Carter Pearson: John – we are getting close to the most wonderful sports time of the year. The NBA season. Soon, you won’t have to pay attention to baseball, turn into the second round of the East Rednecksville Classic on Golf Channel, or pretend to understand rugby.
Everything has happened since the season closed. We are apparently out of the Big 3 “era”, Zion is here, the United States became the 7th best basketball country in the world and Kyrie Irving is still nuts, but now KD is there so they can listen to Dashboard Confessional together.
In no particular order, here are the things I am most excited about for the 2019-20 NBA Season. I’ve named them like Celebrity Jeopardy Categories. I’d love to hear yours, and then for you to pick one for me to expound on. Then I can pick one of yours for you, and back and forth we go. What do you think?
My list: Champs on the Hunt, Deep is the New Star, The Priory of…, Second Bananas, and NBA 4chan.
Over to you, Señor Cangrejo.
J.D. Crabtree: Cooks, I’ll take Potent Potables for….wow I’m joking people. My humor isn’t that predictable, yet.
Yes sir. It is back, and it is all happening. Since your message somehow Houston has started a geopolitical crisis with China, Kevin Durant called the Knicks not cool, and Marcus Morris has set out on the honorable quest of protecting his new Garden. I don’t even have time to watch Zion mini-clips. I exalt thee oh basketball and put thee on high!
What a fun and engaging way for us to talk about the upcoming season. Here are my Categories:
What’s Wrong with a Little Tampering, Coastal Elites, Glass Houses and Low Ceilings, The Swan Song of…, and Big Men.
In pure, controversial James Holzhauer fashion, I think it is best for you to start with Deep is the New Star.
CP: Yeah, just a regular run-of-the-mill week – emo KD and a geopolitical crisis. Adam Silver has to be thrilled!
Okay – onto Deep is the New Star. My thesis is this: while almost NBA championship in history has been won by the team with the most starpower (too many to list), this year’s NBA champion will combine starpower with depth. I’m not saying the Indiana Pacers will be the 2004 Pistons. The league is much better than that now. You have to have some starpower to win. But, I am saying this year’s Larry OB trophy will be taken home by a team with a combination of starpower and depth. I’m preemptively making the Clippers, Kings and Pelicans on my list of overachievers and the Lakers (heh) and Warriors (sad emoji) as underachievers.
In the age of “load management”, you need at least 10 real NBA guys to get you through ankle sprains, sore hammies and DNP-REST’s.
That’s why I love the Clippers. They have at least 10, and maybe 12, legitimate NBA players on their team. They have 3 guards who can play off Kawhi/PG, (PatBev, LouWill, Landry Shamet) and a host of big wings. And they have 2 true centers in Montrezl and Zubac who can eat minutes, dunk and defend. This team is built like a mid-90s Braves pitching staff. You’ve got your Cy Young Talents (Kawhi/PG = Maddux/Glavine), a wild-card talent that will win you games on its own (Lou/Montrezl pick and rolls = Smoltzy) and then some innings eaters who keep you afloat until the stars come back (PatBev, JaMychal Green, Shamet = the bullpen of Mark Wohlers, Greg McMichael and Brad Clontz who went a combined 22-6 with an ERA under 3, and 31 saves. Look it up people!)
Similarly, the Kings are really deep. They (obviously) have a much lower ceiling but there is immense value in never playing guys who suck. The Kings will not have to give minutes to anyone who sucks. They can run out starting line-ups of De’Aaron Fox (really good, maybe great), Buddy Hield (really good), Harrison Barnes (fine), Bagley (good) and DeWayne Dedmond (sneaky good) and bring Cory Joseph, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Trevor Ariza, Harry Giles and Nemanja Bjelica off the bench. They overpaid Joseph and Ariza, but it is not my money. And now they never have to play someone like Wenyen Gabriel (who is bad) or Kyle Guy (who may actually be good!).
Same story for the Pelicans. But one of my categories is about Zion so I’ll save them for later.
The Lakers (due to roster building) and the Warriors (due to the cruel whims of fate) both have stars and scrubs rosters this year. I think both will make the playoffs. And either team could win it all, but they are playing a lot of guys who shouldn’t be in your playoff rotation. There’s a lot of Rondo (washed), Avery Bradley (washed), KCP (never good), Willie-Cauley Stein (energetic, but probably bad), Alec Burks (never good), and Glenn Robinson III (much worse than Glenn Robinson II) involved in their rotations and that doesn’t spell extended success unless LBJ/AD and Steph/Dray go off for 9 straight months. I think the stress of that is going to wear the stars out, leading to early(ish) playoff exits for both.
Ultimately, my underachievers will probably do better than the overachievers here. But, relative to expectations, I think being Deep will prove more fruitful than stars and scrubs in June 2020.
So – Mr. Crabtree. Any quick thoughts on this? (besides the fact that I used way too many parentheticals?)Then, I’ll take “What’s Wrong with a Little Tampering”
JD: O, quick thoughts? Are we in the midst of a two-possession game? Potent Potables for…? Ok, ok, ok, I surrender.
Re: Deep is the New Star, yes. We are reverting back to the 2011 Dallas Mavericks. A time when Brendan Haywood, DeShawn Stevenson, and a 33 year old Peja Stojaković were critical cogs for an NBA title. Is this good for the league? Perhaps. Is this different? No, more cyclical than anything.
The Clippers have to be the “Deep” favorite. Not going to rattle off the roster again, but this is hungry bunch of Fun Guys that I don’t see quitting until the deed is done. I’ll talk about the Kings later *blatant wink*.
Oh, and also, yikes, a Braves reference+link, must we not be associated with such….flawed institutions?
Carter, you ask about What’s Wrong with a Little Tampering?
I’ll tell you what’s wrong, nothing.
My favorite fiscal anecdote from this past offseason: The first 90 minutes of free agency accounted for $1.4 billion of contracts and moves.
This is Clinton private server level of discussion. Not only do I find this hilarious, but I’m all for it.
As you and I both know, being paid significantly less than NBA players, in addition to only getting LinkedIn kudos, we can sign at any point in the calendar year with a new company. But you have private conversations with said firm (usually via sick days), and eventually an announcement takes place that’s in your best interest. Yes there might be some inopportune times to leave that could hurt your original department and/or project, but we are allowed to fulfill our personal destiny if the right opportunity presents itself.
This is about money and power – as most lucrative markets are. Enough with this billionaire owner power struggle, we need to trend away from this viscous contractual treatment of the players creating the entertainment in the first place. The tampering fines are being raised to the $5-10 million range depending on how many group texts you get caught in (burner alert!).
I mean look at these other new rules Cooks:
• A requirement that a team report, within 24 hours, any instance of an agent or player representative asking for a benefit that is not allowed under the salary cap or collective bargaining agreement (‘unauthorized benefits’)
• A requirement that teams preserve communications with players and their agents for one year
• New channels for teams and team employees to anonymously report rules violations or tampering
• Prohibiting players from inducing players under contract to request trades
• A proposal to conduct investigatory audits of five randomly selected teams each year to assess compliance with system rules
• Teams will have to require its governor, top basketball operations executive and negotiators to certify annually that they did not talk to free agents or their representatives before the league rules allow. And with every player contract signed, each team’s governor will have to certify that no unauthorized benefits were offered and no rules were broken.
This is an eery Orwellian step back in the direction away from the player empowerment era. And we saw this with the subtle Rich Paul witch hunt on the agent level. What infuriates with the heat of a thousand Suns is that the NBA was/is moving to the league forefront on so many fronts: pure sports entertainment, global interest, diversity, analytics, player empowerment, etc.
Now is not the time for the owners to go all Machiavellian because “the game” isn’t being operated like it was in the ’80s and ’90s.
Also, good luck? You will never silence the players DMs to one another. May this generation slide in joint rebellion forever and ever, Amen!
So who’s with me!?! I’ll take Second Bananas for 600 please.
CP: I’m also here for tampering. I think the NBA should go in the complete opposite direction.
Here’s my proposal – as soon as your team’s season in over, whether than is the final day of the regular season or the last game of the Finals, all free agents can negotiate with other teams. This is already happening anyway, so why not just codify it. As the China situation has proved, the NBA is a hugely rapacious capitalist organization that values profits over all else. So, let pure capitalism rule the day. If you’re a great front office, can you juggle a deep playoff run while courting Giannis? If your season ended early, can you court players who were eliminated in Round 2 while other teams are distracted? Let’s do this people.
Okay, onto Second Bananas. There have been many millions of blogs about how we’ve shifted from a three to two star paradigm. This is obviously true. And contrary to my previous email, teams will likely be looking to leverage any depth/draft capital they have accrued to acquire a third star. But, I don’t think it will happen this year. The most likely destinations for Chris Paul or Bradley Beal are teams like the Heat or Nuggets who are looking to acquire Second Bananas to go with their Top 20 players.
So, this means Second Bananas are the swing guys of the league. I’m fascinated by the two Second Bananas in Los Angeles – Paul George and Anthony Davis.. I promise I will have a category that is not L.A. Centric eventually.
First up – PG13. We already know he will miss the first 6 weeks of the season with a shoulder injury. When he comes back, will he be last year’s 3rd-in-the-MVP Paul George, or the previous year’s great, but not transcendent Paul George. I like the Clippers and am betting on the former. I firmly do not believe the below paragraph will happen, but it is not that crazy.
Nightmare scenario – PG misses 35 games, Kawhi is load managed out of 15, misses twenty with a quad issue in March. The Clippers limp into the Playoffs as the 3rd seed and are ousted by the exceedingly frisky Denver Nuggets, who slumped all season until their February trade of Gary Harris, Michael Porter, Jr. and 3 first round picks for Bradley Beal. Beal and Jokic each average 30 a game and knock them out of the playoffs. I got a little specific with the final outcome for that to be plausible, but if PG struggles with shoulder problems, the Clippers are basically last year’s Raptors with slightly worse guys across the board.
Next up – while the Brow has to be the Second Banana on LA’s second-best team, he is their best and most important player. I can almost guarantee LeBron is going to go for 27-8-8 a night, with mediocre defense, some snarls and some more weird press conferences.
While LeBron will be the driving force offensively, Davis needs to thrive as both a finisher and a playmaker for this team to work. He has to hit 3s, defend the rim, and make plays as a pick and roll ball handler and from the elbow when LeBron sits. Davis actually brings variance to the proceedings. Is he going 25-12-4 with on-again off-again stints where he looks like the best defender in the league? That’s incredible, but not enough for the Lakers to contend for a title. For LA to win it all, AD needs to win the MVP. He needs 29-14-5. 38% from 3 on 2 makes per game. He needs to a hybrid of Kevin Durant and Rudy Gobert on defense. Those are not things expected of a typical Second Banana. And if he doesn’t do that, he can expect some fun sub-tweets from the King and his Hand, Rich Paul. Being LeBron’s teammate has never been easy (or super fun – Hi, Kevin Love!).
Thoughts, questions, concerns for Anthony’s mental well-being?
I’ll take Swan Song for $800.
Tisk tisk tisk. You and your coastal bias. Carter, there are plenty of Second Bananas outside of LA and Brooklyn. Like Dennis Schröder in OKC. Or Reggie Jackson in Detroit. Even Andrew Wiggins in Minnesota!
Yikes, looks like we have Vitamin B6 shortage in the heartlands.
Well, since you last wrote that the Beal situation got a bit more…fiscally binding. Also I’m sure we all love to read that “he would be eligible to sign the largest contract in NBA history: five years for $266 million.” Truly a time to be alive.
I see your point though, this year is about having your eggs in two baskets, and either basket must be carefully, but efficiently used. Paul has more breathing room than most Second Bananas if the Clippers stay healthy and have a bloodthirst for the title all season. I also think that will happen since Patrick Beverly never stops trying at whatever he is doing at the moment. Agreeing with the concerns of AD’s banana weight. Hopefully he understands “the moment” and aims for MVP aspirations – different pressure within LeBron’s kingdom than in the bayou.
Time for just an old-fashioned Swan Song.
I’m here to talk about various NBA Swan Songs that aren’t as obvious, such as Vince Carter’s final aerial exhibits. These are goodbyes to familiar concepts, situations, and player and/or coach relationships. Let me begin.
This year we can all wave goodbye to the Brad Stephens infatuation circus. Coach Stephens benefitted from a meteoric rise on the backs of Butler, analytics, and prodigy-related speculation. Boston, and most circles in the NBA, desperately wanted Stephens to be the basketball coach reincarnation of Theo Epstein. Diligent. One step ahead. Operational genius for a storied franchise. But that’s not happening right now. And since Boston will once again fall short of an NBA title, and move even closer to playoff purgatory once they max out Jaylen Brown, society will collectively move on from this overhyped generational talent. Goodbye Prodigy Brad, and welcome to uneventful career of coaches that can’t win rings.
Onto our next mellowing melody. The curtains have closed on the Golden State glory days. Maybe this is obvious, but I’ll make sure to address the clear and less clear reasonings. The first is the roster. All-time sweethearts Iggy and Livingston are gone. That is a huge blow, and the truest sign that it is an end to an era. But it is that next tier of likable guys that dually made us fall in love in the first place. Guys like David Lee, Speights, Barbosa, Bogut (the player), and Warriors JaVale. Now it feels like those later seasons of The Office – we’re holding on to the early days with fingers crossed that the viewing magic will somehow return.
We, mainly Americans, possibly pockets of Europe, are obsessed with revolving stimulation. No one is as infatuated with the Splash Brothers these days. Our eyes and hearts have shifted to Freak Forwards. Giannis or Kawhi making a block on one end, leading their own fast break, to then euro-step into a dunk is now a more novel sight to see than Steph Curry bombing 30 footers. Thank U, Next says NBA Twitter.
The final depressing ditty is a list of players, personalities, and things that used to infatuate or infuriate us, but will fall into the abyss of forgotten takes since we aint got no time for it no more:Lance Stephenson. Ben Simmons’ inability to shoot 3s. Karl Anthony Towns as a Tier 1. Aaron Gordon as a Tier 2. Brandon Ingram – Durant comparisons. Carmelo. Tristan Thompson controversies. Trevor Ariza. Harden travel complaints.
Life keeps chugging along, and unfortunately none of the above will be along for the ride.
Unless(!) Cookie Pearson says otherwise. Disagree with any of these Swan Songs?
Onward to The Priory of….. for $200.
CP: @jd — I cannot write about this while Zion has a sore knee. Pls pick a different topic. After the Beal extension I am worried about my jinxing powers.
JD: That bayou cookie voodoo. Just when I thought the Beal max was the most absurd request this planet has seen outside of the recent environmental redactions…
Ok, NBA 4chan for $420.
CP: Merci, JD.
I disagree with all of the Warriors stuff, but can expound on that later. Basically, I think they are the new Spurs and will be good until Steph is gone.
Onto 4chan — I’ll be honest, I can’t 100% remember what I meant by this. If the whole internet is a bad place full of bad people, then 4chan is the grossest distillation of that.
So here’s what I think it was: what is your most unacceptable NBA take? Doesn’t have to be that hot, just needs to be a big zag.
My current one: positionless basketball is not a good idea. While I’m intrigued by the Sixers have all giant humans and no real point guard, I don’t think it will work in the playoffs.
There is value is having different humans of varying size on your basketball team. Small people do different things well than big people. While Giannis is perfectly fine running point, he’s just approximating what a point guard does and is good at it because he’s Giannis. He and LeBron and KD can do that because they are the best humans at basketball in the world.
Point Justise Winslow should be a thing. And I love Justise Winslow. He won Duke a national title and is super fun. But he is a 4 who can pass a little bit. Not a point guard.
Switching also makes basketball a little less fun to watch. Except for Kawhi, RoCo, PG13 and our new defensive gawd Matisse Thybulle, perimeter defense is basically extinct in the regular season. This is down to positionless ball. If all your guards and wings are basically the same size, you can switch everything. This is effective, but not super enjoyable to watch. Also, I had to run through screens so these guys should too! Get off my lawn, you youths!
I’ll go this far: I think the Warriors from 2 seasons ago would easily smoke a team of 5 Giannis’s. While the Warriors were very switchy and flexible, they were sized like a basketball team. 6-3, 6-7, 6-7, 6-8, 7-0. Different sized people doing different specialized tasks according to their gifts. It’s like an intro Econ class — some countries are good at growi meg food, so they export it, and some have cheap labor, so they manufacture things and import the food. All countries can’t do all things. And all basketball players can’t play point guard.
So, JD. What is your naughtiest basketball opinion?
After that, I select: Glass Houses and Low Ceilings.
JD: Sorry. That’s the final official take on the Warriors. And everyone has to agree with it.
Is naughty > spicy? Asking for a friend.
My naughty basketball opinion is that the Denver Nuggets are a complete sham, which is funny since they have little star power in a small-market city. They are riding Joker fever, and their starting lineup would come off the bench on the other seven Western conference playoff teams. So ya, teams need to chill on the humble “home-grown” approach unless you draft a generational player/MVP (LeBron, Steph, Giannis, etc.). Go get stars, at least in 2019.
Which is a perfect segue to Glass Houses and Low Ceilings.
Every year this is my favorite game to play across both the NBA and NCAA. Like several industries, but even more heightened in sports due to the illogical passion, up-and-comers get hyped to the heavens because that’s what us humans do (looking at you WeWork!). The NBA is no different.
I’ve already ripped the Nuggets above, and don’t want to be banned from intriguing home games, so I’ll moving along.
Magic = Oooo boy! My utmost prediction for a dumpster fire, blazing high above the Magic Kingdom. The Magic are projected to finish 6th in the East (by FiveThirtyEight). We’ve all seen them play, this isn’t a new team. So like a good analyst I scoured the depths of the internet and found nothing that supports this movement. Aaron Gordon, Evan Fournier, DJ Augustin, Terrence Ross, Al-Fouriq Aminu, and Michael Carter-Williams have hit their heads so hard on the ceiling. Markelle Fultz and Mo Bamba are going to eat minutes as young, inconsistent projects. Vucevic is fine. But fine doesn’t cut it even in the Eastern Conference. Many in the East bulked up. This team is smoke and mirrors. Below .500 and no playoffs.
Suns = Even though they had nowhere to go but up, I’m sunsetting these expectations. Their two scorers, Booker and Oubre, are inefficient scorers (Booker less so I guess…) and rely on volume to put up respectable stats. Ayton is a black hole Sun. Unless you are as versatile as Embiid, drop-step centers are only appreciated by Boomers. Now imagine Frank Kaminsky and Aron Baynes being first off the bench… Suns are projected to not finish last. They are going to finish last, again.
Mavericks = Ok, they have the strongest glass and highest ceiling in this segment. But that doesn’t mean I’m not busting through the walls to catch Luka and Kristaps in a passionate mousse debate to set things straight. I understand it is a great story to pair the two European stars, but we can’t ignore the mediocrity of the starting lineup. They are predicted to make the playoffs. I predict a miss. Have we not collectively learned as a society that starting Tim Hardaway Jr. equates to losses?
So, since these teams have now been pinched by the Crab Claw and will probably collectively win the NBA Title to spite me, why don’t you talk to us about Champs on the Hunt?
CP: John, John John. First up – Naughty is different than spicy. It’s a little bit transgressive, not just hawt.
On the Magic – I’m semi-intrigued. They are super long and I think that Markelle Fultz is now a real NBA player. He will (probably) never be a star. But, could he give you 12-6-6 with good defense? That’s useful, dude.
I agree with everything else you said.
For Champs on the Hunt – I want to take the good people to Jalen Rose’s favorite city on Earth, the bustling jewel of Ontario, where Aubrey became Drake and then turned back into Aubrey, the T-Dot: Toronto. I’m not suggesting the Raptors are on the Hunt for another title, because they are not. They are on the hunt for future assets. Even if the Raptors are in mild contention in January, I think they trade Gasol, Ibaka and Kyle Lowry. That trio could easily bring back 3 firsts and 2 seconds. Or 2 firsts, Justise Winslow and 2 seconds. Pair that with the newly PAID Pascal Siakam, the Real OG Anunoby, and playoff hero Freddy VanVleet and you’re onto the next iteration of the Raptors that can win a title.
I’ve heard/read a lot of pieces about how you can’t trade the best player in franchise history (Lowry) right after winning a title. Have any of these people met Masai Ujiri? He traded DeMar away from his BFF Kyle, and fired the coach of the year immediately following the season where he won it. He wanted to start a rebuild immediately upon arrival in Toronto. Now he won a title and he’s going to stand pat because Canadians are nice and watch to watch Kyle Lowry for 20 more home games? Please.
Raptors rebuild, Magic retain their playoff spot. Book it.
Can I please hear about Coastal Elites? Since I am one, I’m dying to hear about the news from flyover country.
JD: *deletes quip on Bumble attempting to use naughty*
Ok, got it!
Toronto is the transplant city of Canada, so that adds up. Introducing the new look Raptors! These other guys with obscure names!
And did you say Jalen Rose? Perfect. Here he is sort of referencing what I will talk about in Coastal Elites: Jalen vs Everybody
Outside of the predictably depressing Knicks (protect The Garden!), we finally saw the stars shift back to the mega media markets of LA and NYC. The Knicks will feel left out after one season and overpay for Devin Booker, D’Angelo Russell, and Tim Hardaway Jr. (no contract research).
With LA’s rise in sports media, now both cities provide access to elite media coverage and commercial collabs, not to mention the growing cult of offseason runs and workouts. This will grow exponentially with LeBron, Kyrie, PG13, Kawhi, Durant, and Anthony Davis calling the cities that created flyover states home. I don’t exactly know what every fallout will be, but I do know this means the increased coverage and presentation will be foreign for most. Meaning a resurgence of these cities into the average basketball fan’s limelight, not just associations of Kobe+Shaq or 90s NYC streetball. Think Alabama/SEC for college football – these two cities are going to feel like the only places you can be if you want to be around elite basketball energy and decisions.
Looks like a net negative for small-market cities trying to attract the next PG13s.
Alright, are you emotionally ready to discuss The Priory of…..? Hopefully all the Duke fans out there have stepped back from the ledge now that Lord Zion will most likely survive.
CP: I’m not ready. Zion is now out for 6-8 weeks and I am very sad. But not as sad as TNT who are now showing Raptors v. Pelicans on opening night. I will shoulder on and use this for even more Zion propaganda. When it comes to Zion, I am Putin and you’re all Republicans who live in swing states.
First—even though he is going to miss two months and get load managed the rest of the season—Zion will win Rookie of the Year.
Second—he will immediately be a top 25 player in the league. Last year, Luka Doncic went 21-8-6 with a 50% eFG%. I think a healthy Zion averages 19-8-4 and with a 65% eFG%. He is a straight up star. But, that’s enough homerism from me.
I chose this topic because watching Zion Williamson makes me exceedingly happy. He is the most athletic person I have ever seen. I 100% believe he would be better at football than Jadaveon Clowney or Rob Gronkowski (either position). But, Zion doesn’t make me happy because he is good or can dunk really well, although those things are cool.
He is a joy to watch because he plays really freaking hard. He cares about his teammates and generally seems like a good person to have around. Also, he is an incredible passer, help defender and team rebounder. Am I mostly describing him the same way you’d describe a role player? Yes. That’s the crazy thing. Zion will be über P.J Tucker, but pass like Boris Diaw and get you 7 layups a game like Montrezl Harrell. Did I just go from giving him role player platitude compliments to comparing him exclusively to other thicc dudes? You’re damn right I did.
The only ifs:
- Injuries – please god do not let him have knee problems his whole career. Do you remember the 30 for 30 “The Best that Never Was”? It was about Marcus Dupree, who was basically Herschel Walker in high school. Then he went to OU, got hurt and never played in the league. He ended up as a truck driver. Good job, but not NFL running back good. It’s an incredible film that everyone should watch. If Zion gets hurt, it will be 100X sadder than that. Although he’ll be fine financially because endorsements. So that’s good.
- Shooting – The good news: Zion has already made more 3s than Ben Simmons. The bad news: hack-a-Zion could totally be a thing. He could hover around 50% from the line while shooting 80% from the restricted area. If I was coaching against him, all my reserves bigs would do is foul. He’ll muscle through enough of these for and-1s to still be effective, but he needs to get to 60-65% from the line to avoid this becoming a problem. It would also completely ruin what is currently the most pleasurable basketball viewing experience. I think we can all root against this.
That’s it. If he stays healthy and can shoot even a little bit, Zion is making at least third-team All-NBA next year and the All-Star game for the next 15. Let’s dance.
(side note: that is super corny because it’s from the Avengers. But whatever. He’s 18. People make mistakes.)
J.D. – can you finish us up with a discussion of your most cleverly worded topic? Big Men.
JD: Sorry, blacked out since I heard the word Zion. Who thought Pavlovian conditioning could be this fun!
Also, no thiccshaming.
And speaking of thiccshaming, it’s time to talk about the large boys, the husky hunks, the Big Men.
There is not much analysis here, I personally love that more and more stars are starting to look less like LeBron James and more like Chevy Chase. Personality and uniqueness are trumping vanity metrics in every industry.
With that being said I haven’t been this excited for an NBA season since the last time we had an NBA season. Ok, this season is going to be extra special. What a time to be alive Cookie, may we cherish every minute of the world’s greatest sport at the grandest stage! Let the fireworks begin! It’s time for NBA basketball!
And never forget to protect The Garden!
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