Blue Bloods season 9 photo: Donnie Wahlberg hits the basketball court

There’s a chance that you saw Blue Bloods star Donnie Wahlberg shoot some hoops on social media late last year. Now, we’re getting a better sense as to precisely what it was for in the context of the show.

The photo is of Donnie Wahlberg for the upcoming January 11 episode “Milestones,” which is going to feature his character Danny Reagan investigating the murder of a college basketball player. According to the synopsis for this episode, their death is going to be linked to the world of sports betting, something that has certainly generated a lot of attention in the press with some of the legal changes over the past year or so.

Does this explain why Danny is actually shooting hopes? Not necessarily, but we do think seeing his game could be kind of fun. Also, Wahlberg is a noted basketball fan who attends Boston Celtics games whenever he can. (For those wondering, the college team in this episode is a fictional one — still had to be fun for the costume team to design some of the jerseys and the court!)

Just from a surface-level perspective, one of the things that we like about this episode is that it gives the writers at least a chance to mess around with some different subject matter. That’s not the easiest job when it comes to a long-running show, but Danny Reagan stories are some of the easiest vessels to make that happen. This is, after all, a character who would be running around and immersing himself with a wide array of different characters.

As for what else is coming in this episode…

You may have heard already, but this is an installment in which Jamie and Eddie will choose a wedding venue officially! It’s a Blue Bloods tradition that the show throws a number of different storylines at you all at once, and that is certainly not something that we see changing in the reasonably-near future. Meanwhile, Frank Reagan will have an interesting storyline in which he wrestles with guilt after seeing a fired officer working at a restaurant. With the title for the episode being “Milestones,” we wonder if this has to do with sobriety in some shape or form.

Remember, the first episode of Blue Bloods in the new year is coming on Friday, January 4. Stay tuned for some more news very soon!

Are you excited to see this particular episode of Blue Bloods? Be sure to share some of your thoughts in the comments!

(Photo: CBS.)