No NBA season is complete, on this scorecard, without a trip to the Alamo City
So I sneaked one in before San Antonio is overtaken with Final Four visitors
After stops in Chicago and San Antonio, I just got back home from my final road trip of the regular season and will get my first in-person glimpse of the Atlanta Hawks later tonight in Dallas.
I was actually planning to accompany the Mavericks to Los Angeles this week for my maiden visit to the new Intuit Dome, but that will have to wait. There is simply too much work to be done getting ready for the still can't-believe-I'm-writing-these-words return of Luka Dončić to Dallas on April 9.
I intentionally pushed this Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza to Wednesday, in fact, just to be able to sound the proverbial One Week Away alarm bells.
Yet first I had to drop in on the Alamo City because A) it has been one of my favorite stops on the NBA map going back to my very first Texas Triangle road trip that took me to San Antonio, Houston and Dallas with the Clippers in March 1994, B) I consider it sacrilege to let a whole season elapse without making at least one visit to South Texas and C) I couldn't pass up the chance to see the Spurs, even Wemby-less, play host to Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler and the new-look Warriors.
It obviously wasn't much of a game in the end, but my pregame visit to the Spurs' media dining room ensured that the stop delivered at least one take-home memory. Because my only San Antonio trip last season was for Victor Wembanyama's very first NBA game in October 2023, I had not yet seen the back wall of that room which the Spurs, as of December 2023, have beautifully plastered full of blown-up magazine covers from yesteryear that are irresistible to a certain basketball nostalgist.
The Iceman on the front of the December 1978 edition of Basketball Digest?
Yes, please.
Also in San Antonio on Sunday night, I saw Mr. Curry briefly after Golden State's 148-106 laugher and had to ask the same rhetorical question that I posed to Bruce Fraser just before the longtime Warriors assistant coach ran Curry through his famed pregame warm-up routine:
How on Earth is it possible that Wardell Stephen Curry is now 37 years old?
The same age-defying Curry who, in his very next game Tuesday night, hit 12 triples en route to dropping 52 points in Memphis for his second 50-point game of the season.
PS — Can also pass along a couple snaps of the signage I saw at the airport as I was getting ready to fly out Monday night as San Antonio prepares to host the Final Four this weekend:
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.
Handy tips for Gmail users
Thought it wise to re-run these important and helpful suggestions from the support desk, for those who use Gmail to receive The Stein Line, to ensure that this newsletter gets to you expeditiously every time I post:
Numbers Game
🏀 3
Only two players born in Finland have appeared in an NBA game: Lauri Markkanen and Hanno Möttölä. Former Chicago Bulls draftee Eric Murphy, who appeared in 24 NBA games, has also played for the Finnish national team.
🏀 1
Finland can also now claim its first NBA head coach with Tuomas Iisalo replacing Taylor Jenkins in Memphis.
🏀 30
The Pelicans' Zion Williamson wound up appearing in just 30 games this season. He has only exceeded 30 games twice in his first six seasons in New Orleans — 61 games in 2020-21 and 70 in 2023-24 — and lost the entire 2021-22 season to injury.
🏀 65
Ballots for year-end awards are expected to be sent out by the league office on April 14 — one day after the regular season — to ensure voters receive a complete list of players who have appeared in the required 65 games for the award categories that feature 65-game minimums.
🏀 5
The five major NBA awards that require a minimum of 65 games played: Most Valuable Player, Defensive Player of the Year, Most Improved Player, All-NBA teams and the All-Defensive teams.
🏀 3
There is no 65-game minimum for Rookie of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year or All-Rookie teams.
🏀 30
Denver's Nikola Jokić leads the NBA with 31 triple-doubles this season after his 61/10/10 effort in the Nuggets' devastating loss to Minnesota on Tuesday night in double overtime.
🏀 10
The Lakers' LeBron James is next in line ... with 10.
🏀 3
Three more players have nine triple-doubles this season: Detroit's Cade Cunningham, New York's Josh Hart and Sacramento's Domantas Sabonis.
🏀 30
Jokić is only the fourth player in NBA history to post at least 30 triple-doubles in a single season. The other three: Oscar Robertson, Wilt Chamberlain and Jokić's Nuggets teammate Russell Westbrook.
🏀 42
Westbrook has posted at least 30 triple-doubles in one season three times and holds the single-season record of 42 from his MVP season in 2016-17.
🏀 40
Tuesday marked 40 years since Air Jordans first went on sale on April 1, 1985. The enclosed graphic was posted on the Bulls' social media channels:
🏀 3
A link to the latest NBA podcast curations from my three-times-a-week narration for Hark Audio is embedded in this sentence.
This Spurs fan remembers 2007 draft and read a lot about prospect they were monitoring - Finland PG Petteri Koponen.
Tiago was the better pick!
Marc, you sound more like a fanboy than a journalist when you write incessantly about Luka. Not all of us are as enraptured and would like YOU -- not just guests -- write about the 500 other players and 28/29 other teams in the league.