It Has Been a Crazy Day in the NBA

There was a flurry of NBA news this morning. Chris Paul was put in health and safety protocol. Kawhi is out with a possible Achilles injury. People were still talking about KD's epic game last night. Scott Brooks and Stan Van Gundy were relieved of their job as head coach. Also, LaMelo Ball won rookie of the year.

This has been a nutso day.

I know people are freaking out about CP3 being in health and safety protocols, but I do not think it is a really big deal. Did we all already forget that LeBron was about to be put in health and safety protocols? Did he miss any playoff games? Also, the Suns wrapped up their series last week, and the Jazz and Clippers are playing game five tonight. That series is going to go, at least, one more game, and then the East will have to finish their two series, and then the conference finals will start. I'd say, at most, Paul misses one game, if any at all. He will be fine.

The Kawhi injury is a bummer for all Clippers fans. They looked like they were putting it all together. They were playing very good defense. And Kawhi was really asserting himself as a force on both ends of the floor. He was starting to look like the Toronto version of Kawhi. With him out, who knows. No one seems to know how serious the injury may be. The Jazz are not playing great right now. The Clippers are deeper. I mean, they could still win this series, but they are going to get smoked by the Suns if Kawhi misses more time than people expect right now. I picked them to play the Nets in the finals, but I was not comfortable with that pick at the time, the Dallas series only furthered that discomfort and now Kawhi is out. Maybe the basketball gods really do dislike the Clippers.

KD was great last night. He did it all for the Nets, and they are down their other 2 star players. Harden did play, but he did not look comfortable. He looked slower than normal and could not shoot the ball. KD played every single second of that game. He was everywhere on defense. He grabbed 18 rebounds. He had 49 points, 31 in the second half. He was making incredible shots and he dished out 10 assists. That was an all time performance. KD does this all the time now. This is commonplace for him. He shows up big in the biggest moments. He was amazing to watch last night. Games like that are why I love the NBA.

LaMelo most likely deserved the rookie of the year, so his win was kind of expected. I thought after he got hurt that Anthony Edwards was going to run away with the award. He also got better, so I wouldn't have been surprised if he won it. But LaMelo played on a better team, he ran the offense and he was pretty awesome. It is very clear he is the most talented Ball brother.

Finally we have the two coaches being let go. The Scott Brooks thing was kind of expected. He has done a solid job of doing just enough in Washington of getting the most out of a not so loaded roster. He's gone to the playoffs a few times. He has put together some nice winning streaks. He got Russ to play an all around type game. Bradley Beal has flourished under him. But the Wizards never met their own personal high standards. They only made the east semis once. They were a team no one was really afraid of in the playoffs. They have not been very good for the past couple years, and Brooks' time there had come to an end. He did all he could, and it was not enough. He will still get interviews from other teams, but I think Brooks is exactly as good as he will ever be as a head coach. Any team that may hire him in the future will know exactly what they are getting from him. His team's will be okay, but never great.

As for Stan Van Gundy, that one surprised me. I read that some of the players on the team did not really like him, and he has not been great in his last two stops, but letting him go after one shortened season, that is cold. That franchise is doing everything they can to keep Zion, but this will be his third coach in his third season. That kind of inconsistency would leave me a little nervous if I were a player. The constant change is not good. There is no continuity. He will have to learn yet another game plan. So will all the other players. This is a problem. They should have given him at least one more season, just to see what happens. But teams just do not want to wait around anymore. They want instant gratification, and if it doesn't work right away, they just move on. That's a bummer.

Now we will just have to wait and see if the NBA throws anything else at us today. It has been crazy enough already, but hey, there is still 10 hours left in the day. It could get even wilder.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing, the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast, and the greatest basketball writer on the internet.

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