Yo I just thought of something: the NBA regular season is starting on Tuesday. That means I just realized something else honestly: we gotta do a 2025-2026 season preview. I mean, we just have to! We just gotta address the big questions going into the season.
Is it cooler for Zohran to be a Knicks guy or a Nets guy?
Genuinely a more difficult question than you would imagine on first blush. Yes, the Nets are kind of the Israeli Globetrotters at this point, and he’d want to stay away from that vibe at all costs. And yes, the Knicks are probably one of two favorites to come out of the East. But what we have to consider is that they are guilty of, perhaps, an even graver crime than tacitly supporting war crimes: being Soy as hell.
If I’m Zohran, I’m maybe picking the Phoenix Suns (Maluach grew up in Uganda) to avoid either of these options.
Who wil outmeat whom this season?
Exactly a year ago—to the date—X user “marmentality” posted a canonical stan tweet, rejoicing in the fact that Donovan Mitchell’s junk photographed much better than SGA’s seemingly nonexistent package. This didn’t matter much for the season—SGA won both the MVP and the championship—but in the eyes of many (me), being outmeated constituted a much greater loss. I could never see Shai the same again; all I could see was, of course, his comparatively tiny cock and balls.
It’s an open and interesting question: who will outmeat whom? If I had to guess, Steven Adams would outmeat most, and a certain Oregon alum with no useful skills on the court would be the most outmeated. It’s most fun to imagine SKIMS photoshoots that pit two generational talents against each other, like, say, Giannis and Wemby, and to let your mind go wild from there.
Will the cast of Rachel Sennott’s I Love LA decide to go courtside at a Lakers game or Clippers game first to promote the show?
I legit cannot wait for Rachel Sennott and Jordan Firstman to trade well-honed barbs while carrying iced lattes from Picnic Coffee and walking along the Silverlake Reservoir! Mama—yes!
Lakers is the obvious choice—well-documented history of making stars out of its attendees, legacy, aura, LeBron, what if she starts dating Austin Reaves or Dalton Knecht, etc. But it could be fun if she staked her claim as the first big Clippers get. No better exposure than the Halo Board, in my opinion. Full access to the Intuit Dome. Ballmer funds her next project. You know the vibes…
The Zohran thing made me think of something: If Cuomo decides to visit a mosque before the election, which one should he go to?
Smart money says Bengali—probably most bang for his buck. I think Yemeni couldn’t hurt, though. Or a West African one.
But then we get into interesting niche plays—what if he passes on a Sunni one? Twelver Shi’a, just to mess with Zohran? Maybe even an Ahmadiyya one? Brother Cuomo, call me. I could give you options.
Just thought of something else, too: does contemporary fiction’s most readily accessible prose style crib too eagerly from Bernhardian aesthetics?
Yo I just thought of this, too: it appears that the modern condition—the way we live now, so to speak—is almost too perfect a fit for an imitation of Bernhard’s patented style of inward, self-spiraling obsessions and descriptions. Or is it all closer to Georges Perec and his exhaustive documentation? Something the literary world is wrestling with, no doubt.
That made me think of something else: what’s the point of shared entertainment these days?
That other thing I thought of just made me think of something else entirely. What’s the point of it all? Is it even worth my time? Who gives a fuck if the Warriors win 50 games this season? Do books matter in the grand scheme of things? If YouTube can provide you with enough content, tailored to your exact specifications, to tide you over for each day, every day, then why invest in something that will piss you off at 12:45am on a random Wednesday night in January because KumBucket just committed an egregious turnover to piss away the game? Why the fuck would I do that?
Any other things that might be happening in the NBA this season? Should we guess which players are taking Ozempic?
I guess we’re all on #LukaWeightWatch. He should do a check-in on a big ceremonial scale, maybe in front of the Chinese Theater, once a month. Just so we can all stay #abreast.
Ritam’s Footnote
Thaaaat part 👆