One of the most delightful beefs of the NBA summer has certainly been C.J. McCollum’s heel-turn feud with Kevin Durant. At the very least, the beef has turned out two iconic lines, one each from McCollum and KD.
C.J. McCollum is trying, Jennifer
We have that and more in Thursday’s NBA newsletter.


Here’s the full breakdown of what’s happened, courtesy of Kristian Winfield. It began with Durant torching McCollum on McCollum’s own podcast about Portland’s playoff failures and inferiority to the Warriors. McCollum then went on Twitter to criticize Durant’s 2016 decision to join the Warriors, which drew an epic Durant response that included our first iconic line of the beef: “I just did your f----n podcast.”
The spat is still going three weeks later, as a McCollum interview from China just came out. C.J. spends that interview rehashing his distaste for ring chasing. That led to him getting trolled by Andre Iguodala and a fan named Jennifer (with a handle of @ChocDelight1980), who implores him to “win a playoff game then talk.” McCollum replies: “Im trying Jennifer.” And we have our epic second line of the beef.
I love the NBA.
Ripping out the roots
Something lost in the discussion of college basketball recruiting reform is what the death of grassroots basketball will mean to those who depend on grassroots basketball to develop into college-level and pro-level players. Tyler Tynes explores those impacts in an important story.
Links galore
A WNBA salary database. This is hugely valuable.
Zion Williamson is the Moto Moto of basketball. How can a dude that big fly like that? Here’s a Zion explainer from Ricky O’Donnell. He had quite an exhibition debut for Duke.
Rockets GM Daryl Morey says analytics suggests LeBron is the G.O.A.T. by a healthy margin.
In which I suggest that NBA head coaches are middle managers and, as such, deserve less scrutiny, blame, credit, and attention than general managers.
The 2019 NBA Draft is said to be pretty weak. Here’s SI’s top 60 prospects.
And finally: a sommelier rates LeBron’s recent wine night choices.
Be excellent to each other.











