Once upon a time, the Bucks dressed so fine. They threw some dimes in their prime, sure, but: they acquired an all-time player who led them to a championship, and they may have done it again. Didn’t you?
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It tracks that the last song Jimmy Buffett ever played before a live audience was the one on which he built his empire of relaxation: “Margaritaville,” a final salvo over this past July 4th weekend as a surprise guest of Mac McAnally, long a member of Buffett’s Coral Reefer band. Not unlike Prince exiting the stage following “Purple Rain,” or Tom Petty’s last performance ending with “American Girl,” there is something to going out on exactly the tune that laid the path for the rest.
Buffett, who passed away September 1st at the age of 76, defined the idea of getting away, however briefly. When a disgruntled coworker hits the bottle in the early afternoon, justifying it with the requisite “It’s five o’clock somewhere,” that’s a credit to the lifestyle Buffett envisioned for himself and sold at massive scale.
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An approachable, non-violent civil war always serves as a nice backdrop to a tennis match: think Sabarenka-Azarenza in 2019, or Wawrinka-Federer in Australia in 2017. For a moment there, we could’ve been talked into an incredible upset from one countryman to another, one of the late-night stunners that occasionally resonate into conversations about legacy and impact.
But Novak hit the switch in the third round of the US Open, and he never looked back. This is LeBron in 2018: penetrable, but incredibly dangerous when he commits to it. Realizing he was in something approaching trouble down two sets to none, Djokovic simply decided to win.
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“You’re still there, huh? We’re gonna do one more song, and that’s it.” His golden, overdriven guitar tone[1] was perfect. He’d already bettered Dylan in some respects; why not trying out Marvin at something way after midnight?
There’s a thing about certain Canadians (two’s a company; three’s a crowd; more: that’s a trend), A few tend to write better songs about the United States than Americans can. Familiarity breeds contempt, or something like it, but from pastoral documentation, à la Neil Young[2] and Joni Mitchell, to the psychodramaticism of The Weeknd and poptimism of Carly Rae Jepsen, some friends from The North hold the mirror up to Americans better than we can do unto ourselves.
You wanted a hit? Baby, maybe, he just did hits: “The Weight,” “Up On Cripple Creek,” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” fit the bill. Having backed The Hawk, Ronnie Hawkins, and then Bob Dylan, Jaime Royal Robertson, who died on Wednesday at 80, ran the gamut of roles in early rock bands. Later, he’d end up having to try to save his bandmates, and then himself. He knew how to get the best out of those around him, when the bells were ringing.
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It was really rather good.
I. On the Ground
It was like watching someone at a party explain why William Gaddis is great. Under that famously strong Dutch sunshine (said no one ever), Pecco Bagnaia again justified the common wisdom of what’s increasingly felt like a foreordained second MotoGP championship by controlling his second premier class Dutch TT victory from the front. It’s easy to see in hindsight how he drew in Marco Bezzecchi — the only other rider with a serious chance of beating him — just close enough before pouncing on Brad Binder and leaving Binder as a roadblock for Bezzecchi to deal with while he gapped them both; hell, it was easy to see in real time. We already knew the guy liked the place (a tattoo of the circuit layout on his arm in honor of his first win aboard a Moto3 Mahindra back in 2016 gives that away), but this one felt textbook to the point that merely seeing the result suffices.
Ever read J R and then try to talk about it with other people? That thing’s the sort of tedious masochism people will just yes you to death over because they don’t want to read it themselves, but also: They don’t really believe you because how could a book about a middle schooler amassing a business empire built on pennystocks told almost entirely in impenetrable dialogue be better than Lord of the Rings? It’s a boring discussion that would likely have you walking away doubting yourself because just listen to yourself.
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High school prospect Spencer Haywood joined the then-Denver Rockets for a season before jumping to the NBA, but with a few notable exceptions, the franchise remained in muck for much of its existence. One name change, one historically high-scoring era and a couple of generations of ridicule at the hands of – oof – Kings and Knicks fans, and the Denver Nuggets have finally arrived: 47 years after joining the NBA proper, the Nuggets have won the franchise’s first NBA championship.
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Happy Memorial Day! Great to see you! So, now that you’re here, it’s time to attack: Do you ever think about instigators, or why a lot of people die unnecessarily? Did you see the BARRY finale? What do you fear the most, and why is it the mirror? Anyway, haha, *high five*, let’s honor some of what we thought were the dead, but they’re still living.
Jimmy Butler has fulfilled his mission and obligation as The Man for the Miami Heat. Via the way the game is played today, et cetera, he found himself at the foul line with three seconds to go, the exact three seconds and three shots he needed to close out the Boston Celtics and end any speculation that the best-positioned team in NBA history to recover from down 3-0 would do so. He nailed all three, Michelobs surely on the brain.
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1, 2, 3…
At his core, he was a dancer. If Kobe was the Baryshnikov of his era, Carmelo Anthony was Albert Torres, engaging defenders at the elbow in a perpetual tango evoking their shared Puerto Rican roots. A step forward, a feint with his elbow, a half-pivot, then: gone, with the duck of his sweatband-adorned head. It was one of the seemingly endless ways Anthony could score; it didn’t look effortless, but, like a choreographed routine done right, it usually looked like he was having fun.
Except to older heads whose respect he ended up earning anyway, it doesn’t much matter that the biggest win of Carmelo Anthony’s career happened before he ever made it to the NBA. Everybody wants to win – of course – but winning was never the most interesting nor important thing about Anthony himself. On the day when the team that drafted him bounced the last team for whom he played from the playoffs, Anthony announced his retirement.
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Prior to the penultimate round of the NBA playoffs kicking off, a matter of only negligibly less importance took place in Chicago’s McCormick Place Convention Center. Mere steps from the closest stop off the CTA’s green line, the future of the NBA began to reveal itself. Several sweaty executives, a handful of younger NBA players and the odd nostalgia act rolled in as representatives of the fourteen teams eligible for lottery picks in this offseason’s draft.
The prize at hand? What we’ve known for two years, at least, if not longer: French prospect Victor Wembenyama, a 7’3” stir-fry of Kevin Durant, Kristaps Porzingis and Anthony Davis, if the scouting reports and highlights are to be trusted. Behind him, Scoot Henderson, along with several other players of varying overt Christian influence. But Wemby was the target, even for the teams with barely 1% chance of getting him. Twenty years after LeBron James’ draft lottery, a prospect of perhaps even greater repute has entered the chat.
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Tuesdays With Horry 