The Opening Tip

• Giannis has lifelong fans in us from this Olympics alone 

• Kevin Durant is six points from an important milestone 

• Noah Lyles vs. the NBA, explained

Tomorrow’s Olympic Quarterfinals

1. Giannis is worth getting up at 5 AM

Sometimes, the highest form of athletic observance is watching a dominant team steamroll its competition through the fact of overwhelming talent.

Other times, the highest form of athletic observance is watching someone who is ultimately set up to fail want something so fucking badly they’ll drive themselves to unhealthy exhaustion trying to do it.

The second one is for the sickos hooked on watching Giannis drag a terrible Greece team into the quarterfinals of these Olympics.

The roster is … 

• Giannis

• Three other former NBA players who all played less than 100 games, none more recent 2018

• Euro League players of varying skill 

The team’s strategy is somewhere between Caitlin Clark at Iowa and the ‘Pass the ball to Tucker’ episode from Hey Arnold.

That is to say … it’s just Giannis gamely trying intensely hard to win for his country.

In three games, he’s averaging 27 PPG (first in the tourney) on 68.9 percent shooting and has played 100 of a possible 120 minutes.

The result: A 1-2 record in group play -- they beat fifth-ranked Australia and barely lost to No. 2 Spain and No. 7 Canada -- which was just good enough to advance to the knockouts on point differential.

They play Germany (-7.5) tomorrow in the quarterfinals (at 5 AM ET). Germany, which won the FIBA World Cup last year, has the power of ample NBA talent and well-developed chemistry. All Greece has is the power of how profoundly Giannis cares.

The true sickos will be up at 5 AM.

2. Daily GIF: 1 vs. 4

Here’s what we just wrote about Giannis in GIF form.

[READ: Giannis’ Greece highlights]

3. Trivia

4. Noah Lyles shutting up the entire NBA, explained

In August 2023, Noah Lyles introduced himself to the mainstream sports world by mocking the NBA for considering themselves ‘world champs,’ when they are really just champions of the United States.

Here’s the clip. (It’s hilarious.)

Here are his exact words:

(What made it even funnier: A few weeks later, the US lost in the semifinals of the FIBA World Cup. Obviously, Lyles took that and ran with it.)

Essentially every NBA player/fan on Twitter started making fun of him, which has created a Cold War between the NBA community and Lyles.

In the days leading up to the 100M final yesterday, Lyles underperformed in his heats and in the semifinals, leading to lots of trolling by NBA Twitter, which definitely collectively didn’t understand how the 100M structure worked.

Then … Lyles won the 100M final on Sunday by .005 seconds, earning himself the title of ‘World Champion’ and ‘Fastest Man Alive,’ leaving NBA Twitter in shambles.

The funniest possible outcome: Team USA hoops not winning gold, followed soon by the biggest theoretical victory lap by Lyles in American history.

Quick hits

• Gordon Hayward just retired. The final six years of his career were a complete disaster but that man at his peak did not play like a Gordon. 

• Steph Curry has been pretty bad these Olympics. 

• The fans in Paris have been booing Joel Embiid non-stop because he decided to play for Team USA instead of France. 

• Our men’s 3x3 basketball team absolutely SUCKS. 

• Kemba Walker retired in July. If Bismack Biyombo retires this offseason (he played last season for the Thunder and Grizlies), that would close the book on active pro players who played for the Charlotte Bobcats. (What would you do without this newsletter?)

Reads + Pods

• Behind the scenes of the 76ers’ go-for-broke summer [The Ringer]

• USA basketball is still an awkward fit at the Olympics [New Yorker]

• A universe in 10 seconds [New Yorker]

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