When Devin Booker hurt his fifth finger, did he pinky swear?

The Suns announced Devin Booker had surgery on a knuckle joint on the pinky of his right hand and will miss about six weeks, putting him back in action right around opening night or a few days after. It’s an inauspicious start to the 2018-19 season for the Suns, and a worrisome bit of news given the Suns committed $158 million to Booker at the beginning of the summer. (Booker is still the only 2016 first-round pick with an extension.)

It’s a relatively minor injury all told, even on the shooter’s dominant hand. And it’s better that it was repaired in the waning days of summer than, say, in the winter, especially as Phoenix intends to not be the worst team in the league this season.

What’s concerning is that Booker missed the last 11 games of last season with what the Suns dubbed a sprained right hand. The Suns were quite openly tanking, so many believed the injury to be a cover story. But the fact that Booker’s right hand was injured in some fashion last spring, he played on it all summer (including at Team USA camp), and ended up under the knife in September is somewhat harrowing.

There’s also the matter of the Suns’ most important player being unavailable throughout a brand new head coach’s first training camp — it’s not great. Mix in the fact that Phoenix doesn’t have a starting-level point guard (a role some surmised would be filled by Booker) and there’s a real potential mess here!

The Seattle Storm have taken a 2-0 lead over the Washington Mystics in the WNBA Finals, which includes a nailbiter at KeyArena on Sunday. Game 3 is in Northern Virginia on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET, ESPN2). It could be the last game of a stellar WNBA season, or the Mystics could make this interesting. We’ll see.

Of course, there’s another storm brewing in the mid-Atlantic as Hurricane Florence bears down on the Carolinas and Virginia. Game 4, if necessary, is scheduled for Fairfax on Friday. Severe weather could impact that.

Meanwhile, the Kyrie Irving-Sue Bird friendship is fascinating.

Paul Flannery on Ray Allen’s quest for perfection is excellent. I wrote about Steve Nash’s legacy getting better with age.

Luke Walton drops the curtain on his plan to divy up minutes between the Lakers’ motley crew.

Why the Celtics paid to keep Marcus Smart.

The Las Vegas Aces have the unanimous Rookie of the Year and the next No. 1 pick. They can go for the jackpot. Will Oregon’s Sabrina Ionescu leave college early to be that No. 1 pick?

A case that FIBA should create the Netflix of global basketball. Odds are ESPN gets to it first and creates an ESPN+ package.

I wrote about how the supermax contract has effectively made the individual max contract irrelevant for all but the most incredible players.

LeBron’s best summer ever.

The Minnesota Timberbulls jokes were still funny when Tom Thibodeau traded for Jimmy Butler and signed Taj Gibson and Derrick Rose, but signing Luol Deng is a little too on the nose.

The colorful life and shocking death of R.J. Adelman.

Everything lies ahead for Anthony Davis.

Inside the first LeBron sneaker designed exclusively by women.

A sitcom based on Ben Simmons’ life, produced by LeBron’s Spring Hill Entertainment, and co-written by a Liberty Ballers alum is coming. #TTP

Congrats to the HALL OF FAMER David Aldridge on his new gig running The Athletic D.C.

And finally: a rap song LeBron and Kevin Durant did during the 2011 lockout has been released, possibly after the track was stolen. Two notes: Durant was chirping about haters in 2011 (and making Skip Bayless vs. LeBron jokes!) when he was almost universally beloved. And Durant is actually quite good at this! (Everything is relative.)

Be excellent to each other.