Chapter 1: What are the highlights from the first week of the NBA season?
Welcome to the Saturday Slammin' Jam here on the Athletic NBA Daily, brought to you by eBay. On today's show, Alex and I are going to give you our good, our bad, and the what of the week. We talk to Jaron Weitzman, the author of a Hollywood ending. the dreams and drama of the LeBron Lakers. But it's an amazing book.
And I promise, there's so many good little nuggets from this book that we discuss that aren't just Lakers. Maybe you're a Lakers fan and you want to hear about it. Maybe you're not a Lakers fan. There are so many things in this book that kind of affect the NBA in general that you're going to want to listen to the interview. It's great. And then we're going to do some trivia.
But before we do all of that, Alex, tell me what happened in the NBA this week.
Andrew, the NBA is back! And we've had a couple of days of real basketball to enjoy. And while the basketball's been fun, when it comes to the top story this week, it's going to be hard for Vijay Edgecombe to top current head coach arrested in connection with years-long illegal poker scheme involving the Mafia. That's right, folks.
It's only week one of the NBA, and we've got Portland Trailblazers head coach Chauncey Billups being arrested and indicted on charges of wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. What was going on is Billups was acting as bait to lure wealthy people into poker games where they could play alongside famous athletes while losing all of their money because everything was rigged.
Now that sounds bad, but there's more. In a separate investigation which led to the arrest of Heat guard Terry Rozier, Chauncey Phillips does match the description of a co-conspirator who tipped off bettors that the Blazers would be arresting key players in a March 2023 game. For the time being, Tiago Splitter has taken over as the Blazers interim head coach.
All right, back to Sixers rookie P.J. Edgecombe. Just an NBA player doing cool things on a basketball court not involving the Mafia. In a game against the Boston Celtics, Edgecombe had an historic... debut game. First, he scored 14 points in the opening quarter, breaking a record once set by LeBron James, but he kept scoring.
He finished with 34 points in the game, the most in a rookie debut since 1974. Now his full line was 34 points, seven rebounds, three assists to go along with five three-pointers. But he wasn't the game's leading scorer because Tyrese Maxey dropped 40 in the The Sixers will have their home opener on Saturday night against the Hornets, who won their own home opener against the Nets.
Also this week, the Oklahoma City Thunder received their rings, raised the first championship banner in franchise history. In an effort to raise the stakes this season after winning 68 games last year, the Thunder have decided to try and win every game in double overtime. Please stop.
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Chapter 2: What shocking news involved a coach and the Mafia?
Now, speaking of the Knicks, they came into the first heavyweight matchup of the season down a few key players. No Mitchell Robinson, no Josh Hart. The opponent was the Cavs, who were also hobbled. No Darius Garland, no Max Struess. And in what could be the first matchup of an eventual Eastern Conference Finals, the Knicks won 119-111, led by O.G. Ananobi's 24-14 double-double.
The Western Conference had their own heavyweight matchup on Thursday night when the Nuggets traveled to San Francisco to face the Warriors. It was a battle of titans between Steph Curry and Nikola Jokic, with Steph and the Warriors ultimately coming out on top in overtime, 137-131. Steph leading the Warriors with 46-7.
The Warriors start the season 2-0 before their back-to-back against Portland on Friday night. While the Nuggets didn't win the game, we do have to mention Aaron Gordon, who put up 50 points, 5-0, including 10 three-pointers, 1-0. Gordon's previous career high was 41 points. The most threes he'd ever made in a game previously was seven.
I didn't even mention the crazy game Wemby had, but don't worry. We're going to talk about it. And those were the top stories this week.
Wow. Feels like a month of basketball. It's been an amazing week.
All right, Andrew, it's time to dive into the week that was. And the way we're going to do that this year is we each are going to give you something we liked. We're going to give you something we didn't like. And we're going to give you something that Confused does. A little weird. In a segment that we're going to call, for one week, Good Bad What. Good Bad What.
Now, each week, the name of the segment is going to change, but the format will be the same. So good, bad, what? First, a good thing, Andrew. What's something good you like this week in the world of the NBA?
Maris Buzelis. Maris was good. He was very good. The Bulls beat the Pistons. It got a little dicey, but they still won the game. And Maris Buzelis had 21 points, six boards, and assists in three blocks. He was 7 of 12 from the field, but he was 6 out of 7, 6-7, in the restricted area. including three dunks, one on a sick two-handed alley-oop.
He also had a lefty driving layup, this lefty scoop finger roll. He just kind of had it all getting to the rim. He was 0 of 3 from deep. He's really 1 of 4. He hit one where his toe was on the line. But Shozo, three from deep. But the three ball looks good to me. And I think he's going to continue to be aggressive enough with it that it'll be a part of what he does.
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Chapter 3: How did P.J. Edgecombe perform in his debut game?
And this was a problem for the Blazers because they have other problems, but problem for the Blazers because his contract is large, Andrew. Two more years around $33 million and then a $36.4 million player option for the 27-28 season. He went from a guy who Portland could have gotten a first-round pick for two summers ago to one of the worst contracts in the league.
And so when the starting lineup for the Blazers was announced for their first game, Grant was coming off the bench. It made sense. And I was actually impressed that the team had bitten the bullet and made that decision. But then the game starts, and Jeremy Grant was the best player on the Blazers. I was at the game. He was incredible. He scored 29 points on 10 of 14 shooting, 4 of 7 from 3.
He had this play where he drove towards Nas Reed, faked him out so bad, he was able to get completely around Nas without Nas ever touching him, and then had a wide-open dunk. I thought he was active defensively. Overall, just had one of the better games I've seen from him in a minute.
And to put that first game into some perspective, so basketball reference has this game score stat where they try to put value on each game. His game score in that opener was tied for the highest game score he had all of last season. Wow. And the other thing about him playing so well is that watching this team especially without Scoot or Robert Williams, this roster thins out really quickly.
And all of a sudden, you're relying on someone like Chris Murray to be a real rotation player.
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Chapter 4: What was the context behind the Lakers' pushback on Yaron Weitzman's book?
Blake Wesley in that first game was getting a lot of minutes with Scoot out. This team needs this version of Jeremy Grant, especially with the offensive struggles they're inevitably going to face losing Anthony Simons. So for an opening statement after his worst season as a pro, I thought he looked really good and wanted to give him some credit.
Shout out to Jeremy Grant.
Those were good things. Now how about some bad things, Andrew? What's your bad for this week?
Can we talk about the Clippers for a minute? The Clippers continue this week's long streak of being the most embarrassing franchise in the NBA. And losing to the Jazz, 129-108, is pretty darn embarrassing. You only get a few gimme games in the Western Conference. You only get a few. That's true. And the Jazz are one of those teams. And the Clippers get three games against them.
They already blew one of them. They look old. They did not lead for one single second in this game. And Kawhi Leonard, who a lot of people were talking up in the preseason, he got torched by Markkinen. Just absolutely torched. It felt like he was playing behind. It didn't feel like he was almost paying attention during a lot of these games. There was a turnover. It was a James Harden pass.
This was toward the beginning of the third quarter. James Harden throws the ball to Kawhi. Kawhi is not paying attention. He doesn't even know the ball is coming. He turns around, sees the ball, hit the ground, stands there for a few seconds, throws his hands up like, what's going on? He's got those big old mitts up in the air, waving around. What's going on here?
All the while, Spima Hailuk gets behind Kawhi, gets the ball, dribbles it up the court, passes to Keontae George, who then sends it to Flip, who gets a wide-open dunk. It's just one small example of just the lacklusterness that existed with the Clippers that night. Now, it's one game.
This was a pure, like, we are not giving the necessary effort to beat a professional basketball team kind of thing that happened. I don't expect this to be necessarily a long-term thing for the Clippers, but it was concerning. And this is already an old roster that... is going to have some injury problems at times.
They're going to have some effort things that happen just because if you're that old, you just can't make all the tiny little effort plays. But when you have so many guys that aren't going to make those kind of plays on your roster, I think it is a little concerning. And so not to say this is going to be a horrific season for the Clippers, but it was a really, really bad start.
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Chapter 5: What insights does Yaron Weitzman provide about the LeBron Lakers?
Amin Thompson took seven threes. He missed all seven. The last time he took seven threes was his first game in the NBA when he somehow took seven threes in 21 minutes. He's taken four or more threes only five times in his career. Alperin Shingun took eight threes in the game. This is a guy who didn't take more than three in a game all of last season.
Now, he was five for eight in the game, and importantly, he looked very comfortable taking those shots, which is encouraging. But if Reid's defense is this much of an issue, Shingun's newfound three-point volume goes from this exciting new development to something the Rockets desperately need from him every night. If not him shooting five for eight, at least just taking a lot of threes.
And again, you can be a good team while not taking a lot of threes. But those other teams, like the Clippers, for instance, last year, they had established three-point shooters that you could trust. One of the overlooked effects of the Jalen Green for Katie swap was the three-point volume because Katie, obviously a better player.
Chapter 6: What was the significance of the proposed three-team trade involving Paul George?
It was a great trade. You always make that trade. This is not a defense of Jalen Green. But it is significant that per 36 minutes, you're replacing a player who took 8.8 threes per game with someone who took 5.9 last season. And then you lose Fred Van Vliet.
And you're left with this game where guys who you normally would have not thought are going to be taking a lot of threes for their team are now taking up the bulk of their three-point attempts. Now, getting DFS back is eventually going to help. I think Jabari should and could shoot more.
But watching that first game, I kept coming back to Reed because he projects as this high-volume shooter that they need, and yet his defensive shortcomings are going to force his coach to make some tough choices if he doesn't improve.
Yeah, he also just can't really get an advantage with his dribble either, which I think is a problem. He can get the ball up court okay, but once he gets into the half court, there's at least against the Thunder. And maybe that's the unfair thing. It's like we watched him play against the Thunder. And offensively, there was just not a lot he was able to create.
And some of that could be that he is playing against Cason Wallace, who's one of the best on-ball defenders in the NBA. So I'll kind of reserve my judgment there. and maybe in that circumstance for him. But he just really struggled in all aspects of the game against OKC.
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Chapter 7: How did Russell Westbrook's time with the Lakers unfold?
So yeah, I think kind of putting a pin in the Reed Shepard problem is a good thing to do at this point.
So we gave a good, we gave a baddest time. Andrew, for your what? What confused you this week in the NBA?
Man, I could not decide where to put this. but I'm just putting Victor Wimbenyama here. Confusing in a good way. Confusing in a, what is about to happen? What is about to happen to the NBA? He played 29 minutes against one of the best defensive front courts that the league has to offer. He had 40-15 with three blocks. He had seven dunks. Seven dunks.
I was talking to my son, taking him to basketball practice, and we were talking about the Wimby game. And... We were talking about the height difference that exists. He's like, who can credibly guard Wimpy? He's like, it's probably Chet. He might be the only guy in the league that can credibly guard him. I was like, do you realize that the height difference...
between he and Chet is the same as from Chet to Lou Dort. Like it's like the same height difference between those guys. Like that's why it's going to be so tough for the league to like credibly guard this guy. You're going to have to send two to the ball and you're going to have to turn him into a passer.
And that will be like the evolution of Wimby is like, you're going to have to send two to him, but like, it didn't really matter on night one, the Mavericks who would be a team that you would think, Oh, okay. Like they're, They're pretty well-equipped to guard him. Nope, they weren't. They weren't at all. They weren't ready at all.
The defense that's going on in Dallas will not win championships, and they will not stop Victor Wimbanyama.
Yeah, I was following along on that game because I was at the Blazers game, and I saw Derek Latham only played 10 minutes. I hope he didn't get hurt or something. And then you just learned he's got five fouls. The fact that he started off his season dominating that front line is just so impressive. Especially, they start point flag, which didn't go great game one, but that's a massive lineup.
You couldn't ask for much more size other than maybe the Rockets. And he just totally dominated. And he did it in 29 minutes. Torched him. Torched him. My what this week? Well, first week of the NBA season, I would say it's made for overreactions, Andrew. When you haven't watched your team play in months, you're trying to soak up as much of that first game as possible.
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Chapter 8: What trivia game do Andrew and Yaron play at the end of the episode?
And at the very least, I am buying into this team being miserable to play against this season. But I'm also starting to wonder, what is their upside? I was listening to the Bold Predictions pod with Sam Bassini on Game Theory, and Bryce
And one of Bryce's first bold predictions was that Toronto was going to overtake OKC in most like forced turnovers per game, which watching this game, like I at least kind of see the vision. And then Sam, his first bold prediction was that they were going to be like a locked in playoff team. So like a top six seed.
And, again, watching this game, like, yeah, I don't know if I buy the ceiling, like the upside for this team long-term right now. You know, they probably need another star piece on this team to really take them seriously. But, man, they've at least got a formula. Like, this team definitely has an identity. And that can go a long way, especially in the Eastern Conference.
Wow. S is going to be so excited to hear about this. Oh, shout out, S. He's going to be so pumped. Something else I'm pumped about. is to talk about this book and to talk to your own Weissman right after this quick break. We have Jeroen Weitzman, author of a Hollywood ending, the dreams and drama of the LeBron Lakers. Jeroen, I'm really excited to talk about this. Thanks for joining us.
Thanks for having me on. I'm excited to be here.
So your new book is about the Los Angeles Lakers during the LeBron era. What initially drew you to this story and made you want to write this particular book?
All right, a few answers. So one, I'm going to give an answer which I haven't been giving a lot, but I don't care anymore. So when you write a book, part of it is definitely reverse engineering and what could sell, right? I'm not going to lie about that. So it's not the most beautiful answer, but there are a lot of things that are good stories. Not a lot of good stories are of interest.
LeBron and the Lakers obviously are of interest, right? Yeah. But past that, okay, so that's part of it. But you're not going to just do something because you could sell. I did three years on this, so you need to be into it. And the thing I think I'm usually most drawn to in most of my MBA work is sort of the ā power dynamics.
And then the way I explain it, it's sort of like what's happening behind the scenes that we don't see that then is impacting what's happening, what happens on the court that we do see. Right. And to me, it would seem very clear that this merger, and I think a merger is a proper term between these two iconic brands of LeBron and the Lakers was right to sort of unpack that.
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