NBA H.O.R.S.E. was terribly unfair and actually pretty entertaining!
Zach LaVine didn't play fair, and Mike Conley was even more overpowered. But still, the whole thing worked much better than it had any right to.
Good morning. Let’s tidy up our home offices.
Disparate de Toritos, Francisco Goya
There was a moment watching the championship round of the NBA H.O.R.S.E. Tournament on ESPN Thursday night in which the absurdity hit me: at the end of the week that should have brought us the start of a really, really exciting NBA playoffs, I was watching Steve Javie make up fake rules interpretations on whether Zach LaVine dropping the ball through the hoop was technically a dunk and on whether Mike Conley was actually right-hand dominant.
I regret nothing.
NBA H.O.R.S.E. had no right to, in the end, be as fun as it was. It was way better than NBA’s most recent, ill-fated attempts to run H.OR.S.E. at All-Star Weekend. A few things saved H.O.R.S.E. — and the fact that there is extreme little new competitive sport happening right is certainly a factor in the enjoyment. Here are the official highlights:
But we have to talk about the major competitive imbalances, too.
Conley was the only competitor of the eight using an indoor gym, a tremendous advantage in shooting and general comfort giving that the finalists appeared to be participating for several hours on whatever this was filmed. (The semifinal and finals matches were edited down to about 40 minutes. Conley said something on the broadcast about being in his gym five hours already.) By the last few letters of the title round, it began raining on LaVine at home in Snohomish, Washington. It tends to rain outdoors in the Pacific Northwest in April! In the semifinals, Chauncey Billups was dealing with a little wind. Meanwhile, the worst thing Conley had to deal with was potential interference from his side basket on the left wing, which he had lowered to eight feet.
Conley’s advantage was unavoidable if he was going to participate: everyone used their home courts, and that was his. But LaVine’s competitive advantage was natural, and he seemed extremely interested in winning this competition, so he used it. LaVine, one of the most athletic players in the NBA and the youngest competitor in this tournament other than Trae Young (who Billups knocked out Sunday), couldn’t dunk per the rules. But he could still leverage his incredible athleticism to put his challengers in impossible positions. That’s how he beat Allie Quigley: by consistently performing crazy athletic lay-ups that half the NBA wouldn’t be able to do. LaVine indicated that he knew Quigley would have the advantage if it turned into a shooting contest, so he offered up between-the-legs reverse layups. So rude.
He tried to pull the same on Conley to ill effect, and Conley had some of the most creative H.O.R.S.E. shots I’ve ever seen in response. The ballspin-to-punch bucket Conley finally made to give LaVine an S is incredible. It had LaVine, a quite good NBA player, completely flummoxed. I would have liked to see Conley vs. Quigley, given the latter’s dominance on one-footed hopping and seated shots and the former’s dedication to behind-the-backboard and spinning shots. I mean, Conley went 2-for-4 in the competition on behind-the-backboard layups. ESPN and the NBA picked the right guy for this competition.
ESPN also corrected a major shortcoming of Sunday’s broadcast by acknowledging that Quigley’s camerawoman was her wife and WNBA star Courtney Vandersloot. That little segment with a mini-interview from Mark Jones was great.
ESPN actually made good use of the two-hour timeslot to do something I thought the NBA should concentrate on during the quarantine in lieu of straight competition: building the lore around its star personalities. I know more about Quigley, LaVine, Billups and Conley than I did before. I have a better sense of their personalities. (LaVine had never struck me as painfully competitive until this. I knew Conley was nice, but not the nicest man in the world. Billups’ quick wit has been on display in his other ESPN work, but his pride in his daughters was awesome to see. Quigley is straight-up hilarious with a very dry wit. Her “Oh Lord” comments when LaVine laid out the five steps required for his shots were delightful.)
ESPN, NBA: kudos! You made televised H.O.R.S.E. fun. I’m not sure if it’s just the quarantine talking, but I’m ready for three more tournaments and then a tournament of champions. Let’s go.
Sabrina’s Time
The majority of the focus is on presumptive No. 1 pick Sabrina Ionescu heading into Friday night’s WNBA Draft (7 p.m. ET on ESPN). This is appropriate: Ionescu is almost assuredly going to be a star, and because she’ll be drafted by the New York Liberty, this is a huge deal for the WNBA. It’s a real shame the WNBA season, which would be starting in May if not for coronavirus, will be delayed: it’s going to be amazing to see Sabrina step in as the Liberty move from Westchester County to NYC proper (they will play in Barclays Center). Alas. We’ll see it someday.
Of course, there’s a whole draft after Ionescu. Here’s Matt Ellentuck’s final mock draft. Here’s Howard Megdal’s last mock, too. In that old cliché, it seems like the draft starts at pick No. 3. The Dallas Wings have three picks in the top seven (including No. 2, which they will almost assuredly use on Oregon’s Satou Sabally) and the Liberty have three picks in the 12-pick first round, so things could get wild.
The other wrinkle here is that this draft will be held remotely due to the quarantine. That should be a real broadcast challenge, no?! Can’t wait to see how ESPN handles this.
Links
Reminder: the first two episodes of The Last Dance air on ESPN Sunday night at 9 p.m. ET and 10 p.m. ET. I’m going to have an open thread going Sunday afternoon for people who want to share their thoughts.
Because of H.O.R.S.E and the WNBA Draft I didn’t get to write too long about Jalen Green, the best high school prospect in the country, choosing the G League over college! Ricky O’Donnell has you covered on why Green is the perfect candidate. Green (a California native) will make $500,000 playing for an unaffiliated team in Southern California and have a college scholarship waiting for him for when he wants it. Isaiah Todd, another top prospect, decommitted from Michigan and will join Green in the G League. We’ll have more on this next week. It’s an enormous step for the G League and the NBA … that will be rendered inconsequential in a couple of years anyway.
Brilliant idea from Keith Smith: re-open the NBA inside the total self-sustained, currently closed Walt Disney World.
Steph Curry in TIME Magazine on small gestures and hope. Curry is one of the best people we’ve got. Salute to him and Ayesha.
A deep dive on how various types of in-arena music affect the Sixers.
Sam Amick of The Athletic is hearing optimism the NBA season can be saved. ($)
I totally agree that the Pistons’ No. 2 pick in 2003 is one of the greatest what-ifs in modern NBA history. The other one is if Memphis won that lottery and drafted LeBron to join Pau Gasol instead of getting No. 2 and have to ship the pick to Detroit.
Mike Prada on the 16 teams ROBBED of a championship. No comment.
Ten stories Dan Devine wants addressed in the The Last Dance.
Kirk Goldsberry on Michael Jordan’s revolutionary approach to scoring.
Lovely idea from Michael Pina: a book recommendation for fans of every NBA team.
Thanks so much for your support. Be excellent to each other.
That Goldsberry article is incredible. So much to unpack on Jordan. Simply unreal how good he was from midrange. I would have loved to see shot charts from his late 80s runs v late 90s. Also, even in that last season, his reduced efficiency was still pretty good given his role.
My petty question: can we get someone to call out Michael Jordan for "hurting" basketball by encouraging millions of kids to take impossible shots?