Thursday Bolts: 9.5.19

Chris Haynes (Yahoo! Sports) reports that the Thunder have signed Devon Hall to a two-way contract. Oklahoma City drafted Hall in the second-round of the 2018 draft and have been developing him on the Oklahoma City Blue.

Chris Paul’s nekkid pictures from ESPN’s 2019 Body Issue are finally here.  They went with the “handsome alien arrives on Earth in the buff” aesthetic.

Paul says in the companion interview that his guidance doesn’t just get ignored on the court: “They see me coming in with my own meals prepped, they’d be like, “Aw, he eating that healthy stuff.” But then I got hurt, and it’s one of those things where the guys are like, “Man, why am I going to take some advice from him about how to take care of my body if he always getting hurt?” So I had to try to fix that myself, and I paid attention to that. I try to give as much advice as I can to whoever will listen.”

Ballislife documents some of the body shaming CP3 is enduring from his peers:

Abdel Nader is up in Nick Gallo’s (okcthunder.com) Summer Feature series. Get this man some more shots: “It’s no surprise that as he played more minutes, Nader’s shooting percentage rose from both the field and the three-point line. “It’s a rhythm thing, and it’s just the way games go sometimes,” Nader explained. “If you’re only getting two or three shots a game, sometimes you’re going to make them all. Sometimes you’re going to make one. Sometimes you’re going to miss them all.”

Danilo Gallinari (26 & 8 on 61.5% shooting) showed out in Italy’s loss to a Serbian team gaining steam as a favorite to win the World Cup. Highlights.

Dennis Schroder had a double-double in Germany’s first win of the World Cup, an easy one over Jordan. Highlights.

Marc Stein (NYTimes) says the Carmelo Anthony fans who remain should be happy he didn’t get a chance to repeat his ugly 2018 playoffs performance on the world stage: “Given how his N.B.A. career has panned out, with only two trips past the first round of the playoffs in 16 career seasons, Anthony will likely need his national-team brilliance to clinch his election to the Basketball Hall of Fame. It’s far better for Anthony that our last memories of him playing in red, white and blue stem from his starring role at the Rio Olympics in 2016 rather than some sympathy selection at the World Cup three years later.”

Scott Soshnick (Bloomberg) got ahold of an owners’ memo that says the league is considering opening up minority share investments beyond the current minority partner model: “When the NBA’s limited partners, or LPs, want to sell their holdings, it can be hard to find interested parties — especially since the stakes usually come with limited power. LPs have recently put holdings up for sale and pulled them back because they didn’t fetch the terms the owners wanted… The NBA is soliciting feedback from owners, seeking to gauge their interest in selling to such a vehicle, or allowing members of their ownership group to do so.” Step 1: Buy DT and realize I have no actual power. Step 2: Do the same with the Thunder. (H/T Austin Kent of Slam)