In the NBA, most players can be grouped through a binary dichotomy. They’re either a dog-type player—meaning, they have at least a little bit of that dog in them—or they’re a soft-type player—meaning, they’re at least a little soft. Mike Conley? Dog-type. James Harden? Soft-type. There are some complications. Saying “board man gets paid” is a dog move, but load management is soft. Kevin Durant is definitely soft-type, but he’s funny and good so we don’t want to dwell on the softness. Nikola Jokić is dog-type, but he paradoxically doesn’t seem to love basketball. The list goes on. Overall, though, you can usually throw a player into one of the two buckets. This is the crux of MJ vs. LeBron, our nation’s most significant debate since Lincoln defeated Douglass (in the long run).
One of the most difficult players to place on this continuum is last night’s hero, Luka Dončić. Is Luka clutch? It would seem so. He’s certainly put together a lot of clutch moments. Is Luka’s defense that bad? Not necessarily. He’s getting better. Is Luka a little doughy? That’s the problem. Yes. Luka Dončić is a little doughy. There’s nothing wrong with that in and of itself. I’m a little doughy too. But when you’re a little doughy, you need to either accept it, lean into it, or put an end to it.
Putting an end to it can be difficult. It’s not easy to get shredded. Plenty of rich and famous folks do it, but it takes a lot of time, and it’s not very fun. Leaning into it is also hard, and it’s probably a bad move. Reinventing one’s game to be a booty ball specialist who throws his weight around, just to satisfy the blogosphere? That feels like an overreaction for a guy whose career is going great. And yet…
And yet at the same time, Dončić really doesn’t seem to want to accept it. He doesn’t want to be known as the husky guy. His second-most notable moment of the regular season, the one where he asked for a Suns fan to be ejected after that fan told him to get on the treadmill, was a soft-type move if there ever was one. Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe Dončić, despite being clutch, is simply a soft-type guy. It’s weird that we’ve defaulted away from this with European imports.
What to Do About the Jokić Brothers
Strahinja Jokić (dog-type) punched a fan in the face the other night in the stands after the Nuggets game. It was caught on video. Denver police are investigating. This isn’t the first time a Jokić brother has been involved in an altercation at one of Nikola’s games. I think this is the first time with a real punch to the face, though?
I don’t fully understand why my instinctive reaction to this is, “let ‘em live!” Maybe that would be justifiable if it looked like it was in self-defense, or if there was reason to believe that the recipient of the punch said something really bad to ol’ Strahinja. Instead, we have an established precedent of Nikola Jokić’s brothers being ready to throw down when the situation does not call for them to be involved. If anything, circumstantial evidence here points towards Strahinja as being in the wrong.
Still, I can’t help but think of the Jokić brothers like they’re bears. Just big, strong guys who don’t avoid conflict and like to settle conflict by escalating conflict. If you’re in the crowd at a basketball game and there’s a bear a section over, you should probably behave accordingly. Surely the guy who got punched wasn’t entirely innocent. Right?
Reggie Bush and NIL
Reggie Bush got his Heisman back, and people are pumped. I’m still a little confused by this. I get why Reggie Bush cares, but out of all the injustices in the world, it’s funny that so many people have hitched their wagon to this one. Is it good that it’s back? Of course. I’m just surprised it’s such a big story. Since we’re here, though…
Saying Reggie Bush got this back because NIL is now legal mischaracterizes what happened with Bush. Did Bush get paid to play at USC? Maybe. But that’s not what the investigation was about. The investigation was about a guy named Lloyd Lake who wanted to be Bush’s agent when he eventually entered the NFL. Lloyd tried to entice Bush with gifts during his college career. This was that kind of payment scandal. Not a pay-for-play deal.
There’s definitely a tie to NIL here—college players actively need agents these days, in some form—but this line equating Reggie Bush’s payments with those drawing transfers to different schools is a little off-base. Getting it right isn’t that consequential, but honestly, we felt like we needed a Reggie Bush take somewhere on the site today, and this was the best we could muster.
Who Is Nelly Korda?
So there’s a woman named Nelly Korda who plays on the LPGA Tour, and she won her second major on Sunday. Evidently on the LPGA Tour, the Chevron Championship is a major. The win was Korda’s fourth straight victory, which is an insane run. All of the tournaments have come in the last five weeks, and only one was match play—the rest were the standard four-round professional golf setup.
There’s been an accusation from the women’s golf corner that the media isn’t paying enough attention to Korda, and that this is because she’s a woman. There might be some truth to this, but I think there’s something else at play here too:
We just don’t pay that much attention to golf.
Nothing against it!
We just don’t.
Etc.
Chicago:
- Great Cubs win last night. Loved it. Didn’t love the part where Cody Bellinger got hurt, but the rest was awesome. In honor of it coming against the Astros, here’s a video my friend sent me today. It’s a couple years old, but I hadn’t seen it before. Enjoy.
- My favorite part of the Bears’ stadium renderings (besides how cute it is that they’re pretending they’ll make this happen as advertised) is that they have STADIUM written across the big glass wall. I know it’s a placeholder for the sponsor’s logo, but it looks so goofy. Like they’re warning birds that this is a large wall of glass and not open air they can fly through.
Joe Kelly and the Ottawa Senators:
- Non-zero chance Joe Kelly gets a save opportunity tonight in Washington. Evan Phillips threw a ton of pitches last night, and Daniel Hudson got a lot of work in too. The pressure will be on Dave Roberts to cave to the haters. But there is always time to do the right thing.
- The Belleville Senators open the Calder Cup Playoffs this evening at home against the Toronto Marlies. Go Sens Go.
