The Opening Tip

• The Warriors lost last night, but we got a vintage Steph moment 
• Another bad lottery pick for the Wizards 
• We have important Carmelo Anthony news

1. January's highest scoring performances so far

Imagine telling Donovan Mitchell on Jan. 1 he’d have a 46-point game this month, and imagine telling him he’d also score 25 more points than that in another game this month.

More context: 

• The five 50-plus games so far is two off the mark for most in a month since the NBA-ABA merger, which was set last March. (Insert insane Wilt stat here.)
• Three of them came on Jan. 2 and Jan. 3 alone. During the 2012-13 season, three players went for 50-plus all season. 
• Last month broke the record for 40-point game games in a month, with 45. So far this month, we’ve had 23. 
• There hasn’t been a single night in January where someone hasn’t gone for at least 30. 

TL;DR: Scoring 📈

[READ: NBA stars are stuffing stat sheets like never before. But why?]

2. Daily GIF: This guy

Did anyone not think this was going in?

Also, shout out to those first-half Warriors ML people.

3. Trivia time

In the post-merger era (1976 on), which No. 1 overall pick has played the least amount of games?

Note: Not including last two No. 1s Paulo Banchero and Cade Cunningham.

Answer at the bottom.

4. How are the Wizards so bad at this? 

The Wizards are well into their fifth decade on the treadmill of mediocrity for many reasons, most obvious of late the complete fumble of the Bradley Beal situation.

But you don’t fail to win 50 games or make a conference finals for 43 years without being an egregious drafter.

Recent history:

• 2011: Jan Veselý, No. 6
• 2013: Otto Porter, No. 3
• 2019: Rui Hachimura, No. 9
• 2020: Deni Avdija, No. 9

But their magnum opus might be Johnny Davis, this year’s No. 10 pick, who’s played 50 minutes all season (he’s healthy) in 10 games (third least among first-rounders) and has a 1.0 PER (almost impossible) for a 19-26 team.

• Watch the way NBA teams decided to guard him two weeks into his NBA career, and you’ll understand this was another grave mistake by a team in no position to whiff on another top-10 pick.

[READ: For these going-nowhere Wizards, it might be time to embrace losing]

5. EXCLUSIVE: Review of Carmelo Anthony’s new STAYME7O FOCUS CANDLE

Now that Carmelo Anthony is not good enough to be an NBA player, his new post-playing career is coming into focus -- or should we say "to light!"

• Through his STAYME7O brand, Anthony has launched his new "STAYME7O FOCUS CANDLE," which you can buy here for $60 plus shipping. 
• It has notes of "Fig, Amber, Cedar wood and Benzoin," which are all capitalized in the description for some reason.

Rather than speculate on its merit, we reached out to loyal Grip reader Mike Barilli, who recently purchased a STAYME7O FOCUS CANDLE.

His review: "Smells pretty good! Pretty generic candle smell," he said, later adding that "it’s me7o bitch."

6.  Quick Hits

• Listen to the noise this brick by Draymond makes. 
• Ben Simmons was ejected last night with seven points in the third quarter, which was tied for his second-highest scoring mark of the month. 
• The Nets without Kevin Durant are now 0-4 with the worst offense in the league.
• If we had to see these trash-talking eight-year-olds playing basketball, so do you. 
• KD and Stan Van Gundy had the best Twitter interaction of all-time. 
• The Kings are the current third seed in the West

7.  Reads & Pods

• The Brooklyn Nets have so much talent but so little charm [NY Times]
• Yuta Watanabe wants to be a basketball inspiration [NY Post]
• The new Jayson Tatum won’t be denied [The Ringer]

Trivia answer: Greg Oden (105)