Steph Could Have Told Klay About Nico
Three-Dot Friday 3.7
You may recall hearing stories about the horribly botched Nike pitch to Stephen Curry in 2013 that resulted in him signing with Under Armour and helping catapult that company to become a major player in the shoe wars. The meeting began with Nike reps mispronouncing his name “Steph-on,” and continued throughout, like using a PowerPoint slide with Kevin Durant’s name instead of Curry’s. This, coupled with the fact that Nike had refused to sponsor a Curry camp for up-and-comers earlier that summer, led Steph and his family to believe that Nike wasn’t really interested in him, and they quickly pivoted to UA, where Steph remains their top athlete to this day…
The Nike executive behind that botched pitch? Nico Harrison, now the General Manager of the Dallas Mavericks. You may have heard of him recently…
Klay Thompson is currently the living embodiment of a proverb that goes all the way back to Roman times and the original version goes, “The harvest is always richer in another man’s field,” but we know it as “The grass is greener on the other side.”
Klay didn’t feel appreciated by the Warriors and left for Dallas. He’s now the last man standing after Nico Harrison made the still-shocking Luka Doncic trade for Anthony Davis, who didn’t even make it through his first game with the Mavs. Then Monday night, Kyrie Irving tore his ACL and is out for at least a year…
And here is Klay, who refused to become a bench player in Golden State, now the last man standing in Dallas...
Did he ask Steph about Nico before he signed? Did he remember where Nico was before Dallas? Does he wish he had listened now?
But hey, it could be worse. He could be Andrew Wiggins. You may remember him as the big piece the Warriors gave to the Miami Heat to get Jimmy Butler…
I think about Wiggins and what he wasn’t doing for the Warriors nearly every time somebody asks Steve Kerr or any of the players about how Butler has invigorated the Warriors. It’s not an intentional slight on Wiggins, but it is very telling about what he wasn’t doing with Golden State…
They use words like “force” and “energy” and “will to win” and things like that. We all kind of could see that Wiggins wasn’t using his talents to his full potential- which has been the knock on Wiggins his entire career, actually. The one long stretch he truly played to his full potential was the Warriors run to the NBA Title in 2022. Before that and after that? He’s been satisfied to be pretty good. Which will get you paid, but it will also get you forgotten the minute you get traded, and the next guy will do everything he possibly can to win…
Olympians come from so many different backgrounds and go on to so many different things after they’ve competed for gold. But becoming a drug lord and making the FBI’s 10-Most Wanted List? That’s probably a pretty rare double. Yet 2002 Olympic Snowboarder Ryan Wedding is now apparently a big time Canadian drug lord and was put on the FBI list this week. From one kind of white stuff to the other…
And he finished 24th at the Olympics, so he’s already placed higher with the FBI!
There were a lot of complaints about Hulu’s first time streaming the Oscars, like that the stream didn’t start on time and that the stream cut off because the ceremony ran over even extended time- I know, what a shocker!
The pundits all said it was a “disaster,” but it was far from it. Because that meant enough people were watching that they noticed the problems and it made headlines.
You know what the worst-case scenario was for Hulu execs? That those problems happen, and they barely make a ripple on social media or whatever. That would have told them that nobody watched their feed. Instead, they are relieved that enough people watched. So now they can do their spin of “We’ll do better next time” and all that nonsense…
If you want to conspiracy theory the thing, maybe they did it on purpose to see the reaction. It’s how lots of people operate in the attention-getting industry, you know…
Are you ready for a revival in 70’s arena rock? Well, it’s going to happen since Paul McCartney announced the fall release of a book on the history of Wings…
While I can’t say for certain which will be the most media-hyped part of the book, I’m sure Paul’s drug arrest while entering Japan in 1980 will be one of them. As will getting robbed in Africa with the original demo tapes for “Band on the Run” and having to re-create the songs from memory. Maybe the originals will turn up because of it? Or that they got a van and went on an impromptu club tour in February 1972, showing up at pubs and saying “Hi, can we play here tonight?” and who’s turning down Paul McCartney?
Either way, something that has been known about Wings for decades will become an internet sensation. “Did you know John Lennon almost had a reunion with Paul McCartney during the recording of “Venus and Mars” in New Orleans?” (That album is turning 50 this year, by the way.)
Yeah actually, yeah, we did. Kind of like knowing who the Nike executive was that completely screwed up the Steph Curry negotiations and then as GM destroyed the Dallas Mavericks. We may have forgotten for a moment, but we knew, and it all makes sense when you connect the dots…
Ryan Wedding has elevated elite to a new level.
Sadly, for Klay Thompson, the Warriors knew that the guard's best years were behind him. And, that the team could find value and comparable contributions in the free agent market without retaining an unhappy presence.. The Roman's were a savvy bunch...as are Vulcans...
As the sublime philosopher Spock offered in Amok Time, "After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but is often true."
Brilliant connection of Nico to disasters years apart. The Curry recruitment fiasco is beyond embarrassing. Failing to get the basics right? Wow! Particularly, when they are so easy to get right. Yikes!
Ryan Wedding sounds like a good candidate for a job with Trump's DEA, maybe working the Canadian border.