Tues, July 19th, 2022

LeBron at Drew — Embiid 🕺 — ABA settlement

Tuesday, July 19th, 2022

  The Opening Tip

  • We have some wholesome Joel Embiid content

  • Old ABAers get a long-awaited win

  • Free-agency quick hits!

 1. LeBron pulls up to the Drew League, plays close game  

LeBron did something even Skip Bayless thought was cool on Saturday: He pulled up to the Drew League -- an LA-famous pro-am league with IYKYK vibes -- and immediately turned it into the event of the weekend. 

  • People started lining up seven hours before the game. 

  • The gym looked like Spongebob’s Pretty Patty line. 

  • Maybe most telling, the NBA app streamed the game despite summer league happening at the same time. 

All that’s great and shows the gravity of LeBron, but the funniest thing, to us, is that his team, which included DeMar DeRozan, almost lost. The final score was 104-102 and LBJ missed a late clutch free-throw which gave the other team a chance to win. And that made us think of the great Norm MacDonald and his bit on Germany, which went, in part:

“In the early part of the previous century, Germany decided to go to war and, uh, who did they go to war with? The world! So you figure that’ll take about five seconds for the world to win, but it was actually close!”

Our Drew League remix:  

“On Saturday, a bunch of plumbers and Door Dash drivers decided to play a pickup game, and who was their opponent? LeBron James and DeMar DeRozan! So you figure that would be the most lopsided game of all-time, but it was actually close!”

 2. Daily GIF: Joel Embiid dancing the Hora🕺   

There’s probably some context to this out there, but it’s funnier without. 

 3. Trivia time  

In 2020, Luka Doncic became the third youngest player to make an All-NBA first-team. Who holds the record for youngest? 

Guess and click. 

4. Old ABAers settle with NBA for nearly $25M      

Something cool but under the radar happened last week: The NBA agreed to pay former ABA players $24.5M, ending a multi-year legal battle started by the non-profit Dropping Dimes Foundation.

  • About 115 players are eligible, according to reporting by the Indy Star, and the payments are being called "recognition payments.” 

  • Many old ABAers are, or were, completely broke. “I can’t overstate how much it means to them to have the NBA and NBPA recognize their tremendous contributions to today’s NBA game," said Scott Tarter, CEO of Dropping Dimes.  

The whole report by the Star is really good (and sad) and worth reading.[WATCH: Dr. J ABA highlights]

5. Three lingering free-agency/trade things 

  1. Donovan Mitchell is going to get traded. The Danny Ainge-run Jazz are not going to enter this season (with a potential all-time prospect leading the 2023 draft) as a mediocre-but-not-terrible team. The only hold up is how many picks he can extract from the poor Knicks. 

  2. Kyrie Irving has clearly realized no one wants him, to the point that his team is leaking how happy he’d be to return to Brooklyn, with or without Kevin Durant.

  3. Speaking of, the Nets are now betting favorites to keep Durant entering the 2022-23 season. The Suns, once the heavy favorites, are distant underdogs after choosing to retain DeAndre Ayton.

 6.  Quick Hits 

 7.  Reads 

  • The Spurs’ latest INT’l man of mystery [The Ringer]

  • Why Durant and Mitchell megadeals could expand an unprecedented NBA trend [ESPN]

  • Summer league winners and losers [Bleacher Report]