Tuesday, May 14th, 2019

An NBA-obsessed newsletter for the info-craved basketball mind. Did a friend forward you this newsletter? Sign yourself up here.

Written while listening to Public Enemy's Brothers Gunna Work It Out

 Let the mid-major victory lap begin 

Both of these conference finals matchups are going to be billed as a triumph for the small college basketball program.And for good reason. A quick list of where the best remaining superstars went to school:Damian Lillard -- Weber StateCJ McCollum -- LehighSteph Curry -- DavidsonKawhi Leonard -- San Diego StateKlay Thompson -- Washington StateKevin Durant -- TexasGiannis -- Some YMCA in Greece?Of those schools, only two -- Texas and Washington State -- are power six programs (members of the PAC-12, ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12 or SEC) and neither are traditional basketball powers.Those first four schools have very little or zero historical NCAA relevance.(If you don’t know much about Lehigh, it plays in the same conference as Boston University and Holy Cross.)Here’s a graph of how many NBA players each of those schools has produced, plus Duke for scale.Duke’s got 81 -- including Steph’s brother Seth; Texas has 33; WSU has 17; SDSU has 10; Weber State has 10; Davidson has six, and Lehigh has McCollum, and that’s it.Feeling extra punchy? Relive McCollum’s Lehigh upsetting Duke in the NCAA Tournament in 2012 for its first-ever tourney win.

New York’s 14 percent prayer

After averaging a limbotic 29.2 wins over the last five years, this season, finally, the Knicks bottomed out and finished with the worst record in the league, at 17-65.

Their move to the bottom, of course, also coincided with the first year of NBA lottery reform, a socialistic dream by Adam Silver designed to prevent extreme tanking.

Last year, the Knicks would have had a 25 percent chance at landing the No. 1 pick, which would net them Zion Williamson and perhaps kickoff a cataclysmic chain of positive events for New York. This year, they, along with the two other worst teams, have just a 14 percent chance at No. 1.

Here’s a breakdown of all 14 teams’ chance at the No. 1 overall pick.

(Memphis’s pick is top-eight protected, otherwise it conveys to Boston; Sacramento’s pick would go to the 76ers if it’s No. 1, otherwise it conveys to Boston; Dallas’s pick is top-five protected, otherwise it conveys to Atlanta.)

Here is every team’s chance at a top-five and a top-10 pick, courtesy of ESPN.

The lottery will be televised by ESPN at 8:30 p.m., and always makes for highly entertaining reality television, plus it segues perfectly into Portland-Golden State at 9 p.m.

Like New York’s 1985 win, it might become an iconic moment

.

Processing The Process, two days later

Photo credit:

Hey Philly,

I hope you cried with Embiid, and found a friend to hug you

the way Marc Gasol hugged

your 7-foot-3 weeping willow.

We watched with half ambivalence as your team sucked for half a decade, smirked when Sam Hinkie became the sacrificial lamb, and, we’ll be honest, laughed really hard when your former president got outed for defending his own wardrobe

through a burner Twitter account.

But this -- this four-part play played out over four bounces -- is rough.

Just remember: Cry because Embiid said it was ok to. Cry because Ben Simmons ain’t ever developing that jumpshot. Cry because

Brett Brown is coming back.

But smile, because at least you’re not going back to the old days.

Then, cry again, because we’re about to gif up that shot.

I know that more than anything you want to take a few swings at Drake while trying to fathom this defeat. Here are two silver linings:

• You got rid of Markelle Fultz, the most baffling case of the jitters the NBA has ever seen.

• There’s a 1 percent chance you win the lottery tonight. You know what else had a 1 percent chance of happening? That Kawhi shot. Sorry.

-J.S.

Coaching News  

• The Lakers’ new coach is Ty Lue.

• The Lakers’ new coach is Frank Vogel.

• The Lakers' future new coach is Jason Kidd.

• Cleveland’s new coach is now former Michigan coach John Beilein. His career arc is amazing.

Quick Hits  

• Here’s a cool courtside view of the Kawhi shot.

• Something to remember: Damian Lillard is very much from Oakland.

• Terry Rozier went on First Take this morning and had some things to say.

• Evan Turner’s Portland career will always be about his bad contract, but his Game 7 performance was legendary.

• Marc Stein was the reporter who said Brett Brown was close to being fired, which wasn’t true. He owned up to it.

• Enes Kanter’s Billy Donovan troll continues.

• Also, we get it: Kanter was fasting.

• Fred VanVleet thinks Kawhi is the best player in the world. Why? “He’s my friend.”

• And Curry vs Curry. We get it!

• Do yourself a favor and listen to the South Korean broadcast of Kawhi’s shot.

• LeBron is fully on the anti-analytic train.

• Watching the Nuggets over an entire series was very fun. And Nikola Jokic, the big dog who thinks he’s a lap dog, had a great playoffs.

 Concrete Reads  

• Jackie MacMullan Is the great chronicler of basketball’s golden age [New Yorker]

• Can the 76ers win big with Ben Simmons? [ESPN]

• Raptors graduate to Eastern final after Leonard hits shot for the ages [The Toronto Star]

  Podcast Pick

Remember when Kevin Durant straight mocked CJ McCollum on his podcast last year? Listen and get pumped up for tonight. [The Pull Up Pod]