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Tag Archives: Chet Holmgren

Summertime Serenade

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July 31, 2025
Sports
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One of my greatest weaknesses is an inability to remain calm; even when silent, my hands are shaking, or my feet are bouncing, or my eyes are darting. Because of the prolonged, unnecessary chaos happening in previously functional communities here and abroad, this is now my default state.

When the going gets tough, sometimes the going has to come to a complete stop. In a summer sponsored by atrocity, brought to you by the same people who convinced your bosses to lay you off or, better, yet, convinced you to get a STEM degree a decade ago before eliminating the sciences in favor of the bomb, it’s been a little difficult to focus on any one thing and even more so for the good.

Acknowledging all of that, though, means acknowledging the rest, the aforementioned good. The candle of joy, wherever and however possible, is now the daily pursuit of millions of us. Maybe we even shared in one of these instances.

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Everyday People

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June 22, 2025
Sports
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Sam Presti, a man from Massachusetts who split time at colleges before graduating from Emerson and landing with the more or less dynastic San Antonio Spurs of the mid-aughts under Gregg Popovich and R.C. Buford, is 47 years old. Since private equity clown[1] Clay Bennett hired Presti to generally manage the Seattle SuperSonics in 2007, the team has 1) moved cities, which has nothing to do with Presti and everything to do with Bennett, and 2) drafted four (4) NBA Most Valuable Players[2].

Three of them played together in a decisive NBA Finals game thirteen (13) years ago; the fourth plays alone on Sunday night. Drop your phone and stop talking about the Lakers, or Desmond Bane, or wherever you think Ace Bailey is going to land. Ex-Sonic Jeff Green – still active! – will likely be watching. Will you?

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The Paul George Finals, And A Word On The Knicks

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June 5, 2025
Basketball, NBA
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I mean, look: if the Indiana Pacers didn’t win this series after how they won Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, they would be the ones asking themselves about the future. They may still be, what with a matchup against the season-long best squad Oklahoma City Thunder. 

With Tyrese Haliburton (mostly) leading from the front – the chip on his shoulder almost verbally evident – and Pascal Siakam being the egg keeping everything together, Indiana didn’t roll through the 1-seed Cleveland Cavaliers with such ease only to sell out to the New York Knicks.

With a resounding 125-108 home win in Game 6, Indiana took care of business, ending both the series and, via collateral media damage, the NBA on TNT relationship. They face the 68-win Thunder in Game 1 tonight, with the series beginning in OKC.

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Tomorrow: The Future

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May 19, 2024
Basketball, NBA
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Today: the now. The Dallas Mavericks closed out the Oklahoma City Thunder, everybody’s favorite “look at this team!” team for the second decade in a row, in a sixth game on Saturday night to advance to the Western Conference Finals, where they’ll meet the winner of the ridiculous Denver Nuggets-Minnesota Timberwolves series, those teams entering a Game 7. 

With MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the now-underrated 2024 rookie do-everything big Chet Holmgren in tow and singing Aguilera to their hearts’[1] content, OKC dropped a 17-point lead. Melding at just the right time, Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving and the rest of the Mavs had come into the series operating an offense which countered Harden-era Rockets isolations with Curry-led dictation in Golden State circa-2017 to great success.

Against a calling-all-cars Thunder defense, the Mavericks offensive plan fell apart, but Dallas kept pushing. Its stars shining, and role players inhabiting exactly their spaces, they put a mirror to the slightly younger, slightly-brighter Thunder. In so doing, they put away a new-era league darling, one that calls to the past while looking toward a different future.

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(Approximately) 30 Thoughts On 30 NBA Teams, 2023-’24 Edition

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October 24, 2023
Basketball, NBA, Sports
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Welcome back. Depending on how you count the attempt at satire written in the midst of an early life crisis in 2014, and with apologies to the time in between the 2019-’20 season and 2020-’21 – spacing more questionable than the 2013-’14 Knicks, incidentally, but with a much more logical explanation – this is the tenth time we’ll be previewing every NBA team, so for those of you here from the jump, I must express some measure of appreciation.

A reminder, and a reintroduction: if you don’t know but you’ve been here this long, Robert Horry’s name is pronounced with a silent-H (‘Orry). His name is his name. He has more rings than Jordan, if that’s your thing, and he hit several of the most important shots in league history, with apologies only via volume in both directions to Kings fans and the Kyrie hive. 

Getting back to the point: you heard about him for years in the French leagues too, right? And even before that? Ah, so you saw what his wingspan could end up being? Not unlike the Burger King jingle that mutates each fortnight but remains an earsore in every iteration, the midseason tournament is coming for all of us: growth is the only mindset.

Watch your own fire burn as mine does. A model like yours? Nothing better. Just you wait and see:

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