The Oscars were just like the 2016 NBA Finals

Did you see Game 7 of the Academy Awards? La La Land had the trophy for Best Picture snatched out of its hands at the last possible moment. Who knew that the Golden State Warriors’ epic collapse would be the dominant pop culture export from 2016?

Let’s basketball.

Paul Flannery’s Sunday Shootaround dives into the unintended consequences that ruled the NBA trade deadline. The new designated player contract extension was intended to help teams keep their homegrown superstars. Instead, the spectre of a $210 million contract led the Kings to trade DeMarcus Cousins. It also had ramifications on Paul George in Indiana, where a tough All-NBA bid and a desire to play in Los Angeles led to the Pacers shopping their star last week.

It remains to be seen who exactly will take up the designated player offer, and who will even get that far. Stephen Curry, James Harden, and Russell Westbrook are said to be eligible for the fat deals, and the only one of those who is a question mark would be Westbrook given his team’s combination of market size (tiny) and championship outlook (not great). If Westbrook were to decline a supermax deal, I think we can officially call the designated player rule a bust for the current class.

Sunday Shootaround also has a breakdown of five general managers’ impact at the deadline, the numbers and quotes of the week, and more. Check it out.

SAS 119, LAL 98
PHX 96, MIL 100
MEM 105, DEN 98
UTA 102, WAS 92
POR 106, TOR 112
BOS 104, DET 98
NOP 110, OKC 118
CHA 121, LAC 124 (OT)

The New Orleans Pelicans are 0-3 since acquiring DeMarcus Cousins. He’s been pretty awesome in two of those games, but they came against the much better Houston Rockets and the apparently better Oklahoma City Thunder. On Sunday, Boogie, Anthony Davis, and the gang fell victim to a 41-point triple-double by Russell Westbrook.

This is a disgusting act by John Wall on Dante Exum.

Stephen Curry is a benevolent god. Proof: he left a timeout huddle to help a fan win $5,000.

JaVale McGee has had it up to here with Shaq’s mocking of him on TNT. So JaVale did what all reasonable adults would do: he fired some unsavory tweets in Shaq’s direction. And Shaq did what all reasonable adults would do in reaction: he sent some unsavory tweets back. After all of that, Kevin Durant opened fire on Shaq in front of the media (including some slander about Shaq not being skilled as a player) and the Warriors reached out to TNT about Shaq’s persistent on-air mocking of McGee. The NBA! Marcus Thompson had (predictably) the most thoughtful take on all of this.

Speaking of Twitter beef: Mark Cuban got a jokey tweet about Dirk Nowitzki from a major media outlet deleted. Sheesh.

Proof that David Griffin always has an angle: the Cavaliers didn’t panic when LeBron demanded ball-handling help, and now Cleveland is going to pick up Deron Williams off of the buyout market.

Can Rick Carlisle unlock Nerlens Noel’s potential?

Dwyane Wade missed a triple-double against the Cavaliers on Saturday by one rebound. He had No. 10 in his hands just before the final buzzer, but teammate Cristiano Felicio batted it out of his hands. Afterward, Wade declared (with a smile) that Felicio didn’t want him to be great.

Otto Porter is an insanely good cutter.

CARMELO ANTHONY GAME-WINNERS RUINING THE KNICKS’ DRAFT POSITION YEAH.

Nate Robinson dribbled under someone’s legs in the D-League. Like, he dribbled the ball while running under someone’s legs. In related news, BAN NATE ROBINSON.

It kind of looks like Vlade Divac says he’ll step down if the Kings aren’t better off in two years. The interesting twist is that if the Kings are not better off in two years, they’ll be in really bad shape because they owe their unprotected 2019 pick to Philadelphia because of one of Vlade’s first moves!

Ben Simmons isn’t going to play at all this season.