Thurs, Mar 5th, 2020

Duncan Robinson — Joel “Do a 180” Embiid — Knicks censorship — Steph Curry’s back

March 05, 2020

Thursday, March 5th, 2020

  

  The Opening Tip

  • Miami’s Duncan Robinson remains one of this season’s great stories

  • A Jeopardy! question produced an impossibly funny NBA-related answer

  • The uprising against James Dolan continues

  • Steph Curry is playing basketball today

Tonight's must-watch games

1. The Lead: How is Duncan Robinson possible?

In the days before Internet scouting services, smart phones, mock drafts, Twitter and Jay Bilas’s current form, it was easier to understand how someone like Scottie Pippen could go from rural poverty to the University of Central Arkansas to the fifth pick of the 1987 NBA Draft.It is harder to understand these days, with all the above amenities, how someone like Miami’s Duncan Robinson, who dropped 27 points last night on nine made 3-pointers, can slip through so many cracks.To review: 

  • To start his college career, Robinson didn’t go Division I, or II. He went to Division III Williams College in Massachusetts, where he played for one year, in 2013-14. 

  • He then sat out a year and transferred to Michigan, where he played three years before going unpicked in the 2018 NBA Draft. 

With the Heat:

  • He signed a two-way contract to start last year, and had his contract converted to a regular one last April, after playing 15 NBA games in 2018-19. 

This season:

  • He’s become one of the Heat’s most important players, and one of the best shooters in the league, averaging 13 points per game while shooting 44.6 percent from 3 on 8.1 attempts per game, mixing the rare and sought-after combo of accuracy and volume.

  • He’s taken the sixth-most 3s in the league.

  • He’s made six-plus 3s in a game 12 times, including 10 in a game in December.

His contract runs out at the end of next year, which means, in the span of seven years, he’ll have gone from a York, Maine native, to a Division III dreamer, to an undrafted nobody, to a highly-compensated, elite-shooting NBA player, all while having arguably the most punchable face in the league.It doesn’t make sense.

2. Luka closes out the Pelicans

Luka Dončić calmly sunk the Pelicans in overtime last night, with the GIF above following a stepback 3 that gave the Mavs a three-point lead with a minute left.For the game, Luka finished with a 30-17-10 while Kristaps Porzingis added 34 points.Don’t ever forget: The Knicks traded KP for the cap space necessary to sign Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, but instead signed Marcus Morris, Julius Randle and Taj Gibson.

3. Everyone, meet Joel “Do a 180” Embiid  

On Jeopardy! yesterday, under the category “Current sports nicknames,” this question came up:

  • Joel Embiid in 2019 won the trademark for this nickname of his that also describes the 76ers’ strategy of improving the team

The answer, to anyone who follows basketball, is obvious: The Process.The answer, to contestant Paul, was not, though he was no less eager to share his guess: Joel “Do a 180” Embiid.Of course, Embiid, who mastered the art of social media before ever playing an NBA game, immediately changed his display name on Twitter to Joel “Do a 180” Embiid???, and tweeted out this video, which shows an apparent high school-age Embiid 180'ing his way out of bounds instead of taking an easy layup.

4. James Dolan is doing dictator things

Yesterday was Day No. 1 of Spike Lee’s protest against the Knicks, who lost to the Jazz, 112-104.The revolution carried on without him. A group of friends, including “John from Long Island,” began a sell the team chant in the fourth quarter while leaving. Before they could exit, though, a group of security guards pulled them aside and “interrogated” them for 15 minutes, “John from Long Island” told the New York Daily News.After allegedly being threatened with arrest, the group was escorted out of the building.All of this activity feels very normal, and not that of a draconian, anti-free speech regime!

 5.  Quick hits 

  • Steph Curry -- remember him! -- is playing tonight on TNT against the Raptors. 

  • Jayson Tatum returned last night and dropped 30 points for the fifth-straight game.

  • Richard Jeffersonwith the quick wit after a fan asked him to say hi to his wife. 

  • Another Lukahighlight.

  • Kristaps Porzingis throwing more shade on the Knicks. 

  • Doris Burke throwing even more shade on the Knicks.

 6.  Off the press 

  • Robert Covington and P.J. Tucker are redefining rim protection [SB Nation]

  • What makes Zion Williamson so damn good [The Ringer]