All the Big Events from This Week in the NBA, Ranked
The 2017 NBA offseason has been wilder than most, and this past week had everything: Phil Jackson looked to trade away all the New York Knicks with talent, Danny Ainge gobbled up first-round picks like mini M&M's, the Cavs went rogue and hit the NBA draft GM-free, and so much more.
In this rapid-paced world of the modern NBA, it can be hard to keep up with everything at once. Here's what all went down this week, from the things that don't really matter to the ones that absolutely do.
9. Dwight Howard Gets Shipped to Charlotte
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Much like the generation of kids who only know Adam Sandler as the leading characters from Jack and Jill, there's an entire crop of NBA fans who only think of Dwight Howard as that dude who makes poop jokes at the dinner table and is a nonfactor on the court despite being built like an 18-wheeler.
How soon we forget, or choose to ignore, Howard's initial tenure with the Orlando Magic—specifically his 2009 Eastern Conference Finals performance against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The dude averaged 25.8 points, 13.0 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game in that series while shooting 65 percent from the field and 70 percent—yes, 70—from the free-throw line. That's outrageous.
Howard's career has plummeted since he awkwardly forced his way out of Orlando in the summer of 2012, so much so that his unexpected trade from the Atlanta Hawks to the Charlotte Hornets on Tuesday was met with a collective "uh, OK?"
NBA reporters cared so little about the move that one of them referred to Charlotte as the Bobcats and didn't even delete the tweet.
Howard isn't as bad as you think he is, despite the Hornets being his fourth team in six seasons, but he’s having another rough summer. My man went on The Jump during the NBA Finals to announce he'd been honing his three-point shot, and the Atlanta Hawks were seemingly like, "Oh God! We've got to get rid of him immediately."
What once would have been considered a blockbuster is nothing more than a ripple in the news cycle.
8. The Houston Rockets Want Everyone
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Setting: conference room, near midnight. Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey leans back in a large leather chair with the phrase "Live By the 3 or Die" engraved into the back. The phone rings. It's the Los Angeles Clippers on the other line.
"Hello? Yeah, you've got Daryl. Yes, I'd like your entire team. OK. Call me back and let me know."
Of all the rumors flying around NBA Twitter this week, the Houston Rockets' interest in seemingly every single free agent available is the most fun. The Rockets reportedly want Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Kyle Lowry, Paul Millsap, both of Nikola Jokic's brothers, LeBron James Jr. and a lifetime supply of Laffy Taffy.
They will inevitably end up with none of these things, a la their pursuit of Chris Bosh a few years ago, and they will instead sign JJ Redick to a 10-year contract.
7. Boston Celtics Trade the No. 1 Pick to Philadelphia
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Boston Celtics general manager Danny Ainge has more first-round picks than artwork in his home. Boston currently owns seven first-rounders between now and 2019 after Ainge traded away the No. 1 pick in this year's draft to Philadelphia earlier this week.
Ainge has developed a bit of a reputation as a pick hoarder in recent years, refusing to part with any of them when the Celtics had a chance to trade for Paul George near the trade deadline last season. Philly turned the Celtics' No. 1 pick into Washington's Markelle Fultz, who most experts agree is the real deal.
If Fultz turns out to be a stud and the Celtics whiff on securing a superstar to push them into the stratosphere with the Cavs, Ainge's hoarding will be all for naught, and he would have handed a division rival the final piece to its superstar puzzle.
6. Joel Embiid Flames Everyone on Twitter
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Joel Embiid has only been in the United States since he was 16, and he's already better at Twitter than 95 percent of its users. The 76ers big man strengthened his grip on the social media Hall of Fame when he used his Twitter fingers to both flame Phil Jackson and recruit Kristaps Porzingis to Philly in 140 characters:
"We don't care about Exit meetings in Philly... you're welcome to join"
If that wasn't enough, he went after the most famous basketball family of 2017 during their biggest moment. Responding to 76ers teammate Ben Simmons' writing "Crazy pills" while Lonzo and LaVar Ball were on screen during the NBA draft, Embiid wrote:
"Please dunk on him so hard that his daddy runs on the court to save him.."
Embiid should be allowed to tweet from the bench next season.
5. LeBron Finally Shaved His Head
5 of 9In 2017, you can measure the importance of any single event in LeBron James' life by the pristineness of his ever-evolving hairline. If it's a Tuesday night during the regular season and the Cavs are taking on the Brooklyn Nets, LeBron's hairline usually looks like the middle of high tide, when you can still see slivers of the beach but most of it's gone.
LeBron doesn't care about that game. It's not on national television, and, well, it's the Nets.
But when LeBron deeply cares about something, like he did his acting debut in 2015's Trainwreck, his hairline is immaculate, as if we should be laughed at for thinking it was receding in the first place.
That's an exhausting balance to maintain, and a few days after losing to the Golden State Warriors in five games in the 2017 NBA Finals, LeBron finally said "enough" and shaved his head. In a video posted to his Instagram account, one of the first after lifting his "Zero Dark Thirty-23" social media blackout, LeBron can be found rocking out to Tee Grizzley in the weight room, his almost-bald noggin shining front and center.
LeBron hasn't joined the Bald Brotherhood quite yet—there are still some hair follicles kicking it up there—but he's closer to embracing it than ever before.
4. LaVar Ball Was Right
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The man called his shot forever ago. His son is on the Los Angeles Lakers, and after the team traded D'Angelo Russell to the opposite end of the country, Lonzo Ball doesn't even have to worry about competition for the lead guard spot.
LaVar Ball went counter to every major sneaker company, created his own company and got possibly millions of dollars worth of free advertising this week. He made himself a household name, and his family name a brand name. He told his son to not work out for any team but the Lakers—shunning all 29 other teams—and guess what? Lonzo's on the Lakers.
Is LaVar Ball a genius? With the streak he's on, who among us is in a position to say he's not?
3. The Cavs Let Their GM Walk
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Things were all good just a week ago. Sure, the Cavs couldn't repeat as champs as Kevin Durant tore them limb from limb in the Finals, but it seemed like general manager David Griffin had a plan. ESPN's Marc Stein reported Griffin was going to find a way to flip Kevin Love into Paul George or Jimmy Butler as the Cavs prepared to hit the Golden State Warriors with the ultimate countermove.
But Griffin's contract was set to expire in two weeks, and the architect behind the Cavs' championship roster in 2016 was being paid an embarrassingly low $2 million per year, per Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com. Cavs owner Dan Gilbert, who apparently decided that squashing his beef with LeBron was the last good thing he ever wanted to do, didn't feel like spending any more coin on Griffin (the dude probably dreams of the luxury tax every night, he's so far up in it), so he let him walk, two days before the 2017 NBA draft.
Jason Lloyd of The Athletic reported Gilbert has offered the job to Chauncey Billups, but the former Detroit Pistons star has yet to accept the offer. That means the Cavs went without a general manager during the NBA draft.
LeBron is media subtweeting Gilbert over it, with The Vertical's Adrian Wojnarowski saying it's "likely" he'll bounce to L.A., Kyrie Irving is possibly eyeing an exit and our pets' heads are falling off! Who knew a team with such a talented roster and one year removed from a 'ship could still be in such disrepair?
2. Phil Jackson Considers Trading Kristaps Porzingis
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Phil Jackson's reign as president of the New York Knicks has gone about as well as Theon Greyjoy's sacking of Winterfell. He won't let go of the triangle offense like some sort of jilted ex-lover. He's openly feuding with Carmelo Anthony. And now he seems hell-bent on shipping off the only good thing left in Madison Square Garden: Kristaps Porzingis.
Jackson lucked into the 7-foot Latvian in the 2015 NBA draft (Jackson told the New York Post's Marc Berman a scout convinced him to draft Porzingis) and has been doing his best to alienate the future of the franchise ever since. With the Knicks in disarray after another, uh, "lackluster" season, Porzingis skipped his exit interview with Jackson, which Jackson apparently equates to someone slapping his mother. Now he's calmly and callously admitting the team could possibly trade what should be the cornerstone of the franchise.
"As much as we love this guy, we have to do what's best for our club," Jackson told MSG Networks this week with a straight face.
Knicks fans gotta take Jackson to an indoor zen garden and lock him in there forever before the Knicks are nothing but smoldering ash.
1. Chicago Sends Jimmy Butler to Minnesota
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For all the rumors about Jimmy Butler ending up in Cleveland to play with LeBron James and Kyrie Irving, the Minnesota Timberwolves were always a dark horse for the star shooting guard's services. In the middle of the first round of the 2017 NBA draft, the dark horse won.
The Wolves sent Zach LaVine, Kris Dunn and the rights to Lauri Markkanen, who the Wolves took at No. 7, to Chicago for Butler and the 16th overall pick. Dunn struggled as a rookie, and LaVine is coming off ACL surgery. Meanwhile, Minnesota gets to pair a top-15 player with Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins and Ricky Rubio.
While we don't know how thrilled Butler is to reunite with Tom Thibodeau, who will almost certainly play him 47 minutes a night, we do know the Bulls got their lunch money taken. That's all you're getting for Jimmy Buckets? Woof.
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