Everyone go get League Pass

This season is the stuff

This isn’t peak basketball, we’re in a weird curve, yarking three-pointers all over the place.

The best team in the NBA attempts a three-pointer every other shot, 47.5 of the Celtics’ attempts come from deep. Boston wins by an average of 10.2 points per game, two points better than second-best (OKC), these C’s are on a 65-win pace.

But the rest of it. Toronto against Atlanta was great. Suns/Rockets was fantastic. Pelicans/Heat was tight. Spurs/Lakers worked out, Clippers/Grizzlies worked out, Magic/Cavs will be good for a while, Suns/Mavericks should be its own television show. Anyone notice role players seeking shots after the All-Star break? Turnaround jumpers from bigs, continuous dribbles from backup point guards? Things they thought of on vacation, promised themselves they’d try.

It isn’t usually like this. In seasons before there were tankers, or bad teams with no point and purpose. We had to seek lottery prospects on prospectless institutions — Clippers that never were, Wizards which woulda been — something to make sense (and slams) out of the mess in front of us.

Now everyone shoots for the black. Twenty-three teams are desperate for the playoffs, there is Utah, and there are six teams which stink. One of those clubs, Memphis, wasn’t made to stink, and nears League Pass ideal (with charmers GG Jackson II and Vince Williams Jr.). Man, it’s good.

(Sorry, I watched the Jason Williams interview during the All-Star break. I have a cold and am on lots of liquid acetaminophen and I can’t stop talking like Jason Williams. It is so great.)

I found the first League Pass Team reference.

This one is from the lockout year, 1999, from Phil Taylor at SI:

Here he comes, shaking, baking and shoulder-faking his way through the league, leaving defenders knock-kneed with moves so original that his coach isn't sure they're all legal. He has more baggage than his boyish face would indicate, but he finally feels at home now, as if the NBA is where he was meant to be all along. He is instant fun, end-to-end excitement, a one-man reason to spring for that satellite dish you've been thinking about. Already the buzz about him around the league is becoming a roar: Rookie point guard Jason Williams of the Sacramento Kings is a star in the making.

Also, I found the Best Jason Williams Fan Page. You’re welcome.

I found another old website, if you’re into Arizona Wildcats basketball from the late 1990s.

GREAT LEAGUE PASS TEAMS PRE MY LEAGUE PASS

I didn’t get League Pass until 2000-01, in time for the Bill Walton/Ralph Lawler, Darius Miles/Quentin Richardson Clippers. Here is what I missed.

1990-91 DENVER NUGGETS

The Nuggets averaged 113 possessions per game, which in 2023-24 would rank first by a billion possessions per game (Washington tops Indiana for league lead in pace at around 103 per outing).

Any one of us could average double-figure points for this team, which is why Todd Lichti averaged double-figure points per game for this team.

1991-92 CHARLOTTE HORNETS

The 1991-92 Bucks earn nods for flowing way ahead of the NBA’s stream when it came to three-pointers, a whopping 12.7 attempts per 100 possessions (this year’s Celtics average 43 per 100) for Frank Hamblen’s group.

Howeva:

1992-93 SEATTLE SUPERSONICS

The SuperSonics won 55 games this year but were never on national TV, not games I could stay up for, anyway.

Orlando would figure in here in most scenarios but Shaq was all over NBC his rookie year.

1993-94 GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS

The easiest choice of the bunch, solely for Latrell Fontaine Sprewell.

Spre went so hard that he remains the only player I’ve ever tuned into to watch on an actual satellite dish. Patrick’s Bar and Grille in Mason, OH., where I worked illegally as a dishwasher, busser and prep cook from ages 12-through-15.

1994-95 DALLAS MAVERICKS

It is true, for tips I scrolled to the best scoring team which didn’t have a postseason asterisk next to its name.

Up popped the Mavs, featuring Three J’s and many, many more Q’s:

1995-96 MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES

Two expansion teams in 1995-96, but they weren’t much fun. The Bullets were primed, but Chris Webber missed most the year.

But lookit up in Minnesota, a lineup with three power forwards (Christian Laettner, Tom Gugliotta, Kevin Garnett) who will make the All-Star team the next season, but not together.

Who will go?

“You’ve got to have the rookies and young kids shut up, and you’ve got to have the coaches and the veterans take care of the team,” Laettner said after Sunday’s loss to Washington. “We’ve got some big britches on this team. We’ve got a lot of people who know everything.”

Garnett, who has moved into the starting lineup one year after playing at Chicago’s Farragut High School, had left the locker room and was unavailable for comment. Coach Flip Saunders acknowledged some of his players might be jealous of Garnett, who has become a fan favorite at Target Center.

“The sad thing is they can say whatever they want, but that kid knows how to play basketball and he’s better than anyone in that locker room,” Saunders said.

Laettner and Garnett argued briefly Sunday as they broke from a timeout huddle. Laettner got upset when Garnett told Laettner he wasn't passing the ball to him unless he was open. The exchange prompted criticism from Laettner that appeared in Monday's Star Tribune.

"I really don't care about it," Garnett said before Monday's game. "It's just a grown man's opinion, that's all. I'm not going to let things get out of hand by making a big deal about it. I won't stop passing him the ball just because of what he said. I still have a lot of respect for Christian."

Laettner said he and Garnett "get along fine," but the fourth-year veteran might be having a problem with rookies Jerome Allen, Mark Davis and Marques Bragg.

Laettner didn't mention the rookies by name, but it was apparent he was referring to the trio in discussing the lack of bench support. Allen, Davis and Bragg have seen limited action the entire season.

"We're supposed to be helping each other, yet we have people who haven't accomplished anything yelling at the starters," Laettner said. "No one on our team has won anything. For us to be pointing fingers and saying 'You should be doing this or doing that' is not helping anything."

Laettner. Christian Laettner will go.

1996-97 PHILADELPHIA 76ERS

Allen Iverson wouldn’t stop for Johnny Davis if Johnny Davis were sitting on John Thompson’s shoulders and both of them were yelling at Allen Iverson to stop.

1997-98 TORONTO RAPTORS

It was a tumultuous year, no doubt, the uniforms were terrible and they played in a giant baseball dome, but, baby Marcus Camby and teenaged Tracy McGrady and a little bit of Chauncey Billups (but only after Kenny Anderson threatened to retire after being traded to Toronto):

"I explained to [Kenny Anderson] how much we liked him as a player and how much we'd like him to be part of our future here," [Raptors GM Glen] Grunwald says. "I told him we have a new arena coming and new ownership and a group of young, talented guys."

Anderson's response? "He listened, but he didn't say much," Grunwald says. The Raptors executive took the hint and sent Anderson, forward Popeye Jones and center Zan Tabak to the Celtics for guards Chauncey Billups and Dee Brown and forwards Roy Rogers and John Thomas.

Anderson, who didn't return SI's phone calls, apparently balked at going to Toronto for the same reasons [Kendall] Gill threatened to retire if he was dealt to the Raptors--players don't want to play for a floundering franchise and deal with what they perceive to be an unfavorable tax situation.

All due respect to the Yogi Stewart-led Kings, the Chris Whitney-led Bullets,

1999 DENVER NUGGETS

Mike D’Antoni, Nick Van Exel stealing Antonio McDyess from Rex Chapman’s Suns in a snowstorm:

With more than an hour to kill, the Suns parked outside the arena, hoping McDyess might slip out through the players' entrance. Chapman says he asked a security guard to tell McDyess they were waiting. After a few minutes a different guard returned and told him, "I just talked to Antonio, and he said, 'Beat it.'"

"I told the guy, 'You're lying,'" Chapman says. "I pressed him and then he finally said, 'Look, I'm just telling you what I was told to come out here and say.'"

"Then," Chapman says, "a half hour later we get a call from some guy named Ted who tells us Antonio was tired and confused and wasn't going to talk to us or anyone else that night. We asked for him to put Antonio on the phone. He wouldn't do it."

Ted!

1999-00 DALLAS MAVERICKS

Dirk Nowitzki’s second season and Dennis Rodman living in Mark Cuban’s house? Point my antenna southwest.

My favorite from 2000-01?

We are correct to consider the Clippers, L.A. was special (highlight the page for something I’m too embarrassed to read), but there’s another contender I’d flip to, an early-starter I’d watch with the sun still out.

The post-trade deadline Atlanta Hawks: Jason Terry and Toni Kukoc and what if that team (with and without Lorenzen Wright and DerMarr Johnson) were around today. There aren’t many clips from those few weeks in late 2000-01 but we do have this representation from the season following:

DRAG CITY

Sunday’s game between Milwaukee and Philadelphia might be the most dramatic NBA regular season contest we’ve seen since Kobe and Shaq whined and moaned their way toward a public divorce. Is this good? Does all coverage, no matter how unsavory, make money count toward progress?

This one has all sorts of partners, especially if J.J. Redick (in his new role as co-lead ABC/ESPN NBA analyst, working in New York City on Saturday evening) works a back-to-back. Especially if Austin Rivers (soon to co-host his own PTI-styled shootdown show with Redick) flies into Philly phor the contest.

Doc Rivers took the Milwaukee head coaching gig last month and inspired more quoted memes than Pickle Rick at his brattiest (I used a character Austin and J.J. each enjoy). In kvetching over Rivers, Redick spoke for literally everyone but Doc’s team and family, lambasting Doc Rivers (loudly, with so much shouting) for Doc’s toneless pontificating.

Rivers’ team and family later spoke on Doc Rivers’ behalf. We, stuck with no games to watch, bored with our own families and averse to team exercise (hey, fans need a “break,” too), gobble it up. And then tune into Pat Beverley’s podcast to hear Pat put Philly down.

This weekend’s ABC games start the season, the real season, the one which starts after the NFL ends. On surface, Sunday could not be more repellent: Joel Embiid out with another knee setback, another vaguely-articulated medical explanation from the faithless Philadelphia front office. Milwaukee suffering through an identity crisis of its own, with and without Doc’s endless takes.

So many takes. Let’s get Doc Rivers’ take, again.

Every good and great team has holes in 2023-24, even Boston, especially Boston, those lousy chokers, and I really don’t want to hear any more about it. I’d like to learn why they are wonderful. I want to embrace the parity-rich NBA, which ain’t perfect, but is all around.

A dominant Boston Celtics crew wilding with Jrue Holiday out front is not an example of break-’em-up trust busting, but there are advantages to everything else being broken.

Phoenix and Dallas (in spite of the Mavs’ seven-game winning streak) have more holes than a Robert McNamara interview, but together they are a swirl of combustible creation, and might battle in the West’s final play-in game. Are the Clippers still vulnerable to a night out? Is Denver worn? Miami washed? Are the Kings slipping? Pelicans too tall? Cavs too Cleveland? Thunder and Timberwolves too green? Good fun awaits us while we find out.

It was more dramatic when things were closer to perfection, not as much fun, the West in the early 2010s was unfair, tense, teams which didn’t deserve to lose, losing. Competitors out of Chris Paul’s Clipperdom or from San Antonio, Memphis, Oklahoma City, arguably Dame and LaMarcus Aldridge’s Trail Blazers, fully-formed championship-level clubs, only interrupted by bad luck or shyte timing.

Nobody who falls in the 2024 playoffs will let anyone down, save perhaps Boston, boy howdy does Jayson Tatum know it. He thinks it costs him MVP consideration:

“Would I love to win? Yes,” Tatum said at All-Star weekend. “But apparently losing the finals two years ago affects what people think now. I guess I’ve got some ground to make up.”

Boston owes its fans and we don’t care, not with the talent remaining, strewn inaccurately about the league. Twenty compelling teams, three others desperate to join the playoffs, then Utah, then the stinkers.

The NBA’s March and April could be competitive for once, representative of actual NBA play. Fewer trivial types will earn minutes in meaningful games down this stretch. Fewer teams (only six bad teams to skew with, plus Utah) to subvert the schedule.

So Adam Silver can’t control an All-Star Game, he sure as shit did something to the rest of the package, those other six months.

Can he control the meanderings of his broadcast partner?

Above is the first segment in ESPN’s first broadcast out of the All-Star break. Minnesota was on ESPN that night, I watched the Timberwolves feed because ESPN acts like the rest of cable. Bad for us, we’ll see how it does for ESPN.

ESPN afternoons were always filled with old-timers telling us how great it was, Roy Firestone’s senior circuit guest list helped …

… but there were also daily broadcasts of the NBA’s Greatest Games: Isiah Thomas talking to Dan Patrick at ESPN campus in Isiah’s late 30s, weeping over Isiah’s late 20s.

Why can’t we go there? Why can’t we put Kendrick Perkins in front of Game 5, in 2010 clips, before it went to hell, before Perkins hurt his knee? Why can’t we stick Richard Jefferson in front of highlights from one of the 80 New Jersey Net playoff games in which neither the Nets nor opponent topped 80 points? If we’re not going to show new basketball, why not melt a few hearts with some old slam jam memories? Slamjamories.

I promised I’d stop. Until ESPN discovers Blogger’s Nostalgia, we’ll dig what’s on at night. Great teams and extremely strong middle-of-road action, superb sub-mid moments. Orlando/Cleveland is good now. Healthy Clippers, Thunder clapping ahead of schedule. Minnesota found its spots on the floor to the tune of the league’s third-best point differential. You knew New York would be this resilient, a fourth seed is no surprise, but surviving with these injuries, after these trades? The healthy Knicks could knock off Saturday’s same Celtics in spring.

Same as Philadelphia’s entry, the Sixers should do everyone a favor and sit Joel Embiid until Easter, March 31st, let him return with the rabbits for two weeks before the postseason starts, rest during the play-in, give Philly its best chance at a title in 40 years. (Sorry Allen Iverson, but Joel Embiid is a foot taller.)

All it took to forget the All-Star Game is one of Kyrie Irving’s inside-out dribbles. These playoff pushes won’t be particularly memorable but the local broadcasts will be the NBA’s best March and April in decades, goodass basketball at every turn.

Almost every turn.

CHARLOTTE HORNETS, NBA EMBARRASSMENT

A little bit of success and the Charlotte Hornets act like they invented the winning streak:

North and South Carolina are basketball-mad, pro basketball-mad, and Charlotte Hornets fans have dealt with nothing but trash leadership for three decades. It is an ongoing, contemptible failure.

The Nets I’m less concerned with, they don’t have as many fans.

HOW LONG WILL IT LAST

Sunday music!

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