Basketball is back and it’s like it knew!
In the epoch of AI, are we reaching a time and place where an entire league becomes sentient? Truly this theory was immediately confirmed when Draymond received his first technical of the season in the very first quarter of his very first game. Ah yes, all is right in the universe. With two marquee match-ups, the NBA returned both to us and NBC Networks (plural because I can’t wait until there’s a playoffs simulcast on the Food Network and ION) with the Thunder and Rockets going into a double-overtime masterpiece theatre that was followed by the Warriors facing off against Luka and what seemed to be some other basketball players, maybe… you just couldn’t be sure from the looks of it. Anyways, basketball is back and we’re here to celebrate just that!
Here’s what I saw during opening night…
So yeah, if you needed a perfect example of why the Rockets ceiling might have a hard cap without a primary ball-handler, the loss of Fred VanVleet was felt immediately. While we’ll limit the day-one hot takes, what this first game also confirms is that Houston needs to figure out how to score outside of Kevin Durant (23 PTS, 9 REB, 3 AST) and Alperen Sengun (39 PTS, 11 REB, 7 AST, 2 STL, 1 BLK). A major concern in the preseason, this is nothing new, but really puts pressure on the players who need to take another step forward to get Houston multiple playoff series, ala Amen Thompson (18 PTS) and Reed Sheppard (9 PTS).
Chet Holmgren (28 PTS, 7 REB) started the game on fire, and while many are highlighting him as another player who can take the next leap, I’ve always been a bit tepid, even still. Look, it’s not super hard to improve from last season, he just has to play and not get injured, simple! But he’s never going to live up to his contract until he gets a faster jump shot and can get to league average in threes. Chet’s frame is also cause for concern, even Wemby got his weight-lifting on and is now lowering his shoulder a bit. I am less worried with Holmgren’s basketball IQ issues though, the defense is solid and already there, so if he shores up his decision-making (which I assume will just take time) and refines his shot, no doubt he can reach that high ceiling. But until then, I’m remaining luke warm. Poor Luke. Poor Luka honestly, but we’ll get to that part real soon.
Oh, and SGA ending the thrilling double OT game with free throws? Same as it ever was.
Speaking of which, you may have not been surprised by Draymond Green’s tenacity at getting techs at FTL speed (syfy me bro), perhaps over-compensating a bit due to his advanced age. Dude should have at least gone flagrant-2 if he wanted to show us something from the fountain of youth. Maybe some new kind of sucker punch or choke-hold? Too bad.
But wait! Are you prepared to be unsurprised again?
Well, here comes Luka Doncic with his typical 30/10/10+ game while everyone else does literally nothing around him. Definitely a Twilight Zone scenario here; if you move to a different state, city and change everything around you, the uniform, the players, you even changed your body fat percentage! And yet, you still end up on the 2022 Mavericks.
So look, you should know this comes from a Clippers fan (come at me with your trees bro) so take my Lakers take for what you will, but I have no idea why this team was ranked to high going into the season. It isn’t just the first game, I mean, yes, the first game kinda confirms what we should have already known; that there’s very little depth outside of Reaves, your second best player is 40 with sciatica and the only major off-season acquisition was Luka losing a Backstreet Boy off the scale. Sure, Deandre Ayton came over from the Northwest to hang out, but you try and find him in last night’s box score. Dude came over to do short rolls so Hachi can miss a bunch of shots and then nap.
So yeah, that’s Luka with 41 points, 12 rebounds, 9 assists, 2 steals, 1 block and the loss. Same as it ever was.
Need something new, fresh, something that isn’t the same as it ever was? Well, there was a Jonathan Kuminga (17 PTS, 9 REB, 6 AST) sighting… with all the offseason drama, I was “below-average” curious on what his opening few weeks would look like, and lo-and-behold, he has shown some interesting tendency changes if we are to believe one game and one game only. Don’t do that, but the assists really stick out, but so does the eye test too. I saw an interesting version of Kuminga where when he got the ball, and then actually passed it to someone else here in there instead of dribbling around in the post a little bit and going for some kind of weird 10-footer.
I poke fun, but if he did this for most of the season instead of a several 5-game stretches of this throughout the year, he might actually live up to the price tag the Warriors have been trying to sell him at.
Also, Steph Curry (23 PTS) with the dagger deep three to seal the win and Jimmy Butler going 16/16 from the free throw line? That’s right folks, same as it ever was…
There’s a full slate of games the next few days, so we’ll talk soon. Read soon. No, I’ll be writing, you do the reading. No talking. Shhh…
Jay is a longtime Razzball everything who consumes an egregious amount of Makers Mark as a vehicle to gain wisdom and augment his natural glow. Living in the D.C. area, he also likes spending time visiting the local parks and feeding lettuce to any turtles he encounters, including Mitch McConnell.