It’s fair to assume you were busy this weekend. That’s fine. I was busy too! I watched the World Series and some college football. I, too, had an NFL Sunday while wondering why I even bother investing my time and energy and anxiety into fantasy football every damn year. I also was immersed in the NBA, since it’s my job and we’re having so much fun to start this season. In case you had other priorities that kept you from being knee-deep in the NBA action, this will get you caught up and ready for some hoops this week.
Stock Report Extended
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 with a little bit of Mile High worry after a couple of games.
📉 Denver Nuggets (0-2): There is no shame in the Nuggets’ season-opening loss to the Thunder. They did get housed, but that happens. And the Thunder are an excellent team. 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 says after the first game that this isn’t a good shooting team. We’ve seen Denver (especially Michael Malone) come out and use interesting early-season talking points to motivate the team. Malone has called his team soft before. He’s told people nobody believes in them when everybody believed in them. This feels a lot different. The comments from Jokić are dead-on.
“We are not a good shooting team, I think, except probably (Michael Porter Jr.) and Jamal (Murray),” said Jokić, who had a triple-double (16 points, 13 assists and 12 rebounds) and hit 6 of 12 shots (1-of-3 from 3). “All of us are kind of streaky. Not streaky, you know, but just average shooters.”
As you may remember, the Nuggets organization got a little frugal and strategic in its spending, not going full Celtics by re-upping everybody with nine-figure deals. The Nuggets let Kentavious Caldwell-Pope leave for Orlando. They brought in Russell Westbrook, who is one of the worst outside shooters in NBA history. And early in their opening-night game against OKC, we heard talking points on the broadcast relayed from the front office about feeling confident the Nuggets have enough to compete for a title. Maybe they do? They still have Jokić.
📈 Los Angeles Lakers (3-0): This is basically the same team as last year, but it does have a new coach in JJ Redick. The early returns are in, and the Lakers look a lot more dangerous as an offensive squad. The difference might just be getting to the free-throw line a ton early on, since their 3-point shooting volume hasn’t changed from last season under Darvin Ham. That’s noteworthy because Redick emphasized more 3s in all the preseason rhetoric. Anthony Davis appears to be unlocked to a higher level. And LeBron James is still defying all things Father Time (more below).
📈 Cleveland Cavaliers (3-0): John Hollinger tabbed them as his expected No. 2 seed in the East before the season started, and we’re seeing exactly why so far. 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). Everybody went into this season wondering what was next for Evan Mobley. How would that leap be made? Could coach Kenny Atkinson unlock more of his game? So far, Mobley looks like a monster. You can’t judge too much off of him or the Cavs because they have played three bad teams, but this is what you want to see out of a good team looking to make a leap.
📉 Tyrese Maxey without the star help:It feels weird to say after his 45-point night to beat 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 return this week, and we’ll see Embiid when he gets here. Philly is 1-2 through three games, during which Maxey is shooting 34.9 percent from the field and 23.7 percent from deep. He’ll be fine — as he exhibited Sunday — but he’s having to work so much to get anything.
📈 LA Clippers: 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. The Clippers’ latest feat? Going into the Chase Center and taking down the Warriors. They’re 2-1 and looking pretty good. More about James Harden and what’s coming up for him below.
📉 Statues: The picture was sent to a group chat, and I refused to believe this 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. 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 AI trying to bring SkyNet online to start the revolution. This is the Dwyane Wade statue.
It looks like he has one of those filters that ages you 50 years. Maybe that was 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’s leader in games, minutes, shots, free throws, assists, steals and points. I don’t know this man.
We need to bust out the Bounce Statue Grade (BSG), which, as everybody knows, is a highly scientific points system based on statue likeness, coolness of the player pose and overall acceptance by those outside of the respective fan base. It’s scored on 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 a 3.05 — and that’s being generous.
I’ll let Harrison Faigen take it home with this:
Big Weekend Happenings
Every Monday, we’re going to hit you with a few key takeaways from the weekend. The Big Weekend Happenings will cover the best story and/or drama and/or highlights from the past couple days. Today, we’ve got the end of a big streak, some fun trash talk and Dillon Brooks, once again, pretending to be something he’s not.
LeBron James ended Anthony Davis’ losing streak against Domantas Sabonis
Did you know Anthony Davis had never beaten Domantas Sabonis before Saturday night? Whether Davis was on the Pelicans or the Lakers — and no matter if Sabonis was on the Thunder, Pacers or Kings — Davis was 0-10 in the NBA against Sabonis. 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 to spread out 10 straight head-to-head losses over eight seasons. That streak ended Saturday night, and AD has LeBron James to thank for that.
That seems a little dismissive when Davis had 31 points, nine rebounds, three steals, two assists and two blocks, right? In example 1,929,394 of why plus/minus is a weird stat, AD was minus-22 in that 131-127 Lakers win. Things turned in the fourth quarter when LeBron went 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, which was interrupted when Rui Hachimura decided to take the ball and attack for a pull-up midrange jumper. He missed. Cameras caught LeBron criticizing Davis’ shot selection during the timeout.
The Lakers held on to the win, so Davis no longer has to hear about being winless against Sabonis in his career. Now that he’s got a strong 1-10 record, maybe the floodgates have opened.
The Suns–Mavericks matchup always delivers
The Suns and Mavericks rivalry is pretty fun. There have been a lot of epic games between them. We had the infamous callout by Luka Dončić in 2022, when he said, “Everybody acting tough when they’re up,” before epically ending Phoenix’s season. Whenever these two teams get together, you know you’re going to see some fireworks between contenders looking to win the West. Saturday night, Kevin Durant added to the trash talk with Dončić. After knocking down a pull-up jumper over the 6-foot-8 Dončić, Durant hit him with the “too small” celebration.
Kevin Durant just called Luka Doncic too small 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/zR9vhIWoMh
— CantGuardBook (@CGBBURNER) October 27, 2024
Three things: 1) that’s actually really good defense by Dončić; 2) KD being a 7-foot shooting guard (I don’t care what he’s listed at) makes all of this unfair; and 3) the two-finger pinch for “too small” is way better than putting your palm close to the floor.
Dillon Brooks continued his clown behavior
Dillon Brooks has tried poking many bears during his inconsistent yet lucrative career. Most famously, he tried to make a name for himself by talking trash to LeBron before ultimately backing down and blaming everybody but himself for a negative perception. Brooks is a cheap-shot artist and a troll on the court, along with a decent shooter and a pretty good defender. Last season, he tried trolling Victor Wembanyama by saying the latter is just tall. This weekend, he tried wrestling a ball away from Wemby for no reason before Wemby beat Brooks and the Rockets.
Chris Paul swung on Dillon Brooks 😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/97984VKsrp
— BricksCenter (@BricksCenter) October 27, 2024
It’s once again just unnecessary and unproductive trolling by Brooks, as he keeps boasting this fake tough guy persona. He’s the definition of the “hold me back” guy who doesn’t want to actually be in the fray. We know that because he never actually does anything physical that isn’t a cheap shot (he elbowed former Grizzlies teammate Ja Morant this past week, as well). And whenever Brooks talks a big game and then loses, he either complains that the media or refs are out to get him, or he just doesn’t show up to face the media. I guess, if he’s on your team, then you love him? Brooks is a better version of Patrick Beverley. He’s also a “great defender” who tends to get lit up in big games.
The Week Ahead
Allow me to set your calendar for the upcoming week! I can’t actually do that unless we have some feature on the site I’m not privy to. But I can still give you three things we’re looking forward to in the next few days in this very young NBA season.
Western Conference finals rematch on Tuesday
Remember the Mavericks and the Wolves Western Conference finals back in May? Well, both teams made some adjustments to their rosters. Both teams’ new additions will be on display as Minnesota hosts Dallas. Klay Thompson brings another shooter the Wolves have to worry about. We’ll see if Julius Randle provides some much-needed beef and force against the Mavs’ frontcourt.
A Wednesday full of intrigue
Wednesday is going to be a great night for NBA basketball. LeBron and Bronny James will head to Cleveland. The Lakers and Cavs are both good, so that’s even better for the story. We have the Celtics visiting Indianapolis to give us a rematch of the Eastern Conference finals. There’s also Jimmy Butler’s Heat hosting Karl-Anthony Towns’ Knicks, which is a rivalry gold mine given the teams and players. We’ve also got a Chet Holmgren-Victor Wembanyama matchup on this night. Throw Game 5 of the World Series (if there is one) on the second screen!
James Harden headed toward 26k
The Clippers’ only healthy star is knocking on the door of another big, round number for his career. Harden is currently 20th all-time in scoring and sits just 40 points away from getting to 26,000. After dropping 23 points in the Clippers’ 112-1o4 win over the Warriors last night, he’s breathing down the neck of his newest milestone. The Clippers will host the Blazers on Wednesday night before the Suns visit on Thursday.
Unless Harden sits out one of those games because of the back-to-back, he’ll hit 26k before the weekend. If we wanted to project his current production across 70 games this season, we can expect Harden to move up as high as 11th in all-time scoring by the end of this season. Doing so would require him passing Kevin Garnett, John Havlicek, Paul Pierce, Tim Duncan, Dominique Wilkins, Oscar Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Elvin Hayes and Moses Malone. That’s a amazing list of players to move past.
( Top photo: John McCoy / Getty Images )
