Spring has truly sprung at this juncture in NBA self-isolation! This week we saw a few bunnies hopping around, each and every NBA fan turning into a HORSE girl, wildlife returning and Marc Gasol coming out of hibernation.
The onset of a hopeful new season is a reason to celebrate, for sure, but also to maintain the things necessary in the current state of the world so we can turn as literal a corner as a seasonal one. Like being smart, safe, and showing compassion and care for your neighbours and yourself, best exemplified by staying home and by LeBron James continuing to drink wine alone.
Bam Adebayo
Nice try, Bam, but you’d have to think I had a lot less time on my hands than I do not to capture this post before you promptly took it down after Easter. Like a reverse “He has risen”, I have screencapped it.
Rating: Bonus points for former notable teammates coming to terms real time that they’ve got a swingman-Easter bunny on their roster.
Luka Doncic
Look at scruffy Luka Doncic, look at scruffy Doncic’s scruffy, immaculately clean dog, Gia, both of them wearing matching comfortable outfits, eyeing you with, what is that? Mischief? Warm curiosity? From 35,000 feet. Is Doncic an influencer now? Because I sure feel like I’m about to purchase a set of very expensive muted beige bedding or a crate of sparkling icewine made from fossilized grapes.
Rating: Have you ever seen two beings less concerned with Maxi Kleber in the comments telling one, maybe both, to trim their beard?
Myles Turner
This was a fitness focused week for Turner who had some friends hold his legs while we reverse lifted weights and then went on CJ McCollum’s podcast to talk about uh, doing yoga with wasps in the same enclosed space on purpose.
Rating: All for pushing yourself to a new state of awareness during this time but maybe don’t start with shirking gravity and tempting wasps, leave that to Myles Turner.
Marc Gasol
If there’s one thing you can trust in challenging times it’s Marc Gasol, coming in hot. Whether it’s to render a force like Joel Embiid useless in a playoff series, undertake a humanitarian mission during his offseason, or dress up as Freddie Mercury during a global pandemic clutching a kitchen whisk with tin foil on it as a microphone, Marc Gasol chooses his moments.
Rating: And they’re always, always perfect.
LeBron James
Here’s James, still looking for a friend to drink wine with, but admitting, frankly, that he’s out of his mind when it comes to this vino.
Rating: My goodness.
Josh Hart
This week in isolation Josh Hart succumbed to the greatest risk of online shopping and grocery shopping simultaneously when he followed the algorithm for other things he might be interested in based on the one thing he was looking to buy, and did it while he was hungry. If 14 bags of chips fall on you in quarantine does anyone hear you eat them all?
Rating: If you post about it on Instagram, yes.
Tobias Harris
Harris went into Hardaway Jr. territory this week when he had a brush with some wild turkeys that strolled into his yard. First, he attempted to gas up a male turkey who seemed shy about putting the moves on a female turkey. “Come on man,” Harris said, urging the turkey on, “don’t be like that.” Soon a second suitor arrived, and Harris lamented the first turkey’s chance. The scene suddenly became a lot less serene when another of the grotesquely large birds rushed the glass and Harris yelped and jumped backwards. He then excused himself from the romantic pursuits of turkeys.
Rating: Based on those 20 seconds alone though, Harris seems like a good friend to call during a breakup.
Jimmy Butler
Jimmy Butler would actually make a wonderful Easter Bunny. No one would find their eggs because they would be up where you had to be in shape enough to jump five to eight feet laterally to get them and children would be shamed into thinking they hadn’t worked hard enough and that placing their belief in any force other than themselves was a fool’s errand, a waste of time.
Rating: Plus he looks cute in ears.
Serge Ibaka
Ibaka’s How Talented Are You? Started this week and one thing is for sure — Ibaka is a terrible judge! After allowing a magician through to the next round and getting chastised by guest judge, DeMar DeRozan, for being easily entertained, Ibaka then had DeRozan deliver the verdict to the next two talent hopefuls. But that was after he spent five minutes ragging on DeRozan for not being ready, when really Ibaka didn’t know how to connect him. The silver lining was Tiffany Haddish coming on and DeRozan telling a young woman who Ibaka already said he didn’t think was very talented (it wasn’t his turn to judge) that she would make it through to the next round.
Rating: This thing is a roller coaster that a newly moustached Ibaka chugs beer during the nerve wracking drops of.
P.J. Tucker
Tucker finished a workout and promptly wrung his towel out with so much sweat that it could fill a kiddie pool. Still, if you told me I could sit in that kiddie pool, I would.
Rating: Don’t let Goop get her hands on this.
Spencer Dinwiddie
You and Spencer Dinwiddie have been telling yourself the same thing all isolation while hoisting a glass up to toast yourself. The difference is there probably isn’t a pool in front of you, just Netflix plaintively asking if you’re still watching.
Rating: But think how antioxidized we’ll all be once this is over.
DeAndre Jordan
Unclear if these tags are Jordan’s or the soon to be middle school aged young person he is “with”.
Rating: I do worry about the young Banksy in question here, ready to throw up these tags and impress their new friends with all the fresh hope in the world.
JaVale McGee
McGee ran alongside his daughter as she went for her first solo joyride with Cookie Monster and Elmo strapped in. There was a very Too Fast and Too Furious moment when she slammed the brakes and Cookie went slouching over at the waist, but McGee righted him and the group continued to burn rubber.
Rating: I thought FF9 was delayed?
Dion Waiters
The guy is at it again, this time in an Iverson jersey. Waiters went careening around his house once more, doing tons of backwards shimmies, zipping around columns and now — dancing! Truly a matter of time until the Lakers utilize roller skating as a new high intensity training regime and suck all of the joy out of it.
Rating: There is no way, not really, that Waiters comes out of this and doesn’t go careening into the best season of his career.
D’Angelo Russell
Here’s Russell on a boat again, cruising around in the waves and swinging his legs, probably holding a bullhorn and advising people to stay off the beach as was advised here some weeks ago.
Rating: Contemplating solitude on the ocean? Emerging poet alert.
Dwyane Wade
Wade started Isolation Watch as a budding painter, taking up the brush whenever he could, straight up lying down in the middle of the floor to create whenever the mood struck him. Here we see him, some five weeks in, following the very normal trajectory for an artist who has received some early recognition.
Rating: Next will be a surprise appearance at Art Basel, where Wade will have walked into just looking for somewhere to validate his parking in Miami Beach.
Paul Millsap
Paul Millsap: basketball player, fledgling magician, and fed up with snow.
Rating: The people’s magician.
Jordan Bell
Bell was doing a new workout where he pulled himself across the floor (???) and his dog, unfortunately, donked it up. But if the point of this exercise (????) is to use your own body weight as resistance, wouldn’t the addition of an ashamed dog’s body weight increase that resistance, making it a better workout?
Rating: Please call me for a free fitness consultation.
Enes Kanter
Kanter continues to expand his culinary horizons, this time by squeezing about an entire thing of chocolate syrup into a blender on low. I can’t specify exact ingredients except for chocolate syrup and half a giant tub of ice cream based on the tub there to the side with half its contents now missing and the sparkly gif he used as flourish.
Rating: Please call Kanter for a free fitness consultation.
Zach LaVine
Aside from torching Paul Pierce in HORSE this week and consuming a bunny made out of pancakes, LaVine’s other timeless milestone was getting engaged! Congratulations, Zach! You’ve already got matching tracksuits and that’s half the whole point of marriage.
Rating: But does Paul Pierce get invited to the wedding?
Kyle Kuzma
Kuz caught an “Easter bunny” (I’m crying),
then did an in-home fashion shoot for his good friends at Gentleman’s Quarterly,
then took a bubble bath he got paid for.
Rating: I would say this was all in all a normal week for Kuzma in isolation but I think it was a normal week for Kuzma in general.
Mike Conley
Checking in on Mike Conley for a wholesome break in isolation coverage and ah, yes, getting live reports that he’s running back and forth with one of his small children across a regulation size indoor home basketball court in the hopes of tuckering the tiny little Spiderman out.
Rating: Did it work? Only time will tell so good thing we’ve got a lot of it.
Bismack Biyombo
Here’s Biyombo delivering exactly what’s been promised.
Rating: If you aren’t familiar with the marketing budgets of massive publishing houses, a picture like this, painstakingly staged for eight hours, would constitute about 20k of a single ad campaign.
Terry Rozier
Rozier got a new French Bulldog puppy, and the two seem very happy to be getting acquainted.
Rating: Not so scary Terry.
Tim Hardaway Jr.
Hardaway Jr. was out on his back deck, ostensibly waiting for the pair of manatees he’s befriended.
Rating: “You – spongy, grey skin, used to come around Me – waiting with garden hose” — Hardaway Jr.’s Missed Connection
Otto Porter Jr.
Players in isolation encountering wildlife took a turn when some deer entered into Porter Jr.’s backyard and he was very much not here for it! Does he hate deer? Did he just plant a garden he was worried they were going to nibble at? Was he just surprised to see them? Had he not seen that meme yet about nature taking over?
Rating: Does he think the Bucks are messing with him?
CJ McCollum
CJ McCollum’s puppy, Fiona, only looks little around CJ McCollum, otherwise you’d see she’s actually the size of a calf already but that is not a sign of how long isolation’s been going on, she’s just a large breed!
Rating: Gonna be pretty cute when McCollum’s got a baby buffalo following him around.
Kevin Love
Love’s Isolation movie nights continue, this time with a reminder that Pierce Brosnan only really ever played one kind of role.
Rating: Dwyane Wade better watch out in case Love gets any ideas about fine art theft.
Brandon Ingram
Here’s Ingram with a classic case of Nobody Talk To Me Until I’ve Had My Coffee.
Rating: He’s taking not having had his coffee yet pretty well.
Bogdan Bogdanovic
It’s difficult to tell what “New look” Bogdanovic is referring to at first, given you might just go to wipe your phone screen off to get rid of that thin smudge but wait, that smudge is the New look he is referring to. A brand new, tiny moustache like the sprout of a seed trembling as it busts through spring dirt. We will see how this develops.
Rating: The emoji is generous, it’s true.
Terrence Ross
Puzzles continue to be a hit as does not feeling too bad for Terrence Ross, isolating in paradise.
Rating: You can see the piece of the elephants ear right there in front of him too, can’t you?
DeAndre Bembry
Bembry risked it all for cookies. No, he was safe in supporting a small business. There were X’s on the floor marking where to stand and when Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry went to this place at 2am after losing Game 5 and came back to win the Championship, how can you blame him?
Rating: Could’ve used a vicarious post-cookie report to live through.
PAUL PIERCE’S PLACE
Paul’s had a busy week! First, he got ready to face Zach LaVine in the NBA’s new HORSE tournament by cheersing to himself in his home grotto:
Then he got smoked by Zach LaVine in the NBA’s new HORSE tournament:
Full cred to Paul though, he came dressed for golf on a chilly day, and didn’t seem to remember or care to remember how to play basketball. At one point, Pierce was just standing on a small child’s scooter. Case in point about the golf outfit though, because a couple days later that’s what he was up to, still in his backyard:
Finally, he took a solo bike ride down a sunny street with a mask that seems too small for his face:
