Basketball On The Internet.

BOB'S CORNER: Our man in the US, BOB CRAVEN, is back on active duty, bringing us uptospeed on the end of the WNBA season and the grand opening of the NBA, featuring 224cm Victor Wembanyama for the San Antonio Spurs and 216cm OKC pivot Chet Holmgren.

They, quite literally, are the two biggest newcomers in the NBA this year and had productive, if not spectacular, debuts.

Wembanyama, a 224cm power forward for the Spurs, had 15 points, and five rebounds, but also added five turnovers in a home loss to Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks. 

Doncic had a line of 33-14-10 and Kyrie Iriving added 22 points to lead Dallas. Meanwhile, in Chicago, 216cm big man for the Oklahoma City Thunder scored 11 points in a 20-point win on the road over the Bulls.

Wembanyama and Holmgren were even better in their second games, the former scoring 21 points and adding 12 boards in a win over the Houston Rockets, while the latter had 16 points and 13 rebounds in a come from behind win over Cleveland.

WOULD an athlete rather be lucky or good? 

Luka Doncic of the Mavs is one who is both, most of the time.  A case in point was recently in Dallas' second game of the year when he made a tiebreaking 3-pointer that was truly astonishing to see.

He was standing near the right sideline, about eight metres from the hoop while being tightly guarded.  With the shot clock about to expire and with 26.3 seconds left in the game, he threw up a sidearm, right-handed hook shot that went in off the glass. 

No idea if he called it, but the banks were open.  He scored the last four field goals for Dallas - all on 3-pointers - to defeat the NJ Nets in Dallas' home opener. 

He finished with 49 points on the night.

A FEW years ago, Federal Way High School in the Seattle area won consecutive Washington state basketball championships, including 63 games in a row, behind 206cm brothers, Jaden (older by two years), and Jalen McDaniels. 

They almost won two more state titles in a row, but ended up taking second place the next year and third the year after.  During his first year, due to an injury to his right arm, Jalen had to shoot left-handed all year.

Both brothers are now in the NBA, Jaden at the Toronto Raptors and Jalen with the Minnesota Timberwolves. 

Jalen, starting his fifth season, now has bragging rights over Jaden as he recently signed a new five-year contract extension worth up to US$136 million.  He's the starting small forward for the Wolves and is capable offensively, but is also one of the best shutdown wing defenders in the league.  He makes the three and is known as a "three and D" type of player.

TRIVIA factoid for this coming season:  there will now be at least 56 players who make more than US$ one million a year.

THE WNBA season finished recently with the two "super teams" playing in the Finals for all the marbles, entirely as anticipated. 

In the best-of-five final series, the Las Vegas Aces won their second consecutive title 3-1 against the NY Liberty by squeaking by in Game 4, 70-69.  The Aces become just the third WNBA team to win back-to-back titles, and the first in 21 years.

It was not a cakewalk for the Aces, as they were missing two starters for Game 4, both out with foot injuries suffered in Game 3, and they were on the road playing in NY. 

Backup post, Aussie Cayla George, coming off an MVP season in the WNBL, stepped in for one of the two missing starters and was huge, scoring 11 points and adding four boards and three assists in just over 30 minutes.

It was a nip and tuck game most of the way.  With less than 40 seconds left and up by a single point, the Aces got the ball to A'ja Wilson on a lob, but her subsequent shot was blocked spectacularly by Breanna Stewart. 

The Liberty got the ball and, after a timeout with less than eight seconds left, got the ball in to Stewart, who was double-teamed and passed the rock out to Courtney Vandersloot who missed badly at the buzzer, and that was that. 

Wilson led the Aces with 24 points and 16 boards and was voted MVP of the Finals.  This was on the heels of another monster regular season for her, although she only finished third in the vote for MVP of the regular season behind winner Breanna Stewart of the NY Liberty and runner-up Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Sun. 

Vandersloot had 19 to lead the Liberty.

And the Aces are built for a three-peat as their core group of starters (Wilson, Kelsey Plum, Jackie Young, and Chelsea Gray are all returning under contract.  Gray at 31 is the only returner not still in her 20's.

COLLEGE basketball's season tips off soon and reigning men's D-I Player of the Year, Purdue University's 224cm and 136kg post player, Chinese Canadian Zach Edey, was the only unanimous pick for the preseason All-American team. 

Last season, he swept all the major national POTY awards, while averaging 22.3 points, 13 rebounds and 7.5 assists per game.

For the D-I women, Iowa's Caitlin Clark was a unanimous pick for the preseason AA team for the second consecutive season.  She led Iowa to the national title game last season, where they lost to Angel Reese and LSU. 

Reese was also voted onto the AA team.  Clark is 810 points behind former Washington Husky and current Las Vegas Aces star Kelsey Plum who holds the current NCAA career scoring record of 3,527 points. 

She also has one year after this year of eligibility left, if she wants to use it.  Connecticut's Paige Bueckers is also on the preseason AA team, despite not playing at all last season and almost all of the season before due to injury.

THE NBA is in full swing and, as always, opened its new season with many new looks. 

Super guard Damian Lillard is now with the Milwaukee Bucks, which caused former MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo to stay home and agree to sign a monster new contract extension, Bradley Beal is now in Phoenix, Chris Paul ended up with Steph at Golden State, incoming 224cm French teen superstar, Victor Wembanyama, is in San Antonio with super coach Gregg Popovich, coach Nick Nurse is now in Philadelphia, and LeBron James is now the oldest player in the league (he turns 39 in December).

James also has started his 21st season in the league, becoming only the sixth to make it into a 21st season.  He's making his longevity look easy, however, as none of the other five who lasted that long has managed to play at the level he's currently playing at. 

The other five (Robert Parish, Kevin Willis, Dirk Nowitzki, Vince Carter and Kevin Garnett) were all markedly diminished from their peaks.  Only Carter made it into a 22nd season.

Denver at home defeated James and the Lakers 119-107, as they also held the bling and banner ceremonies for winning the league title last season, and the Phoenix Suns (a title favourite again this year) defeated Steph and the Warriors, despite being on the road, 108-104, and despite trailing entering the fourth quarter. 

The Nuggets were led, as usual, by point centre Nikola Jokic, seeking his third consecutive MVP season, and he started off in fine form with the win and yet another triple-double, with a line of 29-13-11. 

The Lakers, as always were led by James with 21 in only 29 minutes, as LA is paying close attention to how many minutes he plays.  He says he's fine with it as he can tell he's "not 21 anymore".