Robin Lopez Is My New Favorite NBA Player

Give Deadspin their props, they hooked me in with their headline on this story: Robin Lopez Has Some Mysterious Beef With The Raptors’ Mascot. I don’t follow the NBA at all, and I have no idea who Robin Lopez is, but hey, I was curious. My curiosity wasn’t really satisfied, but at the end of the Deadspin article, a far more important thing was noted:

Anyway, go read the interview. In includes this wonderful editor’s note, on a question asking Lopez to list his three favorite wizards:

[A day after the interview, Lopez asked via his publicist to take Lupin off his list and replace him with Hermione Granger.]

I don’t know if y’all know, but not only am I a super huge Harry Potter fan of geeky proportions, Professor Remus J. Lupin is #2 on my list of favorite HP characters (he’s a very close second to my #1, Sirius Black, and yes I use “very close” to mean a variety of things). I flipped out, to put it gently, and I quickly shot the link to my BFF Alli who responded, “FUCK YOU, WHY ARE YOU TAKING LUPIN OFF THE LIST, YOU HACK?!” (Direct quote, with permission given before I even asked.)

Then, I thought about it a little. Given that Lupin tends to be a favorite of book-readers more than movie-viewers—not hard to understand when Lupin’s name isn’t even spoken in the 5th movie even though he has lines and everything in it—the fact that Lupin made Lopez’s list even for a day is pretty impressive in my book. And swapping out for Hermione isn’t horrible. But I wanted to find out more on why he made the change, and why he was listing favorite wizards in the first place, so I did some Serious Internet Research and clicked on the link to the actual interview.

What are your top three favorite wizards?

Gandalf’s definitely on the list. Trying to pick my favorite Harry Potter wizard, I can easily go with Dumbledore. I always liked Professor Lupin. I’ll put him on the list. [A day after the interview, Lopez asked via his publicist to take Lupin off his list and replace him with Hermione Granger.]

I got to pick a Disney wizard. Can I pick Angela Lansbury in Bedknobs and Broomsticks?

Given that the list is not STRICTLY focused on HP wizards (as I first assumed from Deadspin’s quote), and that he initially puts Lupin over Dumbledore, alongside Gandalf and Angela Lansbury’s character (Miss Price, and I adore that movie and her character, too), I find his decision to switch out Lupin for Hermione—another female wizard—quite acceptable. Hermione kicks ass and is super terrifying and if a pro athlete likes her enough to have clearly thought about his answer and decided she’s worthy? That’s cool. (Especially if you consider that Lupin and Hermione actually are very similar and play similar roles in their own groups of friends, so basically he just picked the same person in a younger generation. Hi, I did say I was a huge HP nerd, you can’t roll your eyes at me if you’ve read this far.)

Alli still is incensed that anyone would pick another wizard over Lupin—”I don’t care that she’s the brightest witch of her age and is utterly terrifying. LUPIN.”—but the fact is that both of us are now aware of Robin Lopez and a half-hour ago we weren’t, so it’s a win for him.

And fuck that Raptor mascot, too. He probably picked Malfoy.

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