Did anyone check on Marc Gasol yet? He was last seen chugging an entire bottle of wine, followed by a beer chaser and fighting with a tree on top of a bus.

Is he up yet? Maybe he needs an ibuprofen? Maybe an IV?

This is an exhausting July in the NBA... and it's only June 19!

Grit'n'grind officially over in Memphis as Conley gets traded to the Jazz. I love this trade for the Jazz - I think they are a top 3 seed next year.

Also, Houston has ID'd their target for a 3rd max player to add to their lame-duck, conflict avoiding head coach, passive-aggressive ball-dominant MVP candidate and notoriously cranky, aging-not-so gracefully point guard: famous chemistry-improver Jimmy Butler!

As part of his contract with Houston, Butler is demanding a starring role in the insurance commercials. He's already pissing Harden off.

This yielded quite the morning coffee snort, thanks Jaybee! Sending to my brother in H'town.

I'm still not a Jimmy Butler fan, at all. Laker fans are screaming for him and I'm like "Why?"

I was never a huge fan of the Lakers imploding the entire roster for a player who can barely last a full season, in the current NBA with resting players.

gonna be an interesting season for sure.

I guess the thinking is that they need a 3rd top tier player to really have a shot at a title? I'm no Butler fan either, but for all the jokes I made at his expense after the Philly trade, there wasn't much in the way of chemistry issues there and he was definitely their second best player in the playoffs. I see a basketball fit there, but I think the Lakers would be way better off turning their remaining 30ish M (depending on when the trade finalizes) looking for a couple 15M guys instead of one max guy. That might at least give them 5 guys who belong on the court in a playoff game, depending on your opinion of Kuzma. They are gonna have g-league players from the 8th guy on down.

You are correct that their roster will be so top heavy that they won't be able to afford to rest AD and Bron too much, even against the Phoenix and Memphis type teams.

any thoughts on where Kawhi will land next season? hoping back to the raps for back to back.

How/why did Bol Bol fall so far in the draft?

From the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/s...s-results.html

(2nd paragraph is the relevant section)

LOL lakers. They are really pushing the boundaries of “team who gets the best player wins the trade”.

Meanwhile, David Griffin in NO is building your 2023 NBA champions.

He’s enormously talented, but sooo skinny. And I don’t think he has a frame to add muscle, just like his dad.

I hope I’m wrong, but I bet he is out of the league in 4 years.

I read people are also questioning his desire to play.... which I read put on muscle.

I hate this narrative. The dude is just genetically skinny. He could do 13000 calories a day and hit the gym 3x, and he would still be skinny.

It’s not a character flaw

Sure. But let’s be real 3/4 of the draft class are irrelevant after 4 years. He fell pretty far in the draft and I’m surprised no one took the risk sooner

Same. He was productive in college, when he played. Denver did well.