Wed, November 11, 2020

RIP Tommy 🍀 — The 2020-21 NBA season — Latest mock drafts

Wednesday, November 11th, 2020

  The Opening Tip

  • The NBA season is fast approaching

  • Every Celtics fan lost their crazy uncle yesterday

  • A mock draft for the least exciting draft in years

1. We are, somehow, a month-and-a-half away from the 2020-21 season

The 2019-20 NBA season ended 31 days ago. The 2020-21 NBA season starts in 41 days, on Dec. 22.We all know why the league and the National Basketball Players Association agreed upon these terms last week, which include deferred salaries and a 72-game regular season, and it isn’t because they want to uplift us fans in this time of need.In fact, the NBA stood to lose between a half-billion to a billion dollars if it elected to push the start date back to sometime in early 2021. (And that’s on top of the billions lost from the Daryl Morey-China-COVID cocktail the league had to deal with last year.)For our excitement and the NBA’s profit at the risk of injury, the season will start on Dec. 22 and wrap up before the 2021 Olympics in July.Here’s the immediate timeline for the soon-to-be season:

  • Nov. 18: The NBA Draft

  • Nov. 20: Free agency begins. 

  • Nov. 22: Free agents can sign with teams. 

  • Dec. 1: Training camp begins. 

  • Dec. 22: The 2020-21 season begins. 

  • Feb. 1: LeBron returns from his “injury” to make his season debut. (Joking.)

2. Tommy Heinsohn: 1934-2020

Tommy Heinsohn, who meant more to the Celtics than any other person has meant to any other basketball team, died Monday at the age of 86.His career in Boston, which ranged from 1956 to 2020, could mean three different things to three different generations of Celtics fans: 

  • He was the Hall of Fame power forward from ‘56-65, who won eight titles in Boston in nine years.

  • He was the bombastic coach of the Celtics’ two 1970s title teams.

  • He was the Celtics’ color broadcaster for almost 40 years, who ushered millions of young TV watchers into a life of Celtics fandom and never saw his team commit a foul. ("If the Boston Celtics were on trial for anything, he never has to worry about being called for jury duty,” once said Stephen A. Smith.)

Pick any of those three. They were all great.Any metric can perfectly summate his 64 years with the Celtics, but we’ll choose this one: Twitter tributes.When news broke yesterday that he had passed, every era of Celtic from Bob Cousy to Bill Russell to Cedric Maxwell to Danny Ainge to Paul Pierce to Isaiah Thomas to Jared Sullinger to Jaylen Brown had something nice to say.

Heinsohn could never -- and would never want to -- shake the label of Mr. Celtic, but he was more than just a basketball jock. The coolest thing about him was his love of landscape painting, a skill he picked up as a child in New Jersey in the ‘40s. 

"I was the only German in an Italian-Irish neighborhood during World War II,” he said in 2010, during an art exhibition he once hosted. “My mother worked a lot, and painting became not just a pastime, but my best friend.” 

The sweetest thing about him was his love for his late wife, Helen -- â€œthe redhead from Needham,” he called her -- who died in 2008 after a six-year battle with cancer.Here’s a story about he and his wife that Bill Simmons’ dad told on yesterday’s Bill Simmons Podcast: 

“He was such a devoted husband. His wife, Helen, eventually died of cancer, she had brain and lung cancer. When she was going through, I’d say, two to three years of treatment, she sat right near us and she would have a scarf around her head because of the cancer, and every time there was a timeout or break in the action, he’d run away from the scene and go down to check on her, make sure she was OK. As the cancer progressed and there were times when she would get up from her seat and wander, you’d see him run over, lovingly cajole her back to her seat. You’d see him look over his shoulder, make sure she was sitting there. The usher was always paying attention. It was just like a member of the family taking care of another member of the family.” 

Tommy was New England’s favorite uncle who never lost his fastball. He will be so, so missed by Celtics fans -- and Brian Scalebrine’s shitty color announcing over the next two decades will only ensure our lasting love for him.

3. Everything you might have missed since the NBA’s offseason began 

Deep breath.

  1. Daryl Morey stepped down as the Rockets' GM. 

  2. Darly Morey is now the 76ers’ GM.

  3. Doc Rivers got fired by the Clippers. 

  4. Doc Rivers got hired by the 76ers. 

  5. Ty Lue is the Clippers’ new coach. 

  6. Stan Van Gundy is the Pelicans’ new coach. 

  7. Nate Bjorkgren (?) is the Pacers’ new coach.

  8. Stephen Silas, son of Paul, is the Rockets’ new coach. 

  9. Mike D’Antoni is now Steve Nash’s assistant in Brooklyn.

  10. The Jazz got sold to one of those tech guys for $1.6 billion.

  11. Russell Westbrook and James Harden feel as though they’re in limbo.

  12. The Nets will have cool throwback uniforms this year.

  13. Sterling Brown, Bucks player who was harassed by Milwaukee PD for a bad park job in 2018, settled with the city for $750,000.

  14. Chris Paul might be headed to Phoenix.

  15. Jrue Holiday could be on the move as well.

Exhale.

4. Trivia time

On this day 14 years ago, the exciting-but-forgotten Michael Redd scored a career-high of 57 points for the Bucks.In all, Milwaukee has had five players go for 50-plus in a game. Try and name the other four. Answers at the bottom.

5. The NBA Draft, only seven days away, remains a mystery

    Anthony Edwards

    The consensus among this upcoming NBA Draft is that there is no consensus. Three players -- James Wiseman, LaMelo Ball and Anthony Edwards -- have a chance at going No. 1, though betting odds don’t seem to feel good about any of them.Last week, there were reports that Ball -- a dynamic playmaker with questionable defense and a Lonzo-esque jumper -- could slide all the way out of the top-five. Two days ago, ESPN reported that the league was operating under the assumption that Ball would go No. 1 to the Timberwolves. So who the hell knows.Here’s The Ringer’s latest lottery mock draft, which is a triumph of web design: 

    1. Anthony Edwards, Minnesota

    2. James Wiseman, Golden State

    3. Onyeka Okongwu, Charlotte

    4. Deni Avdija, Chicago

    5. Isaac Okoro, Cleveland

    6. LaMelo Ball, Washington

    7. Tyrese Haliburton, Detroit

    8. Killian Hayes, New York

    9. Devin Vassell, Atlanta

    10. Kira Lewis Jr., Phoenix

    11. Obi Toppin, San Antonio

    12. Patrick Williams, Sacramento

    13. Jalen Smith, New Orleans

    14. RJ Hampton, Boston

     6.  Off the press 

    • BOB RYAN: More than anyone you can think of, Tom Heinsohn was Mr. Celtic [The Boston Globe]

    • The NBA’s next star big man may be hiding in plain sight on the free agent market [The Ringer]

    • The hard part is still to come for the NBA [The New York Times]