Wed, October 23, 2019

The Clippers take round one

Wednesday, October 23rd, 2019

  • News flash: The Lakers have no depth and the Clippers have tons of it

  • Pelicans-Raptors would have been more fun with a certain 6-foot-8 dunker 

  • Landry Shamet thought he could stroll in for a layup against LeBron

Tonight's must watch games

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1. The Lakers have two great players and not much else

Before the season, beyond the sexiness of the two Lakers stars versus the two Clippers stars, it seemed like the real battle for Los Angeles basketball supremacy would come down to the players behind LeBron and Anthony Davis and Kawhi and Paul George. 

, and why the Clippers were the betting favorites to win the title. 

On Tuesday night, a 112-102 win for the Clippers, in a game that sometimes stalled but lived up to the hype in terms of competitiveness, that came out. 

Throw out LeBron and Davis’s and Kawhi’s stats (

) and you can tell who won, even with Danny Green’s 28 points for the Lakers: 

(via NBA.com)

Beyond the two mega-stars and a solid role guy in Danny Green, who combined to score 71 percent of the team’s 102 points, this is a bad opening night roster. Let’s break it down: 

  1. Dwight Howard looks emaciated. 

  2. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, a Klutch crony, didn’t score in 27 minutes. 

  3. Jared Dudley looks like an algebra teacher.

  4. JaVale McGee, Quinn Cook and Troy Daniels are hanger-ons. 

  5. Avery Bradley is over the hill. 

, the Lakers are a player-and-a-half from being title contenders. One of those may be Kyle Kuzma, but when he returns from injury, the team’s best three players will all be power forwards. Rajon Rondo will at least eat up some minutes, but is he a long term solution?  

(Via NBA.com)

The Clippers, on the other hand, have scorers, defenders, point guards and probably the two best reserve players in the NBA in Montrezl Harrell and Lou Williams, who, of course, showed out last night. 

Important:

It’s one game. And the Lakers have some moves to make.

Also important:

It’s no contest right now as far who the better team is. 

[READ: 

]

2. Our official Pelicans-Raptors stance

We regret to inform you, our readers, that we have an embargo on speaking about this game, for two very good reasons. 

  1. We are in absolute mourning over the Zion Williamson injury that will sideline him for six to eight weeks, which we're hoping will not be indicative of the rest of his career. 

  2. One of us -- an idiot -- convinced the other to put $10 each on the over for total points, which was at 229.5, which we lost, which hurts very much during this time of personal economic downturn. 

Anyways, the Raptors won in overtime, 130-122, and gave everyone in attendance a replica championship ring. The coolest part was Lonzo Ball’s Pistol Pete-esque pass, which we GIF’d above. 

3. Foxed 'em again

It’s year No. 17 for LeBron and he’s still making casual layup-takers look like fools. When will it be safe to stroll into the lane when LeBron’s on the floor? Year No. 25?

4. Extensions galore

Several teams and players from the 2016 NBA Draft agreed on extensions for after their rookie contracts, which end next year, earlier this week, including: 

  • Jaylen Brown and the Celtics, who settled on four years and $115 million

  • Buddy Hield and the Kings, who settled on four years and $86 million with incentives up to $106 million, but only after some mean-spirited back-and-forth

  • Pascal Siakam and the Raptors, who settled on four years and $130 million, the maximum amount 

  • Dejounte Murray and the Spurs, who settled on four years and $64 million

  Quick Hits 

 Concrete Reads 

  • 16 things we’re hoping for this NBA season [The Ringer]

  • Basketball Reference is bringing NBA nicknames to the mainstream [The New York Post]

  • Big Threes are out, Big Twos are in, and the NBA is the most balanced it’s been in years [The Washington Post]

  Podcast Pick

Opening thoughts from Clippers-Lakers [The Bill Simmons Podcast]