But now? Thanks to his crying and celebrating reaction to his jersey being retired in Toronto with the Raptors, he’s got a whole new meme that might be the biggest of 2024. He’s sobbing, shaking his hands and then screaming “COME ON!!!” to the grateful crowd. It’s wonderful, but also perfect meme fodder.
So here’s a roundup of some of the best ones we’ve seen from fans using the clip of the Hall of Famer:
Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Have feedback for the Layup Lines Crew? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey. Now, here’s Mike Sykes
Happy Friday, folks! Welcome back to Layup Lines. Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you’ve got a great weekend ahead of you.
We’re about an eighth of the way through the NBA season, which isn’t very much. Teams have only played about 10 games or so at this point. There’s not a large enough sample of anything to make any determinations about everything.
But you know how the conversations about this league go. It’s always about who can make it to the end of the race instead of where teams are currently at. Who are the real championship contenders? How do you separate the real from the fake.
The conversation surrounds the usual suspects. In the West it’s the Thunder, Suns, Timberwolves, Nuggets and Lakers. That’s the championship circle at this point.
But in the East? All anyone seems to talk about these days is Boston — especially with the Knicks, Bucks and 76ers all floundering in their own ways. The path for Boston is supposedly easy in yet another all-time bad Eastern Conference.
Regardless of the outcome in this one, you should believe in the Cavaliers. Not just as one of the best teams in the East, but as a strong contender to dethrone the Celtics and make it all the way to the NBA Finals.
Cleveland has given you every reason to believe this season. The team’s +12.1 point differential is the best in the East today. Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland and Evan Mobley all look like All-Stars. Jarrett Allen has been elite defensively and a plus on offense. The wing depth that has been a sore point for this team over the last few years actually seems pretty good now.
Best of all, Kenny Atkinson is pulling the right threads. One of the major problems with JB Bickerstaff’s Cavaliers last season was that the combinations of players he threw together just didn’t work as well as you’d have wanted.
To be fair to Bickerstaff, a huge part of that was health. But it also came down to his overall decision-making.
For example, this season the Cavs’ second most played lineup of Garland, Mitchell, Mobley and Allen plus Isaac Okoro has played 31 minutes together and has a +22.2 net rating. That combination looks awesome together — especially defensively.
Subtle moves like that are what puts these Cavaliers over the top. The talent has always been there, but Atkinson is pressing the right buttons now. Things are working.
Obviously, things will slow down at some point. The Cavs won’t go 82-0. And this team has to stay healthy to remain in that championship circle.
But it’d be a huge mistake for you to overlook the Cavs right now.
Bronny 🤝 NBA G League
John E. Sokolowski-Imagn Images
Bronny James should finally have more opportunity to play. The Lakers have sent him to the NBA G League to play for the South Bay Lakers — the Los Angeles affiliate team.
Not only is it a huge deal that Bronny will finally get some reps, but he’s also making a huge difference for the G League already.
South Bay ranked last in attendance the season before last, drawing an average crowd of 441 fans per game. The venue has a small capacity of less than 1,000 people, for what it is worth, but drawing any interest to the Lakers G League affiliate is no easy task.”
I’m not sure I’d count being famous as an accomplishment on its own. But the fact that Bronny is this sort of draw is impressive.
This could be a huge deal for the G League moving forward depending on how long he plays there.
It is the correct decision for everyone involved and even has fans excited to check out the South Bay Lakers as his first game is already sold out. But why is the first-year pro no longer playing alongside his father?
Bronny will reportedly only play in home games for the South Bay Lakers, alternating his time between the G League and the NBA.
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While this isn’t necessarily the most logical path for Bronny to split time between the two rosters, his experience with South Bay will have tons of value.
It isn’t uncommon for a second-round pick to predominantly play in the G League, especially for someone who is as young as Bronny who did not get a surplus of collegiate experience in the NCAA.
This is not a punishment but rather the right path for a young player who only recently turned 20 years old and did not have extensive success in the NCAA.
The opportunity to play in the G League is a fantastic chance for a young prospect to develop their game, and it is where most second-round picks with his level of experience begin their professional careers. There is nothing very unusual about a rookie spending time outside of the NBA.
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South Bay ranked last in attendance the season before last, drawing an average crowd of 441 fans per game. The venue has a small capacity of less than 1,000 people, for what it is worth, but drawing any interest to the Lakers G League affiliate is no easy task.
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The NBA NEEDS Cooper Flagg in the Eastern Conference.
With all due respect to fans of woeful NBA teams like the Utah Jazz and Portland Trail Blazers, it’s time we have a frank conversation. And I apologize for how it will exclude your totally valid (but, to me, ultimately tertiary) needs as diehard supporters of your respective favorite teams.
The NBA’s latest truly generational draft prospect, Duke’s Cooper Flagg, must play in the Eastern Conference when he likely jumps to the league in the summer of 2025. Full stop.
There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it, either.
If we want to have a truly healthy and balanced NBA, throwing another potential franchise superstar like Flagg into an already-stacked West is a dire scenario for the league. The sheer talent disparity between the two conferences — the West has had more All-NBA players every season for 26 straight years — is already way too glaring.
The East’s embarrassingly slow start to the 2024-2025 season only confirms as much. It’s still a small sample size (less than 10 games into the year at the time of this writing), but here are some eye-opening early numbers to keep in mind if you’re one of those people who’d like to see Flagg play somewhere West of the Rocky Mountains:
Only two East teams, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics, currently have a winning record. That’s right. Quite literally, everyone else outside of Cleveland and Boston in the East is straddling the line at .500 or lower. Yikes.
Eight of the NBA’s 10 best records so far belong to Western Conference teams. Eight. EIGHT.
The West, itself, is winning over 70 percent of its games head-to-head with the East so far. That’s roughly a 57-win pace over an 82-game season, by the way. A real ho-hum kind of dominance.
The East, itself, is also being heavily dragged down by the struggling Philadelphia 76ers and Milwaukee Bucks, who were supposed to be bellwethers as conference heavyweights. From injuries and age to good old-fashioned bad luck, these two teams are instead mired at the bottom of the standings. Tough scene.
I know it’s tempting to say we’ll appreciate someone with Flagg’s unique all-around abilities wherever he plays. Which, sure. That’s part of the deal we make as sports fans. Sometimes, it’s just about sitting back and appreciating the show talented athletes can put on.
You take what you can get. I understand.
Still, this massive disparity between the NBA’s East and West simply cannot continue. Flagg and the San Antonio Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama are/were considered two of the best draft prospects in the league in years. For both of them to play on Western teams in a conference where, for example, a 50-win team was the fifth seed last season (a 50-win team was the No. 2 seed in the East) would be an unmitigated disaster for competitive balance.
Western teams already tear each other apart all year. Meanwhile, the 2-3 squads fighting at the top of the East get to be on cruise control as they please. A possible superstar like Flagg going West would just make it even worse. It’s not tenable or sustainable for players or fans of Western teams. (The conference really needs more “nights off,” if you know what I mean!)
The East needs an injection of potential all-time youth and talent. Badly.
So, this is my message to fans of fledgling squads like the Washington Wizards and Toronto Raptors. I’m really rooting for you.
Go capture that Flagg.
The NBA’s interconference competitive balance might depend on it.
Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla was asked to give an update about 2024 NBA Finals MVP winner Jaylen Brown.
Effective communication is important between a coach and his star player, but apparently, it does not always come naturally for Mazzulla and Brown. Boston’s head coach wasn’t able to provide much information about the wing because, according to Mazzulla, they both mumble.
Brown has missed his last three games for the Celtics due to a hip injury, but Mazzulla didn’t actually add additional insights for reporters during his press conference.
