The Grip - Wed 6.13.18

Welp.

June 13, 2018

6.13.18

Written while listening to NxWorries' What More Can I Say[Spotify] [Apple Music]

We are not surprised. We are contemplative.

Waaaaaaaaaaay, waaaay, back, at least two redesigns ago, when our open rate was Jordan Clarkson’s shooting percentage and our strategy was Google ad-words, we wrote this headline, on Oct. 24, 2017:  

Hey, look! The Warriors lost two games!

We were so young and naive. We probably could have still been talked into the #OK3 winning the title. We were so far away from the Swaggy P ring countdown. Those were simpler times, before Screamin A. Smith was speculating LeBron to the Celtics. Before we were going to war with Canada. Before California was trying to split itself into three states.

Here are some words we wrote following that twinkling headline:

Thank you, Warriors, for not being perfect straight out of the gates. Thank you for having a worse record through three games than the Brooklyn Nets.Call it a championship hangover, call it the Nick Young effect, call it whatever you want. Let’s just all take a moment to enjoy this stutter step before they win anywhere from 35-50 straight games.But can we all agree on this? Anyone besides the Warriors, right?

  About that!

Looking back on this season, after Golden State almost actually lost to Houston, which probably would have beat them if not for a Chris Paul injury, is reminiscent of the scene in Breaking Bad, where Jesse humble brags about Walt after Hank stops him from burning down the family house:

"Mr. White -- he's the devil. He is smarter than you, he is luckier than you. Whatever you think is supposed to happen, I'm telling you, the exact, reverse opposite of that is going to happen."

While the Warriors are not necessarily the devil (they are a very good basketball team with Draymond Green, who might be the devil), they are smarter than you, and they are definitely luckier than you. (The last part about the opposite always happening isn’t very equitable, either, because we thought the Cavs would get their doors blown off by Cleveland, and they did.)

And, when you think about, the biggest reason they aren’t 4-for-4 right now is because Green stupidly nailed LeBron in the LeBron Jr. region and got suspended for game five of the 2016 NBA Finals.

But sometimes they are smart, and they are always, always, always, lucky.

Now, let’s assume Kevin Durant stays in Golden State -- a notion that we are not so set on, because of this low-key shady answer after the Western Conference Finals.

And now, let’s assume LeBron goes to the Lakers.

He and Paul George sign, straight up, which means L.A. will not have to blow up its core. Julius Randle walks in free agency.

That leaves them with a top-five of something like:

  • LeBron

  • Paul George

  • Brandon Ingram

  • Kyle Kuzma

  • Lonzo Ball

And a bench of something like Josh Hart, Luol Deng(?), a first round pick and maybe some late offseason vet-minimum guys.

Is that enough to beat a healthy Warriors team? In a vacuum, hell no. (What is the deal with that phrase: In a vacuum?) Even outside of a household cleaning device, hell no.

But if LeBron goes to the Rockets, which would likely mean the end of Clint Capela and Trevor Ariza in Houston, we’d be looking at a roster so top-heavy it might end up being a six-man rotation all year:

  • James Harden

  • Chris Paul (assuming they give him a max-level deal, short-term or long)

  • LeBron

  • Eric Gordon?

  • Zhou Qi?!

Just kidding about that one. Those three would be a cool challenge to the Warriors; if everything went right there’s no reason to think a team that almost toppled the champs without LeBron wouldn’t give him a run for their money with him. 

But LeBron aside...

...and avoiding the Chris Paul headache that will unfold in Houston this summer, it seems more and more like the realest long-term challenge to a fully-loaded Golden State roster is……..the CELTICS!!!!

And perhaps, the 76ers, although that completely mind-numbing Colangelo-Twitter story might make the long haul pretty uneasy for that core.

ESPN released its annual way-too-early power rankings a few days ago, which had the 76ers and Celtics third and fourth, respectively.

In five years, Steph Curry will be 35. LeBron will be 38. Kevin Durant will be past his prime. Draymond Green will be 400 pounds. Klay Thompson will be retired and living his best life in the Bahamas. Kevin Love will be GQ’ing it up, wondering why he ever lived in Cleveland.

Kyrie Irving, of course, assuming he’s still in Boston, will be the oldest star of the 76ers-Celtics rivalry, at 30, and still in his prime. Embiid will be 29. Ben Simmons will be 26. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown will be 25 and 26, respectively.

If injuries don’t ruin any careers more than they already have, what team is going to stop them from ruling the league?

We aren’t saying another team won't come along -- Golden State went from a 51-win, first round loser in 2014, to a champion in 2015 by adding Andre Iguodala and Steve Kerr -- but there is no obvious team in the west or otherwise.

Just hold on, people. We’re only three or five more titles in The Bay away from some new blood.

Programming note

Now that the Warriors ruined the NBA for the second straight year season is over, we will be transitioning into a weekly newsletter, which we plan to have come out every Thursday, unless there is groundbreaking news you’d want to read more about; in that case, it will come out that following day.

This was our first full NBA season producing this newsletter. We saw a good amount of growth, and got a lot of really good and helpful feedback from you guys. We appreciate the interest, and are proud of our 45 percent open rate, roughly double the industry average.

We’re going to try and focus on a few different things this summer, one of the biggest being a hearty attempt to get our NBA history-themed podcast off the ground.

If you believe in what we’re doing, then we love you. Don’t ever change.

But also, please help us out and tell your friends. Just send them to our website, where all they have to do is punch in their emails to subscribe. Next year, we’ll be dishing out rewards for referrals, but in the meantime, if you send us an email at [email protected] saying you referred someone and we see they’ve subscribed, we’ll make sure to send you some swag once it’s ready. Because you are a building block of The Grip, and you deserve it.

If you have any suggestions or segments you think don’t need to be there, we’d love to listen. Do you like all of the other content we link you to? Are we missing one of your favorite websites for NBA stuff? Too much opinion? Not enough? More voices? More gifs? Less gifs? Less Warriors hate? More Western Conference love? Do you prefer morning or afternoon emails? Do we swear too much? Should we sprinkle in more doses of random NBA history? What about book suggestions? More lists? We are open to hearing and chatting about absolutely anything basketball related.

Or you can reach out and tell us why LeBron is better than Jordan, if you want to get into that.

Thanks again for your support.

- Sam & Jesse

Here's a photo of us blasted at Sofia Vergara's son's apartment party in 2012.

Coaching news

What else happened?

Durant knew he would generate backlash joining a 73-win team instead of sticking in Oklahoma City, or striking out on his own. "I don't understand why people refer to this as the easy way," says Rich Kleiman, Durant's business partner. "Isn't being beloved easier? Every story about his business interests, 80 percent of the comments are about him being a snake or a cupcake. How is that easier?"

  • READ: What LeBron’s departure would mean for the Cavs

  • READ: S.I.’s Lee Jenkins does his usual goodness on Kevin Durant

  • READ: On Klay Thompson's inspirational performance: 'He wasn’t supposed to play'

  • LISTEN: Steve Kerr joins the Lowe Post

  • LISTEN: Donovan Mitchell joined the Woj Pod to talk rookie season and recruiting to Utah