stamps from the Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” have driven up demand, while rising gas prices because of the Iran war have cut into the budgets of households and food banks alike.
The challenges extend far beyond Appalachia, with many food banks saying more people are showing up to their doors.
Read the full story here.
Related coverage:
For subscribers: NBC News surveyed 90 of the largest food banks across the country. The responses from 48 food banks, representing 35 states and Washington, D.C., were dire.
Hurricane Isaias barrels toward the Gulf Coast
Hurricane Isaias strengthened to a Category 2 storm and could intensify to Category 3 before making landfall late tonight or early Saturday. The National Hurricane Center forecasts landfall between Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle, but warns that dangerous storm surge could affect a much wider area, stretching from southeast Louisiana to Florida’s Big Bend. See our live tracker of Isaias’ path.
Forecasters are warning of dangerous and life-threatening conditions along parts of the Gulf Coast beginning today and into the weekend. Follow our live coverage.
Major oil companies, including Chevron and Shell, have already begun shutting down some production sites. While the industry has well-established protocols for hurricane-related evacuations and shutdowns, the timing could hardly be worse, experts say, as Americans face rising prices at the pump for gasoline and diesel. What a reduction in supplies would mean in the U.S.
El-Sayed and Rogers face off in Michigan Senate debate
Candidates in Michigan’s Senate race, one of the most competitive contests of the election cycle, clashed over gas prices, tariffs and the war in Iran, trading barbs in a debate that frequently turned personal.
Democrat Abdul El-Sayed sought to portray his Republican rival, former Rep. Mike Rogers, as a weak-willed loyalist to President Donald Trump who had changed his positions on some issues out of political necessity. Rogers tried to frame El-Sayed as a “con man” who will have to raise taxes or other costs to deliver on promises he has made, such as “Medicare for All.”
Both candidates said they would support pausing a federal tax on gas amid the war in Iran, but the question led into a deeper discussion about the conflict. El-Sayed called out Rogers for initially supporting tariffs before he released an ad this week calling for an end to the trade war. When pressed about his criticism of Israel, El-Sayed dodged the moderator’s question.
Read more takeaways from the debate.
More politics news:
Texas Senate candidate James Talarico is expected to return to the campaign trail this weekend after he was forced to sit out for nearly two weeks because of the flu.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan will be livestreamed.
Democratic congressional candidate Bernadette Greene-Placentia said she was raped while putting out campaign signs in Arizona and told police her attackers might have recognized her as a political figure.
What’s next for Christa Pike? Her fate hinges on critical questions
Christa Pike was walking with assistance and had regained some movement in her arms, her lawyers said yesterday, a week after her botched execution in Tennessee. Her lawyers had previously said she was suffering from pneumonia, but reported yesterday that her lungs were now clear. She had also resumed eating a regular diet.
The state is now investigating what exactly happened. NBC News reviewed the protocol and spoke with medical experts and an anonymous source who witnessed the event to get a better comprehension of what took place.
What comes next for Pike? The state could attempt to execute her again for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, setting the stage for legal challenges that could reach the Supreme Court. Such a case would raise questions about double jeopardy and whether a second execution attempt would amount to cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.
Another option, experts say, is that the state could agree to commute her death sentence to life in prison. Or officials could decide to do nothing.
Dive deeper into the key legal arguments at play.
Staff Pick : TrumpRX discounts are a ‘mixed bag,’ report shows
At the Republican midterm convention last month, President Donald Trump said the U.S. pays “the lowest prescription drug prices anywhere in the world.” It was a striking claim, considering how many presidents and lawmakers have tried and failed to bring down drug costs. And with healthcare affordability among the concerns for voters ahead of the midterms, I wanted to know: Is this true?
Trump has certainly made lowering prices a priority, but he has taken a strange approach: Rather than try to pass legislation through Congress, his administration has struck voluntary deals with drug companies.
In an independent analysis, researchers compared prices of 32 brand-name drugs offered through TrumpRx — the public face of Trump’s drug pricing discounts — with prices in 11 other wealthy countries. The results were revealing. While 17 drugs on TrumpRx were lower than the average prices abroad, 15 were higher than the average prices. Only five were the lowest-priced, while 13 were the highest-priced.
The analysis doesn’t cover every drug, but it was enough to shed light on a sweeping claim that has been difficult to verify. — Berkeley Lovelace Jr., health and medical reporter
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The USS Abraham Lincoln docked in San Diego after 322 days at sea. Among the crew members who reunited with loved ones was a father who met his 10-month-old son for the first time.
An ICE officer shot a man in New York City during what DHS officials called a “targeted enforcement operation.”
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The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to South African jurist Navanethem “Navi” Pillay in recognition of her efforts to advance peace and international law.
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DUNLOW, W.Va. — Bill Likens stared down a half-mile-long line of cars that started forming before the sun came up over the Appalachian Mountains. He had one job: figure out how to feed them all.
Some had driven more than 30 miles in aging cars and trucks that wheezed down flood-prone roads through the steep hills. They sat silently as the temperature rose into the 80s, their vehicles turned off with no air conditioning to preserve gas, waiting hours for a few boxes of food.
Aided by a cane, Likens, 51, surveyed the pallets being unloaded off a semitruck that arrived that morning. He counted cartons of eggs and sacks of potatoes to calculate how much each waiting car could get — an algorithm of hunger he is constantly trying to solve.
“There’s a decent chance we could run out,” said Likens, who runs the food pantry in Dunlow as director of community outreach for Cabwaylingo Presbyterian Chapel, a small brick church he attended growing up.
“I don’t want them to sit in that line and not get anything,” he said. “But I don’t have a lot of extra food these days.”
Increasingly, the job of feeding the nation’s hungry is falling on the shoulders of everyday Americans like Likens, who have become the last bulwark against hunger in a land of plenty.
Likens and others on the front lines of feeding their neighbors say they face unprecedented challenges brought on by Washington. Food distribution programs are getting less food from federal programs to feed the hungry after cuts by the Trump administration. At the same time, restrictions on food stamps from the Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” have driven up demand, while rising gas prices because of the Iran war have cut into the budgets of households and food banks alike.
The challenges extend far beyond Appalachia. An NBC News survey of 48 of the largest food banks across 35 states and Washington, D.C., found that nearly three-quarters said more people are showing up at their doors over the past year, from workers on their lunch breaks to older adults overwhelmed with medical expenses. At the same time, more than 80% said the food and funding they received through the U.S. Department of Agriculture had dropped and they were struggling with higher fuel costs for transporting food.
In Maine, Good Shepherd Food Bank said the USDA cut the amount of food it received from 13 million pounds to 9 million pounds in one year. A Michigan food bank, Forgotten Harvest, said it’s handing out less food to make sure there is enough to go around: one bag of potatoes instead of two, two tubs of yogurt as opposed to six.
“People are facing multiple hits to their budgets,” said Poonam Gupta, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute, a think tank that researches social and economic issues. “It is really difficult to find a way to continue affording a healthy and nutritious and balanced diet when you just have these constant hits.”
Food banks’ struggles started in the early days of President Donald Trump’s second term when officials cut a $400 million Covid-era program to supply food banks with food from local farmers and paused an estimated $500 million in other planned food purchases by the USDA. Funding from Congress for a separate decades-old program to supply food banks with emergency food assistance has increased over the past several years, but many food bank leaders said they’re still getting less overall than during the Biden administration.
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Trump also signed into law the new restrictions on who can receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, or food stamps, requiring nearly all able-bodied adults not caring for young children to work, volunteer or go to school at least 80 hours a month. Since the law was enacted, more than 5 million people, including at least 1 million children, have lost their food benefits.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly defended the administration’s policies, saying Trump is “uplifting every American’s financial situation” through tax cuts and efforts to increase jobs and business investments.
“President Trump is strengthening SNAP for the Americans who need it by ensuring these programs are sustainable for future generations,” Kelly said, including measures to “crack down on waste, fraud and abuse.”
The USDA said it hasn’t reduced the amount of food it provides.
“Every day, the Food and Nutrition Administration invests $340 million in low-income communities and people in need of nutrition assistance, including millions of school children, elderly, and the disabled,” a USDA spokesperson said. “The mission to help those in need has not changed.”
While those on the ground say they are thankful for everything they get, they are struggling to do more with less. Facing Hunger Foodbank, which supplies Likens’ pantry and others across Appalachia, has seen a 25% increase in the number of people seeking help over the past year, while the amount of food the federal government supplies has fallen by a third, CEO Cyndi Kirkhart said.
Those forces have hit especially hard in areas that were already struggling economically, like West Virginia’s once-flourishing coal mining communities. The spike in gas costs means a 45-minute drive to the nearest grocery store can set residents back more than $15. And West Virginians who must comply with the new work requirements to receive food benefits are confronting a lack of jobs and training programs. Since last summer, about 24,000 people, including 8,000 children, have lost food stamps, according to the West Virginia Department of Human Services.
“It’s like the pandemic on steroids without funds,” Kirkhart said. “I don’t believe the government needs to provide everything, but if you’re going to ask us to, please help.”
Keeping neighbors fed
Likens learned the tricks of how to battle an aching emptiness in his stomach early in life. When he was 12, his father, a construction supervisor for a coal mine, was injured by a falling piece of equipment. Suddenly, his family of seven had to live off of just $350 a month in government assistance.
Growing up, there were days he ate only two meals, and he was never full. His mother often made biscuits and gravy because it was relatively filling. For the first week of the month, she had enough powdered milk to make the gravy. For the rest of the month, she mixed water, oil and a bit of flour. It had the appearance of gravy but not the flavor.
The family survived with help from the same church he works for today. He and his wife, Addie, whom he met playing in the middle school band, live in the church house he and his brothers helped build as teenagers to repay the church for the food it had provided.
In this corner of West Virginia, hunger is nothing new. For decades, the coal mining jobs that built many of the communities here have been leaving; the last mine near Dunlow closed more than a decade ago. Attracting new industries has been a struggle with little flat land, limited internet service and aging infrastructure. As the jobs left, so did many of the area’s younger residents, leaving a large population of seniors, including many raising grandchildren, who rely on Social Security as their only income.
Likens said making sure no one goes hungry in his hometown has never been harder. His pantry, which serves 700 to 800 households, has gotten 25% less food from the USDA over the past several years, he said. The amount varies month to month, making it difficult to plan. In August, he got just 2.5 pounds of food per household, compared with the 20 pounds he was getting monthly several years ago. Meat has become a rarity, replaced by items like dried beans, which can be difficult to cook with for those with disabilities or children preparing their own meals.
“This is the leanest we’ve been in the 23 years I’ve been doing this,” Likens said.
The USDA said it hasn’t changed the type of food it sends.
“States are responsible for ordering — based on supply and demand — and while no significant changes have been seen, the Trump administration has indeed prioritized increased purchases of fruits, vegetables, seafood and other proteins,” the spokesperson said.
Likens said he has become increasingly dependent on food donations from private companies and food purchased by Facing Hunger, the West Virginia food bank that supplies his pantry and others. Everything he can get helps, but it’s not always the most nutritious food: His pantry was recently lined with 5-foot-high pallets of donated Peeps and more than 100,000 packages of Mike and Ike candy from other nonprofits. Canned pork has become a food pantry delicacy.
“We need to recognize the fact that it does hurt people when we cut these programs that are so necessary,” Likens said.
Along with running the food pantry, Likens started a backpack meals program in which every child at the nearby schools gets a small shopping bag of food to take home on the weekends. Volunteers pack the 250 bags each week with things kids can easily fix for themselves — a box of mac and cheese, a cereal bar, a Cup Noodles.
“When I was a kid, this would have been my dream to have at home,” he said. “To be able to get a Chef Boyardee and a little juice.”
Disappointed in Washington
With the food for that day unloaded, Likens looked on as cars and trucks started slowly rolling through and an assembly line of volunteers began placing boxes in trunks and truck beds.
Among the offerings: a carton of eggs, half a gallon of milk, a 5-pound bag of potatoes, around five pieces of cooked chicken, a pack of Jimmy Dean turkey sausage and a bag of apples. Facing Hunger purchased nearly all of the food that day with the money it gets from private donations, state funding and grants. The only items that came from the USDA were packs of sliced Swiss cheese.
Inside a small SUV was Joanne Girvin, who waited her turn with her one-eyed Yorkshire terrier, Jasper, sitting on her lap.
Girvin, 73, used to own a restaurant nearby and is now living off Social Security, which is barely enough to cover her monthly bills. Already on a tight budget, she has no extra room for $4 gallons of gas or a rising electric bill. That has left one place to cut — her food.
She said she has lost 20 pounds over the past year because she has been eating less. The night before, she’d eaten canned deer meat left over from last fall’s hunting season with rice and gravy. Some nights she eats a bag of frozen broccoli with butter.
“Sometimes I just sit down and cry when I’m trying to figure out what you’re going to eat out of a can or something because you don’t have no meat,” Girvin said as her eyes welled with tears. “It’s just really bad, this economy. It’s horrible.”
Girvin has chickens in her backyard that she relies on for eggs, and this hunting season she and her husband plan to get more deer meat to feed themselves through the winter. When food is running low for her dog, she goes out and hunts a squirrel for him. For a bit of extra money, she sells some of her old belongings at flea markets.
She said she doesn’t think those in Washington understand the struggle she and her neighbors face.
“We need help,” she said. “They just don’t know the half of it. They really don’t.”
It was a frustration echoed by others who showed up that morning in a state that Trump won in 2024 with 70% of the vote. While some supported Trump’s decision to attack Iran despite the higher gas prices and argued Republicans were an improvement over Democrats, others said Trump should be doing more to lower prices.
A few cars behind Girvin in line was Bonnie Newsome. She used to drive a school bus, but now, like Girvin, she’s struggling to afford groceries on her retirement income.
Asked whether she had a message for Trump, she said: “I love you, but I think you can do a better job than what you’re doing.”
Over the past year, she has been hit by a string of higher costs, including her electric bill, groceries and gas. With winter coming, she’s worried about affording propane to heat her house.
“I really thought President Trump would move right on in and take care of everything,” Newsome said. “He’s disappointed me, he has.”
Without help from Washington, she relies on people like Likens. She has known him since he was a child and she was driving the school bus.
“If it weren’t for this food pantry that Bill’s doing, we would be in trouble. We really would,” Newsome said. “I used to pick Bill up when he was a kid and drive him to school, and now he’s taking care of me.”
‘We stick together here’
About an hour away from Likens’ pantry, Donna Paterino was doing her own calculus of how to feed more mouths with less food. Her pantry, tucked in the back room of a firehouse, serves more than 200 households a month, twice as many as a year ago, while the quantity and quality of the food she’s getting from the USDA has declined, she said. The USDA deliveries are often less filling and difficult for seniors to cook with, like a recent influx of chickpeas.
“I live by faith and not by sight. But if I’m looking, I see a bunch of people in Washington who are out of touch,” Paterino said.
Before she started Widow’s Mite Food Pantry 15 years ago in Matewan, a town made famous for a 1920s shootout between supporters of coal miners and representatives of the mine owners, Paterino, 60, worked for years at school cafeterias, where she saw the signs of hunger in her community.
Students, many being raised by grandparents, would quietly ask her for an extra portion at lunch; one told her all there was to eat at home was a bottle of ranch dressing; another was so thin her pants were held up by a rope.
Now, she said, the faces of those she’s serving have changed.
“My focus used to be just the seniors and grandparents raising grandchildren,” she said. “Now, I have just as many middle-class families who reach out and say: ‘Do you have anything left that I can use? Do you have any juice I can give the kids until Monday?’”
To fill the gaps, Paterino is left scrambling for donations. Each week, she picks up cast-off food from a nearby Dollar General, which gives her items like milk a few days before its sell-by date or dozens of damaged boxes of cereal.
She recently got a call from the Dollar General store manager when one of its freezers went out, telling her to get there as soon as she could to collect the food, which included frozen burritos and Hot Pockets, before it defrosted. Within 20 minutes, in the pouring rain, she was there with a volunteer to load it up, and days later those items had helped 12 families get through the end of the month until their food stamp benefits rolled over.
Once her food leaves the pantry, she often sees it continue to trickle throughout the community — a senior will give their milk to a family with young kids, and a family will make a pot of soup for a neighbor.

This summer, the Avatar franchise reintroduced itself by revisiting its most iconic character: Aang, the namesake of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” and the original protagonist of a story now in its third decade. For its next act, the Avatar Studios imprint — overseen by original series creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko and tasked with expanding the Nickelodeon children’s show into a multimedia enterprise — faces the tougher task of introducing new protagonists and ideas while preserving Avatar’s core appeal.
The Paramount+ series “Avatar: Seven Havens” quite literally brings the saga into the future. Specifically, it’s been more than two centuries since the conclusion of “Avatar: The Legend of Korra,” the sequel series that wrapped its run in 2014. “Seven Havens,” also created by DiMartino and Konietzko, uses the leap forward to fundamentally alter the composition of this fictional world. (Longtime animation hand Ethan Spaulding, who executive produces, and co-executive producer Sehaj Sethi also form the creative team.) Gone are the four nations, corresponding to the elements, who coexisted in harmony that was disrupted and then, episode by episode, restored. In their place is a world reduced to a wasteland by an environmental cataclysm, supposedly caused by Korra herself. The namesake havens are city-states that offer refuge from sandstorms, bandits and other threats — and the Avatar, a quasi-messianic figure able to “bend” all four elements, is a stigmatized bogeyman who hasn’t appeared for generations.
Enter Pavi (Saheli Khan), an orphan from the haven of Ellora who spends her days scrounging for food, trying to keep her multi-element bending abilities under wraps and talking to the inanimate objects she keeps around in lieu of friends. Pavi’s name is an indication of another way “Seven Havens” expands the Avatar mythos: by incorporating South Asian culture to the universe’s pre-existing blend of Chinese, Japanese, Inuit and other influences. Pavi’s favorite snack are the kachoris knowingly left out by a local shopkeeper, herself voiced by veteran actor Sakina Jaffrey. Food, in general, is an object of concern for “Seven Havens”: Mochi, kimchi jjigae and bitter melon are all cited by name in the first few episodes alone.
But an equally significant update “Seven Havens” makes to the cosmology is in how the show depicts the natural world — always a preoccupation for a story grounded in air, earth, fire and water. The “Harshlands” that surround Ellora are filled with rocks, sand and a strange, haunted beauty. The color palette of “Seven Havens” is warmer than prior Avatar series, favoring the oranges and pinks of an almost Saharan expanse. (The music, from franchise stalwart Jeremy Zuckerman, also sets “Seven Havens” apart aurally with a more electronic sound.) There are cats with monkey tails, and camels that roll up in a ball like armadillos! With a postapocalyptic landscape indifferent and even hostile to human needs, “Seven Havens” reminded me of “Scavengers Reign,” the magnificent yet short-lived series on HBO Max. Hopefully, having the IP tie-in will give “Seven Havens” more time to explore its environment.
And “Seven Havens” could use some time to grow. Pavi is a younger hero than even 12-year-old Aang, perhaps an attempt to introduce Avatar to a new generation of kids where the movie was more of a service to pre-existing fans. Shy, nerdy and a pacifist by nature, Pavi has a personality, if one that’s still in formation. She’s mentored by Jae (Major Curda), a member of Ellora’s municipal Bending Brigade, and his captain Karthik (Akshay Khanna), who has a more optimistic view of the Avatar’s potential than those that blame her for ending the world. In the six episodes provided to critics, this crew hasn’t quite coalesced into a unified team, but “Seven Havens” successfully cultivates enough curiosity about how its world works to buy some time.
“Seven Havens” introduces another quirk to the Avatar legend I’m forbidden from disclosing, though it takes some pressure off Pavi as Karthik explores his theory that the Avatar can help revive the dying art of bending. (There are fewer benders born to each successive generation, we’re told, even as manipulating the elements is a vital defense against an onslaught of lightning and wind.) Combined with the imagery and an expanded pool of references, “Seven Havens” successfully makes clear that it’s a new and different kind of Avatar series, while maintaining the transportive world-building that’s helped the franchise endure.
The first three episodes of “Avatar: Seven Havens” are now streaming on Paramount+, with remaining episodes airing weekly in batches of three on Fridays.