6 Young Players on the Rise + Hawks keeping Trae Young? | Slam N Jam
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What are the highlights from All-Star Weekend?
Welcome to the Saturday Slamma Jam here on the Athletic NBA Daily. On today's show, we're talking about the updated Defensive Player of the Year odds, the players that are making a pre-leap, and then Lauren Williams joins the show to talk about the Atlanta Hawks. But to start with, Al, tell me about the top stories this week. Well, Andrew, our top story this week was All-Star Weekend in San Francisco. In the Skills Challenge, one of the teams won. More importantly, that little trickster Chris Paul tried to break the game by not even attempting to make a three-pointer and instead just throwing the balls haphazardly toward the basket. Thankfully, the league stepped in to uphold the sanctity of the Skills Challenge, which again, one of the teams won. In the three-point contest, the big question was whether Damian Lillard would three-peat as champ, but he did not. Instead, it was Tyler Hero in his first All-Star game who won the three-point contest, defeating Darius Garland and Buddy Heald in the final.
We would see a three-peat on Saturday, however, as Mac McClung did four pretty cool dunks and easily beat the other three contestants, winning his third straight dunk contest. As for the actual All-Star game, the big news this year was the NBA's new format. Ditching the typical 48-minute game, the NBA finally listened to all of us Kevin Hart fans who have been clamoring for more Kevin Hart. Hart was on the broadcast team. And spent the night cracking my ass up. Thankfully, he did finally get serious for the main event, pretending like inside the NBA isn't going to be on TV anymore. Ernie and the gang were honored at half court, a beautiful sendoff that was sadly cut short by a basketball game that had double booked the court at the same time.
While All-Star Weekend was a big event for the NBA, the actual top story this week was the news that Victor Wemby would be shut down for the rest of the season due to a blood clot in his shoulder. The Spurs announced that this is an isolated event. They do not expect any long-term issues, but it's a disappointing end to a great season for Wemby, who put up 24-11-4. while leading the league in blocks, something that he will continue to do despite not playing another game. He has a 74-block lead on the number two player, Walker Kessler. Wemby will, however, miss out on a likely Defensive Player of the Year award and a possible All-NBA spot as well. Now, is there a possible Ewing theory with Wemby and the Spurs? Don't do that. No, not at all.
But the Spurs did win their first Wemby-less game post-All-Star break against the Phoenix Suns, who have now lost seven of their last eight. Another player who won't be playing for a while, like Wemby, but for a completely different reason, is Bobby Portis. Portis was suspended 25 games for violating the league's anti-drug policy. In a statement, Portis explained that he took an unapproved pain medication, Tramadol, when he intended to take Toradol, an approved medication. eighth with only three games remaining in the regular season. Is there a possible Ewing theory with Portis and the Bucks? Question mark? No, it's Bucky Portis. But the Bucks did win their first game post-All-Star break, getting an impressive win over the Clippers, 116-110. Now, a player who will be playing but maybe should have taken a bit longer to come back is Luka Doncic. In the first game post-All-Star break, Luka shot five of 18 from the field with six turnovers in a 197 loss to the Charlotte Hornets.
Luka has yet to top 16 points in his first three games with the Lakers and had to sit out on Thursday, the second night of a back-to-back for management of his previous calf injury. Finally, we only had really one night of games this week other than that Lakers game. The best win was probably the Indiana Pacers, who outscored the Memphis Grizzlies 50-26 in the second quarter, eventually winning 127-113. How about those Pacers? After starting 10-15, Indiana has gone 21-8 over their last 29 games and have a one-game lead on the Bucs for the fourth seed in the East. And those were the top stories this week. Wow.
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