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- Apr 14th, 2023
Apr 14th, 2023
Team of the 2020s — Zion(?) — #SoupGate
Fri, April 14th, 2023
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The Opening Tip
New NBA kid has gone viral
This Zion situation seems not good
J.R. Smith has set the record straight on #SoupGate
1. The OKC Thunder will soon be our overlords
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The Oklahoma City Thunder play the Timberwolves tonight for a spot as the 8-seed in the West. Whether they win or not is not all that important in the long run, because: They will soon be our overlords.One of the best-run teams in one of the least desirable markets has …
An MVP-type player in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who you should truly make an effort to watch if you haven’t yet
This past year’s No. 2 pick on ice in Chet Holmgren
An incredible cast of good young role players: Josh Giddey, Lu Dort, Jalen Williams, Jaylin Williams, etc.
And, like, every fucking draft pick. They can’t use every one of their 15 first-rounders in the next five years on actual players, but they can package a comically large amount of them for an unhappy (Luka) superstar (Luka) with (Luka) a (Luka) few (Luka) years (Luka) left (Luka) on (Luka) their (Luka) deal (Luka).The Thunder went 40-42 this year. Their record’s gunna start with a five for the rest of the 2020s.
2. Daily GIF: Diar DeRozan = MVP
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Best part of the play-in games so far: Diar DeRozan, DeMar’s daughter, going viral for screaming every time a Raptor player was about to take a free-throw.Also, it clearly worked:
Toronto shot 18-of-36 from the free-throw line, their most missed FTs since 1997
[WATCH: Diar DeRozan yelling compilation]
3. Trivia time
LeBron has played the most playoff games in NBA history. Who’s second?Answer at the bottom.
4. Lord, these Zion quotes
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Zion Williamson, who’s played 29 of a possible 164 games in the last two years, spoke to the media on Tuesday and said a few kinda wild things.A breakdown:
“Physically I'm fine.”
Good start.
“Now it's just a matter of when I feel like Zion."
Hm. Expand?
"I don't feel like there are any specific benchmarks for being Zion."
Good news for Zion:
The Pelicans lost their play-in game on Wednesday, so he doesn’t have to feel like Zion again until, at the earliest, October 2023.
If you’re a Pelicans fan --
-- this has to be pretty infuriating, especially since he was
Zion throwing down windmill in pregame workout then skipping play-in game sums up his career nba.nbcsports.com/2023/04/13/zio…
— Kurt Helin (@basketballtalk)
5:26 PM • Apr 13, 2023
right before Wednesday’s L.
If you’re a subscriber of
, you have to respect this no-work, all-guaranteed-money king.
5. We finally have #SoupGate answers
That final LeBron-Cleveland season gave us many iconic moments. The funniest was probably J.R. Smith’s locker room run-in with assistant coach Damon Jones, which ended with Smith throwing what we now can identify as a tomato-based chicken tortilla soup at Jones.The entire situation has mostly lived in online NBA lore until yesterday, when Smith opened up about it on JJ Redick’s podcast.From J.R.’s mouth:
“I'm in the lunch room getting my soup, (Jones) comes in. He's trying to make me spill it. I'm not gonna lie, it took me a second. I actually thought about it. It wasn't a rageful throw. It was like, OK you're playing with me, I know you're playing with me, I'm gonna show you.I literally thought about it, and I threw it on him. He's over there screaming because the shit is hot. I'm like, 'See, you're gonna stop playing now with me now, right?'"
It wasn’t a rageful throw. The shit is hot. J.R Smith is iconic.
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Watch:
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6. Quick Hits
Pelicans fan gets a solid second of two-handed blowjob mimicking on the fancam.
DeMar DeRozan on Patrick Beverley: “He sleeps aggressively”
Ja Morant has filed a countersuit against the teenager he beat up.
Doc on the Lob City Clippers: “That team was never going to win”
Mike Brown has now won Coach of the Year two times 14 years apart.
7. Reads & Pods
Most intriguing playoff storylines [Bill Simmons Podcast]
Kevin Durant knows you think he's too sensitive [Fox Sports]
Michael Jordan was an activist after all [NY Times]
LeBron and the Lakers have a shot [The Ringer]