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The Los Angeles Clippers hosted a ceremony Tuesday to celebrate the installation of the last steel beam on their future home, the Intuit Dome.
With players in attendance, all eyes were predictably on Kawhi Leonard because of course they were. Everyone is always ready to see the next expressionless face the “fun guy” will make.
And I get it. I’m a fun guy too. I promise! We’ve had some good laughs over the years at Leonard’s expense — from his own comical laugh that kicked off the jokes to Mike Breen’s hilarious “Kawhi Leonard going crazy” call during a game.
Leonard even made his dry personality into a brand, showing up in all his awkwardness in Drake’s Way 2 Sexy music video and being a complete star without saying a word in a JoeFreshGoods commercial for New Balance. So I’m sure we’ll have more good jokes in the future.
But can we leave Leonard alone until then? We don’t have to force every non-thing to be a thing. People are starting to turn his mere existence into a joke.
Steve Ballmer gave us actual good material Tuesday with how fired up he was about toilets. And still, there was no shortage of sports social media accounts posting photos and memes of Leonard doing absolutely nothing, like this or this or even this one.
The dude is literally just chilling. I found more humor in Russell Westbrook showing up to the ceremony for a building he’ll never play in.
As for the Leonard jokes, they’re long past the point of being funny. Let’s all collectively agree to move on to something else.
The Tip-Off
Some NBA goodness from around the USA TODAY Sports network.
As the Memphis Grizzlies await the return of Ja Morant from his indefinite absence, the team got some good news Wednesday, with the Glendale, Colorado, police department announcing Morant won’t face any criminal charges.
Now, everyone awaits the conclusion of the NBA’s investigation, which could result in a separate punishment for Morant if they find that the gun he flashed on an Instagram Live video was transported via team transportation.
However, if Morant is suspended, it doesn’t necessarily have to be an automatic 50-game ban, as one reporter incorrectly stated. FTW’s Bryan Kalbrosky wrote about there being no precedent for a suspension that long and outlined the punishments for past gun-related infractions.
“The main takeaway here is that if the NBA concludes that Morant had a firearm present at a team facility, like the team plane, Adam Silver has the power to suspend Morant for a definite or indefinite amount of time.
Silver has not handed out any gun-related suspensions. But his predecessor and mentor, former commissioner David Stern, did.”
One to Watch
(All odds via Tipico.)
Cavaliers (-2.5, -105) vs. Heat (+110), O/U 215.5, 7:30 PM ET
I’m looking at an incredibly low total for this game — the lowest of any game Wednesday night — and I’m still inclined to bet the under. These two teams rank in the bottom-three in pace in the NBA, leaving them both in the bottom six in points scored. And their respective defenses are really good. These teams combined for an average of 198 points in their first two games. Take the under.
Shootaround
— Pau Gasol wiped away tears watching his jersey retired next to Kobe’s
— Kyle Kuzma hilariously failed doing his best Steph Curry impression
— Doc Rivers and Anthony Edwards had a funny moment on the sideline
— Luka Doncic had a priceless interaction with his unsuspecting Overwatch 2 team
