The days leading up to the NBA All-Star break can have a bit of a senioritis feel. Guys are eyeing those plane tickets, making plans to go to New Orleans, Hawaii (sorry, DeAndre), and Cabo. Who knows, maybe there’s a lovely little B&B in Vermont with Jonas Jerebko’s name on it. But in all my years watching the NBA, I’ve never seen it get quite so weird and loose. The NBA is Dazed and Confused right now. School’s out forever.
Let’s take stock really quickly: Dion Waiters is the Eastern Conference Player of the Week and is out here throwing daggers like Larry Cisewski (yes, I Googled “famous knife throwers”).
It is high season on Waiters Island. This is me, playing my ukulele on the dock, welcoming you all back to the inn.
What else? In the third quarter of Monday’s Grizzlies-Suns game, Devin Booker did this to Z-Bo.
And Z-Bo didn’t do anything. He even seemed to respect it. There is a little known rule in the NBA bylaws that we can never, ever talk about this moment again because it would upset Blake Griffin too much.
One of the reasons Zach didn’t seem too stressed about the shove was because HE STOLE BOOKER’S LIFE ESSENCE. That is the only explanation for how Z-Bo was able to jump this high in the following quarter:
You want more? The young Bulls players look up to Rajon Rondo, the Cavs are bringing in old players like Kirk Hinrich, Lance Stephenson, Mario Chalmers, and probably Flip Murray, Mike Bibby, Keith McLeod, Acie Law, and Shelvin Mack’s evil twin. Oh, and the Wolves are good now.
And then there’s the Sixers.
It’s hard to tell from 3,000 miles away, but the Wells Fargo Center has real Palestra vibes right now. The Sixers are 6–4 in their last 10, have won more games in January than they did in 2015–16 season (thank you, NBA Reddit), and are winning games with and without Chandler Parsons tormentor Joel Embiid. On Monday, Philly beat the Kings 122–119 and the homie Dario Saric was out there like the Croatian Larry Bird, dealing no-look passes to Jahlil Okafor, who was definitely not looking, but still managed not to screw it up.
To those of you who might say it’s pronounced “Shhharich,” which means, “Shhh, don’t jinx this,” I tell you that I love New Zealand’s flightless birds, I miss the Blackberry keyboard, and you should listen to Charlie Munger when he says, “Let Robert Covington cook.”