This Week in 🏀 can only lament our inability to uphold this publication's recent Media Day traditions

And also use this occasion to muse about Jimmy Butler's future in Miami

The first week of the 2024-25 NBA season was a whirlwind.

Also true: I probably underestimated, in my 50s, how tricky it might be to return from nearly three weeks in Europe on the night before Media Day, cover Day 1 festivities in Dallas and then hop on another plane almost immediately to fly to Las Vegas for Mavericks training camp.

Just can't switch time zones like I used to.

All the running around also meant that I couldn't maintain what had become a tradition in the brief history of this Substack by compiling the usual assemblage of my favorite quotes from the day that 28 teams in #thisleague took to podiums and microphones to reintroduce themselves to the masses for last week's Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza. I pondered whether to do it a few days later than normal but reasoned in the end that the moment had passed.

Jimmy Butler guarded by Tyler Herro at Heat training camp in the Bahamas. (📷: Miami's Twitter feed)

If there is a storyline from Media Day with staying power a full week later, mind you, it probably belongs to the Miami Heat.