Is it time to worry about the Nuggets? Also, let's talk about the Dwyane Wade statue

The Bounce newsletterR | That is The Athletics daily NBA newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Bounce straight to your inbox.

If I ever get around to having a statue erected in my honor one day, please make sure it looks exactly like the statue of Dwyane Wade. Just put my hair on it. This is the perfect homage.

Camp report!

It's too early to worry, but we'll do it anyway!

The first Monday of the new season is here and that can only mean one thing: It's time for our first NBA stock report to tell you who's on the right track and who's on the wrong track. We try to keep it as positive as possible, but after a few games we start to have a little Mile High concern.

📉 Denver Nuggets (0-2): There's no shame in losing to the Thunder in the season opener. Denver was accommodated, but that happens. And the Thunder are an outstanding team. But when you fail to beat an incomplete Clippers team in their home opener, the bad vibes start to creep in. Especially when Nikola Jokić said after the first game that this was “not a good shooting team”.

📈 Los Angeles Lakers (3-0): It's basically the same team as last year. But they have a new coach in JJ Redick. The early returns make them look much more dangerous as an offensive team. Anthony Davis appears to have been cleared. And LeBron James is still defying Father Time (more on that later).

📈 Cleveland Cavaliers (3-0): John Hollinger called them his expected No. 2 seed in the East before the season began, and so far we know exactly why. The Celtics will remain the class of the East until proven otherwise, but the Cavs are off to a very focused start against a poor schedule (Toronto, Detroit, Washington).

📉 Tyrese Maxey without the star help: The It feels strange to say that after he just scored 45 points in overtime to beat the Pacers. But he has to work at full speed to get the whole thing going without Joel Embiid and Paul George. PG should hopefully be back this week and we'll see Embiid when he's here. In the first three games, Philly was 1-2 and Maxey shot 34.9 percent from the field and 23.7 percent from deep.

📈 LA Clippers (2-1): So far, so good! In their first game they struggled against the Suns. In their second game, they defeated the Nuggets in Denver. Then last night they went to Chase Center and beat the Warriors.

The last 24

Obi Toppin? More like hoppin'!

Sometimes it's easy to forget how athletic some of these freaks in the NBA are. On Friday, a copy caught fire online during the Knicks-Pacers game.

Do you know how the “No Dunks” crew acted during the “wedgie” incident (when a ball gets caught between the rim and the backboard)? They also have the term “pigeon” when the ball gets stuck in the camera and shot clock holders behind the backboard.

It was a pigeon that happened on Friday, and usually an unusually large individual gets the stick from the large mop they use on the ground to remove the ball. Then they push the ball until it falls back to the ground. Why? Because it's about 12.5 to 13 feet in the air. But that's not a problem for Obi Toppin. Watch how casually he jumps up and kicks the ball free:

Yes, Toppin is 1.90 meters tall. Yes, Toppin is an absurd athlete. But think about it for a moment. That's about 13 feet in the air! Afterwards he was to stand trial in Salem for witchcraft! I'll never stop thinking about it.

🎧 “The Athletic NBA Daily.” Paying too much attention to the World Series and the NFL this weekend? Here's the perfect way to stay up to date. Press ▶️.

🩼 Steph Curry rolled his ankle last night against the Clippers. He left the game with what the team is calling an ankle sprain, and we will keep an eye on his condition going forward.

🏀 Download this! LeBron James said the plan is to play all 82 games this season.

🏀 The Indiana Fever have fired their head coach. The playoffs apparently weren't good enough, and the Fever want to make sure they don't waste a single Caitlin Clark season. Read about it.

🧑‍🎓🏀⛳ Cooper Flagg made his Duke exhibition debut! He had nine points on 3-of-9 shooting and Duke won by 56 points. Box score!

👕 Kyle Kuzma is retiring… from the fashion industry. Kuz will no longer dress for the Tunnel Fit shoot, which is like Adam Sandler retiring from filmmaking. Please swipe through these.

📺 Don't miss this game tonight. The Cavaliers visit the Knicks (7:30 p.m. ET on League Pass).

📺 League Pass Gem. The Rockets face the Spurs again – and it will be exciting games (8:00 p.m. ET on League Pass).

📺 Goodness until late at night. Another showdown between Kevin Durant and LeBron James is coming when the Lakers host the Suns again (10 p.m. ET on NBA TV or streaming on Fubo).

The Bronze Age(d)

Heat loses the internet with the Wade statue

The picture was sent to a group chat and I refused to believe it was real.

Love them or hate them, the Miami Heat are generally a top-notch organization that cares about the legacy of so many players. So there's no way you'd allow a Dwyane Wade statue to be anything other than accurate, right? Then I saw the video reveal, paused it and zoomed in. I tirelessly checked social media to see if there were better images that didn't look like an AI trying to bring SkyNet online to start the revolution. This is the Wade statue:

It looks like it has one of those filters that ages you 50 years. Maybe it's Wade Jones? It could be Kelsey Grammer. It looks a lot more like Blazers boss Joe Cronin than D-Wade. I imagine Thanos and Morpheus are mixed. What I don't see is the franchise leader in games, minutes, shots, free throws, assists, steals and points.

We're breaking out the Bounce Statue Grade (BSG), which as everyone knows is a highly scientific scoring system based on statue likeness, coolness of the pose to the player, and general acceptance by those outside the fan base. The scale goes from 1 to 10, with Ronaldo being a 1 and the Michael Jordan statue being a 10. The BSG score for the Wade statue is 3.05, and that's generous.

I'll let Harrison Faigen take it home:

No more streaking

LeBron defeated Anthony Davis in his first win over Sabonis

Did you know that Anthony Davis had never beaten Domantas Sabonis before Saturday night? Whether Davis played with the Pelicans or the Lakers and whether Sabonis played with the Thunder, Pacers or Kings, AD was 0-10 against Sabonis in his career. It was one of those strange streaks that didn't seem real — not because Sabonis wasn't good enough or had played on bad teams, but because over the course of ten games spread over eight seasons, it just seemed impossible that AD could get it not one win. AD has LeBron James to thank for finally ending the streak.

It seems a little dismissive to say that Davis had 31 points, nine rebounds, three steals, two assists and two blocks, but in example #1929394 of why plus/minus is a weird statistic, he was minus 131-127 22 Lakers win.

Things turned around in the fourth quarter when LeBron absolutely bombarded the Kings. He captained a 21-0 run in which he missed 16 of 18 points at one point. There was a slight break in LeBron's run when Rui Hachimura decided to take the ball and attack for a pull-up mid-range jumper. He missed it. This led to the cameras catching this of LeBron in the timeout. (ATTENTION: Language.)

“Hey, swing the mother to me! I just did 10 in a row; Do you want to do a pull-up where two are fighting? Swing, swing, mother – –!”

The Lakers held on to win, and Davis won't have to hear about being winless against Sabonis again in his career. He's now a strong 1-10 and hopes the floodgates have opened.

📫 Do you love The Bounce? Checkout The athlete's other newsletters.

(Top photo: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images )