Good morning. Hope you enjoyed a Tuesday free from my ramblings. Unfortunately, they are back. Let’s basketball.
James Harden’s new shoes: perfect for the court, perfect for the quarry
Good morning. We have that and more in Wednesday’s loaded NBA newsletter.
POP SONG: If Jackie MacMullan is writing, I’m reading. If Jackie MacMullan is writing about Gregg Popovich, I’m printing it out and keeping it in my wallet for a month so I re-read it every time I have a moment. She and he are that good. So go read the whole thing. My favorite little anecdote: “When longtime assistant Mike Budenholzer got the Atlanta Hawks job, Pop advised him to ‘do something about those faces. It projects the wrong image.’” Pop told his longtime left-hand-man to chill on the Budenholzer faces! Real friends ...
AND ANOTHER ONE: You might remember when Steph Curry’s new shoe was released by Under Armour to mass internet derision. Next up: James Harden’s new Adidas sneaker, which, let’s be honest, isn’t really getting a fair hearing given the manner in which it was photographed. That said, no proper lighting will perhaps make those shoes look less like Crocs you can wear in the meat department of a supermarket ...
AN IMPORTANT QUESTION: Val Ackerman, former WNBA commissioner, asks why the international sports governing bodies don’t have more women in power. (Via the indispensible REDEF.) FIBA, the international governing body for basketball, has zero women on its eight-member executive committee and just four on its 13-member Central Board. Neither the Secretary General of FIBA nor a single member of his 13-person executive manager team is a woman. What are the odds the women’s game is given the same attention as the men’s game given those numbers?
INFIRMARY CHECK: Festus Ezeli shelved for six weeks after a knee injection. That knocks him out of Blazers training camp and some of the preseason ... assuming he’s back in six weeks.
I DON’T WANNA CHANGE A THING: Team USA’s men’s team struggled a bit in the Olympics. They shouldn’t change a single thing about how teams are formed.
NEXT UP: Ricky O’Donnell previews the four teams that could give Team USA trouble in 2020. Hello, Canada!
GOODBYE RIO: David Aldridge on Melo’s growth and the unstoppable U.S. women in Rio. Andrew Sharp ties seven scenes from Rio into a unified Olympic basketball theory.
THE TAPE DELAY DEBATE: Claire McNear makes a compelling case at The Ringer that the tape delay helped ratings in the Rocky Mountain and Pacific time zones because people want to tune in to see Americans win or to see notable moments. The tape delay spoils the finishes, but seeing is still believing. As a West Coaster who is obsessive about basketball but is a much more casual fan of the other Olympic sports, I concur with this analysis. I would not have tuned into NBC to watch Michael Phelps vs. Chad le Clos if I’d not been inundated with the Phelps Face meme during a 2-minute evening scroll through Twitter. I wouldn’t have tuned into Katie Ledecky too much had I not learned she was smoking the competition. (Every Bolt and Felix race was must-see TV for me; I purposely avoided the internet to avoid spoilers for those.) The tape delay worked for the most part for this West Coast casual fan. And for the hardcore fans, there’s live online streaming. (The streaming/cable landscape will be so different in another four years for this debate to be a bit superfluous: it will be a much different debate in 2020.)
THE SIGNATURE PLAY: LeBron agrees that the Game 7 chase-down block is the signature play of his career.
THE MOST METAL TEAM IN CANADA: The Raptors unveiled two alternate jerseys: one with a very hardcore dog to rep the old Toronto Huskies and one with a vicious dragon for Chinese New Year.
KOBE INC: Kobe Bryant unveils his $100 million venture capital fund four months after retiring from the NBA. By the way, the L.A. City Council declared Aug. 24 “Kobe Bryant Day.” Celebrate by not passing the salt.
SIXTH MAN: Nice Jamal Crawford profile from Mike Wise. Craw has had a really interesting career.
That’s enough for today. See you Friday. Be excellent to each other.
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