Hannah Hidalgo is a 5-foot-6 guard at Notre Dame. Last night in a blowout win over Akron, she had 44 points, nine rebounds and four assists in 28 minutes. It's a Notre Dame record for scoring in a game. Wait, I forgot a stat. My bad. She had 16 steals! SIXTEEN!
Were the calls coming from inside the Mavs?
The Dallas Mavericks (3-9) lost their first game in the post-Nico Harrison era on Wednesday. Phoenix (7-5) beat Dallas 123-114 as a miserable season continued for the Mavs.
Before the game, Mavs coach Jason Kidd had an interesting quote. He called the "Fire Nico" chants that have rained onto the court since former GM Nico Harrison traded Luka Dončić on the first night of February "disrespectful." Not to Harrison. To the Mavs players -- who talked about how defeating it was to hear on their homecourt, so maybe Kidd is right.
That leads me to some great reporting from yesterday by Christian Clark, Sam Amick and Joe Vardon about how Harrison's tenure in Dallas unraveled in recent days. This excerpt about Kidd possibly being influential in Harrison's firing on Tuesday raised my eyebrows.
Making the same case, from a different angle, were Kidd and other team officials who were loyal to the coach. While it is unclear if Kidd ever uttered a direct plea to Dumont for Harrison's removal, Kidd clearly was at odds with Harrison over the roster. In Dallas' first seven games this season, Kidd decided not to start a traditional point guard. In the Mavericks' second game of the season, Kidd stunningly played undrafted two-way signee Ryan Nembhard more minutes than (D'Angelo) Russell.
Kidd is one of the greatest point guards to ever play the game. To stick him with Russell and no real lead guard options as they wait for Kyrie Irving to come back from the ACL injury at some point? Yeah, I'd imagine he didn't love that. And maybe this experimentation with Cooper Flagg at the point was part development and part protest.
That "same case" was referencing an earlier part in the story about former Mavs majority owner Mark Cuban (who still owns 27 percent of the team) possibly trying to get Harrison fired. There's no doubt that Cuban would have never traded Luka. He would've given him the same affordances Dirk Nowitzki had for as long as he wanted. Cuban trying to persuade Mavs governor Patrick Dumont to right the wrong by firing Harrison would make sense.
With the losing, the injuries and the negativity mounting, league sources said Dumont was hearing from the man whose choice to sell the team to him opened the door to this disaster in the first place. Cuban, who still owns 27 percent of the team, was known to be frustrated with Harrison for freezing him out after the sale and not consulting him on the choice to trade Dončic. League sources say he made his case to Dumont over the last several months that Harrison was steering the franchise in the wrong direction.
Dumont appears to be expressing apologies and regret to fans for the trade happening at all. If you thought players on the team were demoralized by "Fire Nico" chants, wait until guys like Anthony Davis and Max Christie find out the owner regrets making the trade for them.
Ultimately, this is Harrison's mistake and failure. No matter what. But he didn't act alone, and it's interesting to see people who signed off on it throwing him under the bus. I can't tell if this is a "Murder on the Orient Express" situation or if we're just looking at the senators converging on Julius Caesar.
Warriors get it together
🏀 Dubs changes. The Warriors were not off to the start they wanted. Then Steve Kerr changed the starters, and Steph Curry took out Victor Wembanyama on Wednesday with 46 points in Golden State's 125-120 win over the Spurs. Wemby and Stephon Castle each had triple-doubles in the loss.
The Orlando Magic (6-6) have been arguably the most disappointing team in the league. The additions of Desmond Bane and Tyus Jones have not fixed an anemic offense, and the Magic's defense has been a lot worse than we're used to seeing. Last night against the New York Knicks (7-4), we saw a lot more of what we expected from them.
Tough, physical defense. Improved outside shooting. And some better ball movement. All of this happened with Paolo Banchero only playing 12 minutes before leaving with a groin strain. A masked Franz Wagner (broken nose) dropped 28 points, nine rebounds and four assists. Desmond Bane had 22 points and eight assists. And the Magic held a very potent Knicks offense in check in their 124-107 victory.
After getting smoked by Atlanta to drop to 3-5, the Magic have won three of their last four.
Is this the beginning of a turnaround for the Magic? They still need to figure out if Banchero will miss any time. At least that have something to build on.
More action from last night:
Thunder 121, Lakers 92: It was probably the 70-38 first half that decided this one. SGA had 30 points and 10 assists in 29 minutes.
Cavs 130, Heat 116: Cleveland went on a 21-6 run in the middle of the fourth to take control and avoid losing two straight games in Miami this week. Jarrett Allen had 30 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Cavs, who were without Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley and Darius Garland.
Nuggets 130, Clippers 116: Nikola Jokić had 52 points through three quarters, and the game was mostly out of hand by the time he checked back in during the fourth. He finished with 55 on 18-of-23 from the field. It's the fifth time he's scored 50 or more and the first time he's won scoring 50 or more.
Pistons 124, Bulls 113: No Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren, Ausar Thompson, Tobias Harris, Jaden Ivey or Isaiah Stewart for Detroit. Naturally, the Pistons controlled the majority of the game to extend their win streak to eight. Paul Reed had 28 points, 13 rebounds, six assists and four steals.
Hawks 133, Kings 100: It was probably the 68-34 second and third quarters that sealed things. Jalen Johnson had 24-10-8 in 24 minutes.
Blazers 125, Pelicans 117: Shaedon Sharpe was incredible, scoring 35 points on 13-of-18 from the field and flying all over the court. He helped out Deni Avdija, who had 32 points.
Rockets 135, Wizards 112: Tari Eason (21) and Reed Sheppard (20) combined for 41 off the bench to help send the Wizards to their 10th straight loss. They've only played 12 games.
Celtics 131, Grizzlies 95: Payton Pritchard had 24 points and nine assists. He made five of the Celtics' 21 3-pointers.
Hornets 111, Bucks 100: No Giannis. No LaMelo. No Thanasis. But a lot of Hornets rookie big man Ryan Kalkbrenner, who had 17 points, nine rebounds and three blocks.
Let's take you back to Dec. 8, 2011. The league and players' union had just ended the lockout, and teams had to get to work before the season started on Christmas. And the basketball world was quickly shocked. This was a three-team deal being reported:
Prime CP3 and Kobe Bryant in the same backcourt? Minds were blown. Mouths were agape. Tweets about Lakers exceptionalism were being fired off. Then a couple hours later, we found out the trade had been vetoed. By David Stern. The commissioner of the NBA. This wasn't the commissioner acting, though. Allegedly. It was the owner of the Hornets -- who was also David Stern.
The NBA purchased the team for $300 million away from horrendous owner George Shinn in 2010 and was running it until the league could find a buyer. Owners veto trades often enough. But lines were blurred here. Owners around the league were complaining about big-market competitive balance to Stern after the trade was reported.
When the league vetoed the deal whilst acting as ownership, it gave out a statement saying the veto was for "basketball reasons" and nothing else. Everybody raised an eyebrow. CP3 would be traded to the Clippers less than a week later for Eric Gordon, Chris Kaman, Al-Farouq Aminu and the Timberwolves' 2012 first-rounder. Compare those two potential hauls, and the basketball reasons don't really add up.
The Hornets ended up taking Austin Rivers at No. 10 with that draft pick. I was thinking it probably didn't get worse or more disappointing than that as the outcome. Then I looked. That Knicks pick? Houston used it. On Royce White. Yikes!