Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
LaMelo Ball became the fastest player ever to 1,000 career 3-pointers, getting there in his 311th game in the win over the Bucks. The previous best was Duncan Robinson, in 343 games.
Omari Sankofa II: FINAL: Pistons 124, Hornets 91. Biggest win margin of the season. Shot 57% overall and 49% (18-37) from 3, with Cade (33 points, 7 assists, 5 rebounds, 5 steals, 13-20 overall, 4-7 from 3) leading the way. Robinson: 24 pts Thompson: 14 pts, 6 rebs, 4 assts
Hunter Patterson: Pistons overcome a slow start to beat the Nets 110-94. Detroit is now 5-1 and 1-0 in cup play. Cade (20), Ron (18), Duncan (17), BBall (12) and Ausar (11) all scored in double figures. Ausar had a game-high six assists and no turnovers. Javonte was a game-high +20 in 22mins.
NBA Stat: Brandon Miller had 5 3-pointers on Monday and became the 2nd-fastest player in NBA history to reach 500 3-pointers, doing so in 170 games. Only Duncan Robinson got there in fewer games (152). #NBA
Omari Sankofa II: FINAL: Pistons 121, Celtics 113. Trailed by 22 but took control of the game with a 31-13 run in the third and 23-0 run in the fourth. They start the season 1-0. Cunningham: 22 pts, 8 assts Duren: 22 pts, 9 rebs Robinson: 21 pts Green: 19 pts
Advertisement
Sam Quinn: "If the Kings and the Pistons are going to make a trade, Domantas Sabonis would presumably be going back to Detroit. Domantas Sabonis is making the max. You can't just match that with $29.5 million from Jalen Duren. You'd have to presumably put in Duncan Robinson because he's the only salary in that range that closes that gap. And even then, I believe that's not quite enough. You maybe would have to put in a Gary Harris or Taurean Prince.”
So, yes, Duncan Robinson played on Oct. 28, 2024. Even if that day’s pregame shootaround was awkward. The prior afternoon, the Heat unveiled a statue of Dwyane Wade in a ceremony outside Kaseya Center in downtown Miami. Attendance was mandatory. Duncan was a no-show. Robinson, in his seventh year with the Heat, heard all about it. Teammates busted him up. “Damn! You’re too big for D Wade?!” one cracked. Duncan laughed it off. He never mentioned why he missed the ceremony. He never told anyone that night’s game felt like playing “in a silo.” “It was the first time in my career I can remember being actively in a game, but my mind not exclusively being in the game,” Duncan says. “I remember someone being on the free-throw line and I was completely dazing out of the moment, thinking about my brother.”
Duncan missed Dwyane Wade’s statue ceremony because, when leaving his condo that afternoon, his mother called. Elisabeth Robinson asked if Duncan was with Caroline, his then-girlfriend. She asked if he was sitting down. She paused, working out the words. “Is Eli OK?” Duncan asked. “He is alive,” Elisabeth said. “But he jumped.” “Which bridge?”
In January 2013, at 7:24 p.m. on a Tuesday, Portsmouth (N.H.) Police were called to the Exit 7 off-ramp near the Interstate 95 interchange. There they found Eli, 22, standing on the side of the road, without a scratch, and a blue Mazda resting against a tree, opposite a guardrail. Eli was charged with driving while intoxicated. His name and address ran in the newspaper. Eli’s addictions took everything — time, relationships, money, trust, his adulthood. As Duncan made a name for himself at Michigan, latched on with the Heat, and strung together the early days of an NBA career, Eli wandered through his 20s, kicking around New Castle and Portsmouth, landing with whomever he was on speaking terms with at any given time. A leaf in the wind. “He roved,” Elisabeth says of Eli. “Sort of like his mind, just roving around.”
Eli called Duncan upwards of 15 times per day to check in. Dial, talk, call again 10 minutes later. Duncan answered every time. Before practice. After practice. In the morning. At dinner. Boarding a plane. His lone reprieve was the 90 minutes before every game. Sitting in his locker, quieting the noise. Closing his eyes, picturing the next play. Phone off. Duncan was involved in his brother’s day-to-day, but distance afforded a degree of detachment.
Advertisement
But then came the 2021-22 season. After starting 140 of 145 games over the second and third years of his rookie contract and establishing himself as one of the league’s best 3-point shooters, Duncan signed a five-year, $90 million contract with Miami before the campaign. To some, the deal proved Robinson’s place as a folk hero in a sport of action heroes. Others deemed him merely a product of the Heat system. Many questioned what Miami was thinking. Ninety million? Straight into this scene walked Eli. Having committed to sobriety that fall, he moved to Florida, settling into a rehabilitation facility in West Palm Beach, an hour north of Miami. “A terrible idea,” Marta says now. “A difficult time,” Duncan adds.
Heavier shoulders didn’t help a career based on makes and misses. No longer a bargain-bin feel-good story, Duncan played in the spreading shadow of expectations. His shooting percentages dipped. His minutes dropped. Social media went scorched earth. Critics laughed. Every game turned into a stress test. Then came his off days. A different kind of stress. No one in the Heat organization knew Duncan was driving to West Palm whenever possible to spend time with his brother, or the toll it was taking. As Scott Gurka, Miami’s director of basketball administration, remembers: “He disguised it.”
In time, as Eli got clean, the truth emerged: His substance abuse had masked the severity of his mental illness. He moved from rehab in West Palm to a psychiatric center in Delray. “I felt like I was living this sort of dual life,” Duncan says. “A lot of it was, if I missed a game, or talked about what was happening, there’s an opportunity cost. If I go to be with my brother, someone is gonna come in and play well and then who knows? I had gotten so far into the extreme of: ‘I have to compartmentalize this.’ When I was an NBA player, that’s what I was. And when I wasn’t, I tried to lean into being there for my brother.”
Duncan was out of Spoelstra’s starting lineup by season’s end. He was barely in the rotation come playoff time. After making 8 of 9 3s against Atlanta in Game 1 of Miami’s opening series, Duncan averaged barely 10 minutes as the Heat reached Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals. He sat entirely — the dreaded, “DNP: Coach’s decision” — for five of the team’s 18 playoff games. The benefit of Eli’s move to Miami? Time with Caroline. She and Duncan had met a few years earlier. Duncan loved Eli, and Caroline loved Duncan, so Caroline loved Eli. She’d visit him when Duncan was on the road or unavailable. Her favorite memory is going to the beach together. Eli would jump into the Atlantic and float on his back, looking up, at peace. In time, Eli returned to New Hampshire, stringing together periods of lucid days as a warm, loving uncle, with stretches of forced hospitalizations. All feared where the despair was heading.
