The Opening Tip

• The best of this weekend’s matchups
• Derrick Jones Jr. is on a new team doing old tricks  
• The Thunder are the Most Dignified Team in Basketball 
• A brief investigation into Kawhi Leonard’s Twitter activity

1. Three games to plan your weekend around

2. Daily GIF: Derrick Jones Jr. levitates over the Rockets

You should always box out, but the concept of doing so becomes compromised when a guy with a 48-inch vertical and a running start crashes the rim from the weak-side on a 3-point attempt.

(The Trail Blazers led by 15 points after the first quarter last night but the Rockets came back to win, 104-101. Houston has now won four straight, with Christian Wood, perhaps the under-the-radar signing of the season, averaging 24.3 points and 10.8 rebounds per game.)

📺  Next game: Rockets @ Pelicans, Saturday, 8 p.m. EST (League Pass)

3. Trivia time

Carmelo Anthony is 15 points from passing Dominique Wilkins for 13th on the NBA's all-time scoring list.

Nique, who finished his NBA career with 26,668 points, was best known for his time with the Hawks, but ended up playing for five different teams.

How many can you name?

Answers at the bottom.

4. 🎲 Grip vs. the house: OKC might not win the game, but they can win you some money

The Oklahoma City Thunder, the Most Dignified Team in Basketball, is incapable of having a bad season.

• Primed to finally enter the bottom rung of the West entering this year, they’ve instead clawed their way to 8-9 and within one game of the eighth seed. 

Most importantly (for 18 states plus D.C.): OKC is carrying on its tradition of being cover gods.

• Through 17 games, the Thunder has been an underdog in every single one, and it has covered 10 of the 17 spreads for a 58.8 cover percentage, fifth in the league. 
• This is a continuation of last season, when OKC finished a ridiculous 48-31 against the spread, first in the NBA.

What we’re saying: OKC is plus-6.5 against Brooklyn tonight at home (Kevin Durant is out for the Nets). The Thunder will lose by less than 6.5. It’s our guarantee.*

*Our guarantees are not guaranteed to be guaranteed.

5. Kawhi Leonard’s four tweets, ranked

We stumbled across Kawhi Leonard’s lonely and abandoned Twitter account the other day, and were strangely enthralled.

He: 

• Follows six people: Jamal Crawford, IMPACT SPORTS, the Spurs, Wingstop San Antonio, H-E-B, and the Jordan Brand account. (Jamal Crawford: Your favorite player’s favorite player.) 
• Has four tweets (three original and one retweet). The account was made in 2014. That’s .57 tweets per year.

Here they are, ranked: 

1. Jan. 13, 2015: A deep fried picture of he and Barack Obama with the caption, “One of my greatest experiences”. (If you don’t know what deep fried means, just click the link.)
2. Apr. 4, 2015: A #SponCon tweet for Topgolf, with a iPhone 3 quality picture of him swinging a golf club and the caption, “You don’t have to be a golfer to have fun at @topgolfsat!”
3. Jul. 6, 2015: A picture of a hoverboard with his logo on it, with the caption, “Custom swag board #KL2 edition. Gear coming soon.”*
4. Jul. 7, 2015: An innocuous retweet of a blurry picture of him and a few other people on the official San Diego State facilities account. (What made him retweet that one? We'll never know.)

*The gear never came.

6.  Quick hits

• Chuck last night on Inside the NBA: “I can never remember feeling this much stress in my life. You know Ernie, I just feel sadness right now."
• Want to see a Utah politician use the Shaq-Jazz beef to grandstand like no one has grandstanded before?
• Miami (6-12) and Toronto (7-11), the East’s last two defending champs, are currently out of the playoff picture. 
• Kelly Oubre update: After going 0-for-5 from 3 last night, he’s now 21-of-95 (22.1 percent) on the season.
• Joe Harris snapped his streak on Wednesday night of 79 straight games with a made 3-pointer. The record is 157 by Steph Curry.

7.  Off the press

• Steph Curry should demand a Bradley Beal trade [The Ringer]
• Zach Lowe’s 10 things column [ESPN]
• In remembrance of a friend, the great Sekou Smith [The Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Trivia answers: Hawks, Celtics, Clippers, Magic, Spurs