🏀 Team USA beat the #1 seed...

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If you were on a $100M contract and a starter for the reigning NBA champs, where would you go? The Bahamas? Paris? If you’re Aaron Gordon, the answer is Serbia. The AG/Jokic bromance is getting up to shenanigans in the home country of the Finals MVP, and it’s so wholesome.

Today’s Lineup

Movie ➡️ IRL: Kermit Wilts 🎥 crossed up Bo Cruz in FIBA Basketball…actually

Golden Years 👴 This NBA legend is now a Hall of Famer, but so much more

LOL 💀 We speculate who may give the funniest HOF speeches, whether intentional or unintentional

But first, a quick quiz to see whether you know these microwave bucket-getters:

FIBA Frenzy

After murdering a Luka Doncic-less Slovenia team last week, Team USA played an exhibition against Spain, the reigning FIBA World Cup champions and #1 in FIBA’s World Rankings. International basketball is weird because the team with the most talent doesn’t always win. In that sense, it’s kinda like college hoops. Strategy and chemistry matter, especially when non-NBA players from other countries have been playing together for years. Need evidence? Willy Hernangomez is the reigning Eurobasket Finals MVP over Giannis, Luka, and Jokic. Shoutout Willy.

Anyways, it was a tight game, but USA pulled away from Spain in the fourth quarter to win 98-88. Jalen Brunson led the charge for the stars and stripes, pouring in buckets on the Spaniards like they were Clevelanders. There was even a moment where Kermit Wilts (Anthony Edwards) crossed up Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangomez) in a play only Adam Sandler could write up.

Steve Kerr, in his infinite wisdom, gave a key insight as to how the USA knocked off No.1 Spain: “We have more good players.” True, Steve.

Golden Years 👴

Welcome back to Golden Years, a segment where we cover what NBA players are up to post-retirement! Pau Gasol was just inducted into the Hall of Fame, which made us wonder what he’s been up to since he retired in 2019. Well, we whipped out our Sherlock Holmes hat and magnifying glass and took the case.

Before Pau came to the United States, he played for FC Barcelona as a teenager in his native Spain. Then after 18 years in the NBA, Gasol returned to the club where he first blossomed and played 1 season. Talk about full circle 🥲

Now, Pau co-heads The Gasol Foundation alongside his brother Marc. With the Gasol Bros at the helm, the foundation aims to combat childhood obesity by addressing all of its causes: access to nutritious food, exercise, and mental health. This goal reflects their passion for medicine—both brothers wanted to be doctors growing up, and both their parents, Agusti and Marisa, were members of the medical community. What a family!👨‍⚕️👩‍⚕️

Hall of Funniness

Last week, Dirk Nowitzki, Tony Parker, Dwayne Wade, Gregg Popovich, and Pau Gasol were inducted into the Hall of Fame. Because Wade’s speech was so great, NBA Twitter started brainstorming which future Hall of Famer will have the funniest induction speech. Hold our drink.

Off the top of our heads, we think Blake Griffin will have jokes for days given that he has done standup sets before. Giannis will surely have some dad jokes too. Jimmy Butler will Skype in from the Bahamas.

But then we realized there are so many unintentionally funny legends too. We can already see the Kawhi memes coming. Harden will shout out Lil Baby (and not Darryl Morey.) Plus, you know LeBron is gonna do some corny act. Our money is that he gets a pet goat on stage.

Boardroom’s HeadlineToGo

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Frozen Moments

• The NBA mid-season tournament schedule dropped. Check it out here!

• How TF did Sabrina Ionescu sink these two three-pointers 🤯 

• Stephen A Smith went on Paul George’s podcast and gave his thoughts on “the new media”

What We’re Enjoying

The 2K24 official gameplay trailer just dropped. Usually, it’s just zoomed-in shots of a sweaty LeBron James. But this time, it looks fire. The animations of KD jumpers look like we’re watching the Suns live, and they even have Jordan Poole calling an iso on Draymond 💀 Take a look here:

Signing Off

Before you head on your way, vote HERE for the Enjoy Basketball team to speak at the SXSW 2024 panel so we can share our message of uplifting the game we love ❤️🏀 Have a good one, y’all ✌️

-Conor Geelan

Trivia Answer: Lemon Pepper Lou Williams has scored the most points off the bench since 2010! And it’s not very close 😳 

Before you go…