Friday, April 8th, 2022

  The Opening Tip

• LaMelo Ball is pushing the envelope of fastbreak passes

• Frank Vogel is shooting from the hip

• Nikola Jokic has a new club

This weekend's must-watch games

 1. Maybe no one won the Harden-Simmons trade 

Let’s revisit the blockbuster deadline trade that sent Ben Simmons to Brooklyn and James Harden to Philly. 

• Simmons … has not played a single game in Brooklyn. 

  • He won’t return during the regular season or play-in and it seems unlikely someone with a dire mental health issue would want to be thrown into a playoff series with no ramp up. 

• Harden … is averaging 21 PPG in 20 games with the 76ers on .400/.333 shooting. 

  • The team is 12-8 in games he’s played and has lost every ‘big’ game, including one last night to the suddenly terrifying Raptors. 

The wink-wink between Harden and the 76ers when the trade happened was that he’d get his big-money deal from them this offseason. A max extension would mean Philly would be paying Harden $62 million in 2026-27, which would be his age 36 season.Simmons, 25, has the advantage of youth, but who’s looking at that guy thinking, hell yeah, we got him on our side!When it happened, the consensus was that everyone got what they wanted, but it's gone from W-W to potential L-L in a matter of months. [READ: Every East contender is flawed]

 2. Daily GIF: The audacity 

Can we get this man in the playoffs?

 3. Trivia time  

Despite having a disastrous year, the eight seed Nets still have the third-best odds to win the title.If they do win it all, they'd be first non-top-four seed to do so in nearly three decades. Who was the last team to pull it off?Hint: Defending champs Answer at the bottom.

4. Frank Vogel is a man with nothing to lose      

The Lakers were eliminated from the *play-in tournament* earlier this week and head coach Frank Vogel is deader than disco, which means he can finally start answering questions about Talen Horton-Tucker’s defense honestly.The Lakers have two more games left, which means two more postgame chances for him to get his shots in.

5. The 2K, 1K, 500 club  

Last night, Nikola Jokic became the first player ever to record 2K points, 1K rebounds, and 500 assists in one season.That requires elite scoring ability, elite rebounding ability, the passing instincts of a guard, and a durability level not many players in the NBA today have.Here’s who’s come close to the club in the past (via Tom Ziller):

• Oscar in 1961-62: 2,432 points, 985 rebounds, 899 assists

• Wilt in 1967-68: 1,992 points, 1,952 rebounds(!), 702 assists

• KG in 2002-03: 1,883 points, 1,102 rebounds, 495 assists

• Russ in 2016-17: 2,558 points, 864 rebounds, 840 assists

That random and awesome list of basketball uniquities walked so Jokic could fly.[READ: This MVP race could be the closest in history]

 6.  Quick Hits 

• For Celtics fans only:Janos is back.

• Adam Silver on superstars not playing: “If we have too many games, that's something we should look at” 

• Updated playoff picture heading into the NBA’s last weekend. 

• Jaylen Brown and Al Horfordare unvaccinated, according to SI’s Chris Mannix.

• It took Danny Green three years but he finally got his Raptors championship ring. 

• Scottie Barnesposter on Embiid. 

 7.  Reads 

• The dark horse contender no one is talking about [Bleacher Report]

• Why the Lakers were doomed from the start [ESPN]

• Quentin Grimes can’t stop scrolling, either [New York Times]