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Lakers’ JaVale McGee fakes injury to throw down dunk on Warriors

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If you’re a hoops aficionado, you’re familiar with the post-up move. Now say howdy to the post-off move.

If you’re a hoops aficionado, you shouldn’t be surprised that the revolutionary, weird, possibly extra-legal, move was debuted Wednesday night by JaVale McGee.

Playing in a preseason game against the Warriors, one of his six former teams, McGee, now a Laker in good standing, faked an injury near the basket and limped off the court favoring his left leg.

There he stood in the throes of agony. Or not.

There is so much to like about this maneuver. One, that McGee pulled it on the team he helped win two NBA titles. And that Vince Carter, while with the Mavericks, once pulled a similar okey-doke on the Dubs.

And check out Warriors newbie D’Angelo Russell standing just outside the restricted area as McGee throws down, the thought balloon above his head reading, “Is this the superior Western Conference brand of roundball I’ve been told about?”

Mostly it was cool because it was JaVale. You wonder if this was light-hearted payback for the manner in which Andre Iguodala, then with the Warriors, pranked McGee during the presentation of his 2018 NBA championship ring before a game last season. Iguodala ceremoniously handed McGee the box which contained… nothing. Notice Iggy then slipping the ring out of his long sleeved hoodie. I tell you what, those Warriors knew how to belly laugh.

It seems funny stuff tends to happen to McGee (nicknamed Pierre, The Big Secret, Big Daddy Wookie and The Grand Adventure, according to basketball-reference.com) if he’s not making something happen to someone else. For instance, one of the first interviews he granted last year after he bolted the Warriors and signed with the Lakers.

“You’re one of the funniest, wackiest dudes in the league,” ESPN’s Sam Alipour told him. “Some might say a weirdo.”

“Facts,” McGee replied.

An April 2018 profile on the 7-foot jumping jack published by theoutline.com characterized his formative years in the NBA thusly:

“(S)winging dramatically back and forth from supremely gifted baller to hopeless goofball, doing the inscrutable one way or the other. McGee is 7 feet tall with a 7’6” wingspan, freaky athletic, and also a bonehead. (H)is career has been defined by embarrassment and tomfoolery. McGee is a terror with a basketball, simply because it is impossible to know whether he’s about to brutally own himself or someone else.”

Wednesday night, for a few inscrutable moments he owned the Warriors.


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