Published Monday thru Friday   

Basketball from a fans perspective

“I can dunk! I can dunk, and not just in NBA Live”

Chris Paul   

The Wemby report

I wanted to make sure I had an opportunity to witness Victor Wembanyama’s first regular season game. The bad news, the Spurs lost to the Mavs but it certainly wasn’t Wemby’s fault alone. The final score read Mavs 129 Spurs 119 as another Euro, Luka the Don displayed his growing talent. Luka led the way for his team with a triple-double…33 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists. As for wunderkind Wemby his game in my view was okay, if that appears to be a negative comment that is not the case. Wemby missed rotations at times, in addition he picked up early foul trouble BUT.

Wemby finished with 15 points on 8 for 9 from the floor, he registered 5 TO’s. The morning box score indicates a lone block shot although the stats from the game indicated he registered 3. Coach Pop “I thought his maturity showed, even at a young age, where he came in the last seven minutes and just played.” I thought this was noteworthy, the NBA TV crew of Grant Hill and Sam Mitchell were also quite complimentary on the game Wemby played as he adjusts to the NBA.  Mitchell said “When the Rockets drafted me 7 foot 4 Ralph Sampson was on the roster, Wembanyama is more talented than Sampson.”

Bits n Pieces

LeBron James logged just 29 minutes in his team’s loss to the Nuggets. The limited amount of time on the court is the plan for number 23 Darvin Ham announced prior to the season start. If you remember the Laker coach wants Anthony Davis to take over the leadership role for the team. You might be aware LeBron said much the same thing over the summer so we know what the mindset is of the coach and number 23.    

A portion of this is from clutchpoints.com and is quite interesting. On Wednesday the Spurs coach Gregg Popovich will begin season 27 at the helm. According to the .com site over that space of time Pop’s faced 307 different head coaches. Only 4 coaches have been with their team 8 years, this is the most telling fact. “Some coaches have been fired after a winning season, some have been fired after making the playoffs and some were fired after winning Coach of the Year.”

Speaking of Duke, you say it’s no big deal replacing a legend. The legend of course is Duke’s Coach K. Coach Jon Scheyer has signed a 6-year contract extension. Scheyer’s first year at the helm saw his team finish the season with 27 wins. In most pre-season polls Duke is listed number two so great things are expected this upcoming season. In addition the recruiting looks real good for the Class of 2024 prospects.

The unicorn returns

Kristaps Porzingis returned to MSG on Wednesday evening for the first game of the season. The former Knick has certainly played at “The World’s Most Famous Arena” previously, he wore the visiting jersey of the Wizards and Mavs. This time Porzingis returned as a member of the hated Boston Celtics, this was different than the other visits. The MSG crowd was hostile every time Porzingis touched the basketball and he acknowledged after the game that was okay.

Sidebar note here, I’m unsure if this is correct however I believe Porzingis was the first player I remember the term unicorn being applied. Just what is a unicorn other than the mythical creature, for that I headed to the dictionary. “Something (or someone) unusual, rare, or unique?” Back to the game, the Porzingis contribution was certainly key to the 108-104 win over the Knicks. In his Celtic debut Porzingis scored 30 points along with 4 blocks and 8 rebounds the most point total in the team’s history for a first time Celtic, his plus/minus was +13.