Grind City Media’s Lang Whitaker and Kelcey Wright Johnson weigh in on the most pertinent news from around the NBA. What’s lit? What’s lame? Find out each week right here.
From: Lang Whitaker
Sent: Monday, March 1, 2021 10:50 AM
To: Kelcey Wright Johnson
Subject: IMHO
Kelcey,
I lived in New York City for almost two decades — pretty much my entire adult life. And I loved it so much. It wasn’t an *easy* place to live, and it wasn’t a cheap place to live, but it was an incredibly stimulating place to live, in every way one can imagine—emotionally, culturally, visually.
And in a city that was constantly changing and reinventing, one of the few things that was constant, other than the traffic and inflation, was that the Knicks were not very good. OK, sure, there were a few blips here and there. There was the season with Stephon Marbury and Lenny Wilkens, when the Knicks made the playoffs. There was the year Mike Woodson guided them to the Eastern Conference Semis. There was Linsanity, which last like two weeks but people are still talking about today.
Other than that? The Knicks just haven’t been good. Worse than that, the Knicks just haven’t had the patience to stick to a plan. Every time they start to rebuild and try to accumulate talent and put a system in place, they get antsy and try to hit the fast-forward button, and the next thing you know, they’ve traded away their draft assets and find themselves right back where they started.
But this season, Kelcey, maybe things have changed? The Knicks are currently 18-17, which is good enough for 4th place in the Eastern Conference. They went 9-5 in February, their first winning month since 2017, and they seem to have an identity and a plan in place. What do you think, Kelcey, have the Knicks finally turned a corner? Are the Knicks back?
From: Kelcey Wright Johnson
Sent: Monday, March 1, 2021 10:12 PM
To: Lang Whitaker
Subject: Re: IMHO
First off, I am jealous that you lived in New York for so long! Manhattan is my favorite place to visit (although, now that I think about it – it may be too overwhelming for me 365 days straight).
But I digress…
I guess I’d need you to define what ‘back’ means? I don’t think they’re winning a championship in the next five years, but I also don’t think they’ll see the bottom of the pack over the next five years either. So, my answer in short would be: they’ve definitely dug themselves out of the dark hole that was the Knicks the past few seasons.
They’ve got some young pieces like RJ Barrett and Obi Toppin with some good veteran pieces like Austin Rivers and Julius Randle. It makes it a great base to build off as the older players teach and guide the young guys to eventually lead the way, as the team continues to get more young pieces in the coming years.
Like I said, I think the Knicks are still a few big pieces away from a real playoff push, but I do think they’ll *make* the playoffs this year in the East. As I type that, I realize how crazy that actually is after their 21-45 season last year. Dang. Maybe I’ll tell my mom to dig out her old Knicks t-shirts from the 90s.
Meanwhile, the Rockets were 44-28 last season and now they’re chilling at the bottom of the Western Conference with the Timberwolves. What on earth do they do moving forward?
From: Lang Whitaker
Sent: Tuesday, March 2, 2021 10:27 PM
To: Kelcey Wright Johnson
Subject: Re: IMHO
You nailed it re Manhattan. Amazing place to visit. Great place to live. But after a while… whew. Let’s just say it made me appreciate what we have here in Memphis even more.
The one good thing about what the Rockets have done is in hitting restart, they have a lot of assets — something like every Brooklyn Nets pick for the next eight years. I liked the idea of building around Boogie Cousins and John Wall, but now Boogie is gone, and Wall has two years left on his contract after this season.
I really want John Wall to get back to where he was before the injuries, but I don’t know if that’s possible. He was a star, part of the NBA’s upper echelon. (Randomly, at the first NBA Awards show a few years back, the one that Drake hosted, I was given a ticket to be inside the room, to write about the show. Because there were no actual media seats, I had to be at a table, and I was given a seat at John Wall‘s table. I didn’t know John that well, but I enjoyed sitting with him and his family and friends that evening. Luckily, I’ve known his agent, Rich Paul, forever, so I had someone to chat with.)
If anything, younger players should watch Wall play and realize just how crucial it is to develop a consistent jump shot. Because eventually, when the elite athleticism begins to fade just that tiny bit, having that jumper is what will eventually even things out for you and keep defenders at bay. Just look at Chris Paul, who remains lethal because of that jumper.
Anyway, the Rockets seemed like they were trying to have it both ways — rebuilding while remaining competitive. But it doesn’t work that way in the NBA. They have to decide if they’re hitting reset, or trying to win with this crew. Whatever the choice, they don’t have time to waste.
Kelcey, the All-Star Game is happening this weekend, apparently, with about as little fanfare and excitement as an All-Star Game has ever had. How do we feel about this All-Star experience? Will you even watch? Do you care who wins? Or are we just trying to get through this healthy and get on to the second half?
From: Kelcey Wright Johnson
Sent: Wednesday, March 3, 2021 9:12 AM
To: Lang Whitaker
Subject: Re: IMHO
You definitely don’t feel the same buzz surrounding All-Star weekend as you usually feel but as someone who has only ever watched on TV, I think it’s going to feel about the same to me.
I thought watching NBA games this season with little to no fans was going to be weird, but really it’s been fine. The league and TV networks have done a good job at making it feel somewhat normal, so I assume it’ll be the same thing.
The only thing I will miss is watching all the players gathered up on the sidelines during the dunk contests — sometime their reactions made me more pumped than the actual dunks themselves.
One thing I will say about All-Star weekend though, is that it’s kind of perfect for someone like me… Let me tell you why. During All-Star, I never liked all the *extra* stuff like the celebrity game. I don’t really care to watch Selena Gomez and Chance the Rapper dribble the ball. I don’t know if that’s mean? But this year, it just seems that they’re trimmed all the fat and we just get the really fun stuff. We get the skills competition, the three-point competition (my fav), the dunk competition and the actual game. I’m 100% here for it.
I also 100% understand where LeBron, and many other players, said about being there physically but maybe not mentally. Last year and this year combined have been completely draining and there wasn’t a lot of time off but these guys are true professionals and I love it’s going to be a good event to watch. They’re still going to have fun and that’s really what makes All-Star entertaining.
What’s your favorite part of All-Star weekend to watch, Lang? I’m scared you’re going to say the celebrity game that I just trashed.
From: Lang Whitaker
Sent: Tuesday, March 2, 2021 10:27 PM
To: Kelcey Wright Johnson
Subject: Re: IMHO
The thing people need to understand about All-Star Weekend is that it is essentially a weekend made for TV. All the events, the luncheons, the skills competition, three ball, even the game, all that stuff is just for television, essentially just to satiate advertisers.
And no, I would not select the Celebrity Game as my favorite part. Although I was assigned to cover the Celebrity Game the year we were all in freezing Toronto, and I got off one of my best lines ever: The creepy Property Brothers from HGTV were in the game, and they were *not good,* so I had some line about them showing their skill with bricks in my game story.
Kelcey, I have attended at least 15 All-Star Weekends (I’m too lazy to count them at the moment, lol). And for those of us working in or around the NBA, All-Star was always like a big convention. In pre-Covid times, so many of us were constantly on the road, bouncing around from arena to arena, and All-Star (and the Finals, to a lesser degree) was our chance to catch up in person, to grab a drink, have a seat, and see folks in person. There were parties, and random celebrities walking around, and a chance to check out a new city, and… I realize I sound like I’m talking about something ancient, lol.
But honestly, the game is usually the least-remembered part of the weekend. The first game I thought of was in Atlanta in 2003, when it was supposed to be Michael Jordan’s swan song, but Kobe insisted on sending the game to overtime and getting the West the win. The dunk contest I’ll remember the most was probably from Brooklyn in 2016, when Aaron Gordon and Zach LaVine went toe-to-toe. I remember I was assigned to cover that dunk contest for NBA.com, and I was honestly hoping it would be as underwhelming as the ones from the last few years, so I could get out of there and get to a GQ party that night, featuring The Roots and Dipset. And then that contest started and it was incredible, and I had to sit there and write something that conveyed how great it was. I made it to the party eventually—I remember as I walked in, all the people at the door went crazy because Kendall Jenner pulled up.
Since I’ve been in Memphis, I haven’t been to an All-Star Weekend, because frankly I needed a break. But once we get over all this COVID stuff, I think I’m ready to go back.
So yeah, I’ll miss All-Star Weekend, but probably not for the same reasons as most folks.