None of this feels real to me. Not yet, anyway. It’s like we’re floating through an ethereal state of existence somewhere between awake and asleep. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something still feels off. The season has started. The music is playing. The lights are on. Is anyone home?
This was a win. From a basketball standpoint, the Spurs went out there against an overmatched Kings lineup and, mercifully, followed the script. They jumped on them immediately and never let up. Lobs, threes,
blocks, the works. It all ran like a well-oiled machine, and we were treated to a comfortable, easy win that doesn’t require much analysis. The Spurs are better than the Kings. Let’s pack it up and call it a day, yeah?
Because no one needs me to come into this space and tell you that when Julian Champagnie hits eight threes off the bench, the Spurs are hard to beat. It’s not breaking news that Wemby will have a big night if he gets unfettered access to the lane on barely contested pick-and-rolls. I’m not getting a Pulitzer for informing the noble readers of this site that if every team were the Sacramento Kings, we could start planning the parade right now.
All due respect to the Kings, who I know are a real NBA team, but all of this brings me back to a nagging feeling in my gut that we’re stuck in some sort of basketball purgatory where nothing is beautiful and everything is fine. The stakes are real, but the outcomes feel perfunctory. Or maybe it’s just me.
Look, I think I maybe died in June. Not literally, obviously, I’m still here typing away, but somewhere between the double-overtime Game 1 against OKC, the OG Tip-In, and the Knicks holding the trophy on our court, the part of me that does the feeling sort of got used up. I think I just forgot how much effort the playoffs require. How locked in you get, night after night after night. You redline it like that for long enough without the payoff of actually winning and then you’re just sitting there feeling empty. Waiting for it all to click on again.
I wrote after the opening night Thunder game that I didn’t feel ready for the season to start, and I’m starting to think the season wasn’t ready either. The whole league seems to be out of whack in oddly specific ways. The Knicks hung their long-awaited banner and then became the first defending champs to start 0-3 since the 2011-12 Mavericks. The Nuggets got booed at their home opener, lost by 20 to the Warriors, and Jokic is snapping back at the crowd. The Heat got Giannis and promptly turned into the Bucks. I’m even seeing reports that LeBron James is a Sixer? That can’t be right.
What else, what else. The Thunder are 4-0 and also might be in crisis. Jalen Williams was carried off the floor Sunday with a gruesome leg injury, Cason Wallace is headed for shoulder surgery, and Chet Holmgren is out with a bad knee. Are they, like, already maybe done? The new-look Wolves were off to a great start until word came down Tuesday that Ant is having knee surgery and will miss up to two months, a day after he scored 47 playing on it. Even Certified Iron Man Kawhi Leonard might miss some time with a swollen knee! (Ok, actually that checks out.) Meanwhile, Memphis and Portland are sitting near the top of the West. Just like we all predicted!
In that sense, I suppose the relatively routine nature of the Spurs romping over the Kings last night was a welcome sign of life. Something happened the way it was supposed to. The shots went in. No one got hurt. The crowd cheered and we all moved on to the next thing.
I just can’t wrap my arms around any of it yet, and I don’t think I want to. This is the preseason, for all intents and purposes. From now on, I’m going to try to just let this stuff happen however it needs to happen. Go smooth-brained with it. Shake off the losses, ignore the wins, and clap like a seal when there’s a big dunk or a loud noise. It’s fine. It’s all fine. Or it’s not. Whatever.
Late in the fourth quarter, with the game long decided, Harrison Barnes rose up over Alex Karaban and the whole building went nuts as he threw it down. The bench was on its feet. The announcers fell apart. Wemby even said afterward that he stood up so quick he got dizzy, and his explanation for all the commotion was simply that everybody loves Barnes.
Maybe that’s it. The season started before we were ready and we simply stood up too fast. The blood rushed to our heads, the room tilted a bit, and the whole place got a little too loud for a few seconds. We couldn’t tell whether we were waking up or just finally losing it for good. Honestly, I’ll take either. In a league where up is down and left is right, the most meaningful thing that happened in this game was a dunk that didn’t matter. It could be that it was just nice to feel some synapses firing again, if only for a moment.
We’re all losing our minds. Or maybe we lost them already. Either way, the lights are on.
It’s time to go home.
Takeaways:
- I just can’t help feeling like the season doesn’t actually start until Tobias Harris gets in the mix. He’s the skeleton key that unlocks this whole thing. Has to be.
- It’s really frustrating to watch this game and feel like this is how the whole thing is supposed to look but, because it came against the Kings, it’s hard to feel like it matters. It’s a scientific result that happened in a vacuum. It’s a scrimmage against cardboard cutouts and traffic cones. I liked it. I was happy with it. I don’t trust it even a little bit.
- That said, made shots beget made shots beget made shots. Mitch has emphasized a few times this season that the process for getting looks has been good and that the shots going in was a matter of time. Well, tonight they went in. The Spurs came in shooting 31.2 percent from three and went 17-of-37, including 13-of-22 before halftime, and we were all treated to just how effective this offense can look when that happens.
- I know Wemby can’t be this aggressive against every team, but it would have been more worrying if he hadn’t taken full advantage of a night like this. He missed all three of his threes and still scored 29, because 18 of his 21 shots were twos, including nine dunks, five of them off lobs. So everyone here at WWL headquarters is going to go ahead and give him a polite golf clap anyway.
WWL Post Game Press Conference
So you’re having trouble getting out of the blocks this season?
I really am. I wish I could say that I’ll stop talking about it sometime soon but I’m not sure I can make that kind of a commitment. I’m adrift. I’m waltzing around in no man’s land. I’m lost on the Penrose stairs in an infinite loop of wondering when this season will feel like it’s actually real.
It seems to me like you flew too close to the sun and now you’re trying to dig out of the hole with as many metaphors as possible.
I’m looking for any port in a storm.
Sounds like you’re just spinning your wheels.
I’m certainly burning the candle at both ends, I’ll tell you that much for free.
Maybe you’re missing the forest for the trees?
I probably just put the cart before the horse.
It’s still early, no need to clutch at straws just yet.
I’ll try not to beat a dead horse.
Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Gotta keep pounding the rock.
