Well my sweet summer lovers, converts and casuals, this is it, we’ve officially arrived at the last dispatch of NBA Summer Vacation Watch. I know what you’re thinking, she’s going to play this noble and stoic, and remind us that all good things, like the seasons, must come to an end. Well forget it! Every summer seems shorter, just a brief and sweaty meteorite blazing across a plane of infinity pools and overpriced seafood in touristy European seaside towns, peeling into oblivion like your first sunburn of the season to become, literally, dust in the wind (most dust is skin). It’s ok to be mournful when you’re watching that golden tan fade in real time, reverting back into the sickly pallor of your skin from fall to mid-spring, it’s basically the same as the scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when the dude drinks from the wrong cursed cup and ages in ten seconds into the Crypt Keeper.
Do I digress? Not really. I could keep going. But whatever, the truth is that time marches on, the languid, long days of summer get shorter, and soon all we’ll have is finding sand in our shoes, or dumb little mementos tucked into the pockets of shorts, but what’s nice about those things is they seem to happen when you need a reminder the most. Let this column, conveniently grouped within a hashtag found at the bottom of this and every NBA SVW weekly dispatch, be that memento for you, something to uncover when you need it most.
But there’s still a lot worth celebrating in this last week, like last minute trips to southern Europe and weirdly a lot of baseball, plus, what everyone’s been waiting for, naming the NBA SVW MVP. It’s the most prestigious of awards not only within the NBA, but all of pro sports, it also beats out some literary prizes and lesser scientific accolades. Strap in, slather up, toss on your shades, because we’re all still boys of summer for a little while longer.
P.J. Tucker
Something I’d been thinking about P.J., even when the man was making A-list celebs look like slobs in Venice and wearing the most decadent fabrics you’ve never heard of, was this guy needs a vacation. A lo, he has taken one. Tucker headed over to Mykonos and this perfect pool, later to a boat speeding across the Aegean at sunset, and probably many more things he is choosing not to share because the dude is finally, beautifully, on holiday.
Rating; Do I wish, a little, to know what kind of swimming costume Tucker goes with? I’m human, aren’t I.
Jayson Tatum
Tatum and his son, Jayson Tatum Jr. aka Deuce, went on a golden hour bike ride together. Happy to say they stuck to that sidewalk, and that the little guy was really ripping. Tatum kept his camera flipped back on him the whole time and his expression flitted between proud, nervous and very happy.
Rating: Just now wondering if Payton Pritchard knows how to ride a bike.
Malcolm Brogdon
Remember last week, when Brogdon posted a blurry video taken from his balcony in Zurich, but didn’t really give us the juicy deets we were looking for? Well this week, still in Zurch, he delivered. Brogdon outlined the two things a person MUST simply do when in Zurich, which is sit on of it’s old bridges and gaze smiling across the water, and drink wine by nightfall.
Rating: Are these two things a person might do elsewhere, many places, and not just Switzerland’s capitol of trade and finance? Sure, but why bother.
Alex Caruso
Keep forgetting Caruso is in Chicago now and leave it to him to remind us via one of the worst mediums out there: baseball the sport. Caruso threw the first pitch at a White Sox game with utmost concentration and the most impressive thing is that Jared Dudley thinks its impressive, three flame emojis worth.
Rating: Is this jersey extra long?
Klay Thompson
He simply won’t be stopped, folks. Here’s Klay, once again communing with the Bay, this time pinching some fog wisping around at the horizon, visualizing success and the great summer he’s just had, with the hashtag #feltcutmightdeletelater.
Rating: A reminder for us to take a lesson from Klay and visualize ourselves into next summer.
Kyle Kuzma
This is cute! Kuz walked for his friend, B.J. Gray at New York Fashion Week, in kind of a Cruella de Vil suit that the Lopez brothers would appreciate the reference to. As a person who has come around on Kuzma I am happy that his summer trade now sees him closer to the North American epicentre of fashion.
Rating: I’d like to see the naysayers in the comments try and pull off a cropped tuxedo jacket.
Jordan Clarkson
Continuing along the whirlwind tangent of NYFW, Jordan Clarson was also there, though not walking (not yet). He brought a very strong, extremely formal-casual look complete with matching umbrella and motorcycle boots that look a little like what people in England wear to muddy festivals, but way, way less miserable.
He also switched it up into a long kilt and even longer shirt that he tucked in into the kilt but still comes out the bottom, and saw this horrifying horse creature on an old timey bicycle. Didn’t really need that, but I have a responsibility to share it all with you.
Rating: Feel free to get in touch with what shadowy, fashion world figure you think Clarkson was on a, urgent yet discreet call to.
Serge Ibaka
Serge is in Paris and so is the hat that he loves. This huge thing has really got some mileage the past few months, and has probably clocked more air miles than it can ever cash, mostly because it’s a hat. Serge then clowned the Arc de Triomphe and a posthumous installation by artist Christo by tossing it an eye-roll emoji.
Rating: This guy and this hat pulled no punches this summer and we’re better for it.
JaVale McGee
JaVale went to Disneyland with his daughter and the least blurry of all his vids was this, of a large fireworks display, because the rest involved him driving small rides for children at the behest of his daughter, and not really being able to keep his hand steady for how much fun they were having.
Rating: King of the Magic Kingdom.
Josh Hart
Hart’s been LOVING summer vacation (get it?)! First, he checked out the ruins of Pompei, no doubt learning a lot about pyroclastic surges, then, he headed to Positano and finally, he swung over to Mykonos, Greece. This was not in the same NBA SVW universe as P.J. Tucker’s trip, which is too bad, but it’s literally an island and I would hate for either of them to bump into each other and make polite small talk about work.
Rating: Ugh, that would be the worst!!
Scottie Barnes
Barnes threw out the first pitch at a Toronto Blue Jays game, just a few days after he, Goran Dragic, Freddie Gillespie and a bunch of other new Raptors did an IG live of them walking around the city’s downtown core, extremely pumped up about financial towers and the relative quiet of that part of the city after 8pm.
Rating: The windup and thrill on his face transported me to a place where baseball was irrelevant, and for that I’m thankful
Nicolas Batum
Batum was chilling at the the Élysée Palace, that’s the presidential palace of France for you francofreaks, where he, Rudy Gobert and Frank Ntilikina received the National Order of Merit. The other guys definitely looked stoked, if a little awkward, like Frankie beside a very tanned Emmanuel Macron, but Batum with the candid selfie outside, like it’s really c’est n’est pas bon whup what’s about to happen, is the best of the occasion.
Rating: Batum for French pres.
Justise Winslow
Alright so, since early August Justise Winslow has been sharing a motivational whiteboard placed somewhere, usually with the early morning sun glancing off it just so. He does it every day and he always does it at 7am. Where is he getting the quotes? Does he have books of quotes? Has he written them down over time to use for just such an occasion like this? Is this a vacation? Not really, but it does feel very hopeful, which is all any vacation is ever supposed to be.
Rating: Picturing him deciding where to place these every time is breaking my god damn heart.
Patrick Beverley
More baseball! Fine. Here’s Pat Bev, in some bold jeans that look velvet, with an admittedly pretty funny sequence of events where it’s possible he clocked somebody pretty hard with the ball.
Rating: Is the Twins mascot throwing up the horns in a baseball glove?
Anthony Tolliver
Tolliver was out golfing and looking really happy about it. I’m going to have to ask resident Dime golf expert, Robby Kalland, one last annoying golf question of summer, manly having to do with this bucket hat: is the name on the hat the course that Tolliver is playing at?
[Ed Note: Probably, but it’s possible Tolliver is just a big fan of Ocean City, NJ the town, not just the golf course. But probably the golf course.]
Rating: That’s a hole in one for summer golf, everybody.
Boris Diaw
Could we really have rounded out summer without one last dispatch from Boris Diaw, international man of mystery? Not without it feeling just a little off, like when you know you didn’t eat enough ice cream, or in Diaw’s case, take a catamaran somewhere on a whim. See you next summer, Boris, even though I know we’ll probably see you in the Galapagos or repelling down the side of Everest before June rolls around.
NBA SVW MVP
It’s here, the time we’ve all been waiting for, to reveal this summer’s MVP. Past winners of this hallowed, so bright you’ve gotta wear shades to see it award have included Mike Scott and JaVale McGee for their perfect embracing and encapsulation of what it means to have a good summer — mostly just chilling, but doing it in great places and with people you love.
No matter who you were rooting or cast your imaginary ballot for (this is not a democratic decision), I think we can all agree that this summer’s MVP shares those qualities and more, while living summer vicariously through nothing but his own heart, and occasionally, or I guess often, the sea.
It is, of course, Klay Thompson, who was present in every single weekly dispatch this summer except for one, and it was probably because he was swimming. Congratulations, Klay! May all summers be the most valuable to you, as you are to them, and us.
