Good morning. Let’s basketball.
Daryl Morey and Shane Battier put on the most awkward production of ‘Wicked’ ever
Good morning. Yes, that happened. We have more links in Friday’s NBA newsletter if that’s not your thing.
KAREEM FROM A DISTANCE: Very interesting Kareem Abdul-Jabbar profile from Jay Caspian Kang.
THE STUDY THAT WILL LEAD TO FULL NBA BODY TRACKING: Zach Lowe reports on a secret study the NBA is doing with Mayo Clinic to study those tracking widgets many players have been wearing during practices already. The idea is to have players wearing them in games in the next collective bargaining agreement so that coaches and GMs can better monitor health, exhaustion and (we presume) effort. This is one of those things that looks really cool on the surface but has some issues underneath.
PAU GASOL! Pau led Spain past France in a contentious thriller of EuroBasket semifinal. Spain will be in the 2016 Olympics. France will need to win a spot via the last-chance tourney next July. Rudy Gobert and Ricky Rubio exchanged quasi-rude tweets. You know, I’m starting to think these dudes don’t really like each other.
The other automatic bid in the Olympics from Europe will be decided on Friday when Lithuania faces Serbia.
ANGRY SHEED: Rasheed Wallace (whose birthday was Thursday) earned 41 techs in 2000-01. Redditor noahsbun crunched the numbers to show that Sheed playing much less effectively after picking up a T that year. In the comments, the data shows that similar things happened in Detroit.
MEET SIR ISAAC: Isaac White is a professional dunker in Houston. When you watch his video you’ll see why.
NOTEWORTHY: Jeff Hornacek didn’t get a contract extension. His deal expires at the end of the season.
THE END OF DERON? Ken Berger riffs on what happened to Deron Williams and what could change in Dallas.
Happy Friday! We’re one week closer to the 2015-16 NBA season! See you next time.
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