The final (or first?) Tuesday of this NBA year
The league's calendar officially flips on Friday night with the start of free agency, but it's already a new year here
The NBA Draft was last Thursday. NBA free agency legally begins this Friday at 6 PM ET.
It's a momentous time.
It has also intersected with some important milestones for your humble newsletter curator that I wanted to briefly acknowledge in the only post from me this week that won't be 100 percent devoted to transactional matters in #thisleague.
I actually already mentioned the first one: Sunday marked the start of Year 3 for this Substack. The timing of our self-publishing birthday makes it a challenge to properly commemorate the occasion — I'm still not quite sure how I managed to bid farewell to 3½ very rewarding years at The New York Times and launch this publication on June 25, 2021, in the midst of the conference finals and the NBA Finals — but I do plan to uphold Substackian tradition and publish an extended reflections piece on Year 2 as soon as the player movement mayhem slows down long enough for me to do so.
Another recent date of grand personal importance: June 23. The day after the draft marked the official release date for the Nike Mac Attacks that, as I wrote in September, are the shoes I've been lusting after for reissue for (no exaggeration) decades.
Don't tell Mrs. Line but I've already ordered three pairs. I'm only three days into Year 3 of The Stein Line, but three pairs neatly packaged in that peerless checkerboard Mac Attack box seemed like the ideal amount of self-gifting to commemorate the occasion.
As I wrote last September:
I have been waiting for this day for as long as I can remember. There is really only one tennis shoe in the history of the sport that I would dare put in the same zip code as 1987's groundbreaking Nike Air Trainer: 1984's delicious Nike mid-top Mac Attack in light gray with a black swoosh and sexy swaths of gray and black mesh stitched in.
The vintage Nike checkerboard logo on the tongue that was synonymous with McEnroe at his mid-1980s best?
Chef’s kiss!
OK, OK.
Back to the real reason you read me in late June … readership for which I am truly, eternally grateful.
Links to my last three hardcore Free Agency Week and Trade Season pieces that have already published this week are enclosed here A) in case you missed them or B) if you’re not as nostalgic about John McEnroe’s old shoe as me:
On a major near-trade from draft night that may or may not be dead ...
The Phoenix Suns engaged in advanced discussions to trade former No. 1 overall pick Deandre Ayton to the Dallas Mavericks last week during the NBA Draft before the talks stalled, league sources say.
Who do the Rockets really want in free agency?
No team has been linked with more players, approaching Friday's night legal commencement of NBA free agency, than the Houston Rockets. That's not terribly surprising, mind you, when the Rockets are projected to have nearly $61 million in salary cap space.
Trade season, free agency week ... and all the latest I'm hearing
The spell checker on one of the phones I carry has been changing damn to Dame lately. Yup. Even my trusty BlackBerry KEY2 has Transaction Game fever. Even a phone last produced in 2018 finds itself gripped with curiosity about how Lillard will react to the Portland Trail Blazers’ decision to select Scoot Henderson with the No. 3 overall pick in last week’s NBA Draft rather than trade the pick for more win-now help.
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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.
Programming Notes
Amid the chaos of NBA Free Agency, our #thisleague UNCUT podcast which I co-host with Turner Sports' Chris Haynes made a little show history of its own on this Newsletter Tuesday with our first-ever live show.
Chris did all the heavy lifting by hosting an episode in front of a live audience at Charlene's Beauty Supply in Elk Grove, Calif., starring Kings guard Davion Mitchell as our special guest. I joined the broadcast remotely at the store recently opened in the Sacramento area by Chris and his wife Charlotte.
This wasn't the last live show we have planned, either. We can't share all the details yet, but the NBA's annual summer league in Las Vegas starts July 7 and let's just say that Chris and I are working on something special for a podcast we plan to co-host together soon on the famed Vegas Strip.
Please remember to rate, review and subscribe to the show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your pods.
Also ...
This week's subscribers-only chat will be held Thursday rather than Friday because Friday is the first day of free agency and is sure to be far too manic for me to be coherent.
The precise time is still TBD for the Thursday session, but I will send out an email to all as soon as that is nailed down. Click here to check out what you missed if you couldn't join us for last Friday's Q&A session and please click the orange button below just to familiarize yourself with Substack Chat ... either through the Substack app or the web version.
Numbers Game
🏀 1
Only one player who appeared in this season's All-Star Game in Salt Lake City is a free agent this offseason: Dallas' Kyrie Irving. (H/T to my Washington Post pal Ben Golliver for that gem.)
🏀 3
Only three No. 1 overall picks in NBA history since the advent of the draft lottery in 1985, of the 38 No. 1s to precede San Antonio's Victor Wembanyama, have gone on to win an NBA Finals MVP trophy: Tim Duncan, Shaquille O'Neal and LeBron James.
🏀 62
Wembanyama played 62 games this season in all competitions for his French League club Metropolitans 92 along with four appearances for the French senior national team. The Spurs' prized rookie announced in an interview with L'Equipe in his native France that, after being drafted by San Antonio, he scrapped his original plan to play for the French national team this summer at the FIBA World Cup. "It would not be realistic in terms of development and not prudent in terms of health," Wembanyama told the newspaper. "I hope people will understand. It's frustrating for me, too. The France team is still central for me. I want to win as many titles as possible with the team. But I think it's a necessary sacrifice."
🏀 1,214
Chris Paul has appeared 1,214 regular-season games in 18 NBA seasons with four teams (Hornets, Clippers, Rockets and Suns).
🏀 149
Paul has appeared in 149 career NBA playoff games.
🏀 0
Now a member of the Golden State Warriors, Paul has come off the bench in none of those 1,363 games combined.
🏀 11
Eleven of the 12 spots on USA Basketball's World Cup team for this summer have been filled with the recent confirmation that Orlando's Paolo Banchero has joined Brooklyn's Mikal Bridges, New York's Jalen Brunson, Minnesota's Anthony Edwards, Indiana's Tyrese Haliburton, New Orleans' Brandon Ingram, Memphis' Jaren Jackson Jr., Brooklyn's Cam Johnson, Utah's Walker Kessler, Milwaukee's Bobby Portis and the Los Angeles Lakers' Austin Reaves.
🏀 2
At least two of the 12 players who will represent the United States at the Worlds under Warriors coach Steve Kerr were initially expected to participate in the tournament for other countries: Banchero for Italy and Reaves for Germany. Both played so well this season — Banchero as Orlando’s Rookie of the Year and Reaves as a revelation who helped spark the Lakers’ second-half surge — that they became USAB recruits.
Thursday it is ! Those shoes look great by the way! Thanks for all you do Marc - it's never a dull moment and I'm learning tonnes each time!
That Chris Paul stat - wow !
3/38. Oof. Long odds for wemby to become what so many are hoping for. Wonder how many 1s are HOF? Someone probably has that stat ready