NBA Meme Mania: Super Glorious Preseason Edition

Welcome to the first-ever edition of Bleacher Report's NBA #MemeMania!

From now until the end of time (hopefully), this space will be dedicated to analyzing the Association's subjectively deemed most important topics through sarcastic visuals. 

Our inaugural exercise: recapping what you need to know about the preseason as we prepare, and revel in, the beginning of the regular season.

To the memes!

Tristan Got That Paper

@danfavale.

The chess match—actually, because I'm an oversized second-grader, make that the checkers match—between Tristan Thompson and the Cavaliers is over.

After a months-long dance toward and around each other, Cleveland and Thompson, as first relayed by Northeast Ohio Media Group's Chris Haynes, reached terms on a five-year, $82 million deal. That's not as much as the fifth-year forward was initially seeking, but as Thompson himself would probably even tell you, it's still enough:

Besides, as Haynes also noted, Thompson is officially one of the highest-paid players at his position:

See? Everybody wins.

Except, of course, the roughly 50 to 150 NBA players who are now making less than Thompson but actually deserve more.

All Damian Lillard Everything

Original shot chart via NBA.com.

When Arron Afflalo, LaMarcus Aldridge, Nicolas Batum, Robin Lopez and Wesley Matthews left the Portland Trail Blazers, they took a collective average of 57-plus shots per game with them. And who better to absorb as many of those leftover looks as possible than Damian Lillard?

Lillard is averaging almost 31 shot attempts per 100 possessions in the preseason. To put that in perspective: Russell Westbrook was the only qualified player in 2014-15 to cross the 30-shot threshold.

Also: The Blazers are averaging just 83.6 field-goal attempts per 100 possessions in the preseason. Lillard's current pace represents close to 37 percent of their mean.

Get ready for a whole lot of Dame this season.

Who's the Real MVP Again?

@danfavale/photoshop.

Somebody help James Harden. It appears he is stuck in an alternate universe in which he, not Stephen Curry, deserved to win the NBA's MVP award last season.

"I know I was the MVP," Harden told Fran Blinebury of NBA.com. "That's 100 percent given all the things that happened last season."

Well, the voters disagreed, and it wasn't all that close. There wouldn't have been much of a fuss if Harden received the nod over Curry, but the latter received 100 of a possible 130 first-place votes.

Still, if it helps Harden sleep at night (or while on the Houston Rockets' team bus, plane and horse-drawn buggy), he's free to live in his dreams.

If it helps Harden even more, he can just pretend the National Basketball Players Association MVP award, which he won, means more than Curry's ultra-official, way-more-important Maurice Podoloff Trophy. 

King Kristaps

@danfavale.

Per the New York Daily News' Stefan Bondy, there's a new starting power forward in town for the New York Knicks: rookie Kristaps Porzingis.

Derrick Williams, I'm sorry.

Carmelo Anthony, I really, really (really) hope you still enjoy playing small forward.

Einstein's Theory of Free Agency

@danfavale.

First the Oklahoma City Thunder throw $70 million at Enes Kanter, a defensive liability whose mostly ball-dominant offensive game doesn't complement Kevin Durant or Westbrook all that well. 

Now they're talking extension with Dion Waiters, according Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski, another ball-dominant scorer who isn't the ideal running mate for the team's two best players.

On top of that, the Thunder aren't in line to enjoy a ton of cap space next summer, meaning they won't be able to make improvements at a time when Durant, a free agent, will presumably be looking for improvements.

Math has never seemed so easy.

Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise cited. 

Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @danfavale.