🏀 Is There A Title In This Team's Future?

We were browsing some scores over the weekend and got excited because we thought the NBA season started. Turns out we were actually just looking at the score of the Dolphins game…

Today’s Lineup

Sun Strike First: Is a major upset brewing in the WNBA playoffs? ☀️

Check Back Soon: Is the Motor City building something great? 🚗

NBA News: Hmm… you guys got anything? 💤

Sun Shine, Aces Hold In WNBA Semis Game 1’s

Don’t sleep on the Sun. You’d need to turn the A/C up really high.

And definitely don’t sleep on the Connecticut Sun, who scorched the New York Liberty 78-63 on Sunday to take a 1-0 lead in the WNBA semifinals.

New York has been the East’s best team for the entire season; they handled pretty much everyone during the regular season, Connecticut included—going 4-0 against the Sun throughout the year. But now ⬇️

so throw that regular season talk out the window. The usual suspects put on for Connecticut: DeWanna Bonner (20 PTS) Rebecca Allen (18 PTS, 7 REBS, great fit), and Alyssa Thomas (8/7/10) all made a statement in Barclays. Is there an upset brewing?

Best in the West, Las Vegas Aces, meanwhile, had a pretty smooth ride en route to a 1-0 series lead with a trouncing of Dallas.

A’ja Wilson continued her path of destruction with 34 points, and the Vegas starters as a whole scored 93 points. When a team doesn’t have any weak spots, they’re tough to beat…

Check Back Soon: Detroit Pistons

🚨 New segment alert! 🚨 Welcome to Check Back Soon, where we’ll examine the young core of one team each week and tell you how they can morph their team into a contendor–and what factors could potentially stand in their way. First up?

Why This Core Can Win

Detroit has pieces. And while finding out just how the pieces fit together might be akin to one of those puzzles where the whole thing is just like, one blue flower (i.e, difficult) the final result could be dazzling. Those pieces— named Ausar Thompson, Cade Cunningham, Jaden Ivey, and Jalen Duren— each bring a skillset that feels like an amalgamation of multiple NBA players, while remaining distinct still.

Duren might be the strongest teenager on planet Earth, Ivey’s freakish speed and finishing abilities grew more effective as his rookie year went on, Thompson seems like an almost obvious superstar in waiting, and Cunningham has the potential to be very good in pretty much every aspect of the game. If new coach Monty Williams can amplify each players’ strengths, things may start working for DET in a hurry. We have no idea what the best version of this quartet will actually look like— because teams aren’t usually built around players of these archetypes.

What This Core Still Needs

Well, someone’s going to have to make shots. Though each of these players contributes in their own way, outside shooting isn’t the main attribute of any one. (34.9% for Ivey, 30.9 for Cunningham.) If this core needs one more player to make it a group that GM Troy Weaver feels confident can truly compete one day, that player probably needs to be a bona fide sharpshooter.

Frozen Moments

• Eight-inch size difference? Doesn’t matter. Natisha Hiedeman SWAT 😲

• Ant got his own day in ATL…that’s pretty cool ❤️

• Did Boston make a sneaky good signing this weekend?

What We’re Enjoying

PABLO TORRE FINDS OUT: The new podcast from writer, TV host, and one-time NBA Draft Lottery Party Wedding Officiant Pablo Torre is about as unique of a product as you’ll find in a crowded sports media landscape, tackling the questions we all want answered, like “Did Mark Zuckerberg get choked out in an MMA fight?” Torre and his guests are rapidly making PTFO one of the most engaging and endearing sports-adjacent journalism projects in recent memory.

Signing Off

And we’re gone! Try to believe in yourself this week. Tell yourself you can accomplish that thing. Get really ridiculous with it, too. Everything is made up, and you actually can accomplish that ridiculous thing. Talk soon!

-Quinn Everts

Trivia Answer: Maybe a bit of a surprise here, but the Utah Jazz (the team that the NBA’s all-time assist leader played his entire career with) only have 24 all-time triple-doubles.

Before you go…