Thinking about you
Only eight teams left playing. This isn’t enough of my heart to go around.
Here are the other teams I’m thinking about.
1. Sacramento — Maybe Mike Brown spent the last few seasons in Golden State delineating the difference between a head coach and the brightest assistant.
Maybe it’s different. And also with the Kings. You really shouldn’t stack hopes upon hopes.
This is uncreative, as is the King custom. One kabillionaire middle-aged owner-guy making all the decisions, these are not the fabrics from which evocative tapestries are looooomed.
De’Aaron Fox does not get the most out of what he has. Domantas Sabonis does not help teams as well as someone as talented as him should. All Mike Brown has to do is look to Net-sized Brook Lopez or even Devin Booker, stars people unfairly dismissed.
Brown is only 52 but his coaching renown enters its third decade with this hire. He’s long owned the goods, but couldn’t get his teams to play better than they already were. A postseason in Sacramento isn’t the answer, nobody should be moved once this team finally hits 45 wins, once it bleeds dry the best it can put together.
It’s not the project, it’s the producers. Will Vivek get out of the way? Once he does, will the head of basketball operations make the best of the autonomy? Are these cornerstone players the answer? And is Mike Brown, head coaching his 564th NBA game with the Kings on opening night, ready to ease into his position?
Brown should be a top-tier, caveat-free, NBA head coach. He has the heart and brains to turn the Kings into a Western contender, we hope he’ll have the legs. He certainly won’t have the support.
2. Chicago — I don’t ever stop thinking about u. Wanna watch Luc Longley dominate Alonzo Mourning. Of course you do.
3. Lakers — Who else on the Phil Jackson Phamily Tree is left to harvest? Mike Penberthy must be a terrible interview, probably made a Brent Mydland joke that got back to the boss.
I’m superlame, I want LeBron to do well in his declining years, I’d like to see him land the soft endings Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were denied. James can be irritating, sure, but he can also pass really well. And I don’t wish the worst candidates on Laker fans, or NBA fans stuck watching the Kurt Rambis-led Lakers on cable six nights a week.
There’s a “someone” out there. Hire them.
4. Clippers — Paul George is 32 and he’s played about 45 games per season as a Clipper. One of those things is bad.
George’s arms could come off during an actual basketball game in 2022-23 but I’d at least like to watch it happen on a team with Kawhi Leonard. If each limb stays attached, George’s 2022-23 could be really, really good.
If the Clips dumped George for a host of pretty-good players, we get it, George is owed $137 million over the next three years and that’s his arm on the ground. The Clippers can’t rely on their older contributors — Reg Jackson, Marcus Morris, Nicolas Batum — to be as strong next season. Deals executed in anticipation make sense.
I’d still like to see Lawrence Frank give it another autumn and winter.
There might be one season left in each of these guys. Either that or they’re terrible.
5. Pelicans — I don’t feel as if I was ready to stop watching you play basketball, New Orleans. They tell me you get Zion next year, but what can you believe these days.
At least you don’t have Butch van Breda Kolff jumping over rows of chairs because Clyde Frazier stole the ball from Pistol Pete.
6. Atlanta — The owner has opinions.
“We thought we’d be better this season. We plan to get better this offseason.”
Tony Ressler wants to roll up his sleeves.
“I think if you asked our front office, they would say that we thought based on last season’s visit to the Eastern Conference finals that we could bring back predominantly the same team and get better and expect it to be better,” Ressler said. “I don't think that worked out the way we thought.
“So yes, I think we should have tried to get better rather than bring back what we had. That won’t happen again, by the way. It was a mistake, in my opinion.”
The coach and GM are coming back and most of these Hawk contracts outside of John Collins’ aren’t tradeable, so it appears Trae Young is on the market. That’s what I’m reading into this.
Because I don’t know how the Hawks make the third round in 2023 unless they trade Trae Young for Steph Curry and Draymond Green and probably Klay Thompson and definitely Kevon Looney.
7. Toronto — those uniforms are great. The regular ones. Thinking about them, thinking about you.
8. San Antonio — So now, what. Do we wait for Romeo Langford to win the 2024-25 Most Improved Player award?
9. Charlotte — no coach and Gordon Hayward still owns light value, this is the summer to make move after move. Let me write blogs all over you.
10. Houston — if you don’t want to go after Bill Simmons on Jalen Green’s behalf — to egg Bill Simmons’ Prius in a parking lot when he’s inside a store, an adolescent move, a real cheap shot beneath all of us, something that really makes Bill Simmons stand not only as the victim but the better man on all accounts — then I will.
11. Detroit — they used to put trailers for the movie Doctor Detroit on VHS tapes of Dan Aykroyd movies that came out way, way after Doctor Detroit, like My Stepmother is an Alien and The Great Outdoors, thinking kids born the year Doctor Detroit came out (1983) would rush to a parent pleading to rent a movie based off this preview:
12. Orlando — I’m thinking of the Magic looking at its own logo and those alternate uniforms and thinking “orange can be magic, too.”
13. Denver — You lost the Bobby Jones/George McGinnis deal. You lost the Andre Miller/Allen Iverson swap unless you lie and claim you knew Joe Dumars would gift Chauncey Billups in return for AI two years later.
Things turned. You won the Andre Iguodala/Andrew Bynum/Dwight Howard three-way and this year’s MVP award over a player from Philly. But Sixer fans are out-martyring Kyrie Irving on the way toward aligning sainthood with Joel Embiid’s 2021-22 regular season.
Now we’re back to thinking of you, in these dark moments, as you uncomfortably accept Nikola Jokić’s award.
14. Cleveland — you should have been here in May, your team was that good when healthy, and we’re thinking of you.
Also, if you think the name “Guardians” feels weird to say then trying saying the old name out loud.
15. Utah — you’ll shoot to tops in these standings once Danny Ainge makes the hilarious blockbuster trade we’re waiting for, the one that lets you know what he really thinks of Antoine Walker. That sorta trade.
He has to do it. If Rudy and Donovan stick with the Jazz, Ainge can’t go on radio in Salt Lake City after the offseason and talk about who he almost got for Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell.
So start stretching, sweet-shooting centers of the 2022 NBA trading block, you’re about to start prancing in thin air and answering to “Raef.”
16. Brooklyn — only tangential to the Nets but if free speech protects you in bugging Dikembe Mutombo at the airport then free speech should protect me as I push a TMZ dweeb down an escalator (don’t worry, he’ll make his way back up) for bugging Dikembe Mutombo.
17. Indiana — this is an independent publication, I pay my way everywhere via four-cylinder hatchback and I need support to cover Pacer games this fall. I will trade you one month of NBA emails for two-thirds a gallon of gas:
I also have that TMZ lawsuit.
18. Portland — this is hypnotizing:
19. Minnesota — rated lowly but I needed a break, Minnesota,
I spent so much time thinking about you and then it was already over, a game too early. I needed a space with you outside it.
I’ll be back once the new GM makes his embarrassing statement trade.
20. Wizards — so I’m gazing at a Chris Webber trading card and calming myself with the thought that the Washington Wizards have done everything they can to bring back the old ‘Bullets’ name short of calling themselves the ‘Bullets,’ which they can’t, because D.C. lobbyists and scum-of-the-earth pols are the reason we’re scared of actual bullets every time we go to Ribfest. Now I’m not calm.
The Washington Wizards colors are nice.
21. Knicks — ah just kidding, Knicks, I think about you all the time.
22. Oklahoma City — I think about the Thunder every time I drive to Oklahoma. So, once since 2019.
Good luck with your lotteries, alright? I hope your firings go real well.
SECOND-ROUND VIBE RANKINGS
1. GOLDEN STATE
Championship-level, I can tell because I’m annoyed by them. And disappointed: Nets fans would have booed Dillon Brooks louder than the Warriors’ seat-fillers could manage on Monday night. “Refs you suck” got a stronger chorus.
Memphis without Ja Morant is not better, just different. The grisly mix might be enough to win 50 games on its own and Golden State took three quarters to settle, recognize the opponent, and remind themselves of their own aptitude.
2. BOSTON
I was wondering what happened. Besides the Bucks throwing George Hill out there to check Jayson Tatum.
3. MILWAUKEE
Jrue Holiday is 31-92 from the field in the semifinal, Giannis Antetokounmpo averages 32 on 28 shots, Milwaukee made a third of its threes on Monday and raised its series-long average to 29 percent. Offense was not the problem in Game 4 (111 per 100) but it certainly is on the whole.
Too much Hill, and where was Jevon Carter (3:18 in two games) in Milwaukee? Boston crushed on the interior in Game 4 and held serve (14-37, 37.8 percent) on the billion threes the Bucks make a team launch. Milwaukee needs more than its Middleton back.
4. PHOENIX
The series is locked at 2-2 but when national TV goes out of its way to highlight your opponent’s bench standing and supporting throughout a playoff game, compared with the sitting stature of your stately Suns, you’ve turned the tied.
You can win a tough playoff series against a very good team with anger fueling your advantage.
This is the NBA, you don’t have to confirm your joy, you don’t have to rub your hand over the Love Meter, you just have to trick the other team into a few more offensive fouls. Maybe remind Mikal Bridges he shot 7-7 in a game against (Porziņģis and) Dallas in November.
Get angry, it’ll work.
5. DALLAS
The NBA’s third-best defense versus the West’s hottest post-Porziņģis defense and yet each broadcast is full of what’s supposedly gone wrong on offense. The Mavericks’ first-half three-point barrage in Game 4 reminded us, people, we’re watching a shootout.
Team splits of 51/43/87 for the Suns, Chris Paul hasn’t missed a free throw yet, and 45/40/78 for the Mavs, who feature five players averaging double-figures. Frank Ntilikina is on ABC hitting basketball shots.
The Mavs turn it over ten times a game and clearly aren’t too flustered with being scored on so much. And if Spencer Dinwiddie re-learns how to hit layups, Dallas could take one of what should be two remaining games in Phoenix.
6. HEAT
The series is tied but that trip to Philadelphia did some damage to Miami’s legacy. The Heat lost two playoff games to James Harden in the year 2022.
This is not something we’ll reflect upon with understanding and empathy in decades to come.
“When was the Harden trade to Brooklyn?,” they’ll ask, pinching the end of the spit, slowly lolling the squirrel over the fire. “In 2017?”
“Early 2021, right before he left office.”
“OK, so Harden was done for about a year by the time the Miami series hit.” She’d taken the spit off the flame, propping the stick against the stacked set of rocks that housed the coals, which you couldn’t fuel too much, the fire couldn’t grow too tall lest the drones spot something they didn’t like.
“We didn’t think so at the time. It felt like a gradual descent, almost normal.”
“‘Normal,’ huh?”
She’d popped up and was on her way toward the tent. The squirrel cooled and was ready to eat. Of course, there was a pecking order.
7. 76ERS
Can you trust James Harden in Miami in a contest that isn’t an elimination game?
If James turned over, Philly owns a chance. Tobias Harris hasn’t stopped making himself available for good finishes and Tyrese Maxey is lapping these playoffs like a loofa. Joel Embiid plays through pains from head to toe but he’s 28, he’s not going to lose his mind over a missed free throw or jump hook that doesn’t feel the way it used to.
Embiid will again prove his MVP worth in Game 5 but he can only do so much because he’s already done so much, dragging this roster to championship contention.
The Heat bench needed 28 attempts for 28 points and turned it over six times in Game 4, it won’t be as bad in Miami. Kyle Lowry won’t miss six threes in Game 5 because he probably won’t play. Harden has to show up to make up for what Miami will mend between Sunday and Tuesday.
8. MEMPHIS
The saddest statement of this email.
And for Dillon Brooks to send it all off with a dud (5-19 from the floor including a banked-in three at the buzzer, four turnovers) makes it even cornier.
I hate an obvious, over-written, antagonist.
STOP WHINING ABOUT THE REFS
You big millionaire babycoaches.
They’re not calling as much. Contact is part of the game. Nobody showed up to watch your leading scorer shoot 14-to-22 free throws.
Pointing out raw free throw stats, like the club in Wisconsin tried, is illogical as concept and daft in routine. This is the first playoffs in decades called this way and there will be spasms, inconsistency, perhaps some hypocrisy. Fixating upon these occasions is not clever or healthy, unless you think the posters smarmily replying to the last president’s tweets were clever, or healthy.
It’s the league’s fault, the NBA does its product no favors ensuring at least ten percent of NBA programming is devoted to slow-motion replays of questionable calls. The NBA, like its refs, also has to learn to let some stuff go. There are a hundred possessions in these games, we can’t waste twenty minutes of television time obsessing over five or six of them. I don’t care about your stupid bets.
It is bad entertainment. The NBA’s lone function in our failing society is to provide live product for us to tear into. Halting the action to annoy both sides, with announcer commentary, is not good television.
Until the players adapt, there will be moaning. Live with it.
And cut the replay minutes by a million.
FROM 1985
The media: Basketball fans have been treated like dim bulbs who understand nothing more complex than a point spread. Millions of TV viewers sit rapt as John Madden chalks out a rotating zone in the defensive backfield during an NFL game, but we rarely see on replay, say, Paul Pressey and Sidney Moncrief cooperating to force an opposing guard into a turnover. The NBA itself promotes its "ballet above the basket" at the expense of the defensive battleground below.
This whole thing, fighting the current on behalf of NBA defense, is fantastic. Jack McCallum is a giant.
THIS DAY IN NBA HISTORY
Kevin Garnett goes for a Game 6 team-high 28 points nine days before his 36th birthday, nailing the game-winner, with 14 rebounds, two assists, one turnover and three steals. Boston toppled Atlanta with a 4-2 first-round victory.
Al Horford popped for 15 and nine rebounds but he turned the ball over seven times and made a curious defensive decision late:
Horford returned to action after a four-month layoff with a torn pectoral muscle in Game 5, an injury which required surgery. Hawks owner Michael Gearon Jr. wanted everybody to know about it:
“Did you see what Al Horford did (in Game 5)?”
Did you see what he did in Games 3 and 4 but a decade later?
“The timeline for recovery for his injury is another three months. He’s not even supposed to be playing.”
What else does Michael Gearon Jr. have on his mind. And where?
Atlanta Hawks co-owner Michael Gearon Jr. was a guest speaker Wednesday at an event sponsored by the W.E.B. Du Bois Society.
That’s where.
“We don’t get any calls, which I know everybody always hears,” Gearon said, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“But I’ll give you a stat. Last night, we are playing this old physical team. They are old. I know what happens when you play basketball, old guys foul. [Kevin] Garnett is the dirtiest guy in the league. We are playing Boston last night and they had two fouls the whole first half. We had five times that and we’re athletic.”
Garnett was whistled for one foul in 38:32 during Game 6.
The NBA fined Gearon $35,000 for his ageism.
YOU & I
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Pretty sure that THIS DAY IN NBA HISTORY had KG sealing a 1st Rd victory (4-2) for the Celtics.
That McCallum piece was great. By googling for which of his books I haven’t read, I learned he wrote a biography of the guy who started Benihana. That’s on the list now!