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What’s good, family. It’s Sykes, back again for today’s edition of Layup Lines.
The Warriors are NBA champions. They’ve reached the mountaintop yet again and showed off quite a bit while doing it.
Steph Curry pointed at his ring finger in the middle of the game. Draymond Green wore black to the Celtics’ “funeral” in Game 6. Klay Thompson is throwing barbs at players who don’t have anything to do with anything. The Dubs are back, man.
Just like that, the NBA’s regular season has ended. But there’s still plenty of drama left to unfold with the league. Almost nothing is certain with the league’s offseason. There are a ton of mysteries still left to solve.
Don’t look now, but the NBA draft is in just a week. There’s a ton of mystery outside of the top 3 picks that will be Jabari Smith, Chet Holmgren, and Paolo Banchero in some sort of order.
On top of that, a number of players could be traded during or after the draft. We’re talking Rudy Gobert, John Collins and more. We’ve already seen a couple of names on the move — JaMychal Green and Christian Wood, to be specific. We’ll almost certainly see more.
And after that? That’s when we dive into free agency. Bradley Beal, Zach LaVine and more big names might actually be available this offseason. It could be an absolute madhouse.
Aside from where those names will go, we’ll also see what teams around the league are going to do. There are a number of fascinating questions we need answers to. How will the Celtics improve? Will the Lakers trade Russell Westbrook? Will the Nets trade Kyrie Irving? Are the Bucks going to reload? Who will the Warriors keep around?
We’ll get the answers to all of these questions and then some, basically, all within the next calendar month. It’ll be an absolute whirlwind.
But it’ll be fun, too. And I can’t wait to dive into it with you all.
The Tip-Off
Some NBA goodness from around the USA TODAY Sports network.
Enough about the offseason, though. Let’s talk a bit about the Warriors reaching the mountaintop again. They’ve done something truly special.
Somehow, thanks to a postgame adrenaline spike, I managed to cobble together a few words after Game 6 to try and properly contextualize what this team has done. Basically, they’ve become this era’s San Antonio Spurs. And that’s absolutely incredible.
“Let’s run it down. They’ve been to 6 NBA Finals in the last 8 years and they’ve won 4 of them. LeBron James is the only force in the NBA that can even think about claiming to be as dominant.
It doesn’t stop there. We saw them eclipse those same aforementioned Spurs in these NBA Finals. During this series, the Warriors’ big 3 of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green officially passed the Spurs’ big 3 of Parker, Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan for the most NBA Finals wins by a trio in the last 30 years, per Yahoo! Sports. They now have 21 total.”
Since 2015, the Warriors have been absolutely dominating the league. Each iteration of this team has done something special no matter how you slice it. Pre-Kevin Durant, with Durant, post-Durant. It doesn’t matter.
All they’ve done is win. And you’ve got to tip your cap to that.
One to Watch
(All odds via Tipico.)
Dallas Wings (-5.5, -230) vs. Phoenix Mercury (+180), O/U 169.5, 8 PM ET
Skylar Diggins-Smith and the Phoenix Mercury are heading into Dallas winning four of their last five games with Smith shooting nearly 50% from the floor while averaging 19.3 points per game. On the other end, the Wings are struggling. They’ve lost 4 straight and are looking to get right at home. They should be highly motivated, but I’m taking the Mercury outright in this one.
Shootaround
— Steph Curry doesn’t forget anything. Somebody let Kendrick Perkins know that.
— Remember the dude who got the Celtics championship banner tattoo? Yeah, he’s leaning into it.
— This Warriors’ championship hits different. Jeff Zilgitt does an amazing job of diving into why.
— What the Warriors winning a title means for the rest of the NBA.
That’s all, folks! Happy Juneteenth. Have an incredible weekend.
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