Good morning. Let’s basketball.
Maybe the Wizards should be wooing Dion Waiters
Good morning. We have that and more in Wednesday’s NBA newsletter.
WE HAVE A TRADE! Mario Chalmers to the Grizzlies.
ABOUT LAST NIGHT ... The Thunder smacked the Wizards, and it was Dion Waiters who dumped points in (DW2DC!) as Kevin Durant left early with a bad hamstring. Russell Westbrook had a triple-double and Randy Wittman had one of his postgame tantrums. The Pelicans live! They beat the Mavericks behind Ryan Anderson’s 25 and 11. The Knicks beat the Raptors as the race for the Atlantic gets more interesting. All hail Kristaps Porzingis, weaver of dreams and destroyer of Toronto. (Here’s an annotated breakdown of a weird final two minutes in that game.) Charlotte (of all teams) ended Minnesota’s mini-streak, Boston smoked the Bucks, Cleveland beat Utah and the Heat throttled the (sans Kobe) Lakers.
LLLLLLLAKERS: Nice shot clock violation!
WELL THAT’S A NEW ONE: Isaiah Thomas tackles Amir Johnson on a pick-and-roll. Thomas and Johnson both play for the Celtics.
TOO MANY THREES? Flannery and I discussed the state of pace-and-space amid concerns teams and players are taking way too many threes and missing LOTS of them.
GOOD LORD: Mark Cuban says he has saved every text message he received from DeAndre Jordan, and will share them someday. Can’t Cubes listen to some Adele and get the heck over this already?
WHY THE WOLVES ARE KINDA GOOD: Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins are growing up as basketball players very fast.
GRIZZTALK! Lee Jenkins on what the Grizzlies are missing. Andrew Ford details the team’s massive spacing issues.
HUH: Gerald Green was suspended two games by the Heat for a mysterious incident which resulted in an ambulance ride for the guard last week. This is weird.
THAT’S ... GOOD? The Kings players came out in support of George Karl after a team meeting. I certainly hope so!
THIS IS STILL A THING: Robin Lopez will be 90 years old and still doing gags with NBA mascots.
SPECTACULAR HUBRIS: I really enjoyed Jack Tien-Dana’s exorcism/autopsy of the Brooklyn Nets, who went all the way in during the 2013 season and came up incredibly short. Via REDEF.
TONIGHT: Wednesday is all about one game, a match for which ESPN made and broadcast a promo featuring Phil Collins’ “Against All Odds.” And that game is the Clippers at the Mavericks, aka the Revenge of the DeCommitment. That game’s scheduled for 8 p.m. ET on ESPN. The second game of the doubleheader is LaMarcus Aldridge’s less anger-fueled return to Portland (10:30 p.m. ET). The best League Pass options: Drummond vs. Cousins (10 p.m. ET), Warriors-Grizz (8 p.m. ET) and Pacers-Celtics (7:30 p.m. ET).
Happy Veteran’s Day to all who have served. See you next time.
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