Dub Nation HQ Rooting Guide, Play-in: MIN vs LAL, ATL vs MIA. Plus open thread.

Thank Odin GSW gets to rest and heal up this week

You can also read the complete Dub Nation HQ Rooting Guide for Other Teams.

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STEPH CURRY IS EATING POPCORN

Playoff Matchup Considerations

The winner of MIN vs LAL goes on as the #7 seed vs #2 MEM. The winner of that would play the winner of the #6 GSW vs #3 SAC series.

LAL is playing really well now that they have a roster that makes sense and LeBron James and Anthony Davis are about as healthy as they’ll ever be.

MIN in the meantime clawed their way to a so-so year despite making a colossally horrible trade for Rudy Gobert, who just punched his teammate Kyle Anderson on TV and got suspended. Talented defender and bonehead Jaden McDaniels pulled a LeBron and punched a wall and broke his hand. Plus Naz Reid is injured.

Clearly MIN would be a better matchup, so that would make it extra funny if LAL somehow lost.

And now on to the petty stuff…

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L.A. Lakers

Ex-Warriors

• LAL had Juan Toscano-Anderson and Damian Jones, but traded them in a big mid-season reset.

Friends

• None.

Unrequited Love

• Parts of Dub Nation really wanted to acquire Jarred Vanderbilt (All-NBA Motor) and Rui Hachimura.

Warriors Villains

• LeBron James. LeBron pioneered the age of players assembling as mercenary super squads at resource-rich franchises and then leaving when they’ve strip-mined everything for maximum short-term gain.
  
  LeBron combines all-time genius level play and athleticism (explosiveness plus invulnerability) with petty crap. One sequence that sums it up: His 2018 Finals Game 1 regulation performance was one of the best games I’ve ever seen; he then follows that with a mental meltdown after J.R. Smith’s meltdown; then smashes a whiteboard in the locker room after and breaks his hand and ruins any chance of an upset; then shows up to the post-Finals press conference in a “oh you mean this?” hand cast so that people would ask him the story.

• Anthony Davis. AD pioneered the age of players having multiple years left on their contract forcing themselves off the team via PR tricks, sudden injury issues and generally abandoning their team and contract.
  
  AD forced a trade to the Lakers by sieging the Pelicans well before his contract expired to team up with LeBron, though NOP took an amusingly long time to call his bluff. He recently won no fans in Dub Nation when the heavy favorite Lakers got a ref-colored win in the Play-In and he followed it with giddy trash talk.

Petty Rivalries

• Austin Reaves worked his way up from the G-League, works hard on both ends, and has become possibly the worst sport-destroying foul-baiter on the planet. He must be stopped for the sake of impressionable children, the elderly, people looking in the direction of his games, marine habitats and basically all terrestrial lifeforms.

Team Grudges

• Most of Dub Nation wished ill on the Lakers franchise before LeBron and AD showed up to strip-mine. Now that they’re together, it is a recipe for Dub Nation disgust. That doesn’t even bring in the recent ref-fueled 2021 Play-In loss.

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Minnesota Timberwolves

Ex-Warriors

• None.

Friends

• MIN has done more for the Golden State Warriors than any other franchise, more than GSW themselves. Drafting two point guards ahead of Stephen Curry at #5 and #6 in 2009 is enough to make then-GM David Kahn an Honorary Warrior for Life. But the recent trade of D’Angelo Russell for Andrew Wiggins and the #7 pick (Jonathan Kuminga) should make MIN the second team of every observant citizen of Dub Nation.

Unrequited Love

• Parts of Dub Nation really wanted to acquire Naz Reid.

• Wendell Moore Jr was the #3 finisher in the 2022 DNHQ Draft Tournament.

Warriors Villains

• Austin Rivers. Part of the rivals Lob City Clippers and also the 2019 Rockets team, this guy has been part of some pretty hateable teams. But, he also got into a feud with Chris Paul that got so red-hot that CP3 ended up assembling a militia to storm Austin Rivers and friends in their locker through a secret tunnel. Then they had to play together on the 2019 Rockets. Haha, isn’t the enemy of my enemy a friend? If that wasn’t enough, after many seasons of on-court physical annoying defense, Austin and Stephen Curry ended up as co-brothers-in-law, details at Explain One Play: Stephen Curry Family Feud with Austin Rivers.

Petty Rivalries

• Kyle Anderson was on the annoying 2022 Grizzlies, but frankly compared to everyone else on that team, he seemed well-adjusted. And his recent fight with Rudy Gobert seems to have raised his reputation a bit in some circles.

• Rudy Gobert 

  • has beat out Draymond Green as Defensive Player of the Year three times despite sometimes being played off the court in the playoffs.

  • And he did almost infect all those reporters with COVID with the mic touching.

  • And The French Rejection did face off against the Warriors in the 2017 Playoffs, but even though the series was closer than the score, the Jazz never truly threatened. Also Steph did this to him:

• • Rudy also took a shot at Draymond after Dray’s preseason punch, which Dray was happy to send back after Gobzilla’s own self-control issue.

    

    https://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/1645204104312942593?s=20

  • So I don’t know if Dub Nation really has any particular bad feelings about The Stifle Tower beyond annoyance. 

• Mike Conley was a key player in the Grit and Grind Memphis Grizzlies that faced GSW in the 2015 title run. But Mike seems like an upright, hard working, talented player. It’s not his fault that trolls use his face injury to de-legitimize Steph Curry and the entire 2015 championship.

Team Grudges

• None?

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Miami HEAT

Ex-Warriors

• None.

Friends

• Jimmy Butler. Famously couldn’t get along with the Minnesota Timberwolves management, couldn’t get the most out of Andrew Wiggins through tough love, and caused so much chaos that it forced trades and moves that put MIN in such a dreadful position that MIN had to make a desperation move to keep Karl-Anthony Towns from leaving: the glorious trade of Andrew Wiggins and the 2021 Top 3 protected 1st round pick (#7 Kuminga) for KAT’s pal D’Angelo Russell. Thanks, Jimmy.

• Kevin Love. Childhood pal of Klay Thompson. Legendary near-trade target for Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Harrison Barnes. The #2 free agent whom LeBron grabbed for his Superfriends 2.0 (v 1.0 in CLE), who became a scapegoat for all CLE’s problems.

Unrequited Love

• MIA have a few players that Dub Nation has fantasized about getting for years: Dewayne Dedmon, Omer Yurtseven, Kevin Love.

  • Dilly writes: I believe that Dewayne Dedmon had his own little meltdown on the Miami bench & threw something & was waived and/or traded & waived and was later picked up by Philly. I think.

Warriors Villains

• None yet.

Petty Rivalries

• Udonis Haslem. Raised a whole fuss about Draymond picking the Celtics to advance.

Team Grudges

• None really. They did have the annoying LeBron / Wade / Bosh Super Friends team, but that one horribly underperformed so much that it provided some entertainment. Dwyane Wade has been pretty cool in retirement, and they also got dumped by LeBron after he strip-mined the town, so it’s hard to hold a grudge. They also gave the Lakers a scare in the 2020 Disney Cup despite a rash of Heat injures, and also got within one shot of upsetting the Celtics in 2022.

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Atlanta Hawks

Ex-Warriors

• Saddiq Bey was briefly on the Warriors during the 5 Second Round Picks era of the James Wiseman - Gary Payton II trade. He ended up getting routed to ATL when the trade was finalized.

Friends

• GM Travis Schlenk helped assemble the Dynasty Warriors as Associate GM, then got the big seat in 2017 in ATL, and immediately stole away GSW head performance therapist Chelsea Lane. (Maybe that makes him a villain?) He followed a Warriors-esque blueprint, even drafting micro-Steph Trae Young. Unfortunately, he lost a power struggle with the owner’s son and was fired, oops I mean re-assigned.

Unrequited Love

• Onyeka Okongwu was one of my draft targets in the Wiseman draft, and he ended up falling to ATL, and then due to injuries and other reasons I don’t understand, never seemed to get a chance.

Warriors Villains

• Trae Young. Started as a college star with a very Steph Curry style game style. Had a splashy but inefficient rookie year as a micro Steph Curry. Then turned to the dark side to become a macro James Harden, somehow taking the latter’s pioneering foul baiting and cheating and putting a personal spin on it to degrade the sport and generally make his games tough watches.

Petty Rivalries

• Clint Capela. A key role player with the Houston Rockets that threatened the Dynasty Warriors, but I don’t think he got involved in anything too cheap or annoying.

Team Grudges

• Other than being a mini-me version of the Warriors and supporting Trae Young’s assault on the eyeballs of all basketball fans, I’m not sure ATL has made any impression on Dub Nation.

… so, who are you rooting for?