A Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza before a Christmas + Hanukkah Extravganza
Featuring the usual dose of Numbers Game goodness and some important announcements about Wednesday's five-game NBA slate (and our plans here)
Happy Holidays everyone!
Two Christmas Eve announcements:
1. I will launch an all-day chat thread Wednesday to run concurrently throughout the NBA's five-game Christmas Day slate. My only request: Please put any and all of your Wednesday chat commentary on the main thread rather than starting new threads. I want to make sure everyone sees everything and keeping it all on one thread is the easiest way to do so.
2. Last Wednesday I asked for your ideas and submissions for an NBA Best Of 2024 story that I am hoping to publish as a Group Project with input from all over our community. This might not have been my best idea because I've barely received any suggestions for the piece thus far. Check out the explainer story again and remember: You can pitch any NBA memory you have from 2024 for the piece. Best Game. Best Player. Best Moment. Best Dunk. Best Sneakers. Best Tunnel Fit. Best Playoff Series. Best Trade. Best Buzzer-Beater. Best Picture. Best Player. On and on and on. Invent your own categories, too. The floor is completely open. Suggest anything that comes to mind. I will also be seeking your input as part of the Christmas chat because we don't have nearly enough material yet for a full story.
Group Project Time: Please help me assemble an NBA Best Of ... 2024 edition
Astute readers will surely notice that this is one of those rare Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganzas that is actually publishing on a Wednesday.
Before the calendar year runs out, I would still love to run a piece that features a cross-section of standout memories supplied from various readers of The Stein Line. Once again: The floor is completely open. Suggest whatever NBA-wise that comes to mind in the comments section as an unforgettable memory from 2024. No limits. Be as creative as you want.
All I am hoping for is a cross-section that's sufficiently large to give me enough to assemble a full story. Please help me properly put a bow on the calendar year by remembering everything that should be considered for a list like this. Collective brain power can only help the ballclub.
The Stein Line is a reader-supported newsletter with both Free and Paid subscriptions available … and those who opt for the Paid edition are taking an active role in the reporting by providing vital assistance to bolster my independent coverage of #thisleague. Feel free to forward this post to family and friends interested in the NBA and please consider becoming a Paid subscriber to have full access to all of my posts.
As a reminder: Tuesday editions, on this and every Newsletter Tuesday, go out free to anyone who signs up, just as my Tuesday pieces did in their New York Times incarnation.
(Pickleball) Year In Review Video
The PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball asked me to assemble a video essay to tell the story of America's fastest growing sport in 2024 … which included a merger reminiscent (at least on this scorecard) of the NBA absorbing four ABA teams in 1976.
The piece has been out since last Thursday on Twitter but I wanted to share it here for those of you, like Hall of Famer Rick Barry and me, who have been hooked on pickleball:
Numbers Game
🏀 2005
Hanukkah finally begins Wednesday on Christmas night and has landed on Christmas only five times since 1900 … and only twice in my lifetime: This year and 2005. It also happened in 1910, 1921 and 1959 … but I gotta be honest: I don't even remember it happening in '05. There were only two Christmas Day games that year — including a second straight Shaquille O’Neal vs. Kobe Bryant Heat/Lakers showdown — but I had to look that up as well. Aging ain't easy, y'all.
🏀 8
The Spurs visit Madison Square Garden for the NBA's first of five Christmas Day games at noon ET on Wednesday for San Antonio's first Dec. 25 date in eight years ... and thus obviously the first of Victor Wembanyama's career. Minnesota's Anthony Edwards likewise makes his Christmas Day debut in the second of five games on the schedule when the Timberwolves visit Dallas.
🏀 1993
In his most recent game against the Knicks at home in March, Wemby had the NBA's first 40-point, 20-rebound game for a rookie since Shaquille O'Neal in 1993.
(Editor's Note: I had this wrong in the first version of this piece that went live Tuesday by stating that Wemby's 40/20 game happened in New York. It did not; good catch from Spurs broadcaster/avid reader Dan Weiss. In Wemby's only previous MSG appearance in November of his rookie season, Garden-goers were chanting "overrated" at the French phenom. Would they dare do that again?)
🏀 94
Wembanyama needed only 94 regular-season games in the NBA to sink 200 3-pointers.
🏀 187
In his first 94 games in the NBA, all-time triples leader Stephen Curry sank 13 fewer 3s than Wemby: 187.
🏀 57
The Spurs' visit will mark the Knicks' league-record 57th Christmas Day game. The tradition of a Christmas Day game at The Garden began in 1947.
🏀 40
No chance I was going to let the opportunity pass to also remind you that this Christmas marks the 40th anniversary since my favorite player of the 1980s — Bernard King — unforgettably scored 60 points for the Knicks on Christmas Day against the Nets.
🏀 22
Boston and Philadelphia, who reunite on the defending champion Celtics' floor in Wednesday's third of five games, have met 22 times in the NBA playoffs — more than any teams have met in the postseason in league history.
🏀 5
Five days before his 40th birthday, LeBron James will appear in his record 19th Christmas game when the Lakers visit Stephen Curry and the Warriors. James, of course, is the NBA's all-time scoring leader and all-time Christmas Day scoring leader.
🏀 120
LeBron recorded his 120th career triple-double in Monday's loss to Detroit, as noted by my fellow Substacker Justin Kubatko, which leaves him trailing only Russell Westbrook (200), Oscar Robertson (181), Nikola Jokic (141), and Magic Johnson (138) in that category.
🏀 11
My Substacking pal
counted up no less than 11 former All-Stars — as defined by Haberstroh as being named an All-Star within the past three seasons — who all were forced to miss their scheduled games Saturday because of injury.
🏀 2
The G League Showcase in Orlando featured only two players eligible to be drafted in June: G League Ignite alumni Dink Pate (Mexico City) and Thierry Darlan (Rip City).
🏀 796
Leave it to my math-minded pal Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press to calculate that teams had won 796 consecutive games when taking a 22-point lead or greater into the fourth quarter before Miami's collapse in those circumstances last Friday night at Orlando. A comeback of that magnitude hadn't happened since Toronto overcame a similar deficit entering the fourth quarter against visiting Dallas almost exactly five years ago on Dec. 22, 2019.
There was nothing like watching Bernard King during the mid 80’s. His baseline turnaround in the low post was unstoppable. Such a unique player.
For what it’s worth I was at the mavs lakers in 2005 (? ) where the mavs blew a 26 point lead in LA.