The Opening Tip

• A 42-year-old tried to guard an MVP candidate
• The descent of the surprising-start teams has begun
• New sneaker war just dropped 

1. The Luka honeymoon is over

Last night, Luka Doncic played 41 minutes, scored 35 points and had 10 assists, and it wasn’t enough to beat the 6-18 Pistons.

• The Mavericks are now 10-11 and 2-5 in their last seven, despite Doncic’s 32-8-10 over that span, which feels much closer to who they are as a team than their WCF run last year. 

• Take a look at their roster (who’s the second-best player?) and compare it to LeBron’s 2007-08 Cleveland roster, and you’ll see the same thing: A great young player surrounded by nothing. 

Surprisingly, losing Jalen Brunson for nothing and replacing him with nothing Kemba Walker out to be stupid for Dallas, which is a few years and a few panic trades away from asking themselves what Luka’s value would be on the open market.

Maybe they should get Kristaps Porzingis back 😏 

[READ: Mavericks' offense has a problem]

2. Bonus GIF: Elder abuse

On Wednesday night, in a cruel twist, the frontrunner for MVP got matched up with Udonis Haslem, Miami’s half-mascot, half-player coach who’s played 61 games in the last seven seasons. You won’t believe what happened next. 

Actually, you will. Tatum scored easily; Haslem got roasted; then hit a rando on IG with a 'your mother' joke. 

3. Trivia time

Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum are currently averaging a combined 57.7 PPG, 4.8 points off the record for a duo post-ABA-NBA merger.

Who owns that record?

Hint: Guards.

Answers at the bottom.

4. Remember the Jazz and Blazers? Well, they suck now.

Every year there are a handful of teams who qualify for the Good-Start-Terrible-Final-Record award, which we’ve been on since Minnesota started the 2019-20 season 7-4, tweeted this, then went 12-41 the rest of the way.

• This year the teams are obvious: The Jazz and Blazers, who spent time as one seeds earlier in the season and inspired some bat-shit headlines. 
• Utah was once 9-3. Now it’s 13-11. Portland was once 9-3. Now it’s 11-11. 

The good news for the Blazers, we guess, is that Damian Lillard’s coming back soon and they’re still only 4.5 games out of first in the West despite being 2-8 in their last 10. 

5. Kiy vs. Nike

We have a good, old-fashioned sneaker war brewing between our ethically-dubious overlords at Nike and designer Kool Kiy. 

• Nike clearly has a beef here, as Kiy has decided to take Nike’s iconic Air Jordan 1 and switch out the swoosh for a lightning bolt. Bold! 

• First of all … Kiy’s remix, pictured above, looks sick. Second, Nike filed suit on them yesterday for six different complaints, which can really be boiled down to one overarching message: ‘C’mon dude.’’ 

• Today (less than 24 hours after the suit), Kiy responded in the best way possible: By ripping off Nike’s 1984 MJ commercial from when the NBA banned his Air Jordan 1s. 

Watch here.

Kiy appears to *definitely* be down to fuck around. What’s interesting now is whether or not they will find out.

6.  Quick Hits

• Khris Middleton’s returning tonight. 
• The mystery around Lonzo Ball’s injury continues. 
• Deranged lunatic Kanye West got Chris Paul in trouble during his deranged lunatic rant yesterday.
• The Celtics have extended Al Horford for two years after this one. 
• Look at the season Tyrese Haliburton is having for the 12-9 Pacers. 
• Amazon’s CEO says the company won’t remove the ‘documentary’ Kyrie shared.

7.  Reads

• The Bulls are the NBA’s most depressing team [The Ringer]
• The Celtics have found a new way to be better than everyone else [NY Times]
• The Lakers can’t waste the return of prime AD [The Ringer]
• Zach Lowe’s 10 things [ESPN]

Trivia answer: James Harden and Russell Westbrook in 2019-20.