honestly, the returns weren't as great, but dwight howard, lebron, and anthony davis are other great players and former consensus #1 overall picks that i saw early in their careers and was like "can we please get this guy on the lakers". should have had chris paul in his prime, too, if not for the veto (still one of the more b******* things i've ever seen in pro sports). at some point, the gravy train may end--everyone's always predicting it. but there's a reason we believe.
as a long-time harden hater, i continue to marvel at his late-career transformation. he now just does what his team needs to win instead of all the self-glorification that led to his stardom. and they're winning way more than they should.
Floppers gave Kawhi a terrible extension but they do have some of the best contracts in the league ( Zubac , Jones Jr , Powell)
Seems like Jimmy is way over estimating the worth of his next contract and especially after pulling this act yet again?
so tough with aging stars. he wanted the curry, lebron, etc. legacy contract. just like klay did in gs and PG did with the clippers. teams are starting to balk at that. i wonder how it will play out down the road. like...i know miami is like THE nba destination, but this can't be helping them with other players, right? like, when i'm 35 and it's time for the last contract, are they going to play hardball with me, too? i get that offering jimmy the extension he wants is not in the best interest of current team building, but having an ugly public divorce is maybe not in the best interest of long-term team building. if they knew they didn't want to pay him, they should have traded him this summer, imo. i bet we would have taken him then, tbh.
Watched OKC@CLE and it lived up to the bill. Either team could win it all this year. OKC's 15 game streak snapped. CLE: 11 game streak now intact. They're 32-4 now. Only 3rd time in history of the NBA two teams faced each other with 10 game winning streaks going. The quality of play I saw for 48 mins was crazy good and...why was I rooting for CLE? 'Cuz OKC is so young and so good it's sickening; as the Lakers are in the West I'm just frikkin' jealous, man. OKC "falls" to 30-6. If you saw it you know what I mean.
i watched that game, and it was one of the best i've seen in years. just two very talented teams executing on both ends, trip after trip. played an incredible pace (lebron and AD would have been left in the dust, man). much more fun to watch than the way boston plays, imo. those should be the two teams in the finals, but you know some weird stuff will happen, and we'll get boston/denver or something.
^ C Bags - clippers man, i can feel it (even though i know, snake will go down). As for the game, agreed, it was great... although still a few too many 3's for my liking.
yeah, i really thought that's what was going to happen last year, tbh. but counting on leonard to be around for a full four rounds of playoffs...i don't know... if he can make it, i agree the clips could actually win it all.
LiAngelo might have had to give up on the balling career, but It sounds like his music career is taking off. LiAngelo Ball's rise as a rapper: 'G3' brings 2000s vibes to 2025 Kalan Hooks, ESPNJan 10, 2025, 09:49 AM Many professional basketball players have dabbled in music, but in 2025, one baller's rap career is beginning to reach new heights. LiAngelo Ball, also known as 'G3,' to perform at Rolling Loud California 2dKalan Hooks 'Tweaker': LiAngelo Ball's new song garners reactions from Cavaliers, Lonzo Ball 6dKalan Hooks LiAngelo Ball, the middle brother of Chicago Bulls guard Lonzo Ball and Charlotte Hornets guard LaMelo Ball, hasn't seen a minute of an NBA regular-season game. However, LiAngelo, 26, is taking the music world by storm with his latest single, "Tweaker," which is bringing the feel of mid-early 2000s rap to modern hip-hop. The single was released on last Friday on the WorldstarHipHop YouTube page as an exclusive that has earned 5.6 million views -- and counting -- as of Thursday. The Ball family isn't new to the rap game. Lonzo has a few songs under his belt, including "Zo2," a record used to promote his Big Baller Brand signature shoe. LiAngelo's track, which was released under the Born to Ball Music Group label, is making noise in the sports world and the rap game. Lonzo has already proclaimed 2025 the "year of G[elo]." Once LiAngelo began to tease his single, it was only a matter of time before the song sprung onto the charts. According to Chart Data, the song entered the top-10 streaming chart for the U.S. on Spotify on Wednesday. As of Thursday, the song sat at No. 4 -- bypassing Tyler, the Creator's "Sticky" featuring GloRilla, Sexyy Red and Lil Wayne, and Kendrick Lamar's "tv off" featuring Lefty Gunplay -- with 1,398,725 plays, according to Spotify. If you're not convinced that 2025 might already belong to LiAngelo, or his rap name "G3," here is a timeline of what's happened since his music career took off. click link for more...
The Butler saga is very interesting to watch unfold. On one hand, I love his on the court play and his no-b******* approach to hooping. His mentality is one Kobe would have loved to have on his team. He's one of the few guys left who's like that. But there is a reason that it gets ugly at every stop on the way out. I do think the Heat fumbled it a bit after they faced us in the finals. For Riles to have the respect, to be the "Godfather" and the shrewd do whatever it takes even illegal under the table shenanigans; he's failed Miami. Every big FA or trade target they've had their sights on and failed to get any of them. I think the league has changed and like us, he hasn't caught up. Difference is Miami isn't as cheap as we are. They just don't want to pay Jimmy $50m and I don't blame them. He's a $30m a year player and that's mostly paying for him ratcheting it up in the playoffs. No one looks good here, but that will have more long term ramifications for the Heat than it will Butler in the twilight. What's also interesting is almost no one else wants to pay him either. Either they don't want the drama or a few teams that squint and can envision it he's told no thanks. Then the team who wants him and the ultimate place he wants to go are one in the same. The only wrinkle is Bradley Beal of all people has a NTC. One of the "stars" with the lowest career winning percentage is preventing the Suns from being able to get Butler. The hard cap and finding a 3rd team for Beal's atrocity of a contract makes this even funnier. Was bored and did some work on the trade machine to make some of these bad contacts move based on interested parties. It's a 4 teamer with MIA, PHO, DEN, CHI so strap in... Nuggets out: Porter, Nnaji, protected 1st Nuggets in: LaVine Suns out: Beal, '31 2nd Suns in: Butler Heat out: Butler, protected 29 1st or a swap Heat in: Porter, Dosunmu Bulls out: LaVine, Dosunmu Bulls in: Beal, Nnaji, two protected 1sts (Den + MIA) and a Suns 2nd. Nuggets, Suns and Jimmy all get their wishes. Heat gets a couple useful guys. Bulls get Beal to continue to push them to borderline play-in/sell a few seats, they get draft compensation for greasing the wheels on this whole deal and taking on Nnaji's deal too. At least if they're going to overpay a guard who isn't going to help them win, might as well snatch some draft compensation for having to write that check.
I didn't watch it, but was pretty surprised to see SAC go into BOS a couple days ago and beat the Bags by 17. Today: Pels had a chance to give the Bags a 2-game losing streak. Tatum fouls Dejounte on a 3 attempt with 2:47 left. He makes all 3 to put Pels up 114-113. Then: Zion misses a dunk while flying in. Then he throws it out of bounds with 1:48 left: Bags led by 1 at that point. Zingis misses a 3; Dejounte missed a pull-up midrange. Tatum gets the board and 3 secs later misses a short shot, gets his own rebound and dunks it: Bags up 3 with 69 secs left. Zion misses a step-back 3. Jaylen misses a 3 with 34 secs left. Hey, it's been working for them all season: jacking up 3s. The only games they've lost were when - of course! - no one could hit the 3. Trey Murphy III misses a 3 with 28 secs left. "Three" is literally in his name. Twice! Fer crissakes! Get a better shot, New Orleans! BOS still up by 3, but now there's only 27 secs left and they had to foul. Derrick White makes 'em both. He is an icewater dude at the line, late. Book it. Bags up 5 with 22 left, and it was a drag, man. Zion was, how do I put this delicately?...not good in clutch. Back from his suspension for missing the plane. Back from being out for the last 800 games (okay: 27) with a bad hammy. I wonder if every time the Dr. said "hammy" Zion saw in his mind a huge plate of ham and eggs. Anyway... Pels TO with 22 secs left, down 5. What couldda been! Trey III misses another tre. Damn. We just can't have nice things. Dejounte tips it in. Down 3 with 17 secs left, you gotta foul: they foul Tatum, who I also think of as fairly badass for crunch FTs. Not as badass as White, but still. You want Jaylen to get the ball there, because he has a track record of missing crunch FTs. Tatum...misses 'em BOTH! 13 secs, no timeout, you're down 3...White fouls CJ with 6 secs left. CJ sinks 'em both. Bags win it, 120-119. A heartbreaker, and probably asking too much anyway.
boston's been more mortal this year (understandable) and is still heavily dependent on 6 guys. i know pritchard and hauser are supposedly elite now, but i think if they had to rely on them in the absence of one of their starting guards or forwards in the playoffs, they're toast. unless all their opponents get hurt again like last year, of course. also, it took me a long time to remember the origin of zoyd wheeler, which is the central character in a pynchon novel, right?
LOLs at me …. I thought it was a real name that he was proud of even if maybe the first name was a little odd? Now watch him tell me it IS real and embarrass me into deleting this.
i don't see the bulls going for this one, based on both general logic and their historic tendencies. maybe if the firsts were unprotected? but dosunmu alone is worth a first in trade, imo. and they'e downgrading from lavine to beal while paying more. that's probably worth more than 1 1st. they gain no flexibility, either.
Yeah, I don't either. Plus you never see trades of that size with those kind of salaries moving around. I originally had Denver's unprotected but due to other trades they made, the only way to get it to go through... at least for a pick not too far out, was to throw some form of protection on it. And I know Riley gets a little gollum-y with his. Maybe each are only lightly protected or something...top 3, top 5. Thought line with the Bulls is they can't move him. If you can't move him, swapping out nearly the same salary while getting multiple 1sts compensation for your stupidity and stubbornness while still rostering a "name" might be their only move until LaVine is an expiring contract.
You're right about the Bags's lack of depth. CLE will need to get hit with the injury bug for the Bags to get beyond them. And "Zoyd Wheeler" is the hapless comic figure in Pynchon's Vineland, which was made into a movie by Paul Thomas Anderson, and it will come out later this year as The Battle of Batkan Cross, and...I never thought I'd see one of my favorite novels made into a film. Especially that one. PTA (has everyone seen his Boogie Nights?) also adapted Pynchon's Inherent Vice, which seemed slightly more amenable to adaptation. I thought "Zoyd" would seem obscure to people on Internet, but the jig's up for me once the film comes out. Even more non-basketball related: I've read Vineland probably five times. I've become haunted by Frenesi Gates's attraction to the fascist cop. And her mom's (Sasha) sexual attraction to authoritarians. Because they, of all people, should be resistant to all that. Why? What is Pynchon saying there about the biology and psychology of sexual attraction vs..."values"? BTW: if you read Pynchon's books closely, he's a Laker fan and clearly was glad they finally beat the Bags in the 1980s. You see it especially in Inherent Vice. I think his essay "A Journey Into the Mind of Watts," which followed in the wake of the Aug '65 riots, informs that Laker partisanship. But will we ever know what he really thinks about anything? I gave up thinking he'd give an interview or even show his face anywhere. Pynchon will be 88 on May 8th. We'll never really know. I would bet the farm that Gravity's Rainbow, Mason & Dixon, and Against the Day will NEVER be adapted into films.
