Brownlow's Twitter Mailbag: NBA departures, rival fans, Durham Bulls games and more
Posted April 22, 2022 5:01 p.m. EDT
It's offseason Mailbag time! But there's no real off-season in the Triangle, after all. Not when we've got off-season basketball departures, both current and looming, to discuss. And certainly not when we have Durham Bulls' theme nights to choose from! And absolutely not when we have Puff Johnson puns to workshop. So let's just get straight to your questions, shall we?
A lot of you folks enjoy the theme nights at the DBAP, and look. Those are great. Some of you with children prefer the games on Friday or Saturday when there are fireworks. I get that too, and there are plenty of them. Maybe you like for your kids to eat free on Wednesdays. Also great. But for this girl? It's all about the food at the DBAP.
Afford-a-BULL theme nights are what you want to look for as they'll offer discounted concessions for those games. But they're also doing these food experiences and you can get a season food pass of sorts to try them all. When I scanned through the list of theme nights to find the one I don't want to miss, I immediately settled on Oktoberfest Food Experience on September 5. But there are a few, including a Low Country Boil on June 15 and even a brunch on May 30! Yes please.
Still, if theme nights are your thing, the answer is undoubtedly the Marvel night on July 29 or the Star Wars night on September 9. The Bulls will also have a Bull Sharks night on August 13 and I guess you'd better be ready to hear the Baby Shark song a time or two but hey, who among us hasn't?
Well, I know of at least two who are — UNC's Armando Bacot and Duke's Michael Savarino. In fact, the two are such good friends that Bacot knows a lot of the Krzyzewski family, including the head man himself. I don't know why I find the fact that these two are close to be so mind-blowing to me, but I do. The version Bacot tells (and Krzyzewski, really) is that when Krzyzewski recruited him, Bacot got to know certain family members and he and Michael — or "Sav", as Bacot called him the Sunday before the national title game, nearly requiring me to take a knee — hit it off.
There have been others through the years. Wayne Ellington and Gerald Henderson come to mind, but that's probably only because Ellington I thought helped defuse a lot of ire directed at Henderson. But yeah, these guys tend to know each other in some capacity and get along just fine. Hate to ruin it for everyone.
This is a tough one! The answer is going to be kind of a trick, but follow my thought process here. If we're taking men's basketball out of the equation, it would make it a bit easier, because then at least two local schools would have easy answers. And I don't feel like I know all of the local schools' venues well enough to be able to determine which has the best non-revenue venue, much less the entire ACC's. Obviously if we could include women's basketball, it'd be Reynolds at NC State and Carmichael at UNC. At Carolina, the Bosh was redone recently (Boshamer Stadium) so I guess that'd be my answer there. I am not sure at State, honestly. I guess the Doak but it's mostly by elimination. And then at Duke, it's unclear, right? EXCEPT IT ISN'T BECAUSE I'VE STUMBLED INTO THE ANSWER: it's the DBAP! Duke uses it for baseball. So that's the answer. The DBAP is the best non-football or basketball venue in the ACC.
None, really. If anything it has been the relative lack of departures, at least so far. Paolo Banchero was a big duh, Mark Williams' value won't get higher than it is right now and Wendell Moore, Jr. may not go super high but he's not getting any younger. Armando Bacot isn't going to go high in the draft, but he's not likely to go all that higher next year and he's not getting any younger. This felt like it might have been a no-brainer decision for a guy like Bacot before Name, Image and Likeness. But Bacot has capitalized well on NIL and if he's enjoyed college and wants one more go at a title, why not? And we know that Caleb Love *could* go pro, but we don't know if he will. Love is a guy very much poised to capitalize on his NIL potential as well, which complicates his decision. He also could potentially increase his stock, but he'll have to do something he hasn't done yet in finish better at the rim. Still, he has the potential and upside enough so that the NBA decisionmakers would take a chance on him if he goes.
I also feel obliged to make my annual reminder here that if a player has announced that he is going through the NBA Draft process, it doesn't mean he is going pro. So when you look at a Terquavion Smith at NC State going through the process, know it doesn't mean anything one way or the other. I feel like fewer players are going through the process this year and that part surprises me a lot too. I guess Bacot already did it once so no need to do it again, and Love will likely at least do that part, but still. It almost feels like a free job fair to me and I'd definitely take advantage no matter what kind of player I was.
You guys know me so well, don't you? I mean, yes, I like my jokes and puns. But the only issue with a guy like Puff is the potential that the jokes go too far. You know what I mean by that. Puff, pass! Nope. So the potential to go too far scares me enough that I may not experiment too much in the medium.
The reason I'm excited about the prospect of Puff Johnson being good is actually somewhat unfair to Puff: it's me hoping he'll be as good with us media types as his brother was once he gets used to us. That's probably too much to ask. I've covered siblings before. Everyone is different. But the Johnson family clearly understands basketball at a high level and they are both friendly and intelligent. I could talk ball with his older brother all day. If his younger brother is even half as good, he'll be a joy. A team that has Bacot on it already has me covered in the talking department. Now it's just a dream.
By the way, the only time I've ever been sad about a player not coming to a school strictly because of his name was Virginia Tech's Devine Diablo. But we can't have everything, I suppose.
