NBA Summer Vacation: Emotion of the Oceans

There is motion in the SVW ocean and by that I mean an awful lot of dudes are way out in the wild blue yonder this week. A few did it really well—I mean really well, like an impending humanitarian award is on the way well—and a couple should stick to spending the rest of their summers on the dry side, lest they wanna become completely washed in the annals of these hallowed, a-little-sticky-from-aloe-vera-sun-balm halls.

Marc Gasol, who just a week ago was keeping tabs on the organic garden he planted in his yard last summer vacation, was out in a dingy rescuing migrants stranded in the Mediterranean. There is no joke here. Marc Gasol spent the last week volunteering with the NGO Proactiva Open Arms and much of that was spent out in the open water recovering the bodies of migrants and helping to bring survivors safely to land. The NBA is a progressive league, it gets talked about a lot, but it is occasionally without due credit given to the players who make it that way.

Rating: Just Marc Gasol, absolutely doing the most.

A nice transition into our regularly scheduled tittering and trash talk on the way player’s choose to spend their offseason is JaVale McGee pretending to pick up his daughter’s play phone and totally tear a new one to the would-be caller on the other end.

Rating: 9021UH OH!

What’s UP James Harden in a trashy, regular ass tank top, flipping the hang loose hand while laser strobe lights illuminate your face?! Turns out all it takes to set James Harden free is setting him loose on the shores of Ibiza with Real Madrid Captain Sergio Ramos and frankly it’s dumb of all of us that it took this long to figure out!

You’ll be happy my sleuthing skills have peeled back another layer in this euro-rave onion, specifically why is Harden wearing that top, because from Ramos’s own documenting of this night we can see they are not just at some regular party, they are at a FOAM PARTY.

Rating: The big buildup that lasts for close to three minutes before the beat drops and every whistle is blasting and the foam cannon is pilin’ up the suds around you like so many cloud castles in heaven.

We cut live to Steph Curry now, jumping fully clothed off the top of a boat. While we are not here to judge all selfless actions this summer vacation we are certainly going to judge this one. He doesn’t have trunks? He’s got to do this in what appears to be like, athletic technology warm up pants that probably shrink wrap to your legs once you hit the water?

Rating: Oh (splash) brother.

Wade is in China, and we can only hope it’s because he’s hot on the heels of the Mr. Hyde of SVW, China Klay. In any case, he’s paused on his hunt for a quick round of golf and I am not a fan nor knowledgeable of that sport but could they not get him a taller club?

Rating: Fore out of five.

Aside from being in Vancouver, this looks like a nice trip for Main Manu and the entire Ginóbili family. I like to think that he’s getting familiar with the places DeMar DeRozan once set foot in before coming to Toronto for the main event, so he will have some skin in the conversation when Deebo brings up all the things he misses about Canada.

Rating: I’ll let my famous saying about Vancouver speak for itself—“Once you’ve sea-n one wall, you’ve seen ‘em all.”

Oh my goooosh, look at our little gladiator ROMEin’ around, checking off all the sights and staying, considerately to his GF and the general public, low to the ground. My only hope is that we get a shot of Giannis high-fiving Christ in The Last Judgement, on the ceiling of the ol’ Sistine. He’d only really have to stretch on tip toes to do it.

Rating: Watch out, Eternal City, there’s a new cooler, younger, taller, Pope in town.

Paris continues to be big and so does standing or sitting on some type of plinth. The supposed 6th man of the year (Fred VanVleet was robbed) has chosen either onyx or ebony, could also be a big Bose speaker just flipped around, to stand on and do the funny gag. Look how happy he is.

Rating: 6th man to attempt this gag on this particular day, maybe.

Here’s Boban in a quarry of some kind, stalking toward the camera with his socks pulled high. Wouldn’t it be incredible if he gets really into BMX culture this year and is constantly almost caught wheelie-ing the white hot sides of the L.A. River? The LAPD are stumped, who is this giant shadow racing away every time on a tiny bike, leaving wet tire tracks all the way back to the Staple Center?

Rating: They’ll find some fancy pegs in Lonzo Ball’s locker, L.A. Boban rides again.

Jaylen Brown is in Bali doing tarps off and fanny pack on, doing the kind of nervous smile one does on vacation when someone has pushed you into something you aren’t quite comfortable with. Out of frame I am imagining a pack of monkeys glaring at him with their beady eyes, rubbing their little paws together over what kind of gear they are going to nab off this guy.

Rating: An up-to-date rabies vaccine and one long look at the warnings, I hope.

Ah yes, exactly the scene the Turkish folk poet Yunus Emre was attempting to set in his 13th century banger "Mirza at the Grand Bazaar."

Rating: Gives a whole new meaning to telenovela am I right?

Here we got a great, extremely contoured shot of Willy’s back as he soaks up the sun in the ancient port city of Cádiz, Spain.

Rating: How sweaty are you getting just looking at this? The answer is extremely.

Double feature for THJ! What I wouldn’t give to get this in a slow-mo video but you gotta take your summer refreshers where you can get ‘em, folks. This is the exact yin to Willy’s yang (get your god damn minds out of the gutters) up there.

Rating: How quenched are you getting just looking at this? The answer is extremely.

Somebody wants to be this summer’s solo banana boat boy! Taj is floatin’ in the ocean off the coast of Pesaro, which is way up on the back side of the top of Italy’s boot, on what looks to be a rescue device but is maybe just some kind of Euro pool floatie more streamlined than the traditional mattress. In case there was any doubt that he’s fully in the Eat portion of his Eat, Pray, Love offseason, here he is giggling and having some spaghetti,

Rating: He’ll be sad when it’s time to say goodbye to this trip.

The Hawks guard has scooted a little farther south for a break in Miami where he’s getting some assistance getting on, or else a chauffeured ride on, this jet-ski. No reason to be out here having fun but not being safe.

Rating: As the SVW rhyme goes—“A ski on land, hold a friend’s hand. A ski on the water, let’s not repeat Sean Kingston’s mistakes.”

Double Dekker’s just the latest to be captivated this offseason by the Greek Islands, but this dude’s on ‘em for his honeymoon. One thing’s for sure, I’ve never felt less cool than when I realized Sam Dekker and I have the same style of jumping off things into pristine waters, that is, somehow bunched way the hell up in our bodies and plugging our noses like little loser babies. Congratulations, Sam!

Rating: Enjoy all that water up your nose while Sam and I breathe easily from ours!

Here we have my and summer’s natural enemy, Matthew Dellavedova, holding onto a hammerhead shark with his eyes squeezed shut, praying for the photo to get taken so he can put it down. You know what, Delly? Why even pick it up in the first place? How would you like it if someone was hanging onto you by the butt and the back and lofting you high above your home? Come to think of it that must be what dunking feels like, but without the debilitating terror because the ball is not a misunderstood creature. Not that you would know what it feels like to do that.

Rating: I won’t.

Wherever Payne is—and he looks as confused about it as I am—he should stay there as long as possible, in that exact same shirt, wearing those exact same steampunk shades, squinting off into the exact same middle distance, because lord knows what’s happening to and for the Bulls this season.

Rating: If thou gaze long into an infinity pool, the infinity pool will also gaze into thee.

I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, but I can’t help picturing Bellinelli fluttering out this big, Turkish beach towel for two in a place called “Fliper & Chiller” on the Balearic Islands as the same welcoming gesture he will make to my eternal guy DeMar DeRozan this season back in San Antonio. Belli I’ve never needed you more.

Rating: Sobbing. But this beach looks nice.

Like catching someone mid-sneeze, blowing out birthday candles, or the second they start to hurl going down the last huge hill on a roller coaster, the moment this photo was taken it became Summer Vacation For John Wall.

Rating: Extremely end of July.