The Opening Tip

• There are NBA games tomorrow
• In (slight) defense of Lou Williams
• Bol Bol is the newest #NBATwitter obsession
• Michael Porter Jr. thinks COVID-19 is for population control

1. The Lead: Thanks to a hermetically-sealed bubble, the NBA has two regular season games tomorrow

It’s been a long, weird journey since March 12, when the NBA shut itself down. There was H-O-R-S-E; reporter on senator beef; Fyre Fest-esque food updates; players shaming owners into paying employees; insane Reddit ideas; a five-week long Michael Jordan worship circle; COVID-19 vs. James Dolan; the rise and fall of the All-COVID team; and so on.

When the Pelicans and Jazz tip off tomorrow, it’ll have been 140 days since the last NBA game was played, which is a longer duration than last year’s offseason.

But the wait is over now and we can finally watch July basketball from a COVID-free bubble in Orlando, even while the pandemic rages outside of it.

Here’s your viewing guide for every game tomorrow and Friday. (All times EST; Pelicans-Jazz will be the first NBA game in July ever.)

Thursday:

• Pelicans vs. Jazz, 6:30 p.m. on TNT
• Clippers vs. Lakers, 9 p.m. on TNT

Friday:

• Magic vs. Nets, 2:30 p.m. on NBA4FREE.com
• Suns vs. Wizards, 4 p.m. on NBA4FREE.com
• Grizzlies vs. Trail Blazers, 4 p.m. on NBA4FREE.com
• Celtics vs. Bucks, 6:30 p.m. on ESPN
• Kings vs. Spurs, 8 p.m. on NBA4FREE.com
• Rockets vs. Mavericks, 9:30 p.m. on ESPN

[READ: NBA bubble asterisk? The champion '99 Spurs say it shouldn't exist]

2. It took three scrimmages for the NBA universe to love Bol Bol

Bol Bol, 7-foot-3 son of Manute, who was one of the best high school players in the country two years ago but had a disastrous, injury-filled one-and-done season at Oregon which resulted in him slipping to No. 44 in the 2019 NBA Draft, has been setting the NBA scrimmage world on fire.

In a July 22 game, which all but broke the NBA internet, he finished with: 

• 16 points, 10 rebounds, 6 blocks, 1 assist, 2 made 3s, a plus-18.  

(He was immediately drug tested after the game.)

He shoots. He blocks shots. He dunks (obviously). He runs the floor. He has inspired some seriously hyperbolic headlines.

Will he be that dynamic over the course of an entire NBA season? Will he even get regular minutes over the next few months? Who knows, but it’ll be a fun bubble subplot (bub-plot?) to follow.

PS: Here’s an interview he and Manute did when Bol was a child. It’s great but sad.

3. Lou Williams shouldn’t have gone to a strip club, but...

The first big scandal of the NBA bubble happened over the weekend, when apparent rapper Jack Harlow posted a photo of he and Clippers star Lou Williams at Magic City, an Atlanta strip club.

Williams was out of the bubble on excused leave for a funeral, not to attend a strip club, so he was thus punished with a 10-day quarantine when he got back on Monday, which means he’ll miss the first two games of the restart, which will cost him $150,000 in salary.

Plenty of people rightly piled on Williams, including some serious grandstanding by Kendrick Perkins, but we’re not here to do that. While acknowledging the terrible optics, we’re here to offer a semi-defense.

Five things: 

1. Williams was apparently only getting takeout. He wasn’t dining in. 
2. Williams was clearly wearing an NBA-themed mask. 
3. The wings look really quite amazing. 
4. On the Magic City menu, there’s a flavor of wings called “Louwill Lemon Pepper BBQ.” If you had your own wing flavor, you’d stop by anytime you could. 
5. For those unfamiliar with the casual nature of eating at strip clubs in Atlanta (us previously included), Bomani Jones broke down the historical context of its normalcy on his latest podcast (28-minute mark): 

4. Quiz: Fill in the blanks

Below is a partial list of the 10 players with the most points in a Celtics uniform. Try and fill in the blanks. Answers at the bottom. 

1. John Havlicek, 26,395
2. ________, 24,021
3. Larry Bird, 21,791
4. ________, 18,245
5. ________, 17,335
6. Bob Cousy, 16,955
7. Sam Jones, 15,411
8. ________, 14,522
9. ________, 13,192
10. Jo Jo White, 13,188

5. Where did this come from? 

5-foot-11 rookie Carsen Edwards, known almost exclusively as a 3-point specialist, did this during a scrimmage last night.

If that got you, a Celtics fan, excited, allow Brad Stevens to filibuster and bore you to death with his postgame thoughts on the play: 
 

6.  Quick Hits

• Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr., conspiracy theorist, thinks COVID-19 is being used for population control. 
• Kyrie Irving donated $1.5 million to help pay for the salaries of WNBA players who opted out of their league’s bubble. 
• OKC’s Andre Roberson, who hasn’t played a minute in the NBA since Jan. 27, 2018, is set to play during the eight remaining regular season games. 
• One of the courtside cameras the NBA has installed almost took out Luka Dončić yesterday. 
• Rockets guard Eric Gordon will miss up to two weeks because of a left ankle injury suffered on Tuesday.

7.  Off the press

• How the NBA bubble has become a platform for social justice [ESPN]
• Which NBA contracts were gems this season, and which were stinkers? [538]
• Who deserves All-NBA, All-Defensive, and All-Rookie team honors? [The Ringer]