What’s up, Enjoyers? Before we get started, let’s give a quick shoutout to Danilo Gallinari, who just won his first professional championship and was crowned Finals MVP of Puerto Rico’s National Superior Basketball League on Monday! 🙌

Today’s Lineup

🎉 Happy birthday to DeMarcus Cousins, Okaro White, and Ezi Magbegor! 🎉

Around the Association

NBA releases Opening Week, MLK Day schedules

The NBA released its Christmas and Opening Night schedules last week, which got us all AMPED for the 2025-26 season. 🙌 

This week, that hype kept rolling with even more marquee matchups for the rest of Opening Week and MLK Day:

Opening Week:

• Cleveland Cavaliers vs. New York Knicks (10/22)

• San Antonio Spurs vs. Dallas Mavericks (10/22)

• Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Indiana Pacers (10/23)

• Denver Nuggets vs. Golden State Warriors (10/23)

MLK Day (1/19):

• Milwaukee Bucks vs. Atlanta Hawks

• Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Cleveland Cavaliers

• Dallas Mavericks vs .New York Knicks

• Boston Celtics vs. Detroit Pistons

Some of our favorite storylines from these electric matchups include…

• Victor Wembanyama and Cooper Flagg competing in their first head-to-head matchup

• A 2025 NBA Finals rematch between Indiana and OKC

• Nikola Jokić and Steph Curry squaring off

• The #1 seeds from each conference last year battling it out

• Cooper Flagg making his Madison Square Garden debut while Jalen Brunson goes against his former team

The NBA will release the remainder of the schedule throughout the rest of this week, and based on the games we’ve seen so far, it’s going to be hard to take a night off from basketball this year. 😎

Nikola Jokić dominates in EuroBasket exhibition game, leads Serbia to 76-66 win over Greece

Even in August, the Joker is putting up insane statlines. The three-time MVP dropped an absurd 23 points, 19 rebounds and 4 assists in Serbia’s exhibition win this week over Greece. 😎

Greece played without Giannis Antetokounmpo in this one, which, as you would imagine, made things that much more difficult when it came to stopping Jokic and company. Forward Dinos Mitoglou was the go-to guy for Greece’s squad in this one, putting up 18 points and going 2/2 from behind the arc.

And along with Jokić’s usual eye-popping numbers, Serbia also got nice boosts from Bogdan Bogdanović and Nikola Jović, who put up nine points apiece.

In just two weeks’ time, the Joker has gone from celebrating his horse winning a race to dropping video game numbers on the hardwood. Never change, Nikola. 😂

Wayback Wednesday

If we were to tell you there was an NBA player who won more championships than Michael Jordan, hit game-winning shot after game-winning shot in the playoffs (including the Finals), and earned himself the nickname “Big Shot Bob”, you would probably assume this player was a superstar. Maybe even a surefire Hall of Famer.

But what if we told you he wasn’t any of that?

In today’s edition of Wayback Wednesday, we’re highlighting one of the most accomplished role players in NBA history: Robert Horry! 🔥

Drafted No. 11 overall in the 1992 draft by the Houston Rockets, Horry began his luxurious winning career almost immediately. He was already a two-time champion by the end of his third season in the league, playing a key role as a starter on Houston’s teams that won back-to-back titles in ‘94 and ‘95 behind NBA legend Hakeem Olajuwon. 🏆🏆

Following his stint as a Rocket, he found himself in LakerLand. Horry’s tenure in Los Angeles made it clear that wherever he went, winning seemed to follow (it’s also where his “Big Shot Bob” nickname was coined). It’s utterly impressive he was able to earn that nickname while playing alongside Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, arguably two of the top ten players the game has ever seen.

But when you hit shots like this one to beat the buzzer in the Western Conference Finals with your squad facing a 3-1 series deficit, it’s easy to see why his nickname makes sense:

Horry went on to win three of his seven championships with the Lakers, and ended up winning two more rings with the Spurs in ‘05 and ‘07 to close out his career.

Without a doubt, the peak of those Spurs runs for Big Shot Bob came in Game 5 of the 2005 Finals against the defending champion Pistons. Horry drilled a game-winning three with his team down by two that gave the Spurs a decisive 3-2 lead in the series—the team went on to win in seven.

Horry isn’t in the Hall of Fame, but if there was a role player Hall of Fame, he would be a first-ballot induction!

Three in the Key

Signing Off

That’s all for today, Enjoyers! Thanks for spending some time out of your day with us. We know it’s easy for that mid-week stress to hit hard, so if you have a few spare minutes today, take some time to journal or write out what’s going through your mind. Seeing your thoughts on paper goes a long way in relieving some of the stress going on in your head.

We’ll be back on Friday to catch you up with all the latest in the hoops world. See ya then!

Bobby Kasmire