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Every year, the “Inside the NBA” crew tests how much Charles Barkley has been paying attention to transactions from the offseason with “Who He Play For” to the uproarious laughter of Shaq, Kenny, and Ernie. This year, with the broadcasting platform shift, they changed it to “Who He Broadcast For.” It went as well as you’d assume.
(Note: Not long before we were going to hit send on today’s Bounce, we learned about the arrests of Terry Rozier and Chauncey Billups as part of a federal investigation into illegal sports betting. More on that tomorrow, and we have live updates and developments here).
Wemby’s world
Yep, the Spurs’ young star is an alien
I understand if you’re not ready to be here with me (and others, I’m sure), but in no way does it feel hyperbolic to call Victor Wembanyama a top-five player in the NBA.
He’s only 21. His third year just started, and his second season ended early because of deep vein thrombosis. It’s easy to get caught up in moments and get too excited about a player.
But Wemby is absolutely a top-five player in the league right now. I feel comfortable saying Nikola Jokić and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are better, because of course. After that? I’ll listen to the arguments for Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Dončić. It’s cool if you think that’s absurd. But it’s not a definite case, if last night is any sign of what is to come and what is here today.
Anthony Davis is a really good defender, and with lots of logic, you might think he’s the ideal person to defend Wemby and take away what he’s good at doing. Wemby absolutely cooked Davis last night.
He dropped an easy 40 on him and Dereck Lively II and anybody else who was unfortunate enough to defend him, as the Spurs won 125-92. Everything Wemby did was easy. He went 15-of-21 from the field and 9-of-11 from the line. He took two 3-pointers and made one of them. He also had 15 rebounds and three blocks — though his presence had the Dallas Mavericks not really interested in exploring the paint.
There were so many highlights to choose from, but this was the one that had group chats flooded with swear words and social media racing to see who could post the video faster. Watch what he does to Lively here.
That’s what a 7-foot-7 Steph Curry would look like! They wouldn’t let you create a player like this in a video game past like 2009 because they decided to try to make things realistic. This happened about 10 seconds after he spiked a Lively shot in the paint.
Earlier in the game, he pump faked PJ Washington into the atmosphere, drove baseline, took a swipe on the arm from AD and did an up-and-under, two-handed, reverse dunk.
Just ridiculous for a man who might be upwards of 9 feet tall by the end of this sentence.
We’re a handful of paragraphs and two GIFs into this section, and I haven’t even mentioned that Cooper Flagg started at point guard and made his debut for the Mavs. It was supposed to be this great showdown between two of the most hyped prospects of the past 15 years. Instead, Flagg struggled and all of the shine went to Wemby. Flagg finished with 10 points on 4-of-13 from the field and 10 rebounds. Zero assists despite starting as the “point guard,” and most of his damage happened later in the game with the outcome decided. Dallas needs to get him more action going to the basket, which will be easier when Wemby isn’t stalking the rim
The Last 24
“Inside the NBA” was great. We are so back!
📺 Still the best! “Inside the NBA” debuted on ESPN last night. A full breakdown of it still being exactly what you want.
🏀 AI we like. Prime has a new docuseries about Allen Iverson. We find out the real Answer.
🏀 Mystery revealed! Remember the illness Kristaps Porziņģis couldn’t kick last season? It’s called POTS and it’s maybe affected by gravity?
😡 Pros in college? The NCAA allowed a G League player to sign with Louisville. Tom Izzo is furious about it.
🏀 New hire. The Toronto Tempo, your newest WNBA franchise, has made a decision. Sandy Brondello, who was just fired by the Liberty.
🏆 Larry’s back. When we get to the NBA Finals in June, we’ll see a familiar sight. The Larry O’Brien championship trophy logo will be on the floor.
Stream the NBA on Fubo (try it for free!) and catch out-of-market games on League Pass.
About last night
The Knicks showed out, and Ant is clutch now
The first marquee matchup of the full slate of opening night was the New York Knicks under Mike Brown and taking on the other prohibitive favorite in the East, the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Cavs (Darius Garland and De’Andre Hunter) and Knicks (Mitchell Robinson and Josh Hart) weren’t whole, but they still gave us a glimpse into what this battle could be all season.
The Knicks looked good under Brown and controlled the entire first half. Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby benefited the most from the new offense giving out more opportunities to the complementary players. The Knicks led by 15 at halftime, but that was erased in the third quarter by Donovan Mitchell. He scored 21 of his 31 points in the third. But Anunoby helped close things out in the fourth, and the Knicks won 119-111 to take the early lead in the East. Nothing alarming for Cleveland, yet, but that’s a nice start on any potential tiebreakers for New York.
If Anthony Edwards is clutch now? Watch out. (Jaime Valdez / Imagn Images)
Timberwolves 118, Blazers 114: The biggest knock on Edwards the last couple of seasons has been his inconsistency in the clutch. Decision-making just tends to wane a bit for him, and the results are so mixed. That didn’t happen against Jrue Holiday, Toumani Camara, Matisse Thybulle and Jerami Grant last night. Ant scored 10 of his 41 points in the final five minutes, including this dagger against Camara that put so much separation between him and one of the best defenders in the league.
76ers 117, Celtics 116: The Celtics were up nine with 3:47 left in the game. At home. The 76ers went on a 15-2 run to take a four-point lead, then survived a late flurry by the Celtics to take the road win. Payton Pritchard missed two shots in the final five seconds. The story of the game was the backcourt for Philly, though. Tyrese Maxey had 40 and rookie V.J. Edgecombe had 34 points in his debut. It’s the third-highest-scoring debut in league history. Wilt Chamberlain (who else?) has the record with 43, and Frank Selvy is second with 35. This is the most points in an NBA debut since 1959.
One other note: Joel Embiid looked awful. He had four points, six rebounds, two assists, and one block while shooting 1-of-9 from the field in 20 minutes. A win is a win, though!
Magic 125, Heat 121: Really strong debut for the new-look Magic. Balanced scoring from Paolo Banchero (24), Franz Wagner (24) and Desmond Bane (23). The team shot 40 percent from 3-point range, something that only happened 14 times last season. My one worry is the Magic had so little ball movement in the first half (but the shots were falling), but that seemed to improve in the second half.
Raptors 138, Hawks 118: Many people lauded the Hawks and criticized how expensive the Raptors are for their roster during the offseason. The Raptors made that look foolish, if but for a night, by trouncing Atlanta. Toronto scored 86 points in the paint (!!!!) and shot 68.5 percent on 2-pointers overall.
Jazz 129, Clippers 108: That’s not a typo. That’s real. The Jazz demolished the Clippers. They were leading 43-19 after the first quarter and the Clippers never made a real run. And the Inside the NBA crew got off this joke about the Kawhi situation. Walker Kessler led the Jazz with 22 points, nine rebounds, four assists, and four blocks. Remember he didn’t get an extension off his rookie deal.
Grizzlies 128, Pelicans 122: We finally got another battle between Zion Williamson and Ja Morant. Zion looked really good with 27 points, nine rebounds, five assists and five steals. But Ja was a bit better, scoring 13 of his 35 points in a 41-22 third quarter.
Bulls 115, Pistons 111: Rollercoaster game. The Bulls started out 35-19 after the first quarter, and then survived a 32-21 fourth quarter by the Pistons to hang on for the win. Nikola Vucevic led the way with 28 and 14. Cade Cunningham had 23 points and 11 assists, but shot just 8-of-24.
Suns 120, Kings 116: The Kings didn’t have Domantas Sabonis and got out to a 17-point lead at halftime. Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan combined for 59 points in the game. But the second half was all Suns, as they outscored Sacramento 66-45 to pull off the comeback win. Devin Booker had 31 points, and Russell Westbrook had just six points on eight shots in 19 minutes off the bench. How long is accepting this role going to last for him?
Bucks 133, Wizards 120: Giannis Antetokounmpo had 37 points, 14 rebounds and five assists to demolish the Wizards in the opener. Myles Turner had 11 points, five assists and three blocks in his Bucks debut. And Tre Johnson made his NBA and Wizards debut for 16 points off the bench.
Hornets 136, Nets 117: Brandon Miller had 25 points to lead the Hornets to the easy victory. Egor Demin came off the bench in his NBA debut to hit four 3-pointers for the Nets. Four of their five first-round picks played, and Demin was pretty much the only one of note, despite Ben Saraf starting.
