A Powerful Punch 🥊
A Powerful Punch 🥊
Featuring Wembanyama Wonder, Draymond Drama, Dynamic Duos Drops, Leaderboard Rewards & More
Good Morning, B&B Squad! Cheers to the weekend!
We had two major storylines dominating the NBA headlines this week — one positive and one negative.
The good — the two game scrimmage between projected No. 1 and No. 2 picks Victor Wembanyama and Scoot Henderson did not disappoint.
Scoot was super impressive in his own right — and looks like a potential star in the making. But this week was for Wembanyama.
I have been banging the drum on Wemby for a while, but seeing him shine in the national spotlight was a breathtaking experience. Seeing a 7’5 human taking the ball up, nailing step-back corner threes, and dominating the entire floor looked like a created player in NBA 2K. The league has been put on notice — Victor is coming.
And now to the bad — the punch heard ‘round the internet:
News broke on Wednesday that there had been an altercation at the Golden State Warriors practice between Draymond Green and Jordan Poole — with Green facing potential discipline for his role in the fight.
On Friday, TMZ obtained the footage (someone in the video dept. is CASHING out) — and it’s ugly. Draymond’s play has been declining on the court over the last few years, but his leadership, basketball IQ and intangibles have helped him maintain his valuable status on the league’s top franchise.
With a looming contract extensions for both Poole and Green, it’s going to be fascinating to see how the Warriors brass handles this prickly issue — and how the locker room responds. This isn’t an easy one to handle.
Let’s get into all the action from the last few days:
Dynamic Duos Drama✌️
Top Shot announced the Team Leaderboard rewards on Wednesday, with a ‘dynamic duos’ format featuring teammates from each franchise:
The first group of team rewards (Cavaliers, Celtics, Bucks, Wizards and Hawks) were airdropped to the top 750 users on each respective leaderboard, with early pricing varying pretty significantly based on the duo/team:
We had some drama in the community regarding the reward structure — in which the top three users on each board were rewarded with the corresponding serial, with everything else randomized:
Moments will be delivered in descending order for spots 1-3 on the Team Leaderboards (ex. No. 1 on the Leaderboard will receive Serial No. 1)
Moments will randomly be delivered for spots 4-750 on the Team Leaderboards (ex. if you're No. 233 on the Leaderboard, you could receive any Serial No. between 4-750)
As with any decision Top Shot makes, a subset of users were angry. This time, it happened to be some of the larger and more visible users in the ecosystem:
Do I think this was the best way to distribute rewards? No. Is it something that I feel is worth breaking the pitchforks out over? Also no.
The majority of us will never be in contention for the top three spots on any leaderboard, so it’s hard to put myself in those shoes — but other than the #1 or jersey #, I tend to land in the camp of serials not really mattering. So color me apathetic on this one — bigger fish to fry.
The Magic Mansion 🪄
In a continuation of rewarding Leaderboarders, Top Shot released the next IRL experience — ‘Tapped In’, featuring a trip to the ‘Magic Mansion’ in Los Angeles for a catered dinner and meet and greet with Magic Johnson:
The top 3 collectors on the Magic Johnson and Los Angeles Lakers Leaderboard – by October 11, 2022 at 1pm ET – will earn a rewards experience with the Laker legend.
Additionally, 2 randomly-selected collectors – 1 from Magic’s Leaderboard and 1 from the top 1000 of the Lakers Leaderboard – will be invited to attend as well.
All 8 winners (and their plus ones) will live it up at the “Magic Mansion” in Los Angeles, CA on Friday, October 21, 2022 with a catered dinner and a guest appearance from Magic Johnson himself.
As I always say — Top Shot excels at the IRL experiences, and rewards like the Cade Cooking session and this one are great ways to surprise and delight. My one gripe — feels like a missed opportunity to have someone like David Blaine in attendance for a ‘Magic with Magic’ night!
Some other Leaderboard Experience ideas I’m workshopping (feel free to hit me up, Top Shot):
Boogie Nights — A disco experience with DeMarcus Cousins
Green Thumb! — A gardening experience with Derrick Rose
Fired Up — A pottery experience with Klay Thompson and Bol Bol
Be Mine — A Valentine’s Day experience with Josh Hart and Denzel Valentine
The Lord’s Work — A spiritual woodworking session with Christian Wood
Around The First Mint 🗣
🎧 The Future of Ownership (Feat. Jess Sloss)
🎧 How Premint is Making NFTs Less Painful (Feat. Brenden Mulligan)
🎧 Is NFL All Day the Answer to Sports NFTs? (Feat. Dave Feldman)
Thanks for reading! — Zach @ The First Mint
Follow Zach on Twitter at @GhostOfGregOden.
**This is not financial advice. Nothing in this newsletter, podcast, or publication should be considered financial or trading advice of any kind. Please do your own thorough research and make your own trading decisions. This is not advice.”
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