Heavy Halloween

Hopefully you will find happiness on this most playful of holidays ... but joy continues to be fleeting for the NBA at the start of the season

I flipped on the TV on Friday morning and saw an actual MVP debate on ESPN's First Take.

On Day 11 of the new NBA season.

It struck me as utterly preposterous and, yet, totally predictable.

And then, by Monday morning, I was longing for that sort of content.

The NBA weekend was that dispiriting for a league that has been besieged by heavy headlines since September that seem to only get heavier.

On Friday night, as tipoff rapidly approached against Chicago, San Antonio abruptly released Joshua Primo, whom the Spurs selected with the 12th overall pick just last year. It emerged the next day that Primo, 19, is alleged to have exposed himself to a former female Spurs employee.

Michael Grange @michaelgrange

Still shocked at news Spurs waived 2nd-year guard Josh Primo who had his option picked up before the season and was under contract through 2023-24. No one is saying anything right now, but this is what Gregg Popovich had to say about Primo just 10 months ago:

The next night saw Brooklyn's Kyrie Irving criticized by Nets owner Joe Tsai for his apparent support via Twitter of a movie widely perceived to be anti-Semitic ... followed by a tepid statement of criticism from the league office that did not specifically mention Irving (and misspelled anti-Semitic in its first version) ... followed by Irving defiantly telling reporters after the Nets' embarrassing home loss to short-handed Indiana that he was also defending a recent post to his Instagram story of a 2002 video featuring Alex Jones' "New World Order" conspiracy theory.

"I'm not going to stand down on anything I believe in," said Irving, who finally did delete his tweet by Sunday night.

Wedged amidst all that: The well-chronicled rise in social media hate speech in recent days since Elon Musk took control of Twitter drew this worthy rebuke from the Los Angeles Lakers' LeBron James:

LeBron James @KingJames

I dont know Elon Musk and, tbh, I could care less who owns twitter. But I will say that if this is true, I hope he and his people take this very seriously because this is scary AF. So many damn unfit people saying hate speech is free speech. https://t.co/Sy0jvXIBnC

philip lewis @Phil_Lewis_

Elon Musk's Twitter takeover sparked a surge in the use of the N-word on the social media platform. A social media research group told The Washington Post the use of the slur increased by nearly 500%. https://t.co/49CJVwuyIe

All of this, of course, follows a steady stream of bleak headlines in the run-up to the season, from the repulsive and sad Robert Sarver saga in Phoenix to Ime Udoka's seasonlong suspension in Boston to the Draymond Green practice-floor punch in Golden State.

I get to the usual around-the-league notes in this cyberspace farther down, but there's no