The 5: Normalization, Dwyane Wade and living in a Donald Trump world

Klay Thompson finally broke out of his 3-point shooting slump in the first half of the Golden State Warriors’ win over the Dallas Mavericks, hitting four 3’s pretty quickly. The TV cameras picked up the relief emoting from his smile. It was the progression to the mean we were all expecting and Thompson was hoping for. He wasn’t going to shoot 21 percent from 3-point range (he had made just 11 of 53 until then) all season. There was talk that Kevin Durant’s addition spooked him, something which on its face is ridiculous and typifies the national media’s slippery slope-approach to reasoning.

“Not at all,” Thompson told ESPN’s Ethan Sherwood Strauss when asked if his cold spell had anything to do with Durant. “I struggled last year for the first 20 games, and Kevin wasn’t here. So it has nothing to do with Kevin.”

This is Klay Freaking Thompson. Splash Brother and NBA Champion. He made three of four from distance in the very next game. He’s made seven of his last 11 3s in two very easy wins for the Warriors.

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The beginning of the NBA season is a small sample size working its way at scaling out, when averages start to take over and extreme stats are diluted. Thompson wasn’t going to stink at shooting 3s forever — just like Russell Westbrook wasn’t going to average 38 points per game and Anthony Davis wasn’t going to put up 48 and 16 the whole year — and by the end of the season his average will line up more with his career 42 percent clip. For Thompson, and the rest on the NBA, the normalization process has begun.

Is it Time to Panic?

Less than 10 games into the season is no time to draw conclusions, but if you take a look at the NBA standings you can start to see how things might play out. For the most part, the standings reflect who we thought would be good.

The top teams in the East—the Cavaliers, Hornets, Hawks, Raptors, Bulls, Bucks, Pacers, Pistons and Celtics—are all teams we thought would make the playoffs. In the West, there shouldn’t be any surprise that the top of the conference is made up of the Clippers, Warriors, Thunder, Rockets, Spurs, Jazz, Trail Blazers and Grizzlies.

That normalization process we were talking about? It’s already begun. The conferences are smoothing out. While it’s no time for any team to panic, teams three, four, five games out of the playoff picture are creating difficult holes for themselves to dig out of. Teams like the Knicks, Magic and Wizards, Minnesota and Dallas who all hoped to make a playoff run will have a tough time catching up. Especially since the teams we expected to be good are the ones that are starting to pull away.

The Rise of the New Gen

Every NBA season we see the rise of a new generation and the fall of an old, and Larry Nance Jr.’s dunk on David West is the single greatest metaphor of this probably ever.

Nance Jr. is a nice player. Even a good player, and he’s gotten better under Lakers coach Luke Walton. David West, meanwhile, was once a very good player who has transformed into a ring chaser in the twilight of his career. I really don’t have to explain age to you. You get it.

Someone may have to explain to me why Larry Nance Jr. stiff-armed the face of David West, other than that it’s David West and he probably had it coming.

Homecoming

Dwyane Wade had the ball in the left corner with Justise Winslow guarding him. With a low dribble he faked right, spun toward the baseline and, at 34 years old, beat the 20-year-old Winslow and darted toward the rim, where he met Willie Reed in the air. Wade twisted his body and maneuvered a reverse layup that, of course, went in. And-1.

It was a familiar site for the Miami Heat fans at AmericanAirlines Arena who have seen Wade make a bazillion circus shots just like this in 13 seasons with the team. Wade, now playing for the Chicago Bulls, is the same player. He’s just playing in a different city and wearing a different jersey. Still, at that moment Heat fans cheered. They cheered for him during the introductions, and during the team’s tribute video, and when Wade pointed to them from the free-throw line. If not for the different name on the front of his jersey, it was almost as if nothing had changed at all.

It was almost comforting to see him do that. The circus shot. Wade had been hitting three-pointers at a career-best clip going into the game, but on Thursday he missed all four of his three-point attempts. It would have been much too strange to see Wade’s body come into Miami and start draining three-pointers. To watch him go to work as he had always done, with subtle post moves and savvy pump fakes, was something Heat fans could recognize even if Wade in a Bulls jersey is nearly unrecognizable.

After the game, Wade said it was “one of the weirdest games I’ve ever played in.”  He said he was glad to get his first game back in Miami over with. There’s a sense of relief for everyone. Wade didn’t put up 30 points in a revenge game (his stat line was quite modest) and there were no noticeable hard feelings. He joked around with his former teammates during timeouts and after the game. He competed with them during.

In a fun-house mirror sort of way, it was almost more normal to see Wade play the Heat. At least he was in Miami, you know? Even though Wade not playing for the Heat won’t ever be something I can get used to, at least now the media circus can start to go away and both parties can continue working toward whatever is next.

Seeking Comfort

I’ve seen a lot of people say that they are “just glad the election is over” and while I disagree with that level of general apathy I can at least appreciate the desire to go back to normal. It doesn’t take a political columnist to know that things won’t go back to way they were. Some people are scared and looking for answers. We have a way of trying to reconcile things, something that Ernie Johnson and the TNT crew tried to do on “NBA on TNT” Thursday night.

Donald Trump will be in the White House in about two months, everyone has expectations but no one really knows what will happen. What we do know is that the debates are over, that at least the question of who our next president will be is answered. People are seeking the comfort of what they know, like Ernie Johnson finding solace in his religion.

Trump may be a regression to the mean for American politics dominated by white males — even as a new generation tries to rise for change America is somewhere between something recognizable and something completely strange. Like Wade in a Bulls jersey. We can only hope but find a new normal, and that the law of averages rises above the extremes.