Halfway Down and Out: Moving On and Getting Over

As the dog days of summer dissipate into sweet autumn, an important question needs to be answered:

Where do we stand?

It is September and the smell of pigskin is ripe in the air. Fall can be felt heavily in the evening breeze.

Before we know it, the 2024-25 NBA Season will arrive abruptly as it always does — in precisely 40 days and 40 nights.

Winter is Coming.

It is no secret that last year, the 2023-24 NBA SZN, was by far our least favorite of the last five years since we started this here blog. So much so that we didn’t have it in us after the season concluded to write our annual Team Rev-U’s. Those require a considerable amount of time, blood, sweat and tears.

Consider us added to the lengthy list of players injured, down and out and unable to go.

It wasn’t just the litany of injuries. It was all of the blowouts, too. The lack of intensity. The absence of aura.

This is all to say that the 2024 playoffs were everything that those last two Olympic games this summer were not.

The Team USA 13-point fourth-quarter comeback vs. The Joker and Serbia, and then the Finale vs. The Alien and France in France, capped by Steph’s Golden Dagger, a shot and call by Noah Eagle that will live on throughout history — that was basketball at its finest.

That is why we watch.

It was a beautiful thing to see LeBron, Steph and KD — the players who have defined this generation of hoops — close out the Olympics together in such harmonious fashion. Embiid deserves his flowers as well for his fourth quarter against Serbia. And D-Book was the unsung hero, a rock of consistency for a team that needed just that.

When somebody mentions the 2024 Olympics, the first thing that will come to mind is Steph’s shot.

The Golden Dagger.

A perfect shot and moment that saved our soul and brought us back to life. The bad taste of last season washed away with a single flick of the wrist and subsequent ball through the net.

And so, we are here today to proudly announce in the biggest way: we are so fucking back.

Bring on the SZN!

Same as always, we’ll be there.