The Best NBA Gossip This Season
According to experts...
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As your resident Sports Gossip Enthusiast, I couldn’t help but phone a few friends (including my husband!) to share their favorite piece of NBA gossip this season.
Getting everyone from
to to share their takes on their favorite nonsense moment that happened this NBA season warms my gossipy heart.If you thought three NBA playoff newsletters in one week wasn’t enough, I’ll have a special paid newsletter that is truly so unhinged dropping on Sunday. Be sure to become a paying subscriber so you don’t miss it:
Because I personally couldn’t pick just one piece of NBA gossip this season, I rounded up a few of my favorites below:
Houston Rockets player Jalen Green had a kid with a woman who has a kid that is his same age. There is nothing wrong with an age gap relationship, but I don’t know how I would personally feel if my stepdad (or stepboyfriend??) was the same age as me…
Larsa Pippen and Marcus Jordan broke up! Or did they? I might need to do another newsletter on this now that I think about it…
Not gossip in the traditional sense, but still thinking about the fact that LeBron James really should buy that Outback Steakhouse where he took his now-wife Savannah on their first date.
I could keep going, but I’ll let the NBA experts continue the gossip party below.
Devin Booker Has A Hairy Problem
By
No one does basketball coverage like Katie. No! One! You can follow Katie on X, but be sure to subscribe to her incredible newsletter, Basketball Feelings, below:
Devin Booker’s fake hair. Well, first, that enough people closely studied, then deduced from a short video of a guy in a barber chair covering his face that it had to be Booker. Then that enough people matched that person’s hairline to Booker’s.
Then that so many people had seemingly been secretly wondering on the veracity of Booker’s hair for this long that they were ready to believe it.
Then, in a pleasant twist, how impressed I was at somebody spraying on a synthetic dust? Fiber? Straight-up paint?
And finally that Booker had to address it, putting it to rest once and for all with a classic, “Yall got me messed up lol”.
It really was a saga as layered as Booker’s 100% real hair.
Draymond Green Puts Rudy Gobert In A Chokehold
By
If you’re an OG Impersonal Foul reader, you’ll remember one of my viral newsletters with L.J. Rader, the creator of ArtButMakeItSports. Before you ask: No, he doesn’t use AI! Be sure to follow LJ on X here and subscribe to his newsletter below:
It was just the perfect confluence—[Rudy] Gobert being the dork that he is, Draymond [Green] being himself. Everyone on NBA Twitter seemed to come alive.
Drew Eubanks What Are You Doing Here?!
By Sean Yoo
Be sure to follow Sean for his incredible NBA takes over on X.
Do you guys remember when Drew Eubanks called the cops on Isaiah Stewart before a game following a physical altercation?? Because I have not stopped thinking about it.
The news report states that Stewart sucker punched Eubanks, which led to his arrest and eventual three-game suspension.
But the drama comes from the Sun's use of the word “unprovoked” in their statement, which caused Pistons coach Monty Williams to call it irresponsible.
First off, we all know it doesn’t take much to provoke Isaiah Stewart, but secondly…why are you even there in the first place, Drew?!?
Eubanks stated it was an on-court basketball issue, and yet here you are off the court getting into a scuffle with the one person you should not scuffle with! Be smarter, Drew!
And Stew, maybe keep your hands to yourself.
Daryl Morey vs. James Harden Part 1
By
Am I fangirl of Charlotte? Yes. Could I read 10,000 words by her about any basketball nonsense? Also YES. Charlotte gave us *her* take on the Daryl Morey vs. James Harden saga that I have discussed before and my friend, Molly Morrison, shares her equally hilarious take on the entire situation below.
You can follow Charlotte on X and subscribe to her newsletter, The Wilder Things now:
I’m old enough to remember when NBA star James Harden and Sixers GM Daryl Morey’s existences were so intertwined that Morey took out an ad in a Houston paper that said, “James Harden changed my life."
That was when Morey left the Rockets for the Sixers in 2020; soon after, he lured Harden to Philadelphia. And HOO BOY! Since then, Harden sure has changed Morey’s life.
Especially last year during the offseason, once the relationship had gone south. Harden went to China (a country that famously loves Morey *psych!!!*) and said, “Daryl Morey is a liar and I will never be a part of an organization that he's a part of," and then forced his way out of Philly and onto the Clippers.
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The Morey-Harden breakup also somehow involved Harden skipping Joel Embiid’s wedding to eat burgers with Bun B and PJ Tucker.
The biggest casualty in all this? Tucker, who was shipped off to LA with Harden, decided he didn’t like it, and was fined $75,000 by the NBA for publicly saying he wanted to be traded.
I mean…it's been almost a year and this gossip still lives rent-free in my head.
Daryl Morey vs. James Harden Part 2
By: Molly Morrison
Is Bleacher Report’s Molly Morrison the queen of NBA Twitter? Quite possibly. Did she say everything I was thinking about this Morey x Harden nonsense? 1000 percent. Be sure to follow Molly on X here for all of her *chef’s kiss* playoff takes.
It’s technically before the season, but no piece of drama this season shook me to the core the way this did, so I’m going to go ahead and give myself a pass.
I will never forget waking up, sleepily grabbing my phone, and opening my timeline to see James Harden standing in front of a group of children in China at an event for his shoe and telling them that Daryl Morey is a liar and he will never be a part of an organization he is a part of, while still employed by the Sixers.
Everything about the moment was perfect as far as drama goes.
The backstory: I can’t think of a current player and a team that individually has more interesting lore than James Harden and the Sixers. For James: The incessant trade requests, the drama that has predeceased each one. For the Sixers: Drafting, injuries, Burnergate.
The fact that the player the Sixers traded Ben Simmons for after his dramatic trade request saga left in a somehow more dramatic trade request is the stuff of films.
Also, James and Daryl Morey had an extremely close relationship dating back to their days together in Houston. For a perfect basketball marriage to end with such an explosive breakup was riveting.
The setting: A press conference would have been a hilarious place for this to happen—hilarious, but more expected. In front of a group of young fans across the world, in a place that hates Daryl Morey after he spoke up against their government years ago…it doesn’t get any stranger or pettier than that.
Add the confused applause following his proclamation to that, and you get absolute cinema.
The delivery: He doesn’t just say it once. He tells them, clearly and emphatically using confident hand gestures, that, “Daryl Morey is a liar, and I will never be a part of an organization that he’s a part of.” And then, even though nothing was unclear, he says, “Let me repeat.” And he says it again. 10/10, no notes.
Thank you, James.
Matt Barnes Wins The “THAT Sports Dad” Award
By: Cutter LaKind
My husband has nothing to plug other than being married to me!!! Because as a famous tweet once said, chronically online girls should always marry chronically offline guys.
I am digging into the wacky world of retired hoopers for this one. Matt Barnes lost his mind during his son’s high school game in February and yelled at the refs, then yelled at the student announcer, for which he was fired from a TV analyst job.
To make it even funnier, it was at one of the famous parent nepo baby Westside LA schools (where I once attended a semi-formal as someone’s date approximately 16 years before marrying this newsletter’s author).
To make it double funnier, the opposing team’s head coach was Derek Fisher, who Barnes got into a fight with in 2015 over Fisher dating Barnes’s former wife.
If the author of this newsletter and I have children, we should push our kids into lacrosse or a sport I don’t care about because I also will not be chill watching high school (or kindergarten for that matter) hoops.
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Oh yes please do a newsletter on Marcus and Larsa! I am so confused!