Seattle basketball reigns again

The Seattle Storm are your 2018 WNBA champions! The Storm completed a sweep of the Washington Mystics on Wednesday, with MVP Breanna Stewart, Jewell Lloyd, Natasha Howard, and the legend Sue Bird leading the way. It’s Seattle’s third NBA title, and represents a killer turnaround from 2017, when the Storm were under .500.

Cheers to the Mystics, who cemented their status as a power in the WNBA this season. And cheers to all those who supported coverage of WNBA basketball this year as we tried to include a little more in Good Morning It’s Basketball.

Speaking of storms, there’s a major hurricane bearing down on the Carolinas. On the off chance you are a Carolinian who is at home reading this instead of evacuating, please stop, please close this email, please evacuate as soon as possible!

The next window in FIBA World Cup qualifying has arrived. Teams in the chase with play two games within the next four days to start the second round of qualifying. Team USA plays Friday (against Uruguay) and Monday (against Panama) with a fairly new roster that still includes a mix of G League players and non-household NBA players.

If any window is going to have a lot of international players of high repute, it’ll be this one in September. Most of the others conflict with league schedules or come too close after the end of seasons.

I wrote about the fate of USA Basketball, which should qualify for the World Cup (despite a shocking loss to Mexico in June) but may not fare well once there next summer.

Ricky O’Donnell talks to those in grassroots basketball about the NCAA’s war on grassroots basketball.

Is John Wall slowing down or about to speed up?

LINSANITY WAS THE BEST.

Zach Lowe’s Hall of Absolute Absurdities is great fun.

LeBron James does not support square basketballs.

Ethan Strauss gets stories from advance scouts, AKA spies with blown cover.

Russell Westbrook had a knee scope and may miss four weeks or so. Here’s a brief history of Westbrook’s many knee surgeries.

Fantasy and reality are now intertwined in the future of the Memphis Grizzlies.

On Kyrie Irving’s magical summer.

Dirk Nowitzki has jokes.

Ralph Lawler is retiring from the Clippers’ booth after this season.

A deep dive on Lonzo Ball’s knee procedure.

Be excellent to each other.