The Second Arrangement

WHAT THEY TRIED IN 2018-19

Make the playoffs, picture Dwyane Wade performing to a primetime audience one final time. Basic cable.

WHAT HAPPENED IN 2018-19

39-43, ninth in the Eastern Conference

Wade (15 points per game in 26 minutes a Miami Nite, two starts) came to ball. The 37-year old propped up the Heat in dynamic ways that rang well beyond his occasional last-second theatrics.

The rest of the club wasn’t up for much: Goran Dragic sat 50 games, Dion Waiters 38, and fancy-passing Justise Winslow missed two weeks in March with Miami clawing for its playoff life — listen, zone defense is hard. The whole gang returned in time for a 1-5 record in April, denying Wade his last hopes for a postseason show-off.

Gabrielle Union is hilarious. She could have lived on TNT for a week and a half, but instead we got Orlando. Instead we got Detroit.

OFFSEASON INS AND OUTS

Here: Jimmy Butler (sign-and-trade, four years and $140.8 million), Meyers Leonard (trade, Portland), KZ Okpala (No. 32 pick in 2019 NBA draft, trade with Phoenix), Tyler Herro (No. 13 pick), Udonis Haslem is back.

Gone: Dwyane Wade (NBA retirement), Hassan Whiteside (dealt to Portland), Josh Richardson (dealt to Philadelphia), Ryan Anderson (waived).

PLAN FOR 2019-20

Wreck some playoffs. Wreck the opponents’ sleeping habits.

Charged with heading Miami’s gnarly defense, Goran Dragic faded a bit last season offensively, we didn’t get our usual Goran around the rim or midrange. The 33-year old will have far, far less to do this season with Butler dominating damn-near everything, sparks are everywhere, this thing never stops moving.

Waiters, Kelly Olynyk and Meyers Leonard appear to be in their primes, Winslow isn’t far off, and last season’s No. 6 defense should earn a shot in the arm without Wade dragging its dimensions down.

FREAK FOR 2019-20

The Heat unfurled the league’s fifth-worst offense last season, mostly due to its indulgent insistence on curating an unworkable, yet finely-tuned mix of two-point jumpers. If this sustains, the Heat will have to work one and a half times the average bear and, s**t, this is something that Pat Riley would say.

Additionally, Butler wasn’t due for Thibodeau Time taking hold for another few years yet the breakdown watch begins now — especially if the Heat keep up this 3 AM business.

These Heat might be outclassed by the top half of the East, but you get the feeling Miami doesn’t mind its defects. This is a group of guys who can perform well while feeling put-upon, no matter how genuine the scrutiny.

COME ON LOOK AT

You’d think we’d have some fun here, that we could see a spark in the first season, but remember this is Miami: Brent Barry couldn’t get minutes with Pat Riley, and not the ancient Brent, nah, he was 27. Suitable Brent Barry.

If Herro realizes he can keep his dribble in this league, he’ll be dope as hell and right away.

This point of observation only counts if Tyler’s able to keep his dribble in this league right away.

MAYBE LINEUP

F/C: Kelly Olynyk — perhaps the flick up to ostensible center will perk him up, shot only 35 percent from deep last season. Already 28 so it’s time to have some sort of year.

C/F: Bam Adebayo — excitable (8.9 points and 7.3 boards in 22 minutes), dependable, won’t hurt you at the line (73 percent career) and only just turned 22. If we still did things the wrong way, this would be Bam’s fourth season at Kentucky.

F: Justise Winslow — hasn’t broken out, may never make an All-Star team yet I’m wholly enthused about his next 10 years of NBA basketball. Less forward to the years after that.

SG: Jimmy Butler — just turned 30, but somehow retains the puerile quirks of someone much younger. Will be a monster at basketball this season.

PG: Goran Dragic — wasn’t sloppy or selfish last round, just wasn’t nearly as potent. Play off the ball will be crucial.

THERE WILL BE A BENCH

F: Kyle Alexander — shot-blocking big spent four years at Tennessee, performed ably at Summer League.

G: Tyler Herro — this team badly needs someone beyond Dion to not think before shooting a three-pointer.

PF/C: Udonis Haslem — only worked 74 minutes last season and 72 the year before after 499 career starts and years in the Heat rotation. If long acrimony between Haslem and coach Erik Spoelstra exists then each party would be smart to air respective grievances.

At this point I don’t know what either side is getting out of this relationship. If Haslem feels as if he has NBA basketball left to play then he should do it with a franchise that feels the same.

G/F: Derrick Jones Jr. — Miami lost this guy for a month midseason and fell a half-dozen games in the standings. It’s true Jones can dunk but did you also know he can cram?

F: James Johnson — if he wants to roll in like Joe Ingles or one of the Morris brothers, well, James is on the wrong team for that. Johnson can really play and I hope he’s back in the rotation soon.

SG: Dion Waiters — was only healthy for maybe half of his 44 games last year, a determined Waiters (a dozen points on 41 percent shooting in 25 minutes) sure as hell gutted one out. He still isn’t good.

C: Meyers Leonard — won’t hurt you on the glass nearly as much as he will defensively. Is good, 45 percent on threes the last two years and the Heat need to find space for him.

PG: Jeremiah Martin — scored nearly twenty a game as a senior at Memphis last season, over two steals per game. Went undrafted before signing an Exhibit 10 deal with Miami over the summer.

Rob Schneider’s nickname character on SNL, the one in the room with the copy machines, this was a funny character.

“The Richmeister.”

G: Kendrick Nunn — lefty averaged 19.3 points per game off the bench of the Santa Cruz Warriors last season.

The tagline makin’ copies is repetitive and silly and each of Schneider’s movie-starring efforts are trash, his opinions are odious, but those sketches were f****n’ hilarious.

The Sting one, the one where they put the copy room in the Koresh compound, also the one where he bugged his co-workers while each attempted to create and print a photocopy. All great.

SG: Davon Reed — former Miami Hurricane star averaged 14 a game in the minors last year on 40 percent shooting.

The only thing Donald Trump has ever truly laughed at was the Rob Schneider sketch about nicknames and makin’ copies, I fully believe this, still doesn’t mean “Richmeister” wasn’t a funny sketch.

F: KZ Okpala — athletic ex-Stanford scorer missed Summer League as the Heat shuffled its free agent promises around. Taken high in the second round, the 20-year old is not what we’d call “a passer.”

G/F: Duncan Robinson — averaged 21 a game and nearly hit half his threes at Sioux Falls last season. Stunk in 15 games with the the big club last year.

F: Chris Silva — from Gabon, worked three years at South Carolina yet went undrafted last June. Went to Udonis Haslem’s high school.

Imagine the re-introduction of the White House Correspondents' Dinner: Donald Trump convulsing in laughing fits as Rob Schneider just hands out nicknames for 44 minutes.

PROJECTED RECORD

46-36, third in the East.

LET’S WATCH THIS

The Heat did not hire someone to sing the Star-Spangled Banner for this game. They chose a different song.

After the Heat start laughing on the bench, the producer shifts to a shot of my favorite kind of mascot pose: the Solemn Mascot.

This particular singer now performs in character as Sir Elton John.

PREVIOUSLY: Toronto, Indiana, Washington, Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Orlando, Boston, New York, Brooklyn, San Antonio.

NEXT: DETROIT.

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WHAT THEY TRIED IN 2018-19

To deliver on Fred Hoiberg’s promise as an NBA head coach, shuttling spacey prospects around until the rest of the league couldn’t catch up with whatever the Bulls already executed. Establish Jabari Parker as a superstar Chicago could call “home.”

WHAT HAPPENED IN 2018-19

22-60, thirteenth in the Eastern Conference

Parker sucked, Hoiberg couldn’t survive a 5-19 start to the season: I think he coaches football at Nebraska now.

Former volunteer high school football assistant Jim Boylen was brought in to further embarrass the club, he’d round into a passable coach by season’s end but not before much consumable consternation.

A February trade with the Wizards relieved them of Jabari and eased the pour on Chicago’s sweaty brow. Acquisition Otto Porter averaged 17.5 points on 48.8 percent three-point shooting as a Bull yet the club’s front office (John Paxson, still, and Gar Forman) was keen to tank for the season’s remaining weeks.

OFFSEASON INS AND OUTS

Here: Coby White (No. 7 overall pick in 2019 NBA draft), Daniel Gafford (No. 38 pick), Thaddeus Young (free agent, three years and $41 million), Tomas Satoransky (free agent via sign-and-trade, three years and $30 million), Luke Kornet (FA, two years and $4.5 million).

Gone: Robin Lopez (free agent, Milwaukee).

PLAN FOR 2019-20

Compete without making waves. Create 30-odd grunt of wins while developing the same pleasant hum so many other NBA also-rans manage to effectively buzz (without mortifying an entire fan base along the way). Everyone could stand to improve their their-point shooting a few notches, perhaps the youngsters could make up for Otto Porter’s eventual cooling.

FREAK FOR 2019-20

Boylen overwhelms again as Chicago cornerstones Lauri Markkanen (19 and nine at age 21 last season, come on) and Wendell Carter (over 10 points and seven rebounds in 25 minutes per, 58 blocks in 44 games) chafe in the face of basketball they know better than.

Thaddeus Young finds it hard to contribute his brand of patient, settled basketball amidst a stocked frontcourt.

COME ON MAN LOOK AT

This felt like spring training, I cannot wait to watch him try this against taller, stronger men. Coby gives the whiff of a person aching to hurry up to their late 20s.

MAYBE LINEUP

C: Wendell Carter — I see no weakness in him. Imagine, last season was the worst Wendell Carter will ever be at the game of ‘NBA.’

PF: Lauri Markkanen — team’s point guard problems made second-year life tougher on Markkanen than it shoulda been, could take a massive jump this season if his shot is true.

SF: Otto Porter — should blend wonderfully in a slimming Chicago frontcourt, he can’t fall back on some of the bad defensive habits that crept in toward the end of his stay in Washington.

SG: Zach LaVine — still passing, still trying defensively, gets to the line in tricky situations. It’s on a bad team, but he’s put the work in (while remaining a treat to watch during the rough spots).

PG: Tomas Satoransky — starts a good play and digs in on what the assistants are calling defensively. Satoransky isn’t a superstar but he’s a “point guard,” this quote doesn’t include the word “problem” any more.

THERE WILL BE A BENCH

PG: Ryan Arcidiacono — never gets to the line but hits a fair amount of his all-over shots, you can’t count him out at the end of a shot clock. Two years for $6 million for the 24-year old, next year is a team option.

PG: Kris Dunn — was demonstrably worse in his second year with Chicago after proving demonstrably better the season before, Bulls have no choice but to keep him on in hopes he hits a wildly unsustainable amount of mid-range twos. Players that cause havoc are worth waiting out.

C: Cristiano Felicio — Bulls hoping for an improvement in dunking percentage, better understanding of “peripheral vision.”

F: Thaddeus Young — all he was was everything for the Pacers last season, Bulls were right to pay for the space he’ll fill.

C: Luke Kornet — hit 70 threes in 193 attempts (36.3 percent last season), isn’t really impressive in warmups, either.

F: Denzel Valentine — turned it on a little during his second season but missed what woulda been the 25-year old’s third campaign with a series of left ankle surgeries, “procedures.” This isn’t the best time for a position change, despite Chicago’s icky swingman depth, there’s no shame in being Otto Porter’s pretty-OK backup until the next contract figures itself out.

F: Chandler Hutchinson — struggled through an undistinguished rookie year, but it was hard to fit in with that mess. Problem for Chandler: Chicago is gonna be a mess this year, too.

F/C: Daniel Gafford — ferocious shot-blocker and throwdown artist is a laaangsty 6-11, should be some fun this season.

G: Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot — 25-year old has not been good at NBA basketball yet.

(UPDATE: So now he’s on Cleveland.)

SG: Brandon Sampson — minor league callup is gonna have to hit a lot better than 38 percent (11-29) from long range in order to make up for all that other stuff he isn’t doing.

PG: Shaquille Harrison — pugnacious defender a delight to watch perform, is left-handed yet can punch the ball out of bounds with either fist.

G: Coby White — could finish May batting .180, if you know what I mean, but these years will be worth it.

PROJECTED RECORD

32-50, eleventh in the East.

LET’S WATCH THIS

This entire uncomfortable interview is just one, red, fuzzy sweater.

A little background into our sad, little fight.

PREVIOUSLY: Toronto, Indiana, Washington, Atlanta, Charlotte.

NEXT: Milwaukee.

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(Never Too Much podcast: Three years! And we appreciate the Knicks! We often fear them.)

The Chicago Bulls wrapped up a home win over the New York Knicks in Game 2 of the 1996 Eastern semis on a Tuesday, May 7. A boon for Chicago, as the NBA didn’t schedule Game 3 until Saturday.

The Bulls, up 2-0 following two bouts with Knickerbocker bruisers, were in pain.

“The wear and tear of playing close to 100 games” caught up to Michael Jordan (back spasms) in the opening round, Jordan removed himself from action twice against New York in Game 1 of the semifinals.

Cohort Scottie Pippen copped to performing only at “70 to 75 percent,” grimacing through a 11-36 field goal mark in the first two wins of the series. The wrack of shooting for 72 wins between Nov. and April was tugging at Chicago, its opening round slugfest against Miami didn’t help the preponderance of contusions.

Though Game 2’s win provided three days of “rest” before the next contest, super sixth man Toni Kukoc couldn’t make it out of the workweek. Only hours before the Bulls’ plane was set to depart from Chicago on Friday afternoon, Kukoc sprained ligaments in his back during a final team practice, ruling him out for the series.

What promised to be a long week of rest and recovery only created chaos in Chicago’s frontcourt. Kukoc shot just 1-11 at Madison Square Garden in 1995-96’s regular season but his presence kept Chicago credible when Pippen and Jordan took their blows.

The Knicks gave Chicago all it could handle in losing efforts during the first two contests in the series, now New York would have MSG on its side in its efforts against a Bulls team that hadn’t won a thing, yet.

Delighting in the compression, NBC scheduled the Bulls and Knicks to play on Saturday, May 11 and again on the next day.

Back-to-back playoff games at Madison Square Garden.

On Dennis Rodman’s birthday weekend.

The Knick series was a busy time for Dennis. Basketball was often involved.

Dennis had a book to promote: ‘Bad As I Wanna Be’ debuted in stores on May 12, 1996. Rodman appeared at a downtown Chicago book-signing the day before Game 1 draped in a feather boa, he traveled to Greektown to visit with Oprah on the day between Games 1 and 2. The push worked, his story eventually topped the New York Times bestseller list, beating out ‘The Dilbert Principle.’

The 34-year old averaged an NBA-best 14.9 rebounds in 1995-96’s regular season, compiling a 26.6 rebound rate. Dennis pulled in 31 rebounds against New York in the first two games of the series as Chicago owned its offensive glass.

The 6-11 Kukoc’s rebound rate was a third of Rodman’s in 1995-96 but Toni won the Sixth Man Award going away, only missing a single regular season game. Kukoc’s presence allowed Scottie Pippen to take five games off in March to rest an assortment of heel and back injuries, Toni served as salve when Rodman sat out a six-game suspension midseason for head-butting referee Ted Bernhardt.

New York was thick as s**t, though.

The Knicks started Patrick Ewing and Charles Oakley up front, enough to call in sick, plus 250-lb. Anthony Mason led the NBA in minutes while starting at NYK small forward. It was a brutish lineup, and New York swept the Cavaliers in the first round of the 1996 playoffs in a series that featured an average of 80 possessions per contest.

These were slow drags, performances the Bulls would have to consider without Kukoc’s 26-minutes of award-winning Toni. With Pippen aching and center Luc Longley (10 fouls in 60 minutes so far in the semifinals) minding the most Ewing a man could, Rodman was going to have to outrank even his own standards.

Dennis wrapped the boa ‘round and got ready for work, but not before Lorne came calling.

From the Northwest Indiana Times’ Sunday edition on May 12, 1996:

Producers of the television show "Saturday Night Live" phoned Bulls media assistant Tom Smithburg early Saturday morning as they were putting the final touches on their skits.

Apparently, the guys at SNL were asking for Dennis Rodman to perform in a segment as a weatherman. Guess they wanted to add some thunder to the show.

Literally pressed for time, the paper couldn’t recount Dennis’ actual work on Saturday evening, or Sunday morning, while performing on ‘Saturday Night Live.’

(On the night between back-to-back afternoon NBA playoff games.)

Rodman appeared in the cold open as himself, sort of.

Norm MacDonald’s Bob Dole impersonation introduced Rodman as Dole’s choice for vice-presidential candidate in the upcoming 1996 elections. Christine Baranski acted as SNL’s host and musical guests The Cure played something called a “Mint Car.”

Dennis also appeared as “Literary Correspondent” alongside MacDonald on ‘Weekend Update,’ minutes after Saturday night pogoed into Sunday morning. Promoting the insides of ‘Bad As I Wanna Be’ while shirtless and possibly nude, parroting his infamous interaction with Teddy Bernhardt.

After the bit asked MacDonald to chide Rodman for using coarse language, Dennis head-butted MacDonald right onto the floor. Crucially, Rodman was not asked to appear on that evening’s ‘Goat Boy’ sketch.

Later in the month MacDonald appeared on ‘Late Night with Conan O’Brien’ to explain why Rodman’s playact headbutt moved MacDonald to take a trip to the emergency room a day after the SNL episode aired.

In the segment, the Canadian comedian expressed frustration at receiving the first hospital bill of his life, alongside his unavailing attempts to explain to disbelieving ER staff that MacDonald’s head hurt because “Dennis Rodman headbutted me!”

“On the TV!”

Rodman’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ episode made no mention of the New York Knicks’ Game 3 win over Chicago, a conquest that took place hours earlier and on the same network, over at Madison Square Garden.

Only NBC’s mid-SNL advertisements promoted Rodman’s appearance in Sunday’s Game 4, the NBA basketball game scheduled 16 hours after SNL wrapped.

The Bulls lost Game 3 in overtime on Saturday afternoon, Rodman played all but 10 seconds of the 53-minute contest. He’d pulled 16 rebounds in the afternoon hours before appearing on late-night programming, and his night didn’t end once evening turned to morning.

‘Saturday Night Live’ afterparties rage until the light threatens, hours which appeal to Rodman.

MacDonald explained his post-show experience with Dennis to The Big Lead in 2011:

I was at Saturday Night Live and Dennis Rodman came into the show. He was a guest on the show and the Bulls were playing the next day against the Knicks at noon, right?

I said, “Dennis Rodman is f****n’ there, he’s got like eight w****s, he’s smoking weed and s**t.”

All of a sudden, like, we’re at the afterparty, it’s like four in the morning, the guy’s still drinking and partying. I’ve got this inside information. He’s probably going to suck the next day.

Game 4 was scheduled for 5:30 on Sunday evening, Mother’s Day.

Norm MacDonald bet on the Knicks.

Back-to-back games in the playoffs weren’t common, yet the NBA scheduled them until 1999.

The Knicks didn’t play back-to-back playoff games during Pat Riley’s run as head coach yet caught the quirk in 1996: Jeff Van Gundy’s first postseason running the Knicks. Michael Jordan’s B2B experience consisted of back-to-back losses against Detroit in 1988 and back-to-back wins over New York in 1989.

“It was normal then,” Van Gundy told the Second Arrangement. His Knicks also played the Heat on back-to-back playoff nights in 1997, and against the Pacers in 1998.

Righteous between-game alterations weren’t as paramount a necessity in 1996’s back-to-back setting, Van Gundy relayed, because the Knicks and Bulls knew each other so damn well.

“It’s not like there’s a different level of preparation,” Van Gundy added. “The Jordan-thing, the triangle, it’s not like a ton changed.”

In 1996, nary a mention was made of the back-to-back burden during Marv Albert and Matt Guokas’ call. Press accounts from the time didn’t bemoan the rush, Bulls coach Phil Jackson didn’t carp about the concession nearly as much as you’d think Phil Jackson totally would.

It’s a really weird thing to do, asking NBA teams to make count of playoff games in consecutive days, but this was also probably the best thing to ever ask of Dennis Rodman.

Chicago 94, New York 91 (Bulls lead series, 3-1)

Dennis wouldn’t play all but 10 seconds in Game 4, no way, Phil Jackson was familiar with his team’s starting power forward tripping the light fantastic and Phil liked to experiment anyway.

Chicago’s first half saw stretches with Randy Brown and Steve Kerr in the same backcourt alongside Rodman, Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan up front. Anything to get through another first half.

Forty-one year-old No. 3 center James Edwards received four rather conspicuous minutes (lifting four shots, making one) in the second quarter alongside small forward Jud Buechler (3-3 shooting in five minutes), whom Jackson slotted for a stretch at the four. With Longley again saddled with foul trouble, midseason signee John Salley worked eight compelling minutes at second center.

Every Bull minded the glass, and by design: Chicago “only” rebounded 25 percent of its misses in the Game 3 loss, down from (an outrageous) 40 percent in its two wins.

“One of the many strengths of the triangle is the ability to post up different players,” Van Gundy explained to the Second Arrangement.

“Combine that with the movement and our double teams and it creates offensive rebounding opportunities. Dennis was a terrific offensive rebounder.”

The Bulls picked up second chances on nearly half its misses in Game 4. Dennis acted as the backline comfort during a second quarter run that saw the Bulls force eight Knick turnovers, Rodman pulled five offensive rebounds in the first half, ten caroms total.

By the halftime break it was only a little after 6:30 PM on an early Sunday evening, Rodman already had ten boards and his Saturday night probably ended, like, 12 hours ago.

(And his Saturday began with an NBA game.)

Dennis ran irrepressible all Sunday, hoisting long jumpers during breaks in the action, heaving long outlets passes within a competition averse to transition hoops, he even earned a technical a minute into Game 4 for slyly tapping the ball out of Charles Oakley’s hands after the whistle stopped play.

“The NBA office is in New York,” reminded Rodman after the contest.

“They want to make sure the game is close.”

Dennis dished three assists out of the triangle, including one to Ron Harper for a four-point play. Rodman ate the lunch of Anthony Mason (0-2 on Sunday) during Mason’s lone isolation foray, anticipating and accepting a charge on Mase’s spin move.

Rodman spent half of Sunday splayed on some sort of floor.

He dove and slid into the Bulls bench after fruitlessly sprinting to corral his own block of a Patrick Ewing post-up shot, Dennis dove out of bounds to collect Randy Brown’s block of a Charlie Ward jumper, he took another charge.

“He was a hard-nosed player,” confirmed JVG. “Never dirty.”

NBC hadn’t discovered synergy yet: Marv Albert made only one mention of Rodman’s “strong work on ‘Saturday Night Live’” the evening before, utilizing the sort of language typically reserved for a long reliever’s strut back to the dugout after steamrolling through a spotless eighth.

The effort was left to NBC reporter Jim Gray to disclose Dennis Rodman’s broken right pinkie finger, originally dislocated during the regular season and re-aggravated by Rodman during a Game 4 tie-up with Patrick Ewing.

“He’s playing with a broken pinkie,” Gray reported from the sideline in the third quarter. “It’s very painful to him, but he’s going to continue in the game”

The Bulls scored 10 points in the first 10 minutes of the fourth quarter in Game 4, Chicago was starving for buckets when Jackson outlined the release to Rodman in a huddle with 1:41 left.

“(Jackson) said once I got the ball to go to the basket, do something to create something or do something with the ball.”

Rodman created, at the moment’s emotional peak, finding the seam to deliver a drive-and-dish to Chicago reserve center Bill Wennington, who stuffed a dunk.

“They figured I was too much of a chicken to take a shot, too much of a lazy bum to play offense,” Rodman told the media following Game 4.

“Every once in a while I'll surprise you.”

Ewing and Pippen traded buckets after Rodman’s surprise. New York owned the ball and a one-point lead with 50 seconds remaining when Wennington (who lined up repeatedly against Ewing while the pair worked collegiately in the Big East) forced Ewing into a traveling violation.

The Bulls’ next possession again featured Rodman dishing to Wennington, this time for a short jumper.

The Canadian center’s two-pointer wrested the advantage from New York, a lead Chicago would secure with a Rodman defensive rebound on the next, game-sealing stop of a possession. After free throws confirmed it, the Bulls escaped Game 4 with a 94-91 win and a 3-1 lead in the series.

Rodman pulled 19 rebounds in the contest, 35 on the weekend (in about 30 hours), totaling 66 rebounds through a four-spot Charles Oakley and Anthony Mason combined for 70.

“So I bet against the Bulls,” Norm MacDonald explained in 2011, “and he had like 300 rebounds and, like, what?”

Norm lost his wager.

“I guess these guys can just … I guess especially with basketball you just be stoned and play the f*****g game.”

Van Gundy, to the Second Arrangement, offered a broadcast air-appropriate take:

“You can’t have all milk-drinkers on your team.”

In the minutes after Game 4, Rodman related his sway to the Chicago Tribune’s Sam Smith:

He wore a T-shirt that argued for legalizing same-sex marriages. He wore a furry black hat draped over his eyes.

“This is what I am,” said Rodman, hair painted, tattoos rippling and body pierced, just coming off a ‘Saturday Night Live’ appearance and supposedly a late-night staff party into the early hours of Sunday morning.

“I wasn't always like this. It took me a while to find my identity and what I wanted to do and which direction I wanted to go.

“I don't try to be a big, big role model for kids. But kids look at me as independent and happy and free and I love what I'm doing, and that is more of a role model than anything.”

When Dennis Rodman woke up on Monday, he was 35 years old.

IN THE WAY

Though I respect most of its members I am not what you would call “a Toto fan.”

This song, however, burns because the Brothers Johnson do it.

To it.

Thank you for reading, listening! Considering contributing, you’ll get cool NBA emails:

(From the Never Too Much podcast:

Patrick Ewing on Dennis Rodman the next year.

Dick Van Dyke on Dick Cavett in what turned into a sublime leg-crossing contest.)

(More to come.)

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Kawhi Leonard got what he wanted.

All he had to do first was win a championship for the entire country of Canada ahead of settling in on the dismantling of a team from Oklahoma City.

From there, Kawhi signed with the Los Angeles Clippers. Four years and $141 million to play for what looks like the best collection of talent in the NBA at the moment.

Thunder star Paul George will join Leonard as California-raised Clippers, George became a member of the organization on Friday night when the Clippers sent a 1980s-amount of first-round picks to OKC in exchange for the 29-year old MVP candidate.

The Clipper trust absolutely unloaded its cabinet in advance of what the Oklahoma City Thunder franchise needed in order to survive. OKC will receive Los Angeles’ first-round picks, with no protection or consideration, in 2022, 2024 and 2026.

The Clippers owned the rights to Miami’s unprotected first-round selection in 2021, this asset is the property of the Thunder now. Woj reports the Clippers will also send a protected (1-14, also via Miami) first-round selection to the Thunder in 2023, and Oklahoma City has the right to swap first-round draft slots with the Clippers in 2023 and 2025.

It doesn’t end there: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the widely-admired combo guard who turns 21 on Friday, will head from the Clippers to the Thunder. Danilo Gallinari, the 30-year old forward that managed 20 points per game in 30 minutes for LAC in 2018-19, is also off to OKC. His $22.6 million contract expires after the season.

Kawhi Leonard and Paul George should provide explosive with the Clippers. Pat Beverley is back as lead point guard for Doc Rivers’ charismatic crew, the group boasts productive, disparate center depth in the form of Ivica Zubac and Montrezl Harrell and shooting in the form of second-year stud Landry Shamet. Lou Williams still comes off this team’s bench, the pitch is set.

This is how you Los Angeles.

SAM PRESTI

Oklahoma City’s role in all this was unforeseen, maybe it shouldn’t have been.

The Thunder were set to become one of the NBA’s highest-paid teams in 2019-20 without even dotting a single new document, Muscalas don’t count, OKC owed so damn much. The Thunder were a first round failure in the last postseason, the ease and adaptability of the ongoing NBA summer no doubt rattled the Thunder’s best player.

It would be easy to feel sorry for Sam Presti’s Thunder were it not for the group’s role in safe-harboring Russ and his tilting instincts for too long: OKC had to know the connection between George and Westbrook would taste choleric in time. Westbrook turns 31 in November, this is who he was.

The haul astonishes: Shai’s a sensible star, Danilo’s a baller.

The picks, outrageous. The NBA thought it was out of its mind when the Nets sent a crippling array of assets to Boston for a swatch of aging stars in 2013, but it turns out we were paying attention to the wrong side of the problem.

The trick isn’t minding the draft picks, apparently, it’s settling on the stars. That’s at least what the Clippers and Lakers are gonna try and tell us, in a sweaty decade, when the Pelicans and Thunder still roll with rookie deals earned from excising an unhappy superstar ever-so-long ago.

And now the Thunder have an excuse to deal Russell Westbrook (two years, $78.75 million), and to take a step back after its own decade of playoff prominence.

The Thunder didn’t win a championship during this term but, remember: Oklahoma City had Russell Westbrook in its lineup nearly the entire time.

LAKERS

Kawhi Leonard would have had to work hard as a Laker, even if load management left him at 60 games. It was too daunting a setup. There wasn’t a team there, only two billboards and a whole lotta holes to fill.

Kawhi’s incumbent Raptors sometimes only filled seven seats in the box score during the postseason yet even Toronto appeared far heartier than the Lakers’ top-heavy alignment. The Clippers boasted depth from the outset that huddled ready in rank even after Shai and Gallinari were lost to Oklahoma City.

The Lakers did not recover, inking Danny Green to a woof of a two-year, $30 million deal and increasingly passable JaVale McGee to a two-year, $8.5 million contract. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is back, they’ll have LeBron understudy Quinn Cook, the “smaller signings” never really developed names and the Lakers wouldn’t-a signed ‘em anyway.

The Lakers had to do it, Los Angeles had to try and secure Kawhi yet in its end the Lakers were still outfoxed by a Clipper team that never tanked, by Doc Rivers and Lawrence Frank. A coupla coaches.

A team with LeBron James on it and an in-prime Anthony Davis will have to scramble, the Western Conference doesn’t schedule many days off and the Lakers will have everyone’s TNT-best ahead of them when it comes time to line up.

Davis’ departure from New Orleans looks sleazy by this summer’s comparative moves, LeBron offered no lure, other players still want to whoop that ass rather than sitting aside it on the podium.

James’ MVP season won’t be enough to distance the Lakers from the rest of the cast. This is not what was supposed to happen.

Ahahaha.

HALFTIME

Scottie Pippen skulking, Jaren Jackson Sr., Penny Hardaway, Stephon Marbury goes at Jason Williams, Rick Pitino’s Celtics and Rod Strickland with a reverse.

Vince Carter drops 27 in the Air Canada Centre’s debut, including two off a Charles Oakley lob.

I believe this particular Sunday’s SuperSonics/Lakers game was the impetus for the Chet Harper’s turn at ESPN just a few weeks later.

KAWHI LEONARD AND YOUR CLIPPERS

Doc’s team is the reason you had to wait so long. Derided for most of July as a trailing third in the two-way race for Kawhi, the Clippers instead vaulted over the frontrunners in using its trunk’s worth of preparedness to pull ahead in the pecking parade.

Suddenly Paul George is a Clipper and Kawhi Leonard in Toronto makes no sense, none, not with another Californian setting up shop in L.A.

The Clippers didn’t leak anything, the club retained Beverley and pulled Moe Harkless and yet that wasn’t the point. Leonard wanted to play for them, he was willing to delay his decision until the Clippers developed options, Kawhi even ran the lengths to encourage those options to make a little ruckus on their side of the phone.

While the rest of the world assumed Leonard to be within protracted arm’s length of his pen and paper, Kawhi worked the lines in search of a second superstar.

Paul George’s seeming unavailability proved no obstacle, there was enough juice here to keep us all fat and giggly and Leonard and the Clippers didn’t mind taking a shot.

It never hurts to ask, to wait and be patient, and ask again. In doing so, Kawhi Leonard changed how all this is played.

While getting exactly what he wanted.

TORONTO

Toronto’s cheeks still hurt from smiling, the Toronto Raptors won a championship last month.

The Toronto Raptors are the reigning NBA champions, because the Raptors won the NBA title in 2018-19.

Toronto shouldn’t feel satisfied with a single title, a single ring doesn’t befit a metropolis that is larger than most other NBA cities. The Raptors shouldn’t be keen to take its only trophy and meekly skulk back into irrelevance and thankfully they won’t, Masai Ujiri is around.

Yet the Raptors didn’t take Kawhi Leonard into the fold as an emerging team. The Raptors were on last legs and the rest of the league knew it.

Loftiest of all, Ujiri knew it. A game-closing, oft-unstoppable superstar was the only thing that was going to put Toronto into title contention. Leonard’s abilities came straight from central casting and there the Raptors were, in February, when Ujiri traded a 26-year old center for a 34-year old one.

The Raptors are an aging champion, and by the time Pascal Siakam sniffs Paul George’s blend of two-way dominance Kawhi Leonard will be in his 30s. Leonard turned 28 the day before Kevin Durant, never happy in his prime seasons, agreed with Brooklyn. The same day 28-year old Nikola Mirotic shocked the NBA by signing with Barcelona.

NBA players have seen too many of their brethren take the money and talk themselves into employment terms with diminishing appeal. It’s important to get these years right.

Sometimes it means walking away from the best year of your life.

RHYME THYME PEOPLE

Soul Train Saturday, and hot-damn that hook.

Three minutes and 24-seconds of stank-face.

Thank you for reading, listening!

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The note that began, can also destroy.

“Lowry on floor.”

After that jot, a bunch of scratches about passwork, trust on offense, the nonsense I usually stick the word “alacrity” into later.

Quick decisions! Room for alternate reads! More basketball s**t, then, again:

“Lowry diving.”

Notes about transition defense, baskets being taken away, baskets becoming earned, and then the first repeated note of the evening:

“Lowry on floor.”

More and more notes, pages of them. Critical, enduring moments bled into blue reminders on a legal pad. Gobs of information, scratched together in a desperate bid to lend recall to thought, yet all I’m seeing is the last note, repeated once again:

“Lowry on floor.”

(He was on the floor more than four times in Game 6. My notes aren’t great.)

Lowry made 44 percent of his threes in the 2018 postseason, he made more than half his field goals and 22-35 of his looks in the first three contests (the ones with a whiff of a chance) of Toronto’s Eastern semifinal loss to LeBron’s Cavaliers.

It wasn’t Kyle’s fault that Jonas Valanciunas couldn’t time his jumps, it wasn’t his call to keep LeBron in the Eastern Conference for so damn long, but they traded his best friend and most talented teammate last summer.

Nothing’s ever been settled for Lowry. Not until Saturday.

He wasn’t drafted into the perfect stall, he wasn’t blessed with a Dr. J or Bobby Jones to bang with right out of college. He won’t get the same treatment that Maurice Cheeks earned for ably outplaying the outclassed Henry Bibby, the same Hall of Fame confirmation that Cheeks cultivated for doing exactly what his really good teams demanded for a decade.

Lowry hasn’t had the same outfits to deal with since he was drafted by Memphis in 2006. A decade ago he was third-most famous player (Rafer Alston, Brian Cook) inside a three-player deal that gifted Alston with a trip to Orlando and the NBA Finals.

The draft pick he was dealt outta Memphis for (DeMarre Carroll) went on to be a co-Player of the Month on the East’s top seed in 2016. Memphis mainstay Mike Conley’s made many more millions than Kyle Lowry since 2010, this trend will continue through 2021. Lowry literally lost his starting job in Houston due to illness before catching on with the Raptors.

Lowry’s lived with the ignominy that hits when yours is the threshold that James Dolan refuses to breach: Dolan’s Knicks sent a lottery pick to Toronto in exchange for Andrea Bargnani in the summer of 2013 yet refused to do the same for the 27-year old Lowry a few months later.

He’s a natural irritant on the court, it’s the only thing that comes easy to him. The trust took forever, Lowry had some coaches to row with, and LeBron took ages to finally accept his lame-o destiny in Los Angeles.

Everything pinned on 2018-19, but then Lowry had to watch as Kawhi Leonard sat enough contests to hand Milwaukee its home court. Kyle shot worse than 40 percent against Philadelphia in the semifinals, he missed 29-39 threes, to our uncultured eyes there appeared no breakthrough.

Kyle’s the one that reminded us that these things rarely come 42-points atta time. We should have paid more attention to the way he settled his Raptors to begin Game 4. Deep in Philadelphia, Lowry’s hometown, with Toronto performing under a 2-1 deficit.

Lowry leapt into seven points and three assists in his first eight minutes of action against the Sixers, checking out for a blow after dragging his team to a 21-11 lead. When PHILA popped its strongest bids in the third quarter — an 8-0 run, three free throws at a trip for J.J. Redick — Lowry and Leonard answered with jumpers. Good ones, the kind you wanna stand and watch go through.

He had legs, yet we didn’t recognize nearly enough gam. Lowry’s Game 1 performance in Milwaukee was treated as a one-off. Meyers Leonard earned more lasting credibility for his freaky first half against Golden State.

None of us saw the star swinging again and it didn’t, not even when Lowry popped 25 in Game 4. Free throws feel different than field goals, we gotta see Kyle splash sometimes to believe in it.

What goes with the fall returns with the spring. Finally.

THIS DATE IN NBA PLAYOFF HISTORY

(1993: Seattle downs Phoenix 103-99 in Game 2 of the Western finals, tying the series.)

Seattle needed seven games to down the Lakers in the second round, the team had no time to recover before the Western finals and looked sluggish in its Game 1 defeat.

SuperSonics coach George Karl was pressed for explanation as to why his SuperSonics dared shoot 42 percent in Game 1.

New York Times columnist Tom Friend referred to Ricky Pierce’s 3-8 showing — 42 percent, by the way — as “horrid” and Seattle’s coach was bemused in response:

“The air density here has us shooting the ball shorter, how's that? Man, who gives a hoot. Let's get Larry Bird to come out; maybe he can analyze our releases.”

Friend also somehow managed to crib Karl’s shootaround notes, passing along for public consumption:

Not far from Karl's lap was a tan folder, containing his scribbled notes for this afternoon's pep talk. On it, he listed four keys to Game 2 success:

*Penetration. If point guard Gary Payton can weave past Suns guard Kevin Johnson, he can flick the ball back outside to wide-open Pierce and Eddie Johnson.

*Transition. The Sonics do not want to walk the ball upcourt.

*Good basketball decisions. Payton, more than anyone, attempts ghastly passes.

*They are soft. “We must be the aggressor,” Karl wrote. “Bodies. Tougher position. Physical. They want loose and quick.”

A night earlier Barkley was feted at Majerle’s, the Mr. Pubb’s-styled sports bar that Friend hilariously called “pretentious” in his Game 2 lead up.

The votes were in, Barkley was the 1992-93 NBA MVP, he’d receive the award just before Game 2 tipped:

Seattle responded in Game 2 by unleashing their Ricky, 34 points on 13-20 from the floor, while Sam Perkins’ stretched-three with under 10 seconds to go clinched it. Tom Friend wrote a fantastic gamer that you should also open in an incognito window.

The press asked Barkley what he would do with his new award:

“Well, my daughter got my gold medal,” Barkley said. “I got no trophies at home. My family fights over all of them. My grandmother's got most, and my mom one or two. I mean, I don't want to sit around every day and think about what I've accomplished. Life doesn't stop. Yesterday, I got m.v.p, and today Seattle doesn't give a hoot.”

Seattle had no hoots to give.

BELIEVE IN IT

I take a lot from this tune! You would too, if you’ve seen what I’ve seen.

Thank you for reading, listening, don’t you want to try this with the Finals and NBA draft?

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Up until ESPN took over, the NBA’s lottery took place on a weekend.

Up until 2002, when the Rockets won the right to draft Yao Ming midway through a Boston Celtics/New Jersey Nets Eastern finals tilt, the drawing was shoved within the sort of space that suited it — 15 minutes of draft gab in between actual basketball.

Honest-to-greatness NBA playoff games saw their halftime spaces interrupted by the sad state of seven-to-14 sacks of sometimes-smiling team representatives sucking up the seats in Secaucus. It was a woeful misuse of available intrigue, something Disney got right to changing once it became time for ABC/ESPN to inherit LeBron James in 2003.

The Cavaliers won that one. They’ve won a lot of these — four lottery victories in 2003, 2011, 2013 and 2014 alongside the time they were able to finagle the top pick out of Philadelphia back in 1986.

The NBA really likes giving Cleveland the best chance it can.

The Sixers won the top overall pick in 1986, the 67-win Boston Celtics won the second pick.

This was the second lottery.

The Knicks vaulted up to grab the top spot in 1985, awarding the league’s largest city with can’t-miss center Patrick Ewing. The league’s lottery process then handed the top two spots in the 1986 draft to a pair of clubs that had traded off Eastern Conference championship titles for six seasons running — a marathon that would roll past 1986 and 1987 as Larry Bird’s Celtics continued apace.

Even with its own aging core Philly seemed straight in line to pick up where Bird’s Celtics left off. PHILA was flush for the rest of the 1980s after the 52-win Sixers plucked Charles Barkley out of the 1984 draft (due to a six-year old transaction with the Clippers).

Second Year Sir Charles turned a 20-point, 12.8-rebound, 3.9-assist second season for the 58-win 76ers in 1985-86 — the Sixers had the second half of an NBA basketball game scheduled right after they won the top pick in the NBA draft.

Watch the second half above, an Eastern Conference semifinal Game 7, or the entire contest right here. Barely any talk of a damn lottery.

Compare that to whatever happens Tuesday — when any number of NBA skidmarks could vault toward the right to introduce themselves to Zion Williamson — and whatever chatter pops up as ESPN sets to broadcasting a Golden State Warriors/Portland Trail Blazers contest.

Hell, look at what the Washington Post’s Mike Wilbon wrote in the aftermath of 1986’s event, as it corresponds with whatever Wilbon will shout about on TV Wednesday afternoon:

None of the six other club officials here complained about their draft order today, because there does not appear to be any one potentially dominant player who stands out from the rest, as Patrick Ewing did last year. There does not appear to be any great disparity between the top seven to 10 players in the draft pool.

Wilbon quoted 76ers general manager Pat Williams:

“It doesn't seem quite fair that the clubs with records this good are picking No. 1 and No. 2. But the league powers had a chance to study this method two years ago, and they made their decision.

We both got these picks with off-the-wall trades. . . . This is the last thing in the world the league powers would have orchestrated.”

Wilbon outlined the route Williams took to secure Philadelphia’s strain of luck:

This was the culmination of a deal struck back in 1979. Today, Williams remembered driving back from a preseason game at Capital Centre in October 1979 and getting so itchy to make a deal with the San Diego Clippers that he pulled into a gas station in New Jersey, found a pay phone to call the West Coast and made sure the deal was still on.

San Diego owner Irv Levin reportedly wanted to give up his first-round draft choice in the year 2010; Williams wanted something a little sooner, like 1983. They settled on 1986, and today that pick -- obtained straight up for Joe (Jellybean) Bryant -- became the No. 1 pick in this year's draft.

Williams' biggest worry was that the Clippers would fold before he could get his draft choices.

(In 2010, with its own pick, the Los Angeles Clippers selected Al-Farouq Aminu. Man all this s**t is tied together.)

The Post wasn’t the only one to fawn over the trades, and rightfully so.

Pat Williams finagled 1984’s Charles Barkley selection out of the San Diego Clippers six years earlier, in a deal sending scorer World B. Free to the moribund franchise.

Sports Illustrated detailed the old deals before adding this kicker:

Oh, yes, [Jellybean] Bryant is out of the NBA, and Free, while still an able performer with Cleveland, won't be missed next season by the Barkley-led (and Daugherty-strengthened?) Sixers.

Reminded of the existence of a professional basketball club in Cleveland, Williams got to work.

He wasn’t long for the Sixer job, after publicly committing to taking the reins of Orlando’s expansion franchise as soon as 1985-86 wrapped up. Following the Bucks’ dismissal of Philadelphia in Game 7, Williams had one bit of business left to settle with the Sixer team he’d run for a dozen years.

The Cavs initiated the business after Williams declined to commit to a single player after winning the 1986 lottery. Twenty-five years later, former team owner Gordon Gund outlined the machinations:

“Thanks to Dick Watson, our cap guru, we figured out that Philadelphia was going to have a very hard time signing the first pick overall.

“So I talked with [Philadelphia owner] Harold Katz about a trade. We negotiated for the first-round pick and were very fortunate to get the first pick the night before the draft. I made the decision, but Dick was the one who identified that they would need to do something.”

Williams dealt the top overall pick in the 1986 draft for 25-year old Cavs forward Roy Hinson, a Rutgers product who averaged 19.6 points and 7.8 rebounds in 1985-86. Cleveland also sent $800,000 — “a significant amount of cash,” Williams noted in 2016 — to the capped-out 76ers.

Philly wasn’t done. Williams may have already agreed to run a new team, but he was set on delivering his Sixers a winner through the end of the decade.

“I was totally locked in to leave Philadelphia on a high note, and we had everybody involved. Our coach was Matt Guokas, assistant Jim Lynam, assistant GM John Nash, the veteran scout Jack McMahon, and a very much involved owner, Harold Katz.

“We were all gathered for many, many days talking and analyzing and seeing exactly what we could do. So there was no lack of focus. Everybody wanted to do the very best that we could to make it a productive draft day.”

On draft night the Sixers dealt 31-year old star center Moses Malone to the Washington Bullets for 27-year old Jeff Ruland (a two-time All-Star with Bullet averages of 19 points and 11 rebounds per game and 60 games per season), and the other Cliff Robinson (a 25-year old small forward who averaged 18.7 points in 1985-86).

The Sixers also sent two first-round picks (set to be Anthony Jones, and Harvey Grant) to Washington, in exchange for someone taking Moses Malone’s three remaining All-Star trips off Philadelphia’s hands.

Williams explained the thinking in 2016:

“Charles was a low-post player, by and large, and we thought that he and Moses would kind of contradict each other, so it would probably be wise to open things up and let Charles have full sway. Ruland was more of a high-post center, a passing center, so we felt that was going to be a good combination for us.”

It should have been. The pieces all fit on paper, the same material Jeff Ruland’s arches were made out of.

The 76ers would remain a playoff team for the rest of the decade on the back of Barkley, and hardly the youthful trio of established NBA contributors Williams brought to Philadelphia in exchange for, uh, the top overall pick in an NBA draft, Moses Malone, and two other first-round picks.

(Also Terry Catledge, the Sixer forward Williams would later use with his third selection for the Orlando Magic in 1989’s NBA expansion draft.)

Cleveland’s desperation to secure Daugherty was understandable, even Williams admitted after the lottery there existed “no down side to Daugherty. He's the surest pick.”

The Cavaliers cleaned house after 1985-86, firing coach George Karl and GM Harry Weltman, the team technically worked without a general manager during the 1986 draft. Indiana Pacers executive Wayne Embry agreed to terms with the Cavaliers to become Cleveland’s next general manager beginning in the offseason, but Embry had to finish his 1985-86 work with the Pacers (holders of the No. 4 pick) first.

Embry was permitted by both sides to influence Cleveland’s decision-making from afar, he encouraged Gund to follow through on the deal for the top overall pick and eventually for the Cavs to choose Daugherty ahead of Maryland star Len Bias.

With its own first-round selection at No. 8, the Cavaliers chose Dayton native Ron Harper, a Michael Jordan-clone who averaged 22.9 points and started 82 times in his rookie season. That Cleveland even had first-round selections was nutty enough.

In an 11-month stretch from 1980 through 1981, the Cleveland Cavaliers traded away three future first-round picks to the Dallas Mavericks, in three separate transactions.

They kept going back to the well:

The 1986 selection went to Dallas along with the 1983 first-rounder and the late Bill Robinzine for Richard Washington and Jerome Whitehead on Oct. 30, 1980.

On Feb. 7, 1981, Cleveland then traded its 1985 first-round pick to Dallas as part of a trade for Geoff Huston. Later that year, on Sept. 16, the Mavericks got the 1984 selection for Mike Bratz.

All to Dallas! The Mavericks picked up Sam Perkins, Detlef Schrempf, Roy Tarpley, Derek Harper out of these deals, and the NBA created a clause named after Cleveland owner Ted Stepien, preventing teams from dealing first-round picks for consecutive years.

Prior to his workings with Dallas, Stepien was best known for acquiring a fella by the name of “Don Ford” in exchange for what would become (after Cleveland lost 67 games in 1981-82) the top overall pick in the 1982 draft, James Worthy.

The NBA stepped in soon after, asking Stepien and coach Bill Musselman to stop making so many trades. Ted sold the team to Gund in 1983.

There remained the matter of the Cavaliers’ suck.

“Trading away top picks means not being able to build with youth,” Gund explained in 1986. Well, yeah.

“We felt it was necessary to get the '83, '84, '85 and '86 draft picks back.”

Oh, I didn’t know you could do that.

When he purchased the Cavaliers in the spring of 1983, Gund insisted that establishing “credibility with the fans” would stand as “an impossible task” without getting some picks back. Though several cities were open to NBA expansion, the league wanted its club in Northeast Ohio.

The NBA let the Cavs buy four future first-round picks for $500,000.

As explained on the date of the sale:

1983 -- As before the sale, the Cavs draft either 19th or 20th overall, depending on a coin toss between San Antonio and Phoenix. However, they also receive a bonus pick, number 24 overall, at the end of the first round.

1984 -- The Cavs will pick immediately after where they would have selected, but not better than 12th overall.

1985 -- The team picks immediately after where it would have selected, but not better than any team not making the playoffs.

1986 -- The team picks immediately after where it would have selected.

Not only were the Cleveland Cavaliers allowed to buy four draft picks for less than what World B. Free made that season, each selection got to edge The Next Team down a spot.

The Cavs sucked in 1984 and picked as highly as the NBA’s agreement allowed — using the No. 12 pick to select Tim McCormick to pair with Cliff Robinson (same guy) in a deal to move up to No. 6 (and the right to be wrong about Mel Turpin).

The 1985 selection (Charles Oakley, No. 9) was also shipped out on draft night — the second consecutive year Cleveland traded its first-round pick — in exchange for No. 11 pick Keith Lee and 1983’s No. 13 selection, Ennis Whatley.

Cleveland was able to take Roy Hinson with the pick it bought in 1983.

Roy, plus $125,000, earned the Cavaliers the top overall pick in the 1986 NBA draft.

Daugherty didn’t even win Rookie of the Year. Indiana Pacer rookie Chuck Person — selected in part by Pacers/Cavaliers executive Wayne Embry — took that one home.

This stuff belongs on a Sunday.

MEET ME IN THE BOTTOM

Now you know why I like small amplifiers.

Thank you for reading! Subscribers get this sorta stuff all summer, not sure if you heard but the nights are getting warmer now, it won’t be long:

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One versus three, season series tied at 2-2.

TUE, THU, SAT, MON, WED, FRI, SUN

Warriors in six.

WARRIORS STARTERS

C: Andrew f*****g Bogut — this s**t again.PF: Draymond Green — Huge work down the KD-less stretch of Game 5 plus 13.2 points, 10.7 rebounds and 8.2 assists per (Houston) game, your Dray is crucial.SF: Andre Iguodala — Hit 20-29 two-pointers vs. Houston. If Andre slides toward funky double-figures again in Durant’s absence (13.5 in the semis), PDX is toast. SG: Klay Thompson — Took only five free throws against Houston yet still managed 19.2 a game (plus 2.2 steals), will be exhausted by the time Portland is over.PG: Stephen Curry — Hasn’t locked in, and I’d like to see him try.

Curry’s only infrequently adjusted to his injured left hand, less supremely to the vicissitudes of repeated games against a single team. The 31-year old can’t let his colleague matchup or the post-Houston giggles get to him, he’s got to get back toward sensibly leading Golden State toward its tornadoes.

It would be nice to count on Game 6’s second half as a harbinger for Steph, but there will be a lot in this series to get distracted by.

GOLDEN STATE ROTATION

There won’t be any two-day shades for rest in this series, so if Kevin Durant wants clearance to play Portland he’ll have to fly some ways ahead of schedule, even if we’re calling this thing “mild.”

Ramona Shelburne reported on Monday that Durant won’t even be re-evaluated in time to play Game 2, May 22nd’s Game 5 in Oakland only puts KD at two weeks removed from a setback that should probably take about that long. Once Durant returns he’ll be like the best player in basketball, but with a little lingering calf pain.

Kevon Looney (14-18 on field goals) was as helpful as they come against Houston, he’s only just turned 23 and his sense of process has begun to pay off … The most relateable move in NBA basketball is Shaun Livingston’s determined drive into an open-14 footer (that he shoots several inches too strong) … Quinn Cook brought the good minutes down in Texas during Game 6, likely the start of something.

Steve Kerr’s interest in Alfonzo McKinnie dimmed against Houston because offensive rebounds from small forwards aren’t that important and because Alfonzo is on a 1-11 tear from long range since Game 3 in Los Angeles. I’m not gonna pretend to have a clue as to whether or not Kerr will trust him defensively against Portland, as opposed to Houston, the Warriors don’t need to gnash as much at Terry Stotts’ movement with Jusuf Nurkic out of the picture. This seems like a lot about Alfonzo McKinnie.

DeMarcus Cousins has a torn quad, he would be wonderful in a Finals appearance as it seems like a lot to expect Boogie back for this round … Jonas Jerebko missed 1-5 threes against Houston and one of those hit the the side of the backboard, he’ll play against Portland because he’s nice to the refs … Jordan Bell might finally be in shape for the 2018-19 season, he worked up two fouls and two blocks in 10 minutes of important fun in Game 6, it would be a breeze for both sides if his minutes carried over.

Golden State can win if it handles the turnover battle. Portland takes care of its ball but the Blazers won’t ask opponents to cough it up.

The champs turned it over 17 times in Kevin Durant’s Game 6 absence in Houston, a slight uptick. Any screwups in this series (some necessary, as the Dubs get back to a pre-KD’eed style of silly) will be wholly Golden State’s fault.

The Warriors will freeball without Durant around, his placid half-court touch will be missed until he can play again.

If Golden State’s legendarily brazen balance returns, hardly a given considering the stakes, the team should roll.

TRAIL BLAZER STARTERS

C: Enes Kanter — Any buckets you could get on your way toward the bench, Enes, that would be great.PF: Al-Farouq Aminu — With so much to mind already, can he also solve Draymond?SF: Mo Harkless — Missed 8-10 threes against Denver but kept up his pokey interior game, could find holes in Oakland. SG: C.J. McCollum — Just checked, Klay Thompson ain’t anything like Gary Harris.PG: Damian Lillard — Freed from scheduled bouts with Nikola Jokic’s armpits, Lillard could see his anxiety lessen even further against the familiar bums from Golden State.

PORTLAND ROTATION

Ahahahaha Zach Collins is defending missed shots like mad and the 21-year old has a JaVale-sized block rate in the postseason, he’s from Las Vegas like Greg Maddux and the Blazers can’t lose (until the World Series) … Rodney Hood only has a bone bruise, all those do is hurt like hell and not go away. Hood is “day-to-day” and likely out for Game 1.

A remark so able that we needed to be charmed by it twice:

Evan Turner is a delight and it was wonderful to see him barrel into Sunday.

Meyers Leonard has nearly as many fouls (18) in the postseason as he does rebounds (19). Remember that year when he hit 10-13 from long range in the playoffs, yeah, this is not that year … It’s not like Seth Curry (41.7 percent on threes in his first postseason) hasn’t played NBA games around his brother before, he’ll be fine.

Athletic small forward Jake Layman isn’t unplayable, the Blazers just don’t play him a hell of a lot. He’s kinda sidelined until he learns to hit a three-pointer, 32.8 percent this season in spite of 33 starts and 1300-odd minutes and a bunch of sweet dunks. Layman never gets to the free throw line and it wouldn’t matter if he did, I should stop now because we already saw what happened with Alfonzo McKinnie.

Portland can win if the same capability which earned that final trip to Denver sustains. You don’t have to shove an entire series into Game 7, that’s what makes them so easy to win, but you do have to shove an entire series into getting there.

The Blazers have proven sensible in times of stress, the team’s possessions can outlast Golden State’s best if it delivers one trip at a time — Houston’s 2018 trip to its own Game 7 should serve as strong-enough influence.

Portland still has horses.

STUFF THAT MADE SENSE AT THE TIME

“Portland is on a road trip, it struck an early lead but it couldn’t sustain its swing between the starting and backup shifts. The Blazers were sloppy, and a lot of them thought they could win this by dribbling into that disadvantage and taking a pull-up, that wasn’t the case.

“You can’t blame the Trail Blazers for wondering where the revs went, this team was in New York on Tuesday and Milwaukee on Wednesday, but you can remind the boys that you cannot beat Golden State — or most NBA teams — on touch alone.

“The second half of this game should have been played at an airport, Portland had no chance.” — Nov. 24.

“Golden State ran too cool and too sloppy yet still had enough — this can’t be right — defensively (??) to push Portland into thinking twice about those available looks.

“This was mostly a Dog Show from four angles but you could see the where the paws were supposed to come down. Portland wanted to make GSW pay dearly for its turnovers and Golden State was mad to rile the Blazer backcourt up: C.J. McCollum and Damian Lillard combined for 14-42 on the night.

“Draymond Green was so good, setting those screens. Hit a three to nearly clinch it in regulation and the guy worked up gnatty defense all night (see preceding stat).” — Dec. 28.

GOLDEN STATE DRIVES GEORGE KARL OUTTA HERE

This isn’t a classic game, March 18, 1988. Only George Karl’s second-to-last game as Warrior head coach.

The Warriors were gutted, down stars from the seasons before due to trades and injury.

First-year team president Don Nelson dealt for Ralph Sampson a month into 1987-88, a deal Karl eagerly supported, yet the center missed his usual allotment of knee and back injuries and was long shelved by the Portland game.

There was also some other dumb stuff.

By the time of Portland’s victorious visit to Oakland, Chris Mullin was only 10 weeks back from his 50-day absence from the team. The 24-year old spent 31 weeks at a rehabilitation clinic midseason in order to treat an alcohol dependence.

“That season began strangely,” George Karl offered in the pages of 2017’s infamous ‘Furious George’ biography (that I bought with my own money).

“In the summer of 1987, Nellie resigned at Milwaukee and came to Golden State to be my boss and mentor and to improve our personnel.

The media wondered why the best coach in the NBA — Nelson — would move to administration. Sometimes I wondered, too.”

The champion Lakers waxed Oakland two nights after Golden State’s loss to Portland on March 18, less than a year removed from the Warriors’ remarkable Western semifinal against Los Angeles.

Golden State’s owners scheduled a meeting with Karl three days after the Laker loss, George maintains in the 2017 bio that this sort of “keeping track” — midseason coach and owner chats at a downtown hotel — “wasn’t unusual.”

After “an hour or so” of what Karl called “covering all the bases” with the two owners, Golden State’s side started to play baseball.

Then the conversation took a turn I didn’t expect and wasn’t ready for: my future with the team. It didn’t go well for me; I had no allies in the room. A young coach of a losing team is going to be looking over his shoulder, but what made things worse for me, I told our owners, was the feeling that everyone — including them — wanted Nellie to coach. No, that’s not true, they said.

True or not, I was asked to resign, but it was a firing.

And Don Nelson, the general manager of the damn team, wasn’t around for any of it.

From the UPI, the next day:

Karl resigned in the middle of his second season Wednesday following a lengthy mid-morning meeting in San Francisco, during which Karl asked team owner Jim Fitzgerald for a contract extension and was refused.

From Karl’s book:

Nellie acted innocent. He told the press that I’d asked for a contract extension during my meeting with the owners. Which is crap. I just wanted any sort of gesture from them that they weren’t about to replace me with my mentor.

The UPI:

“Fitzgerald has confirmed he wants former Milwaukee coach Don Nelson to take over next season. Nelson, currently a Warriors front-office official who has said he doesn't want to return to coaching, promised to give the matter some thought and said he would probably make up his mind 'in a week or two.’”

From Karl’s book, one of two written by him that I’ve paid money for:

The team announced that Nellie would be in charge of the search for my replacement. Ten days later, Nellie had his man: himself. Maybe he established a precedent.

(Karl then compared Gregg Popovich’s 1996 move to replace Spurs coach Bob Hill with Popovich to the time Dick Cheney convinced George W. Bush to let Cheney run as vice president. It’s a really fun book.)

Don Nelson, upon the news of his ascension, promised he’d “contacted two unidentified college coaches who turned down the job” alongside contacting “two other coaches with professional experience.”

Nellie also tried to lower his own bar a bit.

I'm a good basketball coach. But I don't feel I'm the best coach. There are many who are equally as good or better.

The people I was recommending and offering the job to, I felt, were better coaches.

Somehow, through all this plus 20 wins, the Golden State Warriors enjoyed the franchise’s best attendance in a decade during 1987-88.

I mean, they deserve at least a few good years.

THE SAD BAG OF SHAKY JAKE

This song rolls, Humble Pie was so dope.

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Never Too Much podcast: Game 3 previews, subscription pitch, loads of funn!

May 6 1990: New York beats Boston 121-114 in Game 5 to win series, 3-2

The Knicks hadn’t won in 26 tries at the Boston Garden entering Game 5, over six years’ worth of losses on the Celtics’ home floor.

The C’s were older but Boston wasn’t getting any lousier.

Larry Bird averaged 24 a game in 1990-91, 75 contests and 7.5 assists per game. Kevin McHale hit for 21 a night, 24-year old Reggie Lewis scored 17 a game in only 32 minutes. Dennis Johnson, in his final season, turned the ball over 117 times in 75 games.

The Celtics won 52 times and had a top-six offense, nobody got an offensive rebound against them, and Boston won the first two games of this series at the Garden by a combined 40 points.

The deciding Game 5 shoulda been Boston’s turf, Celtic cleats were familiar with the territory and Boston was due a semifinal rematch against the champs from Detroit. New York was nobody’s underdog.

Yet these Knicks pulled it off, and in Boston:

Patrick Ewing’s 31 points and ten (10!) assists led New York, Charles Oakley grabbed 17 rebounds with one hand, Knick point guard Maurice Cheeks played every minute and scored 11 of his 21 points in a decisive third quarter surge.

“This is as low as it gets,” Bird spat after the loss.

“This is unbelievable.”

New York lost 10 of 16 games (and six of eight at Madison Square Garden) before it found out on March 24 that Charles Oakley would have to miss the rest of 1989-90’s regular season — six-to-eight weeks — with a broken left hand.

Oak injured it in the first quarter of an Orlando contest he’d play 40 minutes in — dude grabbed 19 boards and six NBA fouls with a broken hand.

“It's a big loss for us,” Knick swingman Johnny Newman relayed to Newsday.

“He not only rebounds, but he does the other little things, the intangibles that you don't notice. We're going to really have to come together now.”

The Knicks limped to a 6-7 record and the fifth seed in the Eastern bracket, abandoning home court hopes for the first round while Kenny “Sky” Walker and Kiki “Opposite of Sky” VanDeWeghe traded beats at the forward positions.

Oakley returned for Game 1 in Boston but Knick coach Stu Jackson sunk the forward on the bench, the same spot he’d sit in for Game 2 — Oakley offering 19 points and 11 rebounds in 37 combined minutes of second team action.

Boston ran up 2-0 in the series with Walker and VanDeWeghe starting, each pulling a total of six rebounds over the pair of defeats.

Game 3 shifted back to New York, where Oakley found his spot in the starting lineup awaiting him — 13 boards (six offensive), 14 points and five assists in Game 3, and a plus-27 in 29 minutes of six-foul work in the Knicks’ Game 4 blowout victory.

This wasn’t all Oakley brought back to New York.

Following an embarrassing, 29-point blowout loss in Game 2, Oakley rapped his teammates as “selfish” in the face of a Celtic club that sprang for 46 beautiful assists (16 belonging to Larry Bird) on the way toward 157 Celtic points in the victory.

New York’s first practice in the wake of Oakley’s comments scrimmaged “so intense,” Knick coach Stu Jackson revealed later, “that I had to shorten practice for fear someone would get injured.”

The Knicks switched Oakley onto Robert Parish in time for the trip back to MSG, ensuring Patrick Ewing’s double-team-less duty on Kevin McHale. With no available lanes to fill, the Celtics dropped both contests in New York

Ewing was in the midst of a breakout season, adapting and growing within every game.

Game 3 saw the 27-year old center struggle for his 33 points, he needed 34 shots, while Game 4 pictured Ew grabbing seven steals, 13 rebounds and five assists to position with his 18-24 shooting and 44 points.

Game 5 was gonna be at Boston, though.

“When you’re in the Garden,” Bird opined later that month, “you should win these kinds of games.”

Larry Bird didn’t see it coming.

“We started off really good, but it went back and forth. I kept waiting for us to run off 10 or 12 points, but it didn't happen. I'm as shocked as anybody else.”

Bird copped a team-high 31 points in Game 5, with nine rebounds. In his final NBA game, Dennis Johnson enjoyed a 21-point, 10-assist throwback effort as Boston led by four at the half.

From the Washington Post’s David Aldridge:

Midway through the third, though, the Celtics made a push. Bird's drive and a three-point play by Lewis made it 73-66 at 6:42. A couple of baskets by Boston would have had New York on the ropes.

Jackson called time.

“We knew there would be a moment of truth for us," he said, “and the moment came when we were seven down. I just told them: ‘This is your moment. What are you going to do?’ And they came out and dug down defensively.”

The Knicks held the Celtics to one field goal in the next 5:49. And they pecked away. The 33-year-old Cheeks took over, scoring eight of the next 12 Knicks points on his usual variety of moves. His spinning layin through a thicket of taller Celtics' arms at 3:03 of the third gave New York a 78-77 lead.

Bird missed a dunk at 4:30 in the fourth quarter (any remaining YouTube footage has been scrubbed) and Ewing’s three-pointer with 121 seconds to go left his Knicks up a dozen.

The center dished 10 assists in the win, adding four blocks and 31 points.

“Patrick did a great job making the plays out of the low post,” Bird explained later. “If we doubled him he made the pass, and if we didn't double-team he made the basket.”

“He was a monster. I thought it was one of Patrick’s defining moments,” Stu Jackson told the New York Post in 2011.

“Early in his career, as great of an offensive player as he was, he didn’t make the best decisions when people threw different looks at him. In that particular game, he made every right decision you could possibly make.”

Knick forward Gerald Wilkins started, guarded Bird, and finished with a dozen points.

While the rest of his Knick teammates spent Saturday night in Boston, Wilkins was in Chattanooga the night before Game 5, at his wife’s side as she delivered daughter Jasmyn Alexandria.

Wilkins got into Boston at 8:30 that morning, in time for the afternoon tip

“When she grows up, I'm going to tell her she was born on the day when we beat the Celtics, something neither I, nor my teammates could accomplish in six years and it came during the all-important playoffs.”

Happy birthday, Jasmyn Wilkins.

THUMBS CARLLILE

Thumbs Carllile?

Thumbs Carllile.

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GOOD MORNING PEOPLE!!

Portland 97, Denver 90 (series tied 1-1)

Nikola Jokic relayed late on Wednesday that Trail Blazers “didn’t even play that good” in Portland’s Game 2 victory, and he wasn’t incorrect.

“They can play better than that,” Jokic qualified, kindly.

There was no malice or Westbrook-sized skunk to the Nugget center’s scouting report, he was correct in his estimation that Damian Lillard (5-17 shooting) and C.J. McCollum (8-20) typically contribute better performances, and that Portland in full didn’t have to rise to full flight in order to steal the home court advantage.

All the Blazers did was cool some jets. Jokic missed 10-17 shots, runners in the face of Enes Kanter and Zach Collins, he worked with five fouls for a stretch and wants each and every one of those 10 misses back. Jokic’s lone three-point attempt, a miss with 26 ticks left in the contest, could have cut Portland’s advantage down to two.

It was off. Same as Paul Millsap (6-14 shooting) and his leans, sure as you’re born same as Gary Harris, who missed 8-12 attempts.

The Blazers delivered structure and control of this game in its most oppressive time of season.

Portland made sure Denver had a deficit to chip at, PDX ran up nine after nine minutes.

Mo Harkless and Al-Farouq Aminu copped three-pointers to start and of course Enes Kanter grabbed seven boards and collected nine points in the opening quarter. Denver wasn’t terrible but Portland made sure the home team couldn’t ease in: Terry Stotts ensured his team owned crunch time edge at the outset.

Jokic didn’t score in the first period, and the Blazers ran Jamal Murray (1-4 in the first) through so much s**t. The Nuggets began to rattle on the open three-point attempts and before long a trend developed: Denver missed 4-20 from long range in the opening half, some punk’s idea of a joke.

The home team’s second half intensity rang out a bit but the Blazers quickly matched the sneer, capably contending with the sort of focus and alacrity that the Nuggets missed so badly.

Malik Beasley rang the bell with a few free throw trips but he clanged 5-8 from the stripe, huh.

Monte Morris missed seven of eight shots, at home no less, and Will Barton’s 11 boards (three offensive) could not cheer up that 1-6 mark from the floor. Torrey Craig’s nose was demolished in the first half, he’d courageously return to hit a three and the softest slice of Enes Kanter’s shoulder.

Murray, clutching a pained right thigh bruise leftover from an encounter with Jacob Poeltl in the first round, missed 12-18 shots and had to sit out the final minute of a contest.

“Weird game.”

That’s Jokic talking again.

“Weird day.”

Nonstop offensive rebounds made this a game for Denver in the fourth, but Jokic needed eight attempts for eight points in the period and Gary Harris didn’t even score.

Denver shot 2-9 from deep in the second half on its own damn floor, it made 61 percent of its free throws, it was a real What the Hell Wednesday out there.

For Denver at least.

Lillard and McCollum combined for 14 in the fourth, Evan Turner gave positive minutes during his turns and Portland’s bench was magnificent.

Zach Collins’ secured makes on five of his six attempts, the 7-footer put himself in a position to be accurately credited for some of Jokic’s closest misses.

Rodney Hood roamed from the weak side and found three blocks, he’d also lock in on 15 points, and Aminu stalked expertly underneath without catching his arms in anything.

Portland played well enough to win what just happened to be a playoff game. In a postseason full of heroics, Game 2 felt a little off.

It didn’t feel incorrect, though. Portland pushed its way into the weird.

Game 3 in Portland on Friday at 7:30 local on ESPN.

THIS DATE IN PLAYOFF HISTORY

(Game 4, Raptors beat Knicks 100-93, tying the best-of five series at 2-2)

The Knicks were supposed to win this series.

New York was better (read: more famous) and highly experienced (old) and the only reason the Knicks kinda had a problem with Toronto in a playoff series a year before was because The Knicks’ Supposed Biggest Issue (Patrick Ewing) was stuck in the lane, getting in the way.

By Game 4 Ew was a Seattle SuperSonic and trade deadline pickup Mark Jackson was around to lend some sensibility to the team’s multi-headed monster at point guard.

New York’s issue was that Chris Childs had to be part of the package that returned Jax to New York. Typically Childs was part of the problem.

Happy Raptor Chris Childs enjoyed seven points in the first quarter of Game 4.

“Guys who have played a lot of playoff games know they have to come out and be the aggressor,” Chris noted after the win.

“We couldn’t sit. We couldn’t wait.”

The Knicks piled up a dozen turnovers by halftime, a monstrous amount inside a 90-possession game. Childs finished his evening with 25 points, with four assists and three steals.

“Quite frankly,” Mark Jackson observed after New York’s loss, “he hurt us.”

Childs, a Knick for nearly five years, didn’t understand why any of this was news.

“You’ve seen me play.”

CARTER AND OAKLEY

Vince Carter entered Game 4 shooting 30.8 percent from the floor in his series.

Following a loss at home in Game 3, Raptor teammate Charles Oakley took offense to Carter’s self-described role as a “catalyst” in Toronto’s offense, preferring Vince to “be a man” and leave the catalysis for smaller, shittier players.

Carter scored a team-high 32 in Game 4 and explained how his Oak worked:

“He’s always in my ear. I love it. It don’t bother me. What, am I supposed to hide from him now? Not at all.”

The 24-year old kept on.

“I love it. That’s his way of telling me we’re behind you. Regardless of what [the media] says, ‘We’re behind you.’ That’s how I see it. That’s his way of telling me, ‘Bring it.’ I know how Oak is. I didn’t even know what he said. He’ll never say, ‘Did you read the papers?’”

Oakley hadn’t the time to read the papers, Charles was too busy beefing with Vince’s mother.

At some point during Game 4 TNT’s cameras found Michelle Carter for a midgame interview, Michelle nailed the opinion that “those” on the Raptors “who did the talking weren’t doing too much on the court.”

Oakley was briefed on the comments after the win, his initial response was to remind reporters that Toronto coach Lenny Wilkens’ “contract is up in two or three years.”

He’d Oak on:

“I don’t take a lot of shots,” Charles explained. “If she’s got something personal with me, I’m not hard to find to find.”

Caught after practice the next day, Oakley further explained his role as Toronto’s catalyst:

“I shoot five or six times, go out and play defense and make sure everything is clicking. I'm like a transmission in a car. You can't see me, but I make the car go.”

A year earlier Oakley watched as his team’s head coach executed a lawsuit against New York center (and first round opponent) Marcus Camby, right in the middle of a playoff series.

Now he was inside a Mom Beef.

“I wasn’t trying to get on Vince,” Oak explained after Game 4.

“I’ve been telling Vince all year, ‘take it to the hole, you can kill these guys. You’re one of the best players in the league.’ I’ve got nothing against his mom.”

The 2000s were shaping up rather remarkably for Charles Oakley.

“Like I've said, the league is not like it used to be.”

ALL ‘N’ ALL

This whole album, and in a car, promise me you will.

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The Pistons’ problem is that Detroit knows its basketball.

Your Detroit Pistons were in the top-10 in attendance every year in the 1990s and it ranked either first or second in Butts Seated from 2002 through 2009. People get out to watch the Pistons when the effort is warranted.

The Pistons have a new arena, I been there and it’s awesome, downtown Detroit is beautiful and the rest of the clubs in the city’s sporting ecosystem are struggling, in relative terms. The Tigers lost 98 games last season, another 98 in the “spring” and summer before that.

The Red Wings haven’t even made the Stanley Cup Playoffs since 2016, when the team was knocked out of the opening round for the third straight year. The last time the Red Wings won a postseason series, Jason Maxiell was still on on Pistons.

If you haven’t watched a Detroit Lions loss since the time Dave Krieg handed off to Barry Sanders 13 times for a total of -1 yards in the 1994 NFC Wild Card game, rest assured that the Lions do indeed still suck, I just checked, 6-10.

There is room for another outfit to step in, to create some sparks and remind followers why they loved watching pro basketball so much in the first place. This year’s Pistons were not that team.

Yet they were was a success.

An unmitigated success: Dwane Casey helped overcome a culture chasm and the potential pissibiliaty of a superstar on the way toward the postseason. The postseason!

These Pistons were fun to watch, these Pistons competed and grew within the practice-free confines of a regular season, and these Pistons learned to deal with each other. You saw it in the sweep to Milwaukee, Detroit talked and remained connected, it just had its ass beat.

Blake and the boys may not be the best of friends, but this isn’t an improvement in the comparative sense — nobody gets judged by a scale just because the cameras caught you hating.

From NOLA’s low point came an understanding. And from there, some form of purpose. That’s all a collection ever needs.

The Pistons fell to Dallas and to those meanies from Milwaukee in the nights that followed the Reggie Jackson interruption, yet the club finished the season on a 20-13 tear in spite of Blake Griffin sitting five contests (and dragging his pained left leg around for maybe twice as many).

It was in the East but the Pistons have always been in the East, and the East has been like this for two decades by now.

Casey and his staff created a system that allowed others to step in, literally, moving pieces and passes around until it became apparent to defenders that everybody, here, was chipping in. I don’t know how this team managed to make it to 21st in offense.

But that was, like, it.

Griffin’s yearly injury didn’t happen to hit in April, he didn’t land on someone’s ankle, that just might be how his knee is now.

The All-Star’s proven quite capable of overcoming what dragged him in 2018-19, but pulling that s**t at 30 is gonna be different than how things felt at 29, and Blake’s not gonna get out of 2019-20 as a 30-year old.

Can the Pistons bank on another season of Griffin (24-7-5) bailing teammates out over and over? The forward dragged them to win after win, doing the second and third quarter work that keeps so-so teams in the thick of better-than-them ballgames.

Blake’s gonna feel an inch shorter now in every season he returns for, is that line-drive jumper of his (36.2 percent from behind the three-point line, somehow) ready to do the heavy lifting? And how willing is Griffin gonna be to throw his body into those 7.3 free throws per game again, just to make up for another Luke Kennard Night?

We know Griffin’s owed quite a bit — $110ish million over the next three seasons — but he’s gonna put in. He’s a good dude and he’s seen some NBA s**t, Griffin understands that nobody sticks in purgatory for too long because Brook Lopez just blocked 14 of his team’s shots.

Kennard missed two-thirds or more of his attempts 27 times this season, but he’s also figured out the lurch it takes to launch an NBA-sized three-pointer. Luke did a lot of growing in 2018-19, his balance is right and his opportunities as a playmaking partner with Griffin are boundless.

Detroit is clearly banking on Kennard to make some style of leap next season. Stan Van Gundy’s No. 12 pick in 2017 will be under clean contract control for the next two seasons, a welcome relief for the NBA’s eighth-highest payroll in 2018-19.

Most of this crew should return.

Reggie Jackson’s around for another year at over $18 million, his knees will ring just as worrisome in 2019-20 as this season but at least he’s come to accord with Griffin. Starting rookie swingman Bruce Brown is on his first NBA contract.

Ish Smith, the free agent that won so many minutes for the Pistons this year as a reserve point guard, will be a free agent this summer. In order to stick under the sort of luxury territory that allows for mid-level exception usage, the Pistons may have to whisper the same s**t teams always do about Ish Smith — he’s maybe 5-11, and he turns 31 in July.

Thon Maker is still on his rookie deal, he’ll be back to do whatever it is people think he does, and Jon Leuer will return for the final season (at $9.5 million) of the four-year, $42 million contract the Pistons signed him to in 2016. I must have been the only person in the NBA that got sober that summer.

Langston Galloway is also under contract in 2019-20, at $7.3 million, and the swingman will have to step into increased scrutiny should the Pistons be forced to wave goodbye to free agent Wayne Ellington, as so many others have done.

The Pistons have a team option on Glenn Robinson III’s $4.26 million deal for 2019-20, Glenn struggled with ankle and knee issues for the second season in a row, I’m not sure if I’m ready for Glenn Robinson’s kid to be too old for basketball.

The other chunk of that eighth-ranked salary comes in the form of Andre Drummond’s graying (he’s 26!) beard. Drummond will earn over $27 million next season, but he’ll have the option to pick up the $28.75 million owed to him from Detroit in 2020-21.

Dre and Blake played well this season, the pair’s communication is sound and time together will only increase what was, honestly, pretty damn good this season.

If next year’s Pistons start slow, however, the urge will return. The club is set to only employ Griffin and Brown and Kennard and Khyri Thomas (plus this June’s draft pick) in 2020-21, the clearest chance for a do-over that Detroit has seen in ages.

Dealing Drummond away from a limping Pistons outfit midseason for assets and perks would only accelerate that effort.

In this modern age, holes in the middle don’t matter nearly as much as gaping craters at the point guard position. Detroit only has to look up its own top to recall as much — this team lives and dies with Reggie Jackson, goodness!

The move to retain Drummond would surely sweep just as strongly, Andre made strides yet again in 2018-19, malleable bigs don’t grow on trees and Blake’s gonna badly want a badass behind him. Andre owned both boards this year, it was the only thing the Pistons did well.

The front office cannot be cynical in its approach. Detroit has seen too many of these band-aids slip off in the shower, Piston fans aren’t going to show up for cheap thrills, these people want a basketball team with promise, for once.

In 2018-19 it got a team it could at least be proud of. A major success, indeed.

Previous kittens: INDIANA

RIDING HIGH

God I love a synth patch. It’s the sound of Sim City.

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