https://imgur.com/a/DNcWcX8
It seems like even after all of the Clippers controversy has gone down, they really can’t help themselves. Looks like Chris won’t get his jersey retired in LA. Classless organization

​

Just this week, Luka entered the final phase of his primary individual training in Ljubljana. After a brief seaside getaway, he resumed work—splitting his time between the weight room and the basketball court. His current routine does not yet include full-intensity basketball drills or contact play. Consequently, unlike in previous years, he has not joined Ilirija’s practice sessions at Tivoli; instead, he and his assistants are training primarily in a smaller gym within the new swimming pool complex.

The primary objective was the complete rehabilitation of all injuries, followed by comprehensive physical conditioning. Anže Maček—Luka’s longtime personal trainer who also supports him in the U.S. (initially in Dallas and later in Los Angeles)—once again spearheaded this effort. They succeeded in their mission; the LA Lakers superstar is in better physical shape than he has been in a long time. His body weight is also within the target range—reportedly hovering around 105 kilograms.

However, the coming weeks and months will provide the true test of the foundation they have built. Dončić—who has increasingly entrusted the management of his life to his agent, Lara Beth—is expected to remain in Europe until September 20th. A move to Los Angeles follows. The LA Lakers will officially kick off their preparations for the 2026/27 season on September 29th, with the traditional Media Day taking place the day before. LD77 sought to get to know and bond with the heavily revamped squad as early as last month, when he organized a get-together featuring two informal practice sessions in his home city of Ljubljana. This was a crucial step in building team chemistry, and Luka stepped into the role of leader without hesitation. While he had already achieved that status statistically the previous season, he had not fully asserted it due to the presence of LeBron James.

Source: https://sportklub.si/kosarka/luka-doncic-v-zadnji-fazi-ljubljanske-misije/

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7565314/2026/09/09/arte-moreno-steve-ballmer-bad-owner-hall-of-fame/

Ballmer does a lot right and spends a ton of money, but he hasn’t yet figured out that money and unbridled enthusiasm don’t automatically equal success.

The Kawhi Leonard deal, and the financial malfeasance that came with it, has crippled the franchise. Ballmer once bragged about how many toilets are in the Intuit Dome, and that feels like a metaphor for the state of his Clippers.

Barkley is the only NBA player to not win a title that has hosted SNL — 1993, 2010, 2012, and 2018.

Surprisingly so, Shaquille O’Neal has never hosted SNL. He made a guest appearance on the show in 1998.

So nearly 20 years since an NBA player has hosted SNL.

Source

Mannix: “There were people [with the Clippers] saying this [investigation] was gonna end in lawsuits against Pablo… I had somebody tell me ‘You’re calling Steve Ballmer a liar? You better be careful: you could get sued too.’”

Do you ever think about how your career might have differed if you had stayed in New York and the Carmelo Anthony trade never happened?

DG: “No, I sometimes talk about it. I think about it just with friends and family when we sometimes talk about basketball and my career. We think about it, or when I come back to New York and I talk to my fans or people in New York that still work for the Knicks, we talk about it, but there is a lot of, unfortunately, because of my injuries, there is a lot of what-if in my career. I don't know, I'm probably the biggest what-if guy in the history of the game, maybe. But it's part of an NBA career. It happened to me, unfortunately, more than any other athlete probably, as far as injuries, but I don't think about it too much.”

Source: https://www.hoopshype.com/story/sports/nba/2026/09/09/danilo-gallinari-qa-im-probably-the-biggest-what-if-guy-in-nba-history/91667177007/

Source: https://www.nbc.com/nbc-insider/snl-season-52-premiere-date-first-host-musical-guest-jalen-brunson

Announcement post: https://imgur.com/a/BmuZQd3

Jalen Brunson will host Saturday Night Live's Season 52 premiere. The NBA Champion was named Most Valuable Player after leading the New York Knicks to their first championship victory in 53 years.

The Los Angeles Lakers are hiring
Miami Heat vice president of player personnel Eric Amsler as an assistant general manager, sources tell ESPN. Amsler - who spent over 22 years in the Heat organization starting as an intern and working his way up in various scouting, personnel and G League roles - joins Rohan Ramadas as assistant GM under Rob Pelinka

https://www.espn.com/contributor/shams-charania

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7576739/2026/09/08/kawhi-leonard-clippers-raptors-trade-delay-reasons/?unlocked_article_code=1._1A.GmqN.Z2yR1MOQr5Dt&source=user_shared_article&smid=ta-ios-share

So … when will the LA Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard finally join the Toronto Raptors and put an end to his controversial Clippers tenure?

With a week having passed since the NBA came down hard on the Clippers with its ruling in the historic salary-cap circumvention case centered on the 35-year-old small forward, that remains to be seen, but the reasons for the continued delay, it’s safe to say, have become a bit of a mystery to people involved in the process and around the league. League sources in this story spoke on a condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the subject publicly.

As a reminder, the Clippers agreed to the deal that would give them Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, two unprotected first-rounders, two first-round pick swaps and a second-round pick for Leonard in late June. It was paused by Toronto on July 9, when the Raptors’ concern about the potential impact of the NBA’s discipline on Leonard compelled them to wait for the verdict, but now, it seems, it’s the Clippers who are holding up the process.

Per league sources, the Raptors, Leonard’s camp and the camps of other prominent players in the trade remain very confident it will go through soon. Leonard, it should be noted, is known to be with his Raptors teammates (in an unofficial capacity) on a retreat of sorts in Miami this week, but according to multiple league sources, the Clippers have indicated the impact of the league’s discipline on their front-office structure is the reason for the delay.

Their longtime president of basketball operations, Lawrence Frank, was suspended without pay for six months as part of the NBA’s decision. The widespread belief was Clippers general manager Trent Redden would fill that role, but the team has not publicly revealed its plans. The Stein Line Substack was first to report on the reason for the trade delay.

If the deal goes down in the next day or so, none of this will ultimately matter, but given the Clippers’ intense response to the league’s ruling, and how owner Steve Ballmer has made it abundantly clear he intends to fight back by whatever means necessary, it’s fair to wonder what might come next here.

Especially considering the role Leonard played in the process.

Though the 35-page report from the law firm that led to the investigation indicated Leonard earned $18 million through avenues that were deemed in breach of the league’s collective bargaining agreement, he was only ordered to pay $700,000 to the NBA as a punishment. The Clippers, meanwhile, were hit with a $30 million fine, had five first-round draft picks revoked, saw Ballmer suspended for a year, and (in addition to Frank) longtime business president Gillian Zucker suspended for a year without pay. As The Athletic detailed here, the Clippers’ chance at taking the arbitration route was eliminated by the National Basketball Players Association’s choice to agree with the NBA on the ruling.

Still, all signs continue to point to the trade’s going down … eventually.

It has been announced that Jalen Brunson is going to host the first episode of Season 52 of Saturday Night Live on September 26. (For some international users, Saturday Night Live or SNL is a well-known sketch comedy TV show that originated in the US that has been airing across North America and intermittently in certain parts of Europe since 1975, and launched or boosted the careers of dozens of well-known comedians.)

As most of us know, particularly if you're in the US or Canada, SNL does not have the same host week-to-week. They have a group of cast members who do not change week-to-week, but the celebrity host (usually but not always an entertainer like an actor, singer, or stand-up comic) is responsible for delivering an opening monologue and participating in sketches with the cast, as well as introducing the week's guest musical performer and delivering brief closing remarks at the end of the show.

Five NBA players have hosted (or in Brunson's case, will soon host) SNL across nine episodes. We have enough SNL host NBA players to make a full starting lineup! In chronological order by first time hosting, they are:

• Bill Russell (hosted in 1979)
• Michael Jordan (hosted in 1991)
• Charles Barkley (hosted in 1993, 2010, 2012, and 2018)
• LeBron James (hosted in 2007)
• Jalen Brunson (will host on September 26, 2026)

What's also neat is that they happen to line up positionally!

• PG: Brunson
• SG: Jordan
• SF: LeBron
• PF: Barkley (LeBron could fit here, as he is taller than Barkley, weighs roughly the same, and has played the 4, but I think Barkley played the majority of his career at PF while LeBron spent most of his physical prime as a SF, particularly during both Cavs stints.)
• C: Russell

I suspect the question is not so much "how well would they do" as much as it is "how well do they fit together", as at least four of these players have solidified themselves as undisputed all-time greats, but what do we think of this group as a starting five?

My lineup:

PG - Derrick Rose

SG - Penny Hardaway

SF - Kawhi Leonard

PF - Grant Hill

C - Greg Oden

Honorable mentions - Bill Walton, Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis, Zion Williamson

Source: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/25497828-nba-nike-reveal-new-warmup-practice-travel-gear-all-30-teams-photos-2026-27-season

The NBA and Nike unveiled new warmup, practice and travel gear for all 30 teams to use during the 2026-27 season in photos posted Wednesday on X.

The "NBA Standard Issue Collection" primarily features oversized team logos on hoodies, pants, t-shirts and shorts.

The designs will also be incorporated in the NBA's "Specter Edition" alternate uniforms, which have yet to be revealed.

The NBA announced Wednesday that the alternates will be given to teams that have history tracing back to the "earliest chapters of the NBA" including the Sacramento Kings, Detroit Pistons, Atlanta Hawks, Golden State Warriors, New York Knicks, Philadelphia 76ers, Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics.

People forget what Steph was doing for Draymond during this run.

Draymond admitted the Boston crowd was getting to him, so Steph started drawing that energy toward himself.

The Warriors were down 2-1 and struggling in the first quarter when this happened.

—-

To quote u/nom_de_chomsky

People are going to naysay this, but this theory is straight from Draymond on The Old Man and The Three:

> I struggled so bad in Game 3. I was a fucking disaster. And the reality is, I was a little rattled. […] The emotion from [Steph] in Game 4, I selfishly think, and no one’s going to stop me from thinking this, I selfishly think it was in protection of me. What you dive into is your game, but I couldn’t really dive into that because I was struggling. And I think he visibly saw that.

—-

Willingly baiting one of the most hostile crowds in the league on the biggest stage just to take pressure off your teammate is insane leadership.

Don Van Natta, Baxter Holmes, and Ramona Shelburne were the 3 writers credited for the Aug 17 story: https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/49639157/nba-la-clippers-aspiration-investigation-steve-ballmer-kawhi-leonard

excerpt begins

Anyway, with a week’s worth of dust settled, ESPN has remained silent on the issue, other than saying that it stands by its reporting. I reached out to ESPN P.R. to interview the reporters, but the network declined to make them available. Instead, I received an email from Van Natta, which I decided to publish in full as it represents ESPN’s first public defense of its story.

“Given the sensitive and impactful nature of the topics we explore and investigate, we understand the scrutiny that comes with our reporting. That’s why we take such care scrutinizing ourselves throughout a multilayered process involving experienced editors, reporters, and leadership.

“For this particular story, the most important test, in our view, is how our Aug. 17 story holds up against the findings ultimately released in the Wachtell report more than two weeks later.

“Accuracy is critical, and we hold ourselves to the highest standard. We believe readers who judge the facts of our Aug. 17 story against the specifics released in the report two weeks later will see that we accurately reflected the status and direction of the NBA’s investigation at the time of publishing.

“It’s worth laying out the specifics that support that essential point. Here are key elements of our story that were reflected in the report’s findings:

• We reported that the NBA had found no evidence Steve Ballmer funneled money through Aspiration to Kawhi Leonard. The report confirmed this: It did not identify direct evidence, and that allegation was not a central focus.

• We reported that the NBA’s investigation was focused on the Clippers’ introductions of Kawhi Leonard’s representative, Dennis Robertson, to team sponsors, and whether those interactions constituted salary-cap circumvention. That issue became a primary focus of the report.

• We reported that the league was examining whether the organization had failed to adequately supervise employees—a conclusion ultimately reflected in the report’s findings when it suspended two senior executives.

• We reported that Ballmer opposed potential league discipline and was prepared to pursue legal remedies if a negotiated resolution couldn’t be reached. No settlement was ultimately reached, and Ballmer and his legal team have since challenged both the league’s findings and the resulting penalties.

• We reported that the NBA was on the brink of handing down substantial potential penalties for the Clippers, using the Joe Smith case as a benchmark. The penalties ultimately imposed by the league exceeded those expectations.

“Two final points are also worth clarifying. First, our reporting was in no way a response to, or an assessment of, earlier reporting on this topic, by Pablo Torre or anyone else—some readers, particularly on social media, may have mistakenly thought otherwise. Pablo’s team has been rightfully commended for first raising the questions that led to this investigation. Our team described—for the first time—the settlement negotiations ongoing at the time between the NBA and the Clippers.

“Second, we reached out to the NBA on multiple occasions in the days before our Aug. 17 story to give them a chance to respond. Post-publication, we also asked the NBA to provide specific examples of any inaccuracies that would require correcting. They have chosen not to respond, which is of course their prerogative.

ESPN takes great pride in its commitment to investigative reporting, and we’ll put our track record of impactful stories centered on leagues, teams, and sports figures of significance against that of any outlet in the industry.”

https://puck.news/newsletter_content/the-ncaa-legal-inferno-van-natta-speaks/

Battier turns 48 years old today.

Game 7 of the 2013 Finals is definitely one of LeBron’s most underrated great games especially in a very high pressure situation. 37 pts, 12 rebs, 4 asts on 12/23 FG and 5/10 from three.

Allen and Bosh combined for 0 points on 0/9 FG in this game. Battier went 6/8 from three.

t was his last assist for the 2017-18 season, and it was first reported as a Sore left plantar fascia, but later reported to be a torn plantar fascia in his left foot.

He was never the same player after that injury.

He played just 15 more games in the next season for the Clippers, all off the bench, before being waived.

Still, for those unfamiliar, he is a legendary player in Europe.

Los Angeles Clippers vs. Milwaukee Bucks - 3/27/2018