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If I’m accomplished enough someday to have a statue erected in my honor, please make it look exactly like Dwyane Wade’s statue. Just put my hair on it. That’s the perfect tribute.
Stock Report!
It’s too early to worry, but we’ll do it anyway!
The first Monday of the new season has hit, which can only mean one thing: It’s time for our first NBA stock report to let you know who is heading in the right and wrong directions. We try to keep it as positive as possible, but we are starting out with a little bit of Mile High worry after a couple of games.
📉 Denver Nuggets (0-2): There is no shame in losing to the Thunder in the season opener. Denver did get housed, but that happens. And the Thunder are an excellent team. But when you can’t out-execute an incomplete Clippers team in your home opener, that’s when the bad vibes start creeping in. Especially when Nikola Jokić said after the first game that this is “not a good shooting team.”
📈 Los Angeles Lakers (3-0): It’s basically the same team as last year. But they have a new coach in JJ Redick. The early returns make them look a lot more dangerous as an offensive squad. Anthony Davis appears to have been unlocked. And LeBron James is still defying all things Father Time (more on that later).
📈 Cleveland Cavaliers (3-0): John Hollinger tabbed them as his expected No. 2 seed in the East before the season started, and so far, we’re seeing exactly why. The Celtics will remain the class of the East until proven otherwise, but the Cavs have started out very focused against a bad schedule (Toronto, Detroit, Washington).
📉 Tyrese Maxey without the star help: This feels weird to say after he just went for 45 points through overtime to take down the Pacers. But he’s having to work in maximum overdrive to pull this whole thing together without Joel Embiid and Paul George. PG should hopefully be back this week, and we’ll see Embiid when he gets here. The first three games have Philly 1-2, and Maxey shooting 34.9 percent from the field and 23.7 percent from deep.
📈 LA Clippers (2-1): So far, so good! They struggled down the stretch against the Suns in their first game. They out-executed the Nuggets in Denver in their second game. Then last night, they went into the Chase Center and took down the Warriors.
The Last 24
Obi Toppin? More like Hoppin!
Sometimes, it’s easy to forget just how athletic some of these freaks are in the NBA. On Friday, an example caught fire online during the Knicks-Pacers game.
You know how the “No Dunks” crew has been all over the “wedgie” occurrence (when a ball gets wedged between the rim and the backboard)? They also have the term “pigeon” for when the ball gets stuck in the camera and shot clock supports behind the backboard.
It was a pigeon that happened Friday, and usually, an abnormally tall individual is given the stick from that big mop they use for the floor to dislodge the ball. Then, they poke the ball until it falls back to earth. Why? Because it’s lodged roughly 12.5-13 feet in the air. But that’s no issue for Obi Toppin. Watch how casually he jumps up and pokes the ball free:
Yes, Toppin is 6-foot-8. Yes, Toppin is an absurd athlete. But think about this for a minute. That’s roughly 13 feet in the air! He should be on trial for witchcraft in Salem after this! I’ll never stop thinking about this.
🎧 “The Athletic NBA Daily.” You paid too much attention to the World Series and the NFL this weekend? Here’s the perfect way to catch up. Press ▶️.
🩼 Steph Curry rolled his ankle against the Clippers last night. He left the game with what the team is calling an ankle sprain, and we’ll monitor his status moving forward.
🏀 Load manage this! LeBron James said the plan is to play all 82 games this season.
🏀 The Indiana Fever fired their head coach. The playoffs weren’t good enough, apparently, and the Fever want to make sure they don’t waste a single Caitlin Clark season. Read about it.
🧑🎓🏀⛳ Cooper Flagg made his Duke exhibition debut! He had nine points on 3-of-9 shooting, and Duke won by 56 points. Box score!
👕 Kyle Kuzma is retiring … from fashion. Kuz will not be dressing for the tunnel fit shots anymore, which is like Adam Sandler retiring from making movies. Please swipe through these.
📺 Don’t miss this game tonight. The Cavaliers are visiting the Knicks (7:30 p.m. ET on League Pass).
📺 League Pass gem. The Rockets are at the Spurs again — and these are turning into chippy games (8 p.m. ET on League Pass).
📺 Late-night goodness. Another showdown between Kevin Durant and LeBron James is in store as the Lakers host the Suns again (10 p.m. ET on NBA TV, or stream on Fubo).
The Bronze Age(d)
Heat lose the internet with Wade statue
The picture was sent to a group chat, and I refused to believe it was real.
Like them or hate them, the Miami Heat are typically a first-class organization that takes care of the legacy of so many players, so there’s no way they would allow a Dwyane Wade statue to be anything but accurate, right? Then, I saw the video reveal, paused it and zoomed in. I was relentlessly checking social media to see if there were better pictures that didn’t look like A.I. trying to bring SkyNet online to start the revolution. This is the Wade statue:
It looks like he has one of those filters on that ages you 50 years. Maybe it’s Wade Jones? It might be Kelsey Grammer. It looks a lot more like Blazers lead executive Joe Cronin than it does D-Wade. I can see some Thanos and Morpheus mixed in. What I don’t see is the franchise leader in games, minutes, shots, free throws, assists, steals and points.
We’re busting out the Bounce Statue Grade (BSG), which, as everybody knows, is a highly scientific points system based on statue likeness, coolness of the pose for the player and overall acceptance by those outside of the fan base. It’s a scale of 1-10 with Ronaldo being a 1 and the Michael Jordan statue being a 10. The BSG score for the Wade statue is 3.05, and that’s being generous.
I’ll let Harrison Faigen take it home with this:
No More Streaking
LeBron gave Anthony Davis in his first win over Sabonis
Did you know Anthony Davis had never beaten Domantas Sabonis before Saturday night? Whether Davis was on the Pelicans or the Lakers, and whether Sabonis was on the Thunder, Pacers or Kings, AD was 0-10 against Sabonis in his career. It was one of those weird streaks that didn’t seem real – not because Sabonis isn’t good enough or has been on bad teams, but because it just seemed impossible that over the course of 10 games spread out over eight seasons, AD couldn’t get one win. AD has LeBron James to thank for the streak finally ending.
It seems a little dismissive to say when Davis had 31 points, nine rebounds, three steals, two assists and two blocks, but in example #1929394 of why plus/minus is a weird stat, he was minus-22 in the 131-127 win by the Lakers.
Things turned in the fourth quarter when LeBron went absolutely nuclear on the Kings. He captained a 21-0 run that included him running off 16 of 18 points at one point. There was one slight interruption to LeBron’s run when Rui Hachimura decided to take the ball and attack for a pull-up midrange jumper. He missed. It led to the cameras catching this from LeBron in the timeout. (WARNING: Language.)
“Hey, swing that motherf— to me! I just made 10 in a row; you gonna take a pull-up contested two? Swing, swing motherf—–!”
The Lakers held on to win and Davis no longer has to hear about being winless against Sabonis in his career. He’s now a strong 1-10 and hoping the floodgates have opened.
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(Top photo: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images )
