NBA Summer Vacation Watch: He’s Got That Dog In The Pool, Plus August Nuptials

Sheesh, sun seekers, please strap in! Much like your local summer fruits which are no doubt coming into season, this was a ripe two-week stretch of summer vacations and with them, the solemn duty of watching. August can be tricky in the NBA. Some guys are attending or running camps, pick-up runs, and pro-ams, which means the unwarranted (and frankly, unwanted) expectations begin to rear up that athletes should be “getting serious”, even though the regular season is still months away. Thankfully, one of the best indicators of this unsolicited advice not landing is that the vacations keep coming.

So many, in fact, that I am going to advise you to fill up your water bottle or glass to periodically sip throughout this dispatch. Nobody needs to get parched having fun in the vicarious sun.

Steph Curry

Ultimate wife guy, Steph Curry, took the ultimate anniversary vacation to the south of France, and while we congratulate Ayesha and Steph we also thank Ayesha, more directly, because she was responsible for making sure we saw Steph Curry’s reaction to a cake with a giant sparkler jammed in it.

Rating: Reaction about the same to shattering 3-point records night after night, which tracks.

Luka Doncic

Luka is a prime example of the earlier, please focus on your own vacation or lack thereof, behavior. This guy cannot catch a break. He’s puffin’ on a stogie and holding a nice glass of wine, kind of dressed up? Wrong: He’s miles from the gym, and how dare he be wearing a shirt with buttons on. Tickling some ivories in board shorts, while sun streams in through the windows around him? No: He should be pummeling the hardwood in a gym filled with garish, bracing fluorescent light and these shorts aren’t regulation.

Rating: Dudes, relax.

Devin Booker

Not to get anyone too excited but this might be a SVW first. Are Devin Booker and Kendall Jenner, rumored to be in splits-ville, actually spending a fine and very much their own business summer in still-together-burgh? You don’t huck axes in the woods, or declare yourself a ‘trek king’ (TNG or rugged backwoods) with just anybody.

Rating: You may ask, “Does Book, who looks demonstratively chill in everything he does, really need a vacation?” Yes!!

Klay Thompson

NBA champ and beloved sea captain, Klay Thompson, went to the Bahamas and alas, it looks like, did not bring his captain’s hat. He did however bring plenty of literal laid back success when he dug his toes down in the white sands to carve out an emphatic message to the world.

Rating: You may ask, “Much like the saying, ‘If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?’ If someone writes on a beach and doesn’t take a picture, does the message get swallowed up by the sea?” Yes!!

Ben Simmons

I don’t typically like to share a completely out of context, generic, view from a speeding boat with a sizeable lounging area pics as hard evidence that someone is either on, or having, a good vacation, but, after the season Ben Simmons had, I’d share if he was having a longer shower than usual.

Rating: Now the bath information I would keep to myself.

Chris Paul

CP3 was engaging in the time honored tradition of throwing your kids, mid-protest but also laughing, into the pool.

Rating: Do we dock points for tube socks around the pool? In this economy?

Jimmy Butler

Jimmy went on a nice work trip to Bogota, Colombia, to no doubt wish Gustavo Petro well in leading the people in a historic, left-wing switch, but also as a research trip for the thing he loves third best in the world: coffee. Yes, a work trip is getting a pass here, but frankly for a man who wakes up pre-dawn to work out, doing some comparatively relaxing tasks like hauling beans, climbing a mountain, and dunking on kids in a pickup game in Bogota, feels pretty relaxing.

Rating: The first and second things he loves best are his daughter, and Kyle Lowry. Sorry Mark Walhberg, you’re out.

Serge Ibaka

Mr. MaFuzzy Man traveled to Lison, Portugal, for his brother’s wedding, where we also were treated to seeing the origins of Avec Classe in Serge’s dad. Not to take too much away from that experience, but Serge has also been getting into the skincare influencer game, sharing some of the secrets to looking so… like he does.

Rating: I just hope you’ve got some compost lying around.

Rudy Gobert

Rudy can’t stop going on vacation, or looking pensively out at the sea wearing hypercolor swim trunks while golden light showers down on him and his platonic bestie.

Rating: Which is fine, this is literally what we’re here for.

Kevin Love

Kevin Love LOVES a summer vacation, taking as many as three very extensively planned trips a few summers ago that saw him, his new wife Kate Bock, and their dog dropping off a helicopter into Canada’s arctic to romp around as a family on glaciers “for fun”. Love is now on his honeymoon! Sharing soulful snaps of him looking out across the savanna in Tanzania, clutching an extremely pro camera, and captioning honeymoon photos with sweet nothings like, “It’s Kill or Be Killed”.

Rating: Aw!

Jordan Clarkson

It was Jordan Clarkson time to go to the local fair and fill up on smoked turkey legs.

Rating: An exciting new medieval time for Jordan Clarkson to have.

Tyrese Maxey

Maxey was taking a nice summer staycation in his own backyard, never scoffed at or scorned here in these hallowed get-yourself-a-base-tan-that-can-do-both halls, and the only thing that was missing was his dog, who refused to get in the pool with him.

Rating: Maybe he just got his lifeguard certification.

Jusuf Nurkic

Nurk was chilling in Croatia, enjoying an espresso and the view of about half a dozen mega yachts.

Rating: Thinking generous thoughts for the person in the comments who wrote, “Kinda like the Willamette”.

Bogdan Bogdanovic

Bogdan took a great selfie on the back of a boat, and from my years of expertise and field research I can tell you he has not been in the water yet. However, his lack of sunglasses makes me feel as if he is about to.

Rating: Like the Talking Heads wailed on and on about, take me to THIS river, and drop me in THIS water, stat.

Kyle Kuzma

Kuz, who just got back from several vacations as recounted in SVW’s first dispatch, went and took himself on another one. Rather, he took his gf, Winnie Harlow, to Jamaica for her birthday.

Also, if Tyrese Maxey wants some tips about coaxing his stoic dog into the pool, he should take them from Kuzma who gently and encouraging took one of his shepherds, Duke, around the pool.

Rating: I don’t want to alarm anybody but this summer’s SVW MVP race is so far looking like a breakaway sprint???

Justin Holiday

Remember the City Slickers vibe of Kent Bazemore’s, Harrison Barnes’s and Justin Holiday’s trip to Colorado? Well Justin got the frontiersman bug in him, and I’m not talking about something carried by ticks. Justin started practicing archery in his backyard, reimagining a favored and well-worn saying that probably has the archery community absolutely LOVING IT.

Rating: Us too, this rules.

JaVale McGee

Remember what I just said about summer staycations and enjoying the pool you have instead of wishing for the pool you don’t? Well JaVale McGee (and Spencer Dinwiddie and Anthony Roberson) really took that to heart, captured here enjoying sprawling in the shallow end thanks to the stealthy efforts of JaVale’s sister.

Rating: Is Dinwiddie wearing capris?

Mike Conley

Kindest man alive, Mike Conley, took a beautiful vacation with his beautiful family to Cabo, and if you didn’t choke up looking at these photos have I got some news for you!

Rating: The news is you’re a monster.

Josh Richardson

Josh Richardson has some excellent advice for all the summer vacation naysayers and narcs who want strangers they’ve never met to “get to work on their bodies”.

Rating: The scorching burn level of this post is barely mitigated by the giant sun umbrella.

Rui Hachimura

Rui went on a dude’s trip to Mykonos where he enjoyed some beautiful vistas and all the dudes in question chatted beforehand to make sure they each had the right breezy, button-up shirt for “mixed patterns night”.

Rating: They are (unfortunately for us but fortunately for him) carrying that one guy in the back.

Justise Winslow

If you didn’t know this was take your baby to the beach month you’ve got your priorities all wrong.

Rating: Please get a load of this baby, because even Justise sure can’t get enough.

Josh Okogie

SO sorry to Josh Okogie, who went to Europe and had a fantastic and pretty funny (like all the pics you’d take in Europe) time, only for me to miss it in my first recap. Never again, Josh!

Here we can see Josh also stocked up on the currency of summer (water balloons) and took his mom on a sunset beach horseback ride.

Rating: What I said earlier about SVW MVP being all but locked up? Well, I was wrong.

Kelly Oubre Jr.

Kelly went on his honeymoon to Rome, and the Tsunami Papi enjoyed everything from great works of art, to great fountains, to the ancient, footworn tracks on the ancient, cobblestone streets.

Rating: Mama mia that’s amore. Sorry, trying to delete.

Wedding Bells Were Ringing!

What’s this? A mini section? Well, when summer is the only time to really cut loose it’s also the time most NBA athletes get married. These last couple weeks saw no fewer than three nuptials and happy couples joined in holy summer matrimony.

Tobias Harris

Tobias Harris got married to his longtime love, Jasmin Winton, but had to clarify that it was not to his other longtime love, Boban Marjanović. What a rich life, to have so many longtime loves people would mistake you for marrying! Guests included DeAndre Jordan, Georges Niang, and most likely Boban Marjanović. Congratulations!

De’Aaron Fox

Swipa Da Fox had a sick wedding where Jayson Tatum and Bam Adebayo sang and laughed their hearts out, T-Pain performed, and Trae Young lost his mind over T-Pain performing. Congratulations!

Kelly Olynyk

Kelly Olynyk got married in a snapback? Anyway, wouldn’t you love to have Udonis Haslem at your wedding, giving all the other guests intense and heartfelt pep talks about supporting you by having a good time and not clinking their glasses because how gauche is that? Justice Winslow, who you saw as recently showing off his adorable baby on the beach, was also there. Congratulations!

Where In The World Is Metta World Peace?

Friends of this column will be familiar with past iterations of this subsection, including, ‘Paul Pierce’s Place’, but is now being taken over with good reason by Metta World Peace.

Metta was first seen lying down on his belly in a river in Lake Tahoe, enjoying a tall can and some ducks. Then, he went north to enjoy a coffee in the woods of British Columbia, before hopping in an inner-tube and going speeding down a white water river, getting kind of far away for my liking but oh, ok, he was fine, and sat down for a nice sunset dinner later on.