Minnesota’s Tyus Jones is listed at 6’2″, although that may be generous.
LeBron James is… LeBron James.
Jones found out just what a defensive force LeBron is in the first half when the veteran had a monster block.
Jones got his revenge later. LeBron was sizing up Jones for one of his patented chase-down blocks, but Jones put on a little burst of speed.
Minnesota has owned this game, up 69-42 at the half.
Kawhi Leonard has made it known that he wants to play in Los Angeles. Specifically with the Lakers, although playing for the Clippers reportedly has become more of an option as of late for Leonard.
Still, for the meantime the former San Antonio Spurs star will be playing with the Toronto Raptors, at least to start the season. Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri leveraged his goodwill from the city as well as the future of his team by trading DeMar DeRozan to get Leonard. Now, the question is whether Leonard will be healthy enough to play, or whether he will prove difficult much in the way he was last season in Texas.
Rumors are already swirling in Ontario about whether or not Leonard will prefer to stay with the Raptors after this season when he can opt out of his current deal. According to at least one rumor, some close to Leonard think he will stay with Toronto.
Via The San Diego Union-Tribune:
Here’s what someone who knows Leonard as well as anybody told me privately: “He’s going to fall in love with Toronto – it’s going to happen. He’s not going to leave, I’m telling you.”
We have to treat this as hearsay at this point, as a lot of the recent talk from people rumored to be close to Leonard has turned out to be inaccurate.
Even further, Leonard’s wants and actions have been hard to predict. Two years ago, Leonard changed agents and with the help of his uncle, has taken a new direction with his business management. It’s been staunch, and conservative, and stubborn. On paper, forcing his way away from the best-run franchise in the NBA is a real head-scratcher.
That’s also why you can’t necessarily dismiss the idea of Leonard staying in Ontario. His wants and needs seem to shift, and what will affect him one day to the next seems hard to gather. It’s entirely possible that he ends up liking playing in Toronto, and the city itself, which is magnificent.
Yes, we all saw the rumor that Leonard doesn’t like the cold, but that contradicts with the idea that Leonard is “all about basketball”. It’s not as though the basketball situation in Los Angeles is better than the basketball situation in Toronto. And despite their playoff failures, you could say that management installed in Canada is better than those acting in Southern California.
We will see whether Leonard even plays a significant amount of games for the Raptors. We all thought it was impossible that he would sit out an entire season for San Antonio last year, and now we can’t dismiss that possibility moving forward. Getting him on the floor and in a Raptors jersey is first.
Then we can talk about him re-signing in Toronto.
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Cleveland Cavaliers guard JR Smith isn’t the most aware player on the court. We learned that the hard way during the NBA Finals.
But life in Cleveland will move on, and with Smith apparently still on the roster for the foreseeable future. Smith was at one point in time a favorite of LeBron James, who is now wearing a Los Angeles Lakers jersey.
Apparently, that fact has finally kicked in for Smith. On July 22nd, three weeks after James made it clear that he was heading to the Lakers, Smith decided to finally acknowledge the departure of The King.
Via Instagram:
NBA players were not shy about sending out their reaction to James heading to the Lakers on social media the day it happened. No doubt actual teammates of LeBron would need to take some time to process it, but even guys like Cedi Osman were more punctual with their well wishes.
Los Angeles and Cleveland will be interesting teams to watch next year, and largely for the same reason. Each might end up being a complete tire fire, although they will attack things from different ends of the spectrum. How Smith operates in that void for the Cavaliers will be interesting to watch.
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A trip to the DMV is never at the top of anyone’s list of ways to spend an afternoon. Still, it’s a necessary evil of adult life.
The DMV is a place for rules, one of the most common ones is that you are not allowed to smile in your picture for your driver’s license. In Cleveland, the DMV there has decided to make a small alteration to their camera setup to ensure that citizens follow this rule.
Specifically, they taped a photo of LeBron James in a Los Angeles Lakers jersey to the camera that takes the driver’s license photos.
Via Twitter:
At least for this year, putting a photo of LeBron on a camera at the DMV in the Cleveland should keep straight faces on people getting their photo taken. However, seeing as the Cavaliers probably won’t be very good moving forward, it might be just as easy to tape a photo of the team logo up there.
It appears that everyone is upset about Lebron leaving for the LA.
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DeMar DeRozan did not want to be traded from the Raptors.
He will eventually warm to San Antonio and the Spurs, but for a franchise that has seen star after star push their way out of town — Chris Bosh, Vince Carter, Damon Stoudamire, and on down the list — DeRozan was the one guy who embraced the city, repped it, and not only said he wanted to stay but did just that. DeRozan was all in on Toronto and loyal, and they shipped him out anyway. It may well have been the right basketball move, but it was cold. And a lot of Raptors fans were not happy about how it went down.
DeRozan, classy as always, thanked the Raptors fans in a heartfelt Instagram post.
Someday they will retire DeRozan’s jersey in Toronto. Deservedly so.
