The Opening Tip

• This is a career stretch that Luka Dončić should savor
• Why does Philly’s demise seem so obvious now?
• Donovan Mitchell joined a hyper exclusive club last night
• How Shaq can extend his very important streak

1. The Lead: It will never get better than this for Luka Dončić

Luka Dončić, who will in a few years wrestle for the title of best player in the world, hit the first iconic shot of his career on Sunday. It was a stepback 3-pointer from Damian Lillard range that capped a win and a statline so advanced it must be spelt out in full: forty-three points, seventeen rebounds, thirteen assists.

The immediate aftermath of the shot on the court was an explosion of positive emotion. The video the Mavs posted of the scene in the locker room afterward was even more so.

Picture Dončić, 21 years old, a Slovenian phenom who started playing professionally at 16 and conquered the second-best league in the world at 18, hitting a shot like that and outdueling perhaps the best player in the world, in a playoff game, in the best league in the world. It is hard to dream bigger than that.
 

Now picture, for example, Joel Embiid a few hours earlier, who two years ago was in the exact same position as Dončić -- young, enthusiastic, great, universally-approved -- trying to explain why his team just got swept out of the first round in a year the smartest basketball writers predicted they’d make the Finals.

There’s a honeymoon period in the NBA ecosystem for young stars that ends when you move to Miami; join a 73-9 team; leave Orlando for L.A.; tear your ACL in the first round; ask out of New Orleans; or so on.

At some point, Dončić will not be winning enough, or won’t be progressing enough, or won’t be happy enough, and the NBA universe will wonder what his problem is.

Now, though -- it will never be better than right now.

[READ: Luka Dončić's game winner is proof that the NBA is having a step-back moment]

2. The amount of ‘what went wrong in Philadelphia’ pieces is overwhelming

The 76ers’ season ended yesterday in a sweep, which will result in the firing of longtime coach Brett Brown and perhaps GM Elton Brand, who was brought in to replace the Twitter Egg man, who was brought in to replace the architect from hell, Sam Hinkie.

(Philadelphia was the trendy pick to make the NBA Finals when this season began, but it turns out paying Al Horford to be a worse version of Joel Embiid and maxing out Tobias Harris, who has been traded five times in his career, wasn’t the blueprint for a title.) 

The litmus test for serious internal organizational strife is usually the amount of well-sourced pieces that come out right when the season ends, explaining how it all went so wrong. In that regard, yesterday did not disappoint. 
 

Our running list: 

• Inside the tenure of Sixers head coach Brett Brown and the behind the scenes issues that led to a star walking away [Yahoo Sports]
• Sixers players bury Brett Brown as Joel Embiid, Al Horford, and Josh Richardson testify [The Philadelphia Inquirer]
• The Philadelphia 76ers' process ended with another disappointing result [ESPN]
• How the Philadelphia 76ers wasted their once 'bright future' [Bleacher Report]
• Our favorite: The Sixers are screwed, and there’s no clear solution [The Philly Voice]

3. Donovan Mitchell's coming out party

Entering last night’s Nuggets-Jazz game, two players in NBA history had scored 50-plus points twice in a series: Michael Jordan and Allen Iverson.

Donovan Mitchell, who scored 51 points last night to cajole his 57-point performance in Game 1, is now the third. Utah won and now has a 3-1 lead over Denver. 

4. How Shaq’s streak can stay alive

Thanks to Shaq’s journeyman twilight where the big fella played for four teams in his final three years, he is the owner of the NBA’s most delightfully random stat:

• Since 1984, every NBA Finals has included a one-time teammate of his. 
• It starts with the Celtics’ Greg Kite, who played in the 1984 Finals and then with Shaq for two years in Orlando. The latest entry was Danny Green, who played for the Raptors in last year’s Finals and with Shaq in Cleveland in 2009-10. 

According to our very scientific calculations (we flipped through Basketball-Reference) the streak can only extend to a 37th year if the Bucks, Heat, Rockets or Lakers make the Finals, which is keenly possible. Here are this year’s eligible entrants:

• Bucks player(s): Robin Lopez (Phoenix, 2008-09). 
• Rockets player(s): Jeff Green (Boston, 2010-11). 
• Heat player(s): Goran Dragić (2008-09, Phoenix).
• Lakers player(s): LeBron (Cleveland, 2009-10); Danny Green (Cleveland, 2009-10); Avery Bradley and Rajon Rondo (2010-11, Boston); Jared Dudley (2008-09, Phoenix).

For the sake of enjoyable stats (and humanity), Milwaukee or the Lakers or Houston or Miami must advance to the Finals.

5. Results from last week's lottery

In case you missed the NBA Draft Lottery last Thursday, here’s pretty much everything you need to know:

1. The Knicks -- and you’re not going to believe this -- got screwed, ending up with the No. 8 pick despite having the sixth-worst record. 
2. The Wolves won the No. 1 pick for the second time in five years. 
3. The Warriors got the second pick, which means the team that has won three of the last five Finals owns a higher pick than the Knicks have since 1985.

Here’s the final order for the Oct. 16 NBA Draft: 

1. Minnesota
2. Golden State
3. Charlotte
4. Chicago
5. Cleveland
6. Atlanta
7. Detroit
8. New York
9. Washington
10. Phoenix
11. San Antonio
12. Sacramento
13. New Orleans
14. Boston (from Memphis)

6.  Quick hits

• Vibe check on Paul George: He finished last night’s game 3-of-14 shooting with nine points, then got called a “bitch ass” by the Other Curry.
• Lou Williams (36 points off the bench), though, had maybe the best game of his career. 
• Al Horford's 76ers-Celtics series stats: Four games, 28 points, zero made 3s.
• The Raptors’ bench scored 100 points last night, which is the first time that’s happened since stat keepers started differentiating between starters and reserves, in 1970.
• The Nets are feeling themselves enough to think they can hire Gregg Popovich.

7.  Off the press

• The Masai Ujiri incident is as haunting as it is redeeming [The Undefeated]
• A new challenge awaits Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and the Brooklyn Nets [ESPN]
• Jeff Green’s ninth life may be his best [The Ringer]