🏀 What Do Latvia & Japan Have In Common?

Mood now that our schedules are filled with NBA players playing basketball again:

Unfortunately, a lot of that basketball is taking place at wacky hours for folks here in the US. But luckily we don’t need sleep because (sorry if this comes as a shock) we’re just a newsletter. Now let’s get you up to speed on all the good stuff you may have missed. Off we go.

Today’s Lineup

World Cup Stunners: A gold medal hopeful has already been eliminated 😲

Canada Rolling: Through two games, the Canadians are looking serious 🔥

Ready To Pop: Does Atlanta have one of the league’s best-kept secrets? 🤫

“Embrace Chaos” -The Latvian National Team

The Latvian National Team didn’t actually say that with their words, but they did with their actions on Sunday when they knocked the heavily favored—and gold medal hopeful—France team out of the FIBA World Cup (which caused FIBA to joke about its pre-tournament power rankings.)

Latvia simply making the FIBA World Cup was an accomplishment. But you know what they say about a team with nothing to lose…

Well, they have nothing to lose. And now Latvia will advance to the second round, making it out of a group that very few people thought they had a chance to.

Speaking of teams making some history, Japan beat Finland for its first-ever win against a European country at the World Cup, thanks to the performances of stunningly Enjoyable, 5’7 guard Yuki Kawamura (25 points) and center Josh Hawkinson (28 points).

This whole tournament feels like March Madness on steroids. We can’t get enough.

Ready To Pop: AJ Griffin

Everyone keeps asking us about this neon sign we hung in our living room for some reason.

We think it’s tasteful. But if you must know, we hung it up because, in his rookie season, Hawks wing AJ Griffin was a pretty good player for the most part. And while you may think being a pretty good player some of the time doesn’t warrant a neon sign, 1) we can decorate however we want, and 2) not many 19-year-old rookies are productive in the NBA at all, so when a teenager goes through stretches in which he helps a team (a playoff team, at that) we can’t help but start rubbing our hands like Birdman.

So, what have we seen thus far? We’ll start with the raw stats.

Stats: 72 G, 8.9 PTS, 2.1 REB, 1.0 AST, 46.5% FG, 39.0% 3PT, 89% FT, 57.7 TS%

And if you’re wondering what those stats actually look like on the floor:

We won’t pretend like Griffin played at this level all season—if he had, he’d probably be ineligible for a segment called Ready To Pop. But the specific skills he flashed in this game—from a step-in transition three to a midrange floater with a defender on his back—are the traits of an elite scorer. Simply put, a fully unlocked AJ Griffin can be an elite NBA scorer.

Frozen Moments

• Canada has won its first two World Cup games…by 85 points

• Hornets new (sort of) throwbacks are a top-tier NBA jersey

• The NY Liberty seem to be breaking some kind of record every week…

What We’re Enjoying

Earl Sweatshirt & The Alchemist - Voir Dire

Sometimes it feels like two artists were put on Earth to make music together—rapper Earl Sweatshirt and producer The Alchemist are a perfect example of that. While the two prolific hip-hop artists have collaborated in the past, Voir Dire is their first full-length project together, and the duo delivers. They also released a video for the single Sentry with a feature from MIKE.

Signing Off

We completely understand if the FIBA World Cup has decimated your sleep schedule…nonetheless, try and rest up this week! You’re a whole different person when you get proper rest. Talk soon.

-Quinn Everts

Trivia Answer: At exactly 6’0, Allen Iverson is the shortest scoring champ the NBA has ever seen.

Before you go…