🏀 The Wonderful World of Wemby

You’ve heard NBA players talk about their “welcome to the NBA” moments, but the NBA had its first “welcome to Wemby” moment last night. And that’s us trying not to exaggerate things. Let’s get into it: ⬇️

Today’s Lineup

Rookie Takeover 🐐: What a night from Victor Wembanyama… in his fifth-ever NBA game.

Battle of LA ⚔️: The Lakers beat the Clippers for the first time in three years…

Top Five Friday 5️⃣: The best dunks from the first week of the NBA season!

But first, some trivia to start your day:

Last Night’s Action

Spurs beat Suns 132-121 behind Wemby’s 38

San Antonio just took down a star-studded Suns team with rookie superstar Victor Wembanyama (38 points) as their leading scorer. The man had 20 in the first half—including two smooth pull-up threes—and some tough buckets down the stretch. 

Phoenix erased a 27-point deficit in the 4th quarter behind the incredible shotmaking of Devin Booker (31 points) and Kevin Durant (28 points), but the Spurs controlled most of the rest of the game.

Sixers cruise past Raptors 114-99

Joel Embiid (28 points) was his usual dominant self in Philly’s 15-point win over Toronto. Scottie Barnes (24 points) also continued his excellent start to the season, but the Raptors looked a bit weary coming off a win vs the Bucks the previous night. And it was Kelly Oubre who proved that he might be the steal of the offseason. (Regardless, he’s definitely stolen our heart… 😍) 

Pelicans handle Pistons 125-116

CJ McCollum is a bad, bad man! Just one night after dropping 29, he came out and poured in a smooth 33 to carry the Pelicans to victory without Zion or Brandon Ingram. And Matt Ryan, who you may know from that one shot in Los Angeles, made his first start for the Pelicans and was AWESOME, finishing with 20 points on 6-8 shooting from three! We love stories like this.

Magic outlast Jazz 115-113

Utah stormed all the way back and took the lead in this one with 19 seconds left in the game, but Paolo Banchero (30 points) scored the game winning layup to seal this win for the Magic. We love to see a young team get these close wins under their belt!

Wednesday Night Notes

There were 26 teams in action on Wednesday, so chances are you didn’t see everything that happened. Lucky for you, we’re about to catch you up on the big moments you missed: ⬇️

• The Battle of LA was the best game of the year so far. Kawhi and PG13 combined for 73 points while both hitting tough shots down the stretch, but the Lake-show prevailed behind LeBron’s 35 (including a cold alley-oop from Austin Reaves) to win 130-125.

• Golden State eked out a 102-101 win against Sacramento, thanks to Klay Thompson's game-winning ice-cold 17-footer. The final minute was a seesaw of emotions, but Stephen Curry's nimble layups and clutch triples helped lead the Warriors to victory.

• Grant Williams (AKA the Batman) drilled seven threes and led the Mavs to a big W over the Bulls. Despite muted performances from Dallas’ big name players, Tim Hardaway Jr and Dereck Lively II really impressed us. Also, Derrick Jones Jr climbed over Zach LaVine for an insane put-back. Dallas remains undefeated!

• Miami's early sizzle turned to a fizzle as Brooklyn's bench mob flipped a 15-point deficit into a 109-105 win with a WILD ending. Shout-out to Brooklyn’s Armoni Brooks, who was called up from the G League on Tuesday and scored 17 points in just 16 minutes the very next day!

• A couple early-season title favorites stumbled on Wednesday, as the Nuggets got outplayed by the Timberwolves and the Raptors shut down the Bucks offense. The Celtics, meanwhile, scored a zillion points in their win against Indiana.

Top Five Friday

Welcome back to Top Five Friday, where we bring you the five best… well, anything related to NBA hoops! This week, we’re having fun with some of the best dunks so far this season.

1. Zion dunks over the DPOY

Zion Williamson is good at dunking basketballs. That much is obvious. But to posterize Jaren Jackson Jr (the reigning Defensive Player of the Year) during the first week of the season is WILD!

2. Jalen Johnson destroys Knicks with slam

Welcome to the Jalen Johnson hype train, everyone. After a solid sophomore season, the young Hawks wing is exploding onto the scene with monstrous dunks like this one over Isaiah Hartenstein AND Josh Hart. Sheeeesh.

3. Malik was Done with Dunn

This man Malik Monk straight-up baptized Kris Dunn on live television. Kris never even stood a chance, and the whole thing kinda reminded us of poor Jason Terry on a certain fast break…

4. Westbrook flushes alley-oop from PG13

Is Westbrook the best in-game dunker ever? If not number one, he has to be up there. How did he even reach this lob? Throwing it down with such ferocity is textbook Russ.

5. Sengun strikes, Collins collapses

People often compare Alperen Sengun to Nikola Jokic, but Sengun obviously isn’t the scorer Jokic is. Then again, the Joker doesn’t have this verticality… 😳

Frozen Moments

• We can’t BELIEVE Nic Batum leaned into this joke… IYKYK😂 

• Jalen Suggs with a 500IQ play off a free throw. 🤓 

• How the heck did Anthony Black finish this??? 💫 

• What happens when Embiid meets Pascal at the rim… 😯 

What We’re Enjoying

Finding the Flat Earther: These Jubilee social experiments are super interesting, and we had a lot of fun guessing who the secret Flat Earther was. 😅 (Disclaimer: the Earth is round. You know, like a basketball.)

Signing Off

Thanks for giving us some time on this fine, fine Friday! Make this weekend a slam dunk. Talk to you on Monday!

-Conor Geelan

Trivia Answer: The most recent player to post a 30+ rebound game was Enes Freedom! Though we suppose he was Enes Kanter at the time… so maybe that’s the answer. Regardless, if that man could do one thing, it was rebound the ball.

Before you go…

We wanna give a BIG happy birthday to Enjoyers Charlie, Nathan, Alex and Michael 🎉 Thanks for taking the time to read our newsletter, we really appreciate y’all! 💙🏀

If you want your own birthday shoutout, we gotcha! Simply fill out the survey below ⬇️ and we'll make it happen. 🫡