The Atlanta Hawks opened the 2025-26 season like they closed the 2024-25 season, with a loss. The Hawks fell to the Toronto Raptors, 138-118, in front of a sellout crowd of 17,800 fans.
With five minutes remaining in the game and the Hawks behind by 25 points, that sellout crowd began to start heading towards the exit. The NBA season is a marathon and not a sprint, so Wednesday night’s loss shouldn’t be seen as a sign for the rest of the season. That said, it was as bad a start as one could imagine for a team projected to be better than last season.
The Hawks took a 2-0 lead and never led the game again. Toronto guard RJ Barrett (game-high 25 points) and forward Scottie Barnes (22 points, six rebounds, and nine assists), arguably the team’s best players, along with veteran forward Brandon Ingram (16 points, nine rebounds), took charge of the game from the beginning. Atlanta couldn’t do anything to stop them.
The Raptors outrebounded the Hawks by 20 (54-34) and scored 86 of their points in the paint. Toronto is a big team, but a 20-rebound advantage felt more like the Hawks’ lack of effort than the Raptors’ ability. After the game, Hawks head coach Quin Snyder said his team would have to do better going forward.
“It’s hard to win games like that,” Snyder said. “There are a lot of things we need to clean up, and that’s stating the obvious.”
Snyder, Hawks guard Trae Young (5-14 from the floor, 22 points), and forward Jalen Johnson (team-high eight assists, 20 points, and seven rebounds) all said the loss was just one of 82 games and shouldn’t be a sign of the times in Hawks land.
“Our team is going to be right, trust me,” Young said.
Johnson, back on the court after a season-ending injury last season, was more straightforward about the loss. “We just got to be better,” he said.
Johnson couldn’t have played much better. He ran the floor, led the team with seven rebounds, along with first-year Hawk Kristaps Porzingis (20 points), and did everything he could.
The two bench players brought in to help the Hawks’ depth, Nickeil Alexander-Walker (2-15 for 10 points) and Luke Kennard (1-5 from three-point land), weren’t much help tonight, but will need to be better if Atlanta is going to make the postseason without the help of a play-in game for the first time in years.
Bright spot: Zaccharie Risacher scored 16 points and looked comfortable being a part of the Hawks’ offense. During his rookie season last year, he tended to shy away from the ball. Risacher, the runner-up for Rookie of the Year, took 13 shots, six of which were from behind the three-point line.
“He’s finding a good balance. You saw him attack the rim in transition,” Snyder said of Risacher. “He’s shooting the ball with confidence, and we need him to keep doing that.”
What’s next: The Hawks will travel south to Orlando to play a much-improved Magic squad on Friday, before returning to State Farm Arena to host the reigning NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday night.
Donnell Suggs
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Following a 175-day hiatus, Sacramento Kings basketball returned to Golden 1 Center on Wednesday night.Fans in attendance got their first look at a new-look Kings team that featured newly-signed point guard Dennis Schroder, rookie wing Nique Clifford (24th pick in June’s NBA Draft), and big man Maxime Raynaud (42nd pick in the NBA Draft) against the Toronto Raptors in the first of four preseason tune-up games.Exhibition games are always a mixed bag–sporadic rotations, limited minutes, and in this case, no broadcast on local or national TV. Sure, the game was broadcast on Sactown Sports 1140 AM and Kings.com, but, like most preseason games, this one felt like a dress rehearsal for the real thing, which is a good thing from Sacramento’s perspective.As was the case last season, the Kings struggled to contain the perimeter against Toronto, falling behind by double digits during the first half — a deficit that Sacramento never recovered from — before pulling its primary rotation players early in the second half.Here are some thoughts and observations from the Kings’ 130-120 preseason-opening loss as we move closer to the season-opener on October 22nd.Sacramento Kings vs. Toronto Raptors recap & takeawaysHead coach Doug Christie kept his rotations and planned playing time close to the vest during this week’s practice sessions, but his plans were revealed on Wednesday.New Kings big man Drew Eubanks was Christie’s first sub off the bench for Domantas Sabonis, allowing Sabonis to re-enter the game with Malik Monk, Keon Ellis, and rookie wing Nique Clifford on the floor. Second-year forward Isaac Jones was Christie’s first forward off the bench, rather than veteran Dario Saric or sharpshooter Doug McDermott.Sacramento’s new-look rotations got off to a slow start early, falling behind by as many as 14 points during the first half as Toronto set fire to the nets from beyond the arc (11-of-20 from deep during the first half).Zach LaVine, who logged 15 minutes of playing time in his preseason debut, scored 16 points on five-of-seven shooting from the field (three-of-five from downtown) to act as the head of the snake for the Kings’ offense.Sacramento’s primary rotation pieces departed the game near the end of the third quarter as the Kings faced an 18-point deficit, allowing second-year guard Devin Carter, two-way center Dylan Cardwell, forward Daeqwon Plowden, and Eubanks to get more action.Fans in attendance could be heard audibly groaning, and in some cases, booing, as Sacramento struggled to keep up with the red-hot Raptors.While the Kings trailed by double-digits for most of the night, the bench unit of Clifford, Carter, Cardwell, Maxime Raynaud, and Isaiah Stevens injected life back into the building by opening up the fourth quarter on a 30-20 run that trimmed the deficit to single digits.“They brought the energy. Props to them,” Domantas Sabonis said of the late charge. “As starters, we should have done our job.”Cardwell put on a show in the fourth, scoring all 12 of his points on six-of-seven shooting while putting down a few rim-rattling dunks that helped make things interesting late.Although Sacramento’s bench unit scored 44 points on 65 percent shooting during the fourth quarter, too much damage was done early by the Raptors as Toronto held on for the win.Clifford, who has been rumored to be in the mix for some spot backup point guard minutes, finished the night with a team-high nine assists to go around with ten points. Raynaud added seven points and six rebounds over twelve minutes.The Kings struggled to defend the perimeter last year (as well as most seasons over the past 20 years), a trend that continued against Toronto as the Raptors finished the night 20-of-37 (54%) from three-point land. Chrisite has preached improvements on the defensive end this year, and although it was just one preseason game, Wednesday was a tough start to the 2025-26 campaign.Four of the Kings’ five starters–outside of LaVine’s 15 minutes–logged 24 minutes on Wednesday night, and those minutes are likely to increase over the final three preseason games.Rounding Out The Box ScoreDomantas Sabonis scored 19 points on seven-of-10 shooting from the field over 23 minutes.Dennis Schroder struggled from the field during his unofficial Kings debut, going one-of-five from the field while pulling down six rebounds.Sacramento finished the night 10-of-33 (30%) from beyond the arc during the loss.When is the next Sacramento Kings game?Sacramento will continue its preseason slate of games on Friday night when it travels to the Moda Center for a matchup against the Portland Trail Blazers.Catch all of the action on Sactown Sports 1140 AM, with pregame coverage beginning at 5:30 p.m. PT on Game Night before a 7 p.m. PT tip-off from Portland, Oregon.Upcoming Sacramento Kings schedule for the 2025-26 seasonPreseasonFriday, Oct. 10 @ Portland Trail Blazers – 7 p.m. PTWednesday, Oct. 15 vs. Los Angeles Clippers – 7 p.m. PTFriday, Oct. 17 @ Los Angeles Lakers – 7 p.m. PTRegular SeasonWednesday, Oct. 22 – @ Phoenix Suns – 7 p.m. PTFriday, Oct. 24 – vs. Utah Jazz – 7 p.m. PTSunday, Oct. 26 – vs. Los Angeles Lakers – 6 p.m. PTTuesday, Oct. 28 – @ Oklahoma City Thunder – 5 p.m. PTWednesday, Oct. 29 – @ Chicago Bulls – 5 p.m. PTThis story first appeared on Sactown Sports.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
Following a 175-day hiatus, Sacramento Kings basketball returned to Golden 1 Center on Wednesday night.
Fans in attendance got their first look at a new-look Kings team that featured newly-signed point guard Dennis Schroder, rookie wing Nique Clifford (24th pick in June’s NBA Draft), and big man Maxime Raynaud (42nd pick in the NBA Draft) against the Toronto Raptors in the first of four preseason tune-up games.
Exhibition games are always a mixed bag–sporadic rotations, limited minutes, and in this case, no broadcast on local or national TV. Sure, the game was broadcast on Sactown Sports 1140 AM and Kings.com, but, like most preseason games, this one felt like a dress rehearsal for the real thing, which is a good thing from Sacramento’s perspective.
As was the case last season, the Kings struggled to contain the perimeter against Toronto, falling behind by double digits during the first half — a deficit that Sacramento never recovered from — before pulling its primary rotation players early in the second half.
Here are some thoughts and observations from the Kings’ 130-120 preseason-opening loss as we move closer to the season-opener on October 22nd.
Head coach Doug Christie kept his rotations and planned playing time close to the vest during this week’s practice sessions, but his plans were revealed on Wednesday.
New Kings big man Drew Eubanks was Christie’s first sub off the bench for Domantas Sabonis, allowing Sabonis to re-enter the game with Malik Monk, Keon Ellis, and rookie wing Nique Clifford on the floor. Second-year forward Isaac Jones was Christie’s first forward off the bench, rather than veteran Dario Saric or sharpshooter Doug McDermott.
Sacramento’s new-look rotations got off to a slow start early, falling behind by as many as 14 points during the first half as Toronto set fire to the nets from beyond the arc (11-of-20 from deep during the first half).
Zach LaVine, who logged 15 minutes of playing time in his preseason debut, scored 16 points on five-of-seven shooting from the field (three-of-five from downtown) to act as the head of the snake for the Kings’ offense.
Sacramento’s primary rotation pieces departed the game near the end of the third quarter as the Kings faced an 18-point deficit, allowing second-year guard Devin Carter, two-way center Dylan Cardwell, forward Daeqwon Plowden, and Eubanks to get more action.
Fans in attendance could be heard audibly groaning, and in some cases, booing, as Sacramento struggled to keep up with the red-hot Raptors.
While the Kings trailed by double-digits for most of the night, the bench unit of Clifford, Carter, Cardwell, Maxime Raynaud, and Isaiah Stevens injected life back into the building by opening up the fourth quarter on a 30-20 run that trimmed the deficit to single digits.
“They brought the energy. Props to them,” Domantas Sabonis said of the late charge. “As starters, we should have done our job.”
Cardwell put on a show in the fourth, scoring all 12 of his points on six-of-seven shooting while putting down a few rim-rattling dunks that helped make things interesting late.
Although Sacramento’s bench unit scored 44 points on 65 percent shooting during the fourth quarter, too much damage was done early by the Raptors as Toronto held on for the win.
Clifford, who has been rumored to be in the mix for some spot backup point guard minutes, finished the night with a team-high nine assists to go around with ten points. Raynaud added seven points and six rebounds over twelve minutes.
The Kings struggled to defend the perimeter last year (as well as most seasons over the past 20 years), a trend that continued against Toronto as the Raptors finished the night 20-of-37 (54%) from three-point land. Chrisite has preached improvements on the defensive end this year, and although it was just one preseason game, Wednesday was a tough start to the 2025-26 campaign.
Four of the Kings’ five starters–outside of LaVine’s 15 minutes–logged 24 minutes on Wednesday night, and those minutes are likely to increase over the final three preseason games.
Rounding Out The Box Score
Domantas Sabonis scored 19 points on seven-of-10 shooting from the field over 23 minutes.
Dennis Schroder struggled from the field during his unofficial Kings debut, going one-of-five from the field while pulling down six rebounds.
Sacramento finished the night 10-of-33 (30%) from beyond the arc during the loss.
Sacramento will continue its preseason slate of games on Friday night when it travels to the Moda Center for a matchup against the Portland Trail Blazers.
Catch all of the action on Sactown Sports 1140 AM, with pregame coverage beginning at 5:30 p.m. PT on Game Night before a 7 p.m. PT tip-off from Portland, Oregon.
Preseason
Regular Season
This story first appeared on Sactown Sports.
See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
I always like to start my NBA previews at the bottom and work my way up. And when it comes to bottoming out, nobody does it better than the lottery teams in the Eastern Conference. Last season, four East squads lost at least 57 games, and overall, the conference had seven of the league’s 11 worst records.
The Detroit Pistons’ 28-game losing streak took top honors, but Charlotte actually had the league’s worst scoring margin; the Hornets, Washington Wizards and Pistons combined to win fewer games than five NBA teams.
So, yeah, it was bad — and I’m not sure it will get much better in 2024-25. With a loaded draft led by Duke forward Cooper Flagg, several teams have ample motivation to tank for a high lottery pick. A couple spent their offseason leaning into that strategy, notably the Brooklyn Nets, while the Chicago Bulls pivoted less overtly in the same direction. (Connoisseurs of performance-art-level tanking efforts, circle your calendars for April 11: Washington and Chicago face off in the second-to-last game of the season.)
Here’s an interesting side dish: With so many laggards and 10 teams required to advance to the postseason, it’s possible we’ll see a historically bad record qualify for the Play-In. Even if not, the potential is definitely there for five 55-loss teams in this conference, despite the fact that they frequently play one another.
With that said, let’s take a closer look at my bottom seven teams in the East — their projected records, what they’re doing and where they might be headed. (We’ll discuss the rest of the league later this week.)
I really couldn’t believe my eyes when my first run through projections spat out its results. Washington went 15-67 a year ago, and I sort of figured the Wizards would struggle to improve much upon that this season, but going through the math on my projections was jarring. This roster is bad.
The Wizards traded their best player from a year ago based on my BORD$ formula (Deni Avdjia, in a defensible swap for two firsts and two seconds) and lost starting point guard Tyus Jones to free agency. The best players on the team are Kyle Kuzma and Jordan Poole, I guess, and there’s a decent chance Kuzma is gone by February. And Malcolm Brogdon. And Corey Kispert. And maybe newly signed free agent Jonas Valančiūnas, too.
At least we know Poole won’t be going anywhere, not with the $96 million he’s owed over the next three years. (The contract could escalate even higher, but his incentives for reaching the playoffs or making All-Defense seem safe for the foreseeable future.) Poole will get a chance to rehab his value by playing on the ball this season, hopefully not to the detriment of the other four people hoping to touch it.
Obviously, this is all part of a down-to-the-studs rebuild, a welcome shift in mentality after years of chasing any shiny object that might net the Wizards the eighth seed and an immediate self-congratulatory parade. However, Washington’s failures to move on from Bradley Beal until it was too late have resulted in a more painful reset. This year is likely to be the necessary nadir before Washington can start the long trudge back up the standings.
The Wizards drafted three first-round picks this year, but all three are teenagers — and fairly raw ones. Realistically, they’ll take their lumps while they figure things out. Center Alex Sarr, selected with the second pick, is a potential defensive monster due to his quick feet, fast hands and 7-foot frame, while offensively he shows enough dexterity and ballhandling on the perimeter to provide some hope that there’s a unicorn in there somewhere.
That said, the 2024 version of Sarr is going to be a clear minus on offense, offering little threat in the post but also not far along enough as a shooter to scare anyone. The low-key swing skill here is his hands — he struggled to snare contested rebounds and catch in traffic last year. He may also play extensively power forward next to Valančiūnas while the Wizards wait for his body to fill out.
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The other youngsters are a similar mix of promise and finger-crossing. Late-lottery pick Bub Carrington — acquired thanks to the Avdija trade — needs to work on his body and defense, but he had a solid summer league and might be the closest thing this team has to a legit sixth man. Late first-rounder Kyshawn George, meanwhile, is a 3-and-D hopeful who likely has a lot of Capital City Go-Go in his immediate future. Carrying over from a year ago, Bilal Coulibaly teased with potential at times but needs to be a more consistent shooter and decision-maker. The Avdija trade likely gives him a chance to start.
Watching the rookies learn while the Wizards get pummeled every night is the best thing that can be said for the Wizards-viewing experience this year. Poole vying with Cam Thomas for the league lead in field goal attempts per minute will offer a certain kind of entertainment, and Valančiūnas shot fake drinking games will be as merry as ever. Otherwise, this year is about player development, asset accumulation and scraping their way to a win total that keeps them out of history books.
In the wake of their post Kevin Durant–Kyrie Irving implosion, the Nets are going to be really bad this season. But they also have a direction, one that wasn’t possible before, after regaining access to their own draft picks via the Mikal Bridges trade. That deal made tanking plausible — actually, mandatory — as the Nets can now freely pursue one of the league’s worst three records to maximize their lottery odds. Based on the roster, they have this part under control.
The Nets have just enough veteran talent on hand to lose respectably and avoid being historically terrible, but few of them will remain in the borough beyond the trade deadline. Point guard Dennis Schröder and forwards Bojan Bogdanović and Dorian Finney-Smith are likely spending the first half of the season auditioning for their next employers; Cam Johnson is 28 and signed for two years beyond this one, but he might consider a month-to-month lease as well. And hey, Ben Simmons is here for one last September of back-in-the-gym Instagrams. He’s either a $40-million expiring contract to put into a potential trade or a February buyout.
Re-signed center Nic Claxton is likely the one long-term keeper on the roster, although other young players will audition to be part of the future. Thomas, meanwhile, is likely to lead the team (if not the league) in field goal attempts but will need to generate higher-quality looks — and occasionally even let a teammate shoot — if he wants to be part of the long-term plan.
Deeper down, keep an eye on second-year pro Noah Clowney, who in summer league looked like he may pay long-term dividends after he was drafted as a raw teenager in 2023. Reclamation projects such as Ziaire Williams and Killian Hayes also will get their chances, as will fringe-rotation finds Trendon Watford and Jalen Wilson.
If you’re looking two years ahead and beyond, the Nets will jettison nearly all this roster flotsam except Claxton, Clowney and possibly Johnson. They have three late first-round picks in 2025 in addition to their own, four extra firsts in future seasons and max cap space coming on line next summer. The Nets also are sitting on a $23-million trade exception from the Bridges deal, although it’s likely to go unused until after the season given that they’re already pushing the tax line. (Incentives for Johnson could theoretically put them over in the absence of other moves.)
All of this will make for an ugly 2024-25, but Brooklyn basketball should get dramatically better from there.
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It’s desperately needed medicine, but that won’t make it easier to swallow. The Hornets are done chasing 39 wins as cheaply as possible and fully embarking on a new, post-Michael Jordan era. Rick Schnall and Gabe Plotkin bought the team from Jordan in 2023 but held off on replacing the Friends of Mike in the front office and changing coaches until this past summer. Jeff Peterson — a veteran of successful rebuilds in Atlanta and Brooklyn — now has the conch in the front office, while Charles Lee replaces Steve Clifford on the sideline.
Now all they have to do is change the players. I kid, but this is not a great situation. Charlotte won 21 games a year ago, and even that was a bit of a miracle: The Hornets were 28th in offense, 29th in defense and last in net margin. Even in the Charmin-soft lower reaches of the East, making the Play-In with this roster seems unlikely.
The Bugs have one All-Star talent in LaMelo Ball, who has appeared in just 58 games over the past two seasons thanks to a series of ankle sprains and has often seemed indifferent (especially on defense) when he’s on the court. Beyond him, there are some solid players but zero star power, unless perhaps promising forward Brandon Miller (13.0 PER as a rookie) erupts in his second season.
Charlotte does seem to understand its situation, at least, which is more than can be said of some previous iterations of this franchise. This offseason, the Hornets used their cap room not on Gordon Hayward-esque splurges, but to take in salary and talent that other teams unloaded: two seconds from the Denver Nuggets to take Reggie Jackson, a second from the San Antonio Spurs to absorb the unwanted contract guarantee of old friend Devonte’ Graham and three more to take in the necessary outgoing players from New York to complete the Karl-Anthony Towns trade.
Conversely, the only acquisition of note was a reasonable two seconds going outbound to bring in 23-year-old, signed-through-2027 wing Josh Green. Bringing back Miles Bridges likely leaves many holding their noses due to his off-court history, but it leaves Charlotte with a full-strength starting five that won’t be embarrassed. Baby steps.
Those moves aren’t going to shake the foundations of the East, but they’re the first step in a rebuild, one that also must include upping the off-court investment from what’s been one the league’s most frugal franchises.
The biggest variable for the coming year is whether fly-swatting center Mark Williams can come back from a 2023-24 campaign lost to back surgery. Charlotte passed on a top-notch rim-protection prospect in Donovan Clingan on draft night to take a more speculative plunge on French forward Tidjane Salaun, and one wonders how much Williams factored into that. (For what it’s worth: I had Salaun 16th on my board, but I’ve also been told three other teams were ready to take him in the top 10 if Charlotte didn’t.)
Lower on the food chain, Charlotte will likely take teams’ temperatures on solid rotation players such as Grant Williams and Cody Martin to determine their trade market. Also, keep an eye on guards Tre Mann and Vasilije Micić trying to establish their careers after failing to take flight in Oklahoma City. Mann, in particular, might actually be something after playing 28 solid games in Charlotte after the trade; he’s a restricted free agent after the season. Micić is 30 and could be trade bait if he steps forward in his second season on this side of the ocean.
Looking at the chessboard, Charlotte is pretty asset-dry for a team in this position, owning only two protected firsts in 2027 from Miami and Dallas in addition to its own. (The Hornets technically owe their 2025 first to San Antonio, but it’s top-14 protected and will revert to second-rounders in 2026 and 2027 if, as expected, Charlotte misses the playoffs.)
The cap situation is relatively clean, but meaningful room looks unlikely the next two summers unless they trade Ball. Lee and Peterson will start the long effort of putting their imprint on this team, but even with favorable lottery luck, results might take a while.
The Bulls finally are doing what they should have when they changed management four years ago: launching a rebuild and lining up with a significantly younger roster for 2024-25.
The bad news is that they’ll likely be worse this year and face a slow slog back uphill, especially with few trade assets coming back in the rebuild and a future first still owed to San Antonio from the initial DeMar DeRozan deal. Nonetheless, this was the only move left on the chessboard after the Bulls’ 2021 asset-spending spree yielded three years of averageness and a roster that was only getting older and more expensive.
Chicago’s overarching plan this summer was the correct strategy, but the execution still felt bumpy. Not extracting a draft pick from Oklahoma City in the Alex Caruso-Josh Giddey trade seemed like a missed opportunity, as the Thunder have a million future picks and weren’t operating from a position of great leverage. The Bulls also dropped five years and $90 million on The Idea of Patrick Williams, something that felt more like a sunk cost fallacy on a player selected fourth in the 2020 draft than an honest valuation of where he is right now as a basketball player.
That money ended up mattering quite a bit later in the offseason. Among many what-ifs in Chicago is that if the Bulls hadn’t resigned Williams or if their ownership had been willing to pay into the tax, they could have taken in Harrison Barnes and an unprotected 2031 first-round pick swap from the Kings in the DeRozan trade. Instead, that asset went to San Antonio. The Bulls ended up with Chris Duarte, two second-round picks and cash. Yay?
The good news, again, is that there is a direction, and there is some real talent underlying it. Giddey was useless playing off the ball in Oklahoma City, but he’s a capable point forward with a smooth floater game and should get to showcase that skill set far more often with the Bulls.
First-round pick Matas Buzelis can be a high-impact two-way talent if he can up his shooting percentages and add a bit of lower-body strength, and combo guard Coby White has quietly become a very effective offensive player. Two other recent picks, athletic backup forwards Dalen Terry and Julian Phillips, hardly saw daylight last season, but each should get more opportunity.
Zach LaVine and Nikola Vučević are still Bulls, for now, and their contracts may keep them here a while longer. LaVine, at least, can be a major contributor for however long he’s around; he’s just not quite worth what he’s paid. The three years and $138 million remaining on his deal were widely reported to be a barrier to his departure dating back to the middle of last season.
Meanwhile, the baffling three-year, $60 million extension handed to Vučević in the 2023 offseason already looks indefensible. The Bulls backed him up by signing string bean Jalen Smith for three years and $27 million; at least he’s young, but this won’t fix the defensive hole in the middle. If you’re looking for another true five on this roster, two-way Adama Sanogo is the entire list.
Finally, Lonzo Ball coming back would be a big help, but there’s a big difference between surviving offseason pickup games and being a productive player against NBA starters. It’s an amazing story if he returns and contributes, but we’ll temper our optimism until we see him impacting games that matter.
The badness of the East will likely keep the Bulls in the Play-In race for much of the year, but don’t get too excited: The Bulls owe a top-10 protected pick to San Antonio from the DeRozan trade. That makes it strongly in their interests to land no better than the league’s sixth-worst record and guarantee they keep the pick regardless of how the lottery turns out. In a related story, I’m picking them to finish with the NBA’s sixth-worst record.
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The good news is that this season should be less embarrassing than last year, or the year before that, or the year before that…
The Pistons haven’t won more than 23 games in a season since before the COVID-19 pandemic. They also haven’t won a playoff game since 2008, with just one winning season in that span.
In the fifth year of its rebuild from the Andre Drummond “era,” Detroit not only failed to win 30 games for the ninth time since 2008, but also didn’t even get halfway there, setting an NBA record with 28 consecutive losses and hitting midseason at 4-37. Only a heroic 10-29 charge to the finish line saved it from the worst record in NBA history.
The Pistons cleaned house after the season, after the one-year sideline reign of Monty Williams proved disastrous and the four years of the Troy Weaver administration saw zero progress in accumulating either talent or draft capital. Former New Orleans and Brooklyn exec Trajan Langdon took over the front office, while no-nonsense J.B. Bickerstaff is the new head coach.
It will take more than an organizational facelift, however, to get this team on the right path. Years of poor decisions have left Detroit with little star-caliber talent despite annual lottery picks. The closest thing is guard Cade Cunningham, a skilled but not overly athletic player who bore a massive offensive load with near-zero floor spacing a year ago and ground out a 54.6 true shooting percentage on 30 percent usage.
More shooting should make his life easier, but he isn’t Luka Dončić, and the Pistons need to stop using him like he is. He’s their best player, because somebody has to be, but the offseason decision to give him a max extension was more based on hope than results.
In terms of shooting, Detroit added Simone Fontecchio at last year’s trade deadline and Tim Hardaway Jr., Tobias Harris and Malik Beasley in the offseason. Those are legit, meaningful upgrades. It would also help tremendously if 2022 lottery pick Jaden Ivey can turn the corner both as a shooter and a playmaker, as he represents the best possibility of unburdening some of Cunningham’s massive playmaking load.
The frontcourt should be in better shape with Harris playing the four; while his contact was probably an overpay (two years, $52 million), he solidifies the lineup at its weakest spot and will be tradable money a year from now. He also should push Isaiah Stewart back to his natural center spot after last season’s failed power forward experiment. Beef Stew, the promising Jalen Duren and waiver pickup Paul Reed make for an effective trio, although Stewart may also be trade bait.
In the longer term, the best chance for the Pistons to make genuine progress lies in the development of their two most recent lottery picks. Forward Ausar Thompson is a plus athlete who plays hard, but his shooting is, shall we say, a bit subpar: Last season he achieved the near-impossible feat of having more airballs from 3 (23) than makes (18).
Detroit’s 2024 lottery pick, Ron Holland, is an explosive wing athlete. He was my top-ranked prospect before the draft. However, he will need work on his decision-making and shooting; he’s not anywhere near Thompson’s level of masonry, but how many guys like this can the Pistons play at one time?
On that note, Detroit’s biggest acquisition this summer might not be a player. Shooting coach Fred Vinson — who authored multiple miracles in New Orleans — came over with Langdon from the Pelicans and will have his hands full trying fixes on Thompson, Holland, Ivey and the rest of the gang.
The Raptors have rather quickly gone from one of the most admired organizations in the league to Team Shrug Emoji. Can they get their mojo back?
They embarked on rebuilding a year too late and ended up converting Fred VanVleet, Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby into a grab bag of somewhat useful players and a couple of late first-round picks, with one still to come in 2026 from Indiana. The most valuable pick transacted was the one they sent out to acquire Jakob Poeltl from San Antonio. Yeah, not great.
Toronto passed on an opportunity to operate as a cap room team and instead picked up a $23 million option on Bruce Brown and extended a 33-year-old Kelly Olynyk for midlevel exception money. One can see a pathway where that might pay dividends, as the Raptors have enough expiring money and picks for a blockbuster trade if a big name becomes available. The Raptors also likely overreached on a $162.5 million extension for Immanuel Quickley in restricted free agency; he’s a valuable player, but it wasn’t clear against whom they were bidding.
That said, Toronto should be fine in first quarters, because 80 percent of the starting lineup is rock solid. Scottie Barnes made the All-Star team in his third season and is now the face of the franchise, Quickley is a solid two-way player whose lack of pure point guard skill is offset by Barnes’ heavy on-ball usage, and RJ Barrett was fantastic in the second half of last season and again for Canada in the Olympics, though he’s beginning the year injured. (While we’re here: The “BBQ” nickname for the Raptors’ three-best players might be the best thing they have going.)
Up front, Poeltl was an overpay asset-wise and a danger to innocent bystanders from the free-throw line, but he is a solid defensive center with some sneaky utility from the elbows on offense.
After that, it gets iffy fast. Brown seemed a possible fifth starter on paper until he had arthroscopic knee surgery before the season started; he’ll be trying to regain the impact he had in Denver after a rough 2023-24 for the Pacers and Raptors.
Gradey Dick is a theoretical movement shooter who struggled in his rookie season but might have to start because the other options aren’t even theoretically good. First-round pick JaKobe Walter is a possible 3-and-D guy but out with a shoulder injury and probably at least a year away from helping.
Up front, Olynyk was unplayable in the Olympics. Chris Boucher’s deal is finally expiring, but he’s still around and likely will need to play as the fourth big. Deeper on the bench, if Walter isn’t in the rotation, that probably means either lukewarm meh from Ochai Agbaji and/or cameos from all-glove, no-bat ball-pressure specialist Davion Mitchell. I should note that I’m a card-carrying fan of second-round pick Jonathan Mogbo, but his limited shooting makes him a better fit on rosters with more spacing than this one.
Where does all this leave us? With a roster that’s interesting but not particularly good. The Raptors won’t be overtly terrible in a year when it’s probably beneficial to be terrible, and yet they face an uphill battle to get into the playoffs. Toronto has a good chance of failing upward into the Play-In Tournament, surely adding a sprinkle of excitement to the Canadian spring during their likely one-game postseason. One wonders if that also will be the bar for second-year coach Darko Rajaković, a well-liked figure in the league but one whose first season at the helm was a bumpy ride.
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It’s not really a Play-In Tournament unless the Hawks are involved.
In a league where everyone is either contending or tanking, the Hawks are looking at a fourth straight season of life in the middle class. In an East with a clear top eight and a dismal bottom six, projecting Atlanta to land ninth feels like one of the safest bets on the board.
The Hawks had a productive offseason though, finally executing the overdue Dejounte Murray trade to break up a pairing with Trae Young that wasn’t working. In the process, they shored up a woeful defense and restocked a barren draft cupboard. Atlanta still won’t have its own pick in the 2025 draft, so nix those Sag for Flagg scenarios, but the Hawks will have the Lakers’ choice and likely Sacramento’s (top-12 protected) too, plus an extra 2027 first.
The Hawks also nabbed an honest-to-goodness wing defender in Dyson Daniels in that trade; while his shooting comes and goes, this stopper role is one the Hawks have unsuccessfully attempted to fill for years now. The 21-year-old Daniels also can take reps at backup point guard if second-year pro Kobe Bufkin proves unready. Either way, the guy finishing games at shooting guard is likely to be Bogdan Bogdanović, who was robbed of the sixth man award a year ago and figures to remain elite in this role for as long as his knees can hold up.
The good news is the Hawks won the draft lottery. The bad news is they won it in 2024, a year with no clear top pick. In some ways, Atlanta seemed to opt for fit over ceiling by selecting French forward Zaccharie Risacher. (How much should we worry that none of the scouts interviewed for this thought the top pick in the draft would be the best player?) However, Risacher is a tall, mobile forward who can defend down on the positional spectrum and has a good basketball IQ; if his shooting holds up, he might be the player Atlanta thought it was getting when it drafted (and then extended) De’Andre Hunter.
Atlanta’s other big offseason decision is extending the best player nobody talks about, forward Jalen Johnson. He blew up as a starter in his third season with 16.0 points and 8.7 rebounds, and at age 22, he should have plentiful opportunity to expand his game with Murray gone. Bookending him with Risacher could make for a pretty imposing forward combo two or three years down the road.
That hints at another development in Atlanta — this team has become much younger. Daniels and Johnson are 22, Bufkin is 21, Risacher is 19 and Onyeka Okongwu is 23. All of them can guard, which is crucial when building around Young (himself not exactly a grizzled vet at 26). That’s the best hope for fixing last year’s 27th-ranked defense; the Hawks have never finished better than 21st in defensive efficiency in the Young era.
A succession issue at center also looms, where Clint Capela is 30 and on the last year of his deal, and Okongwu hasn’t been good enough to take over as a full-time starter. However, the Hawks are finally in a position where they can use most or all of the $23 million trade exception from the Murray trade on a replacement next summer without going into the tax, even after they pay Johnson. Moving Capela at the trade deadline also is an option, especially if they’re mired in the middle class as expected.
Overall, the Hawks might not win any more games than they did a year ago, but the arrow now points in a much healthier direction. They’re out of luxury tax hell, got 85 cents on the dollar back on the Murray trade and have the makings of a young core to carry them forward. Genuine progress in the standings, however, seems more likely a year from now.
(Top photos of LaMelo Ball and Kyle Kuzma: Patrick Smith, Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)
The New York Times
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(CNN) — The NBA has banned Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter from the league after an investigation found that the 24-year-old had violated betting rules, the league said.
The league announced in March it had opened an investigation into anomalies involving bets pertaining to Porter after unusual betting patterns around the player emerged.
The NBA said its investigation found that Porter had “violated league rules by disclosing confidential information to sports bettors, limiting his own participation in one or more games for betting purposes, and betting on NBA games.”
“There is nothing more important than protecting the integrity of NBA competition for our fans, our teams and everyone associated with our sport, which is why Jontay Porter’s blatant violations of our gaming rules are being met with the most severe punishment,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement.
“While legal sports betting creates transparency that helps identify suspicious or abnormal activity, this matter also raises important issues about the sufficiency of the regulatory framework currently in place, including the types of bets offered on our games and players,” added Silver.
“Working closely with all relevant stakeholders across the industry, we will continue to work diligently to safeguard our league and game.”
The NBA said in a news release that the league has shared and will continue to share information with federal prosecutors. The league also said its investigation remains open and may result in further findings.
The Raptors are “fully supportive of the league’s decision” and the team will continue to cooperate with the ongoing investigations, the team said in a release.
CNN has sought comment from Porter’s representation.
The investigation found that Porter informed someone who he knew to be an NBA bettor about his health status – which is confidential information – before a game on March 20.
Subsequently, another person associated with Porter placed a $80,000 bet on the Raptors player underperforming in that game, which would have won $1.1 million.
The $80,000 bet on the March 20 game was frozen due to the “unusual betting activity and actions of the player,” the NBA said.
The NBA also found that Porter affected his own participation in games to influence bets on his performance in Toronto games.
Additionally, the league also found that Porter placed at least 13 bets on NBA games between January and March this year.
The bets totaled $54,094, ranging from $15 to $22,000, with the total payout being $76,059, resulting in net winnings of $21,965.
While Porter was not involved in any of the games in which he bet on, there was a series of bets on a Raptors game in which he predicted that Toronto would lose. All three bets were unsuccessful.
In 26 games this season with the Raptors, Porter averaged almost 14 minutes and just over four points per game.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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Yesterday, I largely focused on setting the table for the updated NBA Pre-Postseason Players Tiers before revealing Tier 3 (players between the 24th and 42nd spot) and Tier 4 (Nos. 43-80).
Today, I’m going to get a little more into some of the more interesting and/or challenging placements, as well as note a few overall trends.
For starters, a consistent bit of feedback — and one I’ve gotten from multiple sources since the release of Tiers 3 and 4 — is the always difficult evaluation of which player is more valuable between an elite role player and a good-but-not-great primary or secondary creator. A senior analytics staffer within the league went so far as to argue they would prefer essentially the entirety of Tier 4A, largely made up of elite role players or connectors, over Tier 3B, which is made up of borderline All-Star primaries.
I don’t think there is a reliable way to solve this debate and on some level, deciding between, say, Mikal Bridges on one hand and Jaylen Brown on the other is more a function of the rest of the respective rosters than the individual players. In that particular comparison, I think it’s entirely possible, if not likely, that both the Celtics and Nets would be better if the two were exchanged!
NBA Player Tiers: ’20 | ’21 | ’22 | ‘23: T5| T4| T3 | T2 | T1 | ’24: T3&4
In some ways, this is really an extension of the long-simmering question of how to rate the sub-elite, yet still very good, level of on-ball players. At least to my way of thinking, there is nothing more valuable in the league than elite shot creation and nothing more overrated than mediocre shot creation, but finding the importance and desirability of players in between is just hard.
It’s also, in some form, the reason to do this exercise in the first place, as identifying that there is a fairly wide gap between Brown and Jayson Tatum and that the difference between Luka Dončić and Donovan Mitchell is substantial is a vital part of roster evaluation. Avoiding the cheapening of the term “franchise player,” in other words.
Another set of teammates who illustrate this dichotomy is Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner. I didn’t think Banchero was an especially worthy All-Star this year. Through games of April 10, there are only eight players who have scored at least 100 fewer points than they would have a similar number of scoring attempts at league average efficiency according to Basketball Reference, with Banchero being seventh on that list. However, on some level, this is a result of Orlando’s lack of other creators. On my Simple Shot Quality model, his 50.2 percent expected eFG% is 24th lowest among the 162 players with at least 500 tracked shots attempted this season.
But to swing back around, the players with the 21st, 22nd and 23rd hardest shot diets are Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Anthony Edwards and Tatum, all of whom have significantly outperformed their shot expectancies by 209 (SGA, third of 162), 73 (Edwards, 45th) and 151 (Tatum, 13th) points scored, while Banchero has shot essentially at the level of his shot quality (-3 points, 124th of 162). Should he get credit for helping keep Orlando’s offense afloat at all by at least being able to soak up possessions? How would he perform with more creative guard play around him? I’m not entirely sure, which is why Banchero is a hard player to rate.
Meanwhile, Wagner does not have the same self-creation ability as Banchero, but he is superior in most other areas — more efficient scoring, better and more versatile defense, off ball play — in a way which would make him a very plug-and-play addition to any team that already had their primary creative roles filled.
Moving on, there are a few notable players who might have been much higher had I done a tiers update around midseason. Tyrese Haliburton is one. He’s been great this year, a worthy All-Star and the driving force behind Indiana’s powerful offense. But the second half of the year hasn’t measured up to the first, whether as result of nagging injuries slowing him down or defenses starting to figure him out or most likely a combination of both. This, combined with my uncertainty over how well his style translates to the playoffs has him down in Tier 3 when for much of the season I had him penciled into the bottom end of Tier 2.
Damian Lillard is another player who has dropped down a tier over the course of the season. Early in the year, it was easy to give somewhat of a pass based on both the adjustment to a new team and role as well as the coaching turmoil which beset the Bucks for the first stage of the season. But even though he has shown some of the old dominance in fits and starts, such as the 29 points (on 19 shot attempts) and nine assists he tallied on Wednesday to drive the Bucks past the Magic despite Giannis Antetokounmpo’s absence, those performances have been the exception rather than the rule. Over his final four seasons in Portland, Lillard combined for 62.1 True Shooting on 31.4 Usage. In Milwaukee, his efficiency has dipped to 59.3 TS on 28.4 Usage, his least efficient full season relative to league average since his rookie year. For a player who has always been a huge question mark defensively, it’s a worrisome decline at age 33.
Of course, he could shoot the hell out of the ball in the playoffs and help drag the Bucks to the Eastern Conference finals or even NBA Finals and prove he still belongs in the Top 20 discussion.
Speaking of playoffs, I mentioned yesterday that there were a few players who couldn’t readily improve their tiering until the playoffs, with Tatum, Dončić and Joel Embiid as the prime examples. All three have great opportunities entering the postseason this year, with Dončić in particular seeming well-poised to go on a run; the midseason addition of Daniel Gafford and the Mavericks’ new ability to always be able to match Dončić’s creative mastery with a strong dive-and-dunk pick-and-roll partner surrounded with shooting appears to have unlocked something special.
Meanwhile, there are a few players for whom I have already more or less assumed playoff greatness based on past experience. Jimmy Butler and Jamal Murray haven’t exactly had banner regular seasons, but both have track records of playoff dominance.
Bouncing around a little bit, I’m not sure what to do with Ja Morant and so I am essentially treating this as a gap year while acknowledging he has secured himself extra scrutiny next year.
Finally, let’s talk about the large Frenchman in the room. Victor Wembanyama in Tier 2B, among the Top 14 players in the league. I don’t think he has been All-NBA-level over the entire season, but he has been plenty good as a rookie and has shown development over the course of the year to suggest to me that he will start next season with a strong chance at all-league honors.
This growth is especially evident if you compare before and after either his move to starting at center instead of power forward in early December or the insertion of Tre Jones as a starter in early January to pair Wembanyama with a competent point guard.
On the former, he has been a top-five rim protector in the league since then, with a profile similar to that of Brook Lopez over that period. Meanwhile, prior to Jones joining the starters, Wembanyama only managed 53.3 True Shooting Percentage (on 29.9 usage), but since, that mark has jumped to 58.5 TS% on 33.7 Usage while he has raised his assist rate by nearly 50 percent. And all this with his 3-point shooting still very much a work in progress.
Of course, the numbers don’t even tell close to the full Wemby story as demonstrated by the near nightly parade of “Wait, he did what?!” highlights. While he won’t get a chance to prove himself in this year’s playoffs, it seems almost inevitable that, if he can avoid injury, he’ll be knocking on the door of Tier 1 soon as he has delivered on everything he was hyped to be, and more.
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(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photos: Michael Gonzales, Garrett Ellwood, Adam Pantozzi / NBAE via Getty)
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NBA players have always gotten an earful from fans, whether at home or on the road. It comes with the job.
But this season, it’s getting darker.
The recent surge in legalized gambling in every pro league, and throughout college athletics, has impacted American sports in ways thought unimaginable just a few years ago. But along with the potential good that hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenues bring to the NBA and other leagues, something new and ominous has arrived: verbal abuse directed at players and coaches based solely on fans’ wagers.
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Fans can now bet in real-time on their smartphones, on all aspects of the game, including minutiae such as how many rebounds one player might get in the first half, and how many points will be scored by a team in the fourth quarter. And if their bets don’t deliver, they’re taking it out on the players.
“It’s getting outrageous,” LA Clippers forward P.J. Tucker said recently. “It’s getting kind of crazy. Even in the arenas, hearing fans yelling at guys about their bets. It’s unreal. It’s a problem. I think it’s something that’s got to be addressed.”
Teams have yet to make drastic changes to their security details, and the NBA has not recommended increased security near the court. But at least one team has added an extra security guard to its bench this season, in response to increased gambling-infused belligerence. Another team has beefed up its cybersecurity staff to detect especially odious vitriol sent by fans to its players online.
“It’s all over the place,” said Ochai Agbaji, a guard for the Toronto Raptors. “It’s the wild, wild west right now.”
For decades, other than one-off events like the Super Bowl and March Madness office pools, gambling was the third rail of sports. College basketball was rocked by numerous point-shaving scandals. Professional leagues forcefully distanced themselves from betting, even refusing to play games in Las Vegas, where it was legal and popular. Then the Supreme Court opened the door to legalized sports wagering in 2018, and a sea change ensued.
Fans rushed into the nascent market, and the pro leagues quickly pivoted. If fans were opening their now-virtual wallets to spend money on games, the leagues wanted a piece of the action.
Teams now have partnerships with casinos and build their arenas next to them. Announcers, long allergic to any references to betting, now commonly cite wagering information during broadcasts. The NBA recently announced that it would allow fans watching games on its streaming app to track betting odds and click through to make bets with the league’s betting partners, FanDuel and DraftKings.
(The Athletic has a partnership with BetMGM.)
But an unintended consequence of this new relationship comes out of the mouths of increasingly irked fans.
“You see people on Twitter, you know, fans going back and forth with players on Twitter about how you lost their money,” Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum said. “I guess it’s kind of funny. I don’t know. I guess I do feel bad when I don’t hit people’s parlays. I don’t want to them lose money. But, you know, I just go out there and try to play the game.”
Cleveland Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff said last month that a gambler somehow accessed Bickerstaff’s cell phone number and left him threatening texts and voice messages, intimating he knew where Bickerstaff and his family lived.
“It is a dangerous game and a fine line that we’re walking for sure,” Bickerstaff said.
Toronto Raptors forward Jordan Nwora said that comments about betting from fans are “all the time, nonstop.”
“You get messages,” Nwora said. “You hear it on the sideline. You see guys talking about it all the time.
“It comes with being in the NBA. People bet on silly things on a daily basis. So I mean, it’s part of being in the NBA, it’s what comes with it. I get it. People don’t complain when you have a good game. I don’t get messages with people saying, ‘Thank you for helping me.’ ”
A league spokesman said that incidents of fan comments toward players and team staff about gambling were not more prevalent than other fan misbehavior at this point, but it is something the league continues to monitor.
The root of much of the fury is what’s known as a prop bet, formerly a quirky corner of the underground betting universe that has quickly caught on with fans. Prop bets are wagers on parts of a game that might not have anything to do with the outcome. How long will it take for the national anthem to be sung? How many turnovers will a certain player have in the first half? How many total rebounds will there be?
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Prop bets have been the subject of two recent incidents that raised questions about whether basketball players were under the sway of gamblers. A watchdog spotted irregular betting patterns on prop bets in some Temple University men’s basketball games this season. The NBA told ESPN last week that it was investigating Raptors forward Jontay Porter after betting irregularities were flagged on prop bets involving his performances in two games.
NBA players have noticed the shift in fans’ interests.
“To half the world, I’m just helping them make money on DraftKings or whatever,” Tyrese Haliburton, an All-Star guard for the Indiana Pacers, said last month.
“I’m a prop,” he added. “You know what I mean? That’s what my social media mostly consists of.”
Haliburton elaborated on his comments in a recent interview with The Athletic. He said verbal abuse at games was much worse than when he came into the league four years ago.
“Bettors have this thing called the ‘banned’ list, and that’s when you don’t hit their bet,” Haliburton said. “So they’re like, ‘You’re on my banned list. I’m not going to continue to bet on you.’ And I think that’s literally all my mentions have been for the last six weeks,” he said, referring to social media.
I also asked #Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton specifically about speaking to a sports psychologist, and he noted in his response how sports betting has consumed a lot of his social media.
“To half the world, I’m just helping them make money on DraftKings or whatever. I’m a prop.“ pic.twitter.com/6f2a0vEuiK
— James Boyd (@RomeovilleKid) March 20, 2024
Orlando Magic guard Cole Anthony also mentioned the banned list in noting the increased attention and pressure created by parlay betting, when multiple bets are combined into one wager.
“There were a few where I was just like, ‘This is sickening,’ ” Anthony said. “Not sickening, but it’s funny, in a way, to see this stuff and see how serious a lot of people take this.”
The NBA is especially vulnerable to this new fan dynamic. Its players are not hidden behind pads and helmets, and they perform close to fans, some of whom have conversations with coaches and players during games.
Team security does not confront abusive fans — that falls to arena security. Behavior considered “verbal abuse, or being disruptive,” including talk about gambling if it’s particularly nasty, can lead to ejections. Normally, fans are given a verbal warning by arena security that they are violating the NBA Fan Code of Conduct, which is promoted at games. A fan who does not stop the disruptive behavior may then be given a warning card — a written warning that further inappropriate behavior will lead to ejection. A third incident will cause the fan to be removed — though fans can be ejected if they are particularly nasty toward players or staff just once.
The league monitors social media activity through its Global Security Operations Center, with an eight-to-10-person staff. The NBA also shares intel with other sports leagues. Certain players, coaches and referees tend to attract more attention on social platforms than others. League security meets with teams twice a season to remind them about gambling protocols.
Bickerstaff, the Cavaliers coach, said he informed team security about the fan who was threatening him. Security tracked down the person who left the messages and texts, but Bickerstaff and the team declined to pursue a legal case.
Tatum says the discourse “definitely has changed” from his first few seasons in the league.
“I guess when you hit people’s parlays and do good for them, they tell me,” he said. “But then they also talk s–t. Like I’m on the court and I didn’t get 29.5 or whatever I was supposed to do.”
— Sam Amick, Eric Koreen, Josh Robbins, James Boyd, Jared Weiss and Jason Lloyd contributed reporting.
(Photo of Tyrese Haliburton: Ron Hoskins / NBAE via Getty Images)
The New York Times
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Every August, after the NBA releases its schedule for the upcoming season, Michael McCullough, the Miami Heat’s chief marketing officer, thinks about the next 82 games. He not only considers ticket sales and promotions but also sets a meeting with the team’s equipment manager and focuses on an essential part of his job: uniforms.
Laying out the right jerseys used to be an easy exercise across the NBA. There were just two choices. When Rob Pimental, the Heat’s equipment manager and travel coordinator, began his career with the Sacramento Kings in the 1980s, it was just white and blue: white jerseys at home, dark ones on the road. What to wear didn’t demand a conversation.
Today, it needs lots of meetings. It has become one of the benchmark choices a franchise can make each season. Over the last six-plus years, jerseys have grown to become not just merchandise but also part of an entire marketing ensemble, a diadem of that year’s commercial enterprise.
Jerseys were once hidebound by convention — not always constant but at least consistent in color and place — but they are now ever-changing. Aesthetically, the NBA looks different from year to year as it introduces new uniforms with each season. It is exhilarating or exhausting, depending on whom you ask. The league is either running into grand ideas behind the creativity of its teams, or it is running away from convention and diluting its storied brands.
The story of the league’s changeover can be told by the erosion of one old mainstay: the home white jersey. For decades, this was an NBA staple. Now, it is increasingly a rarity.
The process to pick jerseys for each of the 1,230 NBA games each season seems simple: The home team picks its uniform first, and the road team chooses next. But it is exhaustingly complicated. What used to be mostly a binary decision tree is now complex.
In a way, it begins years ahead of time. Teams start designing their latest City Edition jerseys with Nike two seasons ahead of their debut.
“It’s like a jigsaw puzzle in many ways,” McCullough said.
The makeover began with the 2017-18 season, when Nike took over the NBA’s on-court uniform and apparel business. Teams occasionally had asked the league to step away from the usual uniform split to introduce or highlight new alternate jerseys. That trend began in the late 1990s and has increased incrementally since.
Still, teams needed permission from the league to do so. Nike brought on a four-uniform system: the Association, a white jersey; the Icon, a dark jersey; the Statement, an alternate jersey; and the City Edition, which changes annually and has no set color scheme. Some teams have a Classic jersey, too.
The NBA streamlined the process. Christopher Arena, head of on-court and brand partnerships for the NBA, used to keep an Excel spreadsheet of every team’s uniform decision for each game, occasionally hunting them down to get their picks in or calling another team to adjust its choice to avoid a color clash. Then the NBA modernized. It debuted NBA LockerVision, a digital database where teams log in their uniforms weeks after the schedule is released.
There are rules on how often a franchise must wear each jersey: Association and Icon must be worn at least 10 times during a season, Statement six times, City Edition and Classic three times. There are guardrails against colors matching too closely, though not all incidents have been avoided. After the Oklahoma City Thunder and Atlanta Hawks played each other in nearly matching red/orange hues in 2021, the league further barred teams from picking jerseys that are too similar.
That upended the regular order. Where white jerseys used to be regularly worn at home, they are now more often seen on the road. Those August marketing meetings are an opportunity to lay out the best times to show off the latest City Edition jersey.
Few teams have leaned in as much as the Miami Heat. In some ways, they are still taken by tradition. Miami’s red-and-black jersey has remained almost unchanged for decades. Every spring, Miami brings back its annual “White Hot” campaign, which has been in place since 2006. The organization wears its white uniforms at home in the playoffs and asks fans to wear white too.
“That’s part of the whole lore of sports, that tradition,” McCullough said. “There’s room, I think, in sports to create new traditions. I like to think that’s what we’re doing, creating other opportunities for people to have another relationship with their team around what the players are wearing. And of course, it’s broadened out for us entire merchandise lines to support these uniforms and to support this second identity. It just becomes kind of who you are.”
As much as those white jerseys mean to the organization, the last few years have allowed the Heat to experiment and debut new designs and color schemes. When McCullough gets the new schedule every summer, he begins to envision the rollout campaign for that year’s latest jersey.
The Heat have created some of the most vibrant City Edition jerseys of the last decade. Their “Vice City” jerseys were a smash hit. The originals were white; subsequent editions have come in blue gale, fuchsia and black. This season, they wear black jerseys with “HEAT Culture” across the chest.
The latest HEAT City Edition uniform is here 🔥
Last night — exclusively at @KaseyaCenter — ticket holders were among the first fans to shop the complete #HEATCulture collection.@MiamiHEAT // @AmericanAir pic.twitter.com/nbH08RmMlT
— Miami HEAT (@MiamiHEAT) November 2, 2023
Most often, they wear them at home. The Heat has programmed those City Edition jerseys to be worn 19 times in Miami and just once on the road. Their Association uniforms — or what used to be known as the home whites — will be worn on the road 24 times.
McCullough wants to make sure the City Edition uniforms get enough appearances in Miami to sink in with Heat fans. He wants the Heat to wear them around the holidays, when fans go shopping. He wants to create favorable environments to show them off and build affinity for them.
“You’ve got this whole narrative you’ve woven around this special uniform that you can only do at home,” he said. “That you can’t do on the road.”
The Heat can build a whole campaign around their latest jerseys by wearing them at home. They unveiled an alternate court in 2018-19 to match their Vice City jerseys and have had one each season since. The franchise can pick and choose when to wear the jerseys if the game is in Miami, so they can prioritize the right days.
The Vice City design became its own kind of brand for the franchise. The Heat’s license plate in Vice City colors is the second-highest selling plate in the state, McCullough said, and is tops among all of Florida’s professional sports teams.
The 5th and final VICE uniform. #ViceVersa @MiamiHEAT // @AmericanAir pic.twitter.com/cMju7UEtV3
— Miami HEAT (@MiamiHEAT) December 1, 2020
“You look at any badass car in south Florida — and you know there’s a lot of badass cars — and they all have the Heat plate on them,” he said. “It is just a cool-looking plate. I’m sure a lot of those plates are not Heat fans. It’s just a badass-looking license plate to have on your car.”
It is a symbol of the Heat’s successful effort. The planning goes across the organization. McCullough surveys Pimental and considers him an unofficial member of the marketing staff. Any uniform decisions are run by him.
Pimental’s job is vast. Whenever the Heat choose their road jerseys, they must consider how it will affect travel. He had to learn how to re-pack for trips after Nike took over in 2017 because of the new possibilities.
For each road trip, the Heat bring a game set of each uniform and a backup set, as well as a few blanks; that’s 40-45 uniforms in each color. If they intend to wear two different uniforms on a trip, they could bring almost 90 different sets.
Then there is everything else: the warmups, the sneakers, the tights, the socks, the practice gear. In all, Pimental said his team and the training staff bring about 3,000 pounds of equipment on road trips.
He calls it “a traveling circus.” It’s a far cry from his early days in Sacramento, but he does not miss the simplicity.
“Sure, maybe (there are) times you get frustrated, but I think it’s cool to have a little more of an identity,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. Fads change, things change. You never know if you’ll go back to white uniforms at home. It’s cool to see different things.
“Before, you only saw the white uniforms at home. Now you get an opportunity to see all the uniforms that we have.”
The NBA isn’t the only league that has abandoned the home white jerseys as its core tenet. NHL franchises have flip-flopped during the league’s history and started wearing their dark sweaters at home again during the 2003-04 season. The NFL lets the home team decide its uniforms, and those teams rarely choose white anymore. Even the Los Angeles Lakers didn’t wear white at home until the early 2000s.
NBA teams began pushing alternate jerseys at home more frequently in the decade or so before Nike took over. Arena believes teams wore their white jerseys at home about 75 percent of the time by 2017.
Now, it is far less. The old uniform rules and expectations no longer apply. Arena does not see this as a wholesale abdication from league norms.
“It was already eroding,” he said. “We just put a paradigm around it. And again, eroding assumes that what it was was somewhat perfect, like some statue, and it was eroding to something imperfect. I would argue it was on the way to being flawed, and we’ve now made it perfect.”
The Association jersey is worn at the same frequency this season as it was during the 2017-18 season, Nike’s first year as the apparel distributor, but the split between home and road is stark. Teams wore their Association jerseys roughly 29 times per season in that first season under Nike, and an average of 17 games at home. This season, the Association jersey averaged 29 appearances per team but just roughly nine times at home.
About 22 percent of all games this season will feature a matchup of two teams each in a color jersey. Teams are scheduled to wear their City Edition jerseys about 14 times this season, with 11 of those at home.
The rules the league has put in place makes some jerseys a skeleton key. The Lakers’ gold Icon jersey can pair with anything, Arena said. Other jerseys — like the Indiana Pacers’ yellow, the Thunder’s orange and the Memphis Grizzlies’ light blue — are also versatile and don’t need to only be worn against white as a counterpoint.
The NBA, Arena said, obsesses “over this more than you can imagine.” Uniforms are a part of his life’s work, and he has been with the league for 26 years.
In that time, the league has undergone drastic changes, switched uniform providers several times and watched a new suite of logos and color schemes pop up. For most of that period, some basics never changed, but wearing white jerseys at home is no longer part of that foundation.
“I don’t know that we ever want to be so steadfast in rules and regulations and tradition and biases that we can’t step outside and listen to our teams and our fans,” Arena said. “I think what our teams are telling us was that our fans wanted to see these different uniforms at home, and they were maybe sick of seeing their team in white every single game for 41 games.
“The benefit, I guess you could say, is they get to see the wonderful colors of the 29 other teams come in. They can see the purple of the Lakers and the green of the Celtics and so forth. But they never got to see their team wearing their colors at home on their home floor, which is an incredible dynamic to see.”
(Top photo of Jimmy Butler: Issac Baldizon / NBAE via Getty Images)
The New York Times
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The dunk is basketball’s most lionized play. The most iconic ones are canonized, referenced fondly and often, debated for their merits and significance. The sport’s language has created so many names for it: jam, yam, slam, poster, stuff, hammer. It’s a unique club that only few on this world can join. It’s marvelous.
And it hurts like hell.
“Can you think of any other concept where your hand swings at something metal?” 11-year NBA veteran Austin Rivers asks. “It’ll probably hurt, yeah?”
When asked, players catalog the pain dunking has caused: broken nails; bent fingers; recent bruises; lasting scars; midair collisions; twisted necks; dangerous landings. Injuries that cost them games or even seasons.
Derrick Jones Jr., a former NBA All-Star Weekend dunk contest winner now with the Dallas Mavericks, points out two specific marks on his left wrist. Larry Nance Jr., another high flier in his ninth NBA season and third with the New Orleans Pelicans, recalls childhood memories of his father’s scarred arms from a 14-year NBA career that included winning the first-ever dunk contest in 1984. Dallas’ Josh Green remembers one pregame dunk that set his nerves afire.
“I remember thinking, ‘Why would I do this before a game,’” the 23-year-old Green says.
And yet still they dunk.
In the modern NBA, the dunk’s frequency has been increasing, going from 8,254 in the 2002-03 regular season to 11,664 last year. The rise is mostly due to the 3-point revolution and the increased spacing and cleaner driving lanes that come with it. But the league also has taller, more explosive athletes entering every year. With them come even more spectacular aerial feats, ones that enrapture fans and wow even the players who witness them.
What players think of the dunk, and the agony that can come with it, is ever changing. This isn’t some new trend. It’s just that the dunk, for all its allure and mystique, is the most visceral mark of a player’s maturation.
Basketball’s most exclusive club, one only entered 10 feet in the air, isn’t one that players can — or always want to — live in forever.
When young basketball players first start dunking, they never want to stop.
“It makes you the guy,” Dennis Smith Jr. says.
Smith’s first in-game dunk was an off-the-backboard slam in a state title game when he was 13. His team was up big and his teammates were showing off. “Now it’s my turn,” the 26-year-old Brooklyn Nets guard recalls thinking. “I got one.” An in-game dunk is a status symbol he has never forgotten.
Willie Green, now the head coach of the New Orleans Pelicans after a 12-year NBA career, was told as a teenager that toe raises would help him reach above the rim. Every morning in the shower, he counted to 300 — rising onto the balls of his feet with each number until this club finally let him in.
“If you could dunk, people looked up to you, they glorified you,” Green says. “You felt like you got over a big hurdle in basketball. It was a huge step in basketball when I was able to dunk.”
Every player asked remembers how old they were when they first started. “You’re young, you’re bouncy,” Markieff Morris, 34, says. “You dunked so you could talk your s—.” It was the first thing youngsters like him did stepping into the gym, the last before they left.
“When you’re first dunking, your fingers are full of blood because of the (contact),” Philadelphia 76ers forward Nicolas Batum recalls. “But you get used to it. You have so much joy of dunking. You’re one of the few people in the world that can.”
Once players start dunking in games, it becomes even more addicting. “When you try to dunk on someone, you’re hyped up, you’re amped up,” the New York Knicks’ Donte DiVincenzo says. “You don’t feel any of that s—.” It’s the same as any adrenaline high. “It feels like energy,” 21-year-old Mavericks guard Jaden Hardy says. As the crowds grow bigger and the reactions reverberate louder, it’s even better.
Marques Johnson, a five-time NBA All-Star who retired in 1990, remembers one slam he had at age 15 in a summer league over a player who had just been drafted to the NBA. To dunk on him, to knock him to the ground, proved something.
“As a young player, if you can hang with guys on the next level,” he says, “it becomes that validation that you belong.”
Johnson, currently the Milwaukee Bucks’ television analyst, played collegiately for UCLA, where he was named the Naismith College Player of the Year in 1977, the first season the dunk was re-legalized in college basketball. “I really believe it’s a big reason why I won,” he says. “People ain’t seen a dunk in college basketball in 10 years.” Johnson, a hyperathletic 6-foot-7 forward, took up residence above the rim.
Once, he missed two weeks with a knee sprain after dunking on a teammate in practice and landing hard. As he lay on the ground in pain, he still remembers what his first question was.
“Did the dunk go in?”
“Yeah,” he was told. “You dunked on him.”
Last season, Christian Wood rebounded his own miss and found an empty path to the rim. He dribbled once, planted both feet, hurled the ball through the rim — and then clutched his left hand as he ran back down the court.
Wood, who signed with the Los Angeles Lakers this summer after his one season with the Mavericks, finished the game but missed the next eight with a broken thumb. “I went for a tomahawk (dunk), trying to look flashy for some reason, and hit my thumb again,” he says. He had already injured it, he says, but that’s the moment when he knew he “had really hurt it.”
As teenagers age into veterans, their relationships toward dunking often change. “To really dunk consistently in the NBA, you gotta be a freak athlete.” Rivers says. For those who aren’t, dunking becomes more akin to a tool than a feat.
“S—, those things are really adding up,” the 26-year-old DiVincenzo says. “A lot of the younger guys want to dunk every single time. I am not like that anymore.”
DiVincenzo still dunks — he had nine last year with the Golden State Warriors — but prefers layups when possible. It isn’t always possible, though. “Sometimes, (a dunk) is the only way to draw fouls,” he says.
When Willie Green neared the end of his career, he recalls hating when defenders forced him into it.
“They’re chasing you down hard on a fast break, and you want to lay it up, but you know if you lay it up, they’re going to block it,” he says. “I’m like, ‘Man. You made me dunk that.’”
Green was a two-foot dunker, which meant accelerating into the air was hard on his knees, especially the left one, which was surgically repaired in 2005. “That force, that gravity, compounded with coming down,” he says. “It takes a toll on you.”
Smith, the ninth pick in the 2017 draft, entered the league with a record-tying 48-inch vertical — and with a dangerous habit of coming down on one leg. While recovering from knee surgery, he learned to land on both of them. “I don’t even think about it now,” he says. But he still does thoracic therapy to treat scar tissues in his wrist from his childhood dunks, which he believes has had an effect on his shooting form.
The league’s freak athletes, the ones Rivers referenced, do have different experiences. Nance Jr., who remembers his father’s forearm scars, has none of his own. His hands are large enough to engulf the ball rather than pinning it against his wrist. “I never really learned how to cup it like everybody else,” Nance says. “I genuinely don’t believe I could do it if I tried.” He drops the ball through the rim rather than relying on inertia.
“Not really,” he says when asked whether it hurts. “Unless I miss.”
Players like him still experience pain from the midair collisions and the misses: when the basketball hits the cylinder’s rear and sends shock waves through their arms; when an opponent’s desperate swipes hit flesh and nerve; when the crash of bodies sends theirs sprawling to the floor.
Anthony Edwards, another alien athlete, doesn’t even refer to what he does as dunking. “I don’t really dunk the ball,” he says. “I just put it in there the majority of the time.” Earlier this month, though, Edwards elevated over the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Jaylin Williams, nicked him on the shoulder and came crashing back down.
Though Edwards only missed two games with a hip injury, the Timberwolves’ rising star admitted he was “scared” and “nervous” in his first game upon returning. And even if missed dunks don’t injure him, there’s still pride.
As Edwards said of them last season: “Those hurt my soul.”
Kyrie Irving had stolen the ball and was alone at the basket in a December game when he rose up to dunk in front of his own bench. His Dallas teammates had already risen up to celebrate — until they couldn’t.
“I mistimed it,” he says. “My momentum wasn’t there.” The ball grazed the front of the rim and fell out.
The 31-year-old Irving is known for every sort of highlight except dunking, of which he has only 25 in his 11-year career. But a flubbed dunk is embarrassing even for a player like him.
“You just feel bad!” he says. “We’re the best athletes in the world. I should be able to get up there once in a while.”
Later that quarter, the 6-foot-2 Irving had another chance at a wide-open fast break, at redemption. This time, he made sure to prove he could still do it.
“I had to double pump,” he says, laughing now. “I had to get up there, bro. I couldn’t come in the locker room to my teammates, coaching staff, upper management. They would’ve been on my head.”
Still, as players grow closer to retirement, they often hang up their dunking careers first.
Rivers, who remains a free agent after spending his 11th season with the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2022-23, recently retired from dunking. “I just prefer laying the ball up,” he said last year. “A dunk takes a lot out of me.” It was the hard landings that ultimately got him to stop, but he believes he became a better finisher once he made the decision.
It’s easier for veterans who never needed to play above the rim. Like, say, Stephen Curry, who seems amused he was asked about something he hasn’t done in a game since 2018.
“I had no problem letting that part of myself go,” the 6-foot-3 Curry says. “I very easily moved on to the next chapter of my career.”
Batum, a 35-year-old with 367 career dunks, also swore off contested dunks before last season. “My body told me,” he said. “It said, ‘No more, bro.’” Now he only dunks, gently with two hands, when he knows he’s alone at the rim.
“When you hit 32, the game isn’t about dunking anymore,” says Morris, now in his 13th NBA season. “It’s about longevity and still being able to play at a high level.”
Caron Butler wishes he had realized that sooner. When he was younger, Butler, who had two All-Star appearances before retiring to become a Miami Heat assistant coach, practiced as hard as he played.
“I overemphasized the two points I was getting to prove a point or show off my God-given ability,” he says. “It would have given me more longevity.”
Butler doesn’t have any regrets. But he thinks about the dunk differently now.
“It’s just two points.”
It’s just two points.
“I’m listening to an old man talk,” Butler says. “That’s what 13-year-old Caron Butler would say. He would say, ‘I’m listening to a very old man talk about dunking.’”
He’s not the only retired player who sees the irony. Green thinks his younger self, the one who counted his toe raises in the shower, would feel similarly
“Thirteen-year-old me would really be disgusted right now,” he says.
But Green did dunk again earlier in 2023, a windmill slam in a January practice that had his players hollering in amazement. “They always tell me I can’t dunk,” he says. “I wanted to show them I had a little juice.” Green, the league’s fifth-youngest head coach, says that one of his coaching qualities is his relatability.
“When you’re asking high level professional athletes to do something, it helps for them to know that you’ve done it,” he says. “And it helps to know when they look at you that it looks like you still can do it.”
For others, it’s something that hearkens back to the past: to the adrenaline rush they first felt, to the validation it gave when their NBA careers were still dreams. Klay Thompson, perhaps this sport’s second-best shooter ever behind Curry, his Warriors teammate, says one of the best moments of his career was a dunk. After missing two consecutive seasons with major surgeries, in his first game back, he drove to the rim and slammed one. Thompson knew in that moment, he says, that the Warriors could still win another championship — and later that season, they did.
Thompson used to stroll onto the court and dunk as soon as his shoes were on. “Now, I need a good hour to get the gears greased and the motor working,” he says. As his body has changed, so too has his appreciation for what dunking means.
“It’s always an amazing feeling hanging on the rim that you can (forget) most people can’t do it,” he says. “I no longer take it for granted.”
It’s just two points for these club members, yes, but it’s more than that. For Johnson, the former Naismith College Player of the Year, dunking still means something special. Johnson turns 68 in February, and he plans to continue his personal tradition that began when he was 55: dunking on his birthday.
It’s motivation, Johnson explains, to stay in shape, which was inspired by his son, Josiah, who films it every year. It started becoming harder when Marques turned 60. “The first two attempts, I’m barely getting above the rim,” he says. It’s harder to palm the ball as his hands lose strength, and it usually takes until the fifth or sixth try before he succeeds.
Johnson, who had hip surgery this summer, doesn’t know if he will succeed next year. After all, he only attempts to dunk on his birthday, never in-between. “I know, eventually, I’m not going to be able to do it,” he says. But his recovery has gone well, and he feels good he’ll dunk once more next February.
He still remembers it, misses it.
“I remember them vividly: the excitement, the adrenaline rushing through your body,” he says. “So the dunk, as you can tell, has meant a whole lot to me.”
When asked what his younger self would think about hearing him talk about dunking now — this exclusive club he first joined as a 14-year-old wearing slacks and dress shoes, one that has represented pain and joy, aging and authenticity — Johnson instead chooses to turn the question around.
“I’d tell 16-year old me,” he says, “do it until the wheels come off.”
(Illustration by Rachel Orr / The Athletic. Photos of Derrick Jones Jr. (left) and Anthony Edwards (right): Amanda Loman and David Berding / Getty Images)
The New York Times
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ATLANTA — The head coach bent over at the waist and rested his forearms on the press table, seemingly pressing all of his weight into his elbows. His ears covered by headphones as he prepped for a postgame interview, he hung his head, peering up only with his eyes to answer questions. His body language screamed of a man who had been wrung dry of emotion, as if the incredulity of what just happened was simply too much to bear.
Behind him, students danced in delirium at midcourt. Damon Stoudamire, the first Georgia Tech coach to win his first game against Duke, is a mighty career 1-0 in the ACC. That’s it. But as far as debuts go, this is about as good as it gets.
Taken on its own, Tech’s 72-68 win over No. 7 Duke does not a renaissance make. Dig into the actual game, though, and the substance reveals itself. The Yellow Jackets led for all but 1:38, coughing up the edge at the most precarious point — with two minutes remaining. Yet down four, they rallied back, ultimately scoring the game-winner on a bold alley-oop, They secured it with not one but two successive defensive swarms. Back that stalwartness up to a win against No. 21 Mississippi State four days prior, and the seeds of what Stoudamire is sowing begin to show.
This season marks the 20th anniversary of Georgia Tech’s appearance in the national title game. Thirty years ago last season marked the end of a program-defining run of nine consecutive NCAA Tournament berths that included five Sweet 16s, two Elite Eights and one Final Four.
But since the 2004 national championship appearance, Tech has had two winning seasons in the ACC and earned four tournament bids. Each ended in the first weekend, the lack of protracted success eventually costing Paul Hewitt, Brian Gregory and Josh Pastner their jobs.
Stoudamire came into the job well aware of the excavation that needed to be done. He also arrived with different bona fides from everyone who sat in the Georgia Tech head basketball coach’s chair. He is not a coaching lifer who has spent his entire adulthood climbing the ladder. He’s a former lottery pick and NBA Rookie of the Year who, as a coach, has jumped back and forth from the pro game to college.
The shift is not unintentional. In the last two decades, Georgia Tech had been something worse than mediocre; it had become irrelevant. When new athletic director J Batt went searching for his next coach, he wanted someone who could help the Yellow Jackets get their groove back.
“Swagger, some coolness, juice, those are all good words,” says Daniel Parker, the vice president of Atlanta-based Parker Executive Search, a firm specializing in college hires. “That’s what he is. He exudes swagger. He’s a guy that can say, ‘I was on the Celtics bench last year.’ He can walk into the Four Seasons, where Charles Barkley is holding court, and they’re friends. That’s what he brings. That’s what Georgia Tech needed.”
It is just a little past 8 a.m. in early October and the Yellow Jackets are hugging — in the hands clamped/chest bump/slap on the back/bro hug sort of way — but hugging nonetheless. This is how they start each practice. What looks like a handshake line is, in fact, a hug line. “There’s not enough hugging in the world,” associate head coach Karl Hobbs says. “Besides, these days you gotta show these guys you care about them. We are in the business of building relationships.” Hobbs has been in the business of basketball for more than 30 years, cutting his teeth as an assistant in the 1990s as Jim Calhoun’s top recruiter at UConn. Suffice it to say, Calhoun did not open practice with hugs.
But basketball evolution is constant, and spinning on an especially quick axis these days. The transfer portal, combined with name, image and likeness opportunities, has shifted the power dynamic. There is always, if not a guaranteed greener plot of grass, at least the allure of one. Where once players fretted over their coach’s contentment, now the roles are reversed. Keeping players happy is not a goal; it’s a necessity. Stoudamire, 50, uses his relative youth, relatability as a former player, and NBA cache to keep in step with his roster, sharing his own experiences and offering advice he learned the hard way.
Were it only so easy to require a bro hug and a few heart-to-hearts. It is not. Showing them you love them helps, but it better be packaged with the “Jerry Maguire” show them, too. “They are behind (on NIL opportunities) and they know it,’’ Parker says of Tech.
Atlanta boasts 16 Fortune 500 companies and, thanks to a tax incentive, a multi-billion-dollar entertainment industry. It’s a vibrant, albeit transient, city filled with young professionals, old money and new. People have plenty of disposable income; they also have plenty of options.
Back in the day, when head coach Bobby Cremins was regularly making the NCAA Tournament, many fans and players chose Georgia Tech. The native New Yorker started a pipeline of point guards from his stomping grounds (Mark Price beget Kenny Anderson, who beget Stephon Marbury), turning a moribund program (1-29 in two years before Cremins arrived) into the hot spot to be. Back when he was Prime Time, not Coach Prime, Deion Sanders was a regular. Spike Lee made a few cameos, too.
But things began to falter after Cremins toyed with an offer from South Carolina in 1993. The Yellow Jackets’ NCAA streak ended the following year, and in February 2000, Cremins announced his plan to retire. Hewitt, hired from Siena College, revived the program with another run to the Final Four in 2004, but in the one-and-done era, Hewitt couldn’t build any continuity, with players such as Chris Bosh and Derrick Favors bolting for the NBA after a season. Hewitt was fired in 2011.
Since, success has been sporadic at best, Pastner’s ACC tournament title in 2021 ranking as the best run in decades. As the wins dwindled, so did the cache. Last year, the 8,600-seat McCamish Pavilion averaged just 4,713 fans.
But this weekend, more than 7,000 arrived on a Saturday afternoon when a little college football game of significance — the Southeastern Conference championship game — also was being played in Atlanta. While no doubt some of the Tech faithful arrived more as rubberneckers, anxious to get an up-close look at Duke, they left with the gift of unexpected victory, and perhaps the curiosity to come back again. That is exactly what Stoudamire needs.
Today, home crowds are more than just advantages; passionate fan bases often lead to successful collectives. Before coming to Georgia Tech in October 2022, Batt worked previously as Alabama’s executive deputy director of athletics, chief operating officer and chief revenue officer. Raising money for Crimson Tide athletics is the proverbial target practice in a barrel, but he’s made capital improvements a priority for Georgia Tech, too. The school’s competitive drive initiative, launched not long after Batt arrived on campus, raised $4.8 million in two months. He agrees that the school’s NIL potential was “limited to start,’’ but eyes the newly launched Tech Way collective as a way to keep Yellow Jackets competitive.
Plenty of Georgia Tech grads have deep pockets. What is a challenge for recruiting — namely attracting players to a selective, high academic STEM-rich school — adds up to financially successful graduates. According to the school’s most recent career survey, graduates earn an average salary of $85,000 upon receiving their degrees; those with their master’s top out at plus-$100,000.
Rarely has that money flowed into the athletic department coffers with the same competitive urgency of other ACC schools. Per the two schools’ athletic foundation reports, for example, Virginia received $18.3 million in contributions in 2019; Georgia Tech just $3.5 million.
In the NIL era, that won’t compute. Stoudamire is neither shy nor passive when recognizing the need for NIL deals to attract players. As a former player, he views it as long overdue; as a current coach, he sees it as necessary.
The greater Atlanta-area has always been rich with basketball talent — three top-10 players in the last two classes (Ace Bailey, Isaiah Collier and Stephon Castle). It’s even more prosperous now, with Overtime Elite parked less than a mile from the Tech campus. Overtime players Robert Dillingham (last year), Kanon Catchings and John Bol (this year) all rank as 247Sports consensus top 50 players. None of them, though, chose Georgia Tech. Bailey is headed to Rutgers, Katchings to Purdue and Bol to Ole Miss. Collier is at USC, Castle at UConn and Dillingham at Kentucky. Parse through the current Top 25 rosters and you’ll find even more players who opted not to stay home — Coen Carr (Michigan State), Damian Dunn (Houston), Matthew Cleveland (Miami) and Eli Lawrence (Texas A&M). Even Tech senior Kyle Sturdivant, a Norcross native, started at USC before coming home after the death of his father.
“What we have in this great city of Atlanta, it hasn’t been tapped into yet,’’ Stoudamire says. “I want our guys to have access to all of these things.”
Stoudamire pauses and smirks. “Of course, I do understand all of this is easier when you win.”
“Will somebody please yell, ‘I got f—-ing ball?’”
For a good 40 minutes, Stoudamire’s voice, which usually hovers somewhere between a rasp and a croak, doesn’t rise above conversation level. The morning hug routine spills over into practice, as Stoudamire preaches positivity. High energy, hard claps, boundless encouragement. Until, on a routine three-on-three drill, the Jackets transition on defense in near silence. One group does it, and Stoudamire kindly suggests that someone say they’ve got the lead dribbler. The next group repeats the mistake, and Stoudamire finally yells in exasperation.
It’s a trivial error. It’s not like no one picked up the guy with the ball; they just didn’t communicate the decision to their teammates. “Oh, man, that is him. Attention to detail, that’s what he’s all about,” says junior guard Miles Kelly. “He’s purposefully nitpicking so we get everything down to a T, so in the game it becomes second nature.”
Such foundational building takes time, but when it clicks? Consider the Jackets’ attention to scouting report detail. They, a team that is holding opponents to 28 percent from 3-point range this season, exposed a Duke team that has struggled lately from the arc (11 of 40 in their two prior games). The Devils were just 4 of 16.
Stoudamire hasn’t yet coined a buzzword for his team, but if there’s a front-runner, it’s accountability. In an hour-long interview, he says it seven times. He admits it’s something of a throwback in a social media age where information has both a short shelf life and lives forever. Yet as players embark on NIL deals and corporate partnerships, he argues it’s more important than ever.
But to Stoudamire, accountability means success on the court, too. Owning your mistakes. Attacking your weaknesses. Which also is tricky, thanks to a transfer portal that makes it easier to run from mistakes than own them. If the players find it foolish, they aren’t letting on. They arrive early, listen intently and have no problem calling out, “My bad,” when they err. “We call it juice,” Sturdivant says. “You gotta bring your own juice, and share if your teammates are lacking.”
Stoudamire rarely needs a sip. The new morning practice schedule has been an adjustment for the players. Not for the head coach. As his players shuffle in toward the locker room, Stoudamire is outside on his daily jog.
He is here because he wants to be, not because he has to be. Stoudamire earned $100 million in his NBA career and had a good gig in Boston. Last season, when head coach Joe Mazzulla missed two games because of an eye injury, Stoudamire took the reins. The brief run as boss reignited his desire to be a head coach, but Stoudamire figured he’d bide his time for an NBA gig. He voluntarily left the college game for the pros, after all. Stoudamire spent five years at Pacific, leaving after his good friend and then-Celtics head coach Ime Udoka called about an opening. He was neither disgruntled nor disenfranchised with college basketball; he just figured he’d maxed out that job.
Since 2000, only three West Coast Conference coaches have left on their own accord — Dan Monson, who went from Gonzaga to Minnesota; Kyle Smith, who jumped from San Francisco to Washington State, and his successor, Todd Golden, who left the Dons for Florida. Everyone else, blockaded by Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s, got fired. Stoudamire took Pacific to 23-10 in 2020, and still finished third.
So when Batt called, he was intrigued. Stoudamire’s own college career at Arizona coincided with Cremins’ run, and he saw what Georgia Tech could be. Besides, he’s accustomed to doing what people thought can’t be done. At 5-10, he did not necessarily pass the eye test as either a would-be college superstar or NBA player. But his mother, Liz Washington, taught him to use the same word that creeps into his vocabulary now — accountability.
Growing up in Portland, he idolized Terrell Brandon and Gary Payton, and knew that, at his size, he’d have to work twice as hard to get there. So rather than taking advantage of the freedom his mother’s work schedule afforded him, he toed the line. On the rare occasion he stepped outside it, Washington was there to re-enforce. Stoudamire remembers his mother marching in to visit with his high school coach, threatening to yank him off the team if he didn’t get his grades right. “They weren’t right by her standards, not the school’s,” Stoudamire says.
In high school, he dropped 58 in a game and took his team to an undefeated state championship, but size and geography — he was from Oregon, not New York City, after all — caused many to question how good he could be, and he arrived to Lute Olson’s Arizona team with plenty of skeptics in the desert.
He left Arizona as an All-American and finalist for national player of the year. And still the questions lingered. On the night of the NBA Draft, fans booed when the Toronto Raptors selected Stoudamire over Ed O’Bannon with the seventh pick. O’Bannon lasted two years in the league; Stoudamire stuck around for 13.
All of that teaches a man not to worry about what everyone else thinks; worry about what you believe. “Why take the job?” Stoudamire says, raising his eyebrows. “Why not? Great institution, city of Atlanta, great place to live, the ACC. I built a program up from nothing. This isn’t that. This is not insurmountable.”
While Stoudamire runs through his practice, on the sideline a man sits folded into a chair that looks three sizes too small for him, quietly watching. When the Yellow Jackets are finished, they all walk over to say hello.
Dennis Scott is, in essence, the very thing Stoudamire needs. Not the 55-year-old version. It is the 18-year-old Scott, the one who played for the best high school team in the country and was named the best player in the country, that Stoudamire seeks. “J had a very set profile in his mind,’’ Parker says. “Every kid wants to make it to the NBA. He knows the route.”
Batt’s hedge already appears to have paid off. Stoudamire made the one-mile trek to Overtime Elite and snagged four-star Jaeden Mustaf out from under Indiana, Georgetown and other suitors. Ranked 48th in 247Sports Composite, Mustaf is the highest rated player to choose Georgia Tech since Iman Shumpert in 2008.
Hobbs understands just how important one commitment can be. He came to Georgia Tech from Rutgers, a program that didn’t even have the foundational history of Tech. Yet like Atlanta, New Jersey had plenty of recruits — just none who wanted to head to Piscataway. Then in 2018, Ron Harper Jr. out of Don Bosco Prep committed to the Scarlet Knights. Two years later, Paterson Catholic’s Cliff Omoruyi decided to stay home. All of a sudden, Rutgers went from nowhere to NCAA Tournament regular. “Anytime a recruit can identify your school, it gives you a chance to get in the door,” Hobbs says. “And all you want to do is get in that door.”
It helps that Stoudamire comes to the ACC at a time when there’s a little more space to squeeze by. Not to discount the win against Duke, but beating Jon Scheyer reads differently than upending Mike Krzyzewski. Pastner laughs when he thinks back to his first three ACC games as head coach at Georgia Tech. “Home against North Carolina and Roy Williams. At Duke with Mike Krzyzewski. Home against Louisville and Rick Pitino,” he says. “That was my introduction to the ACC. What is that, like 2,000 wins and how many national championships?” Closer to 2,400 and nine titles.
Even if Pastner got in the door, odds are one of those Hall of Famers — or Jim Boeheim — came in right before or after him. Now Stoudamire is one of seven coaches who have been in the conference three years or less, joining Boston College’s Earl Grant and North Carolina’s Hubert Davis (entering their third years), Scheyer and Louisville’s Kenny Payne (in Year 2), and Notre Dame’s Micah Shrewsberry and Syracuse’s Adrian Autry, who, like Stoudamire, are making their debuts.
But only one of those three newbies won his first ACC game this year. Yet Stoudamire did not allow himself to linger in the moment too long. Once he gathered himself to talk to the TV crew following the win against Duke, he was asked about the magnitude of what his team had accomplished.
“I’m trying to create a foundation here,’’ he said. “A culture. I want them to feel, as we move forward, like we’ve been here before, and we’ve done this. That’s what I’m trying to create.’’
One win does not a turnaround make; but it’s sure a nice place to start.
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; photos: John W. McDonough, Rich von Bilberstein, Bob Rosato / Getty Images)
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Why are teams paying veterans millions of dollars to rarely play?
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The 2023-24 Nike NBA City Edition uniforms were unveiled last Thursday. NBA fans will be treated to another season where alternate uniforms, according to Nike, continue to “represent the stories, history and heritage that make each franchise unique.”
The uniforms are now in their seventh season with the NBA, and they have been a big hit in the past. Home teams will wear the uniforms throughout the NBA In-Season Tournament, which tipped off last Friday and will run until Dec. 9.
The big question: How does this year’s collection of uniforms look?
The unveiling gave The Athletic’s team of Jason Jones, James Edwards III and Kelly Iko an opportunity to discuss the jerseys in depth. The trio conferred about all 30 City Edition jerseys and came up with its own power rankings. The writers ranked each team using a scoring system where 30 points were given to their favorite jersey, all the way to one point given to their least favorite. This explains the numbers in parentheses next to each writer’s name below.
Which jersey was the collective favorite? Here are the rankings and the writers’ thoughts of each, starting from worst to first.
(All images are courtesy of Nike and the NBA)
Edwards (5 points): This makes me want a Mountain Dew Baja Blast from Taco Bell.
Iko (2): Have you ever chewed, like, five Skittles at once and looked at it? This is that. Come on, y’all.
Jones (1): There’s a lot going on here. Doesn’t really work for me.
Jones (7): The artwork for “Nets” is supposed to give a graffiti vibe. I wish it would have leaned more into that, especially with this season occurring as hip-hop celebrates its 50th anniversary.
Edwards (6): I’m all for trying to be creative and different; you take a risk when you do that. But the Nets took a risk, and they failed. Miserably.
Iko (1): It’s actually fitting that this was inspired by KAWS’ “Tension,” because that’s exactly the type of headache I get from looking at this for too long. This is a bad jersey. It’s actually baffling because KAWS makes some really dope art.
Jones (10): A mash between the early and modern Lakers. Not a big fan of the triangular shape of “Los Angeles,” but I understand its ties to the early days of the Lakers in the city. What would have been wild would have been something lake-related. That would have stood out more than another black jersey.
Iko (5): What’s going on in Los Angeles? I get it, Laker Nation rides hard for its team, but when I go to the store, I’m not thinking about the triangle offense. It could be worse though … like Brooklyn’s.
Edwards (4): I don’t really care about the reasoning for the placement of “Los Angeles.” It looks bad. Horrific. It’s like someone went to JOANN Fabrics and tried to make a custom Lakers jersey but ended up not measuring the width of the jersey correctly. For such a historic franchise, I expected better.
Iko (15): I once got lost on Beale Street trying to get to FedExForum in Memphis. These give me the same confused vibe. The font is a cool idea, but it wasn’t executed well enough. Back to the drawing board.
Jones (3): The Grizzlies had my favorite City Edition jersey last season. Not so much this year. It’s basic. Doesn’t have the same personality as last season when the jersey screamed Memphis swagger.
Edwards (2): Someone on social media said the Memphis jersey is a QR code to see the actual jersey, and I can’t stop laughing. Horrible.
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NBA City Edition 2022-23: Every alternate jersey ranked from 29(?) to 1
Edwards (13): I don’t mind this, because it’s different without being too extra. The color combination is obscure, and while it doesn’t make any sense to me in terms of a connection to Indianapolis, it’s not an ugly jersey. Middle of the pack for me.
Iko (6): There is way too much going on. These are a mess.
Jones (2): When I think of Indiana, I don’t think vibrant, which is what this jersey is. I’ve been to Indianapolis plenty of times, but this just doesn’t connect with the city for me.
Iko (10): “Heat Culture” is one of those things that should be said and understood, not displayed on the front of a jersey. Miami has so many more things to offer as a city that could have been used with these jerseys. Missed opportunity.
Jones (9): Nothing “Miami Vice”-related? No vibrant colors? A red-and-black jersey seems pretty simple. Adding “Heat Culture” is a nice touch, but when it comes to Miami, I prefer the “Vice” theme.
Edwards (3): I don’t think saying “Heat Culture” is as corny as most people do, but a jersey that says “Heat Culture” … yeah, that’s corny.
Iko (14): This might have ranked higher if pickaxes were on the front and the mountains were on the back. They also could have done without the “5280” slapped across the middle. Three and four numbers on the front of a jersey is for AAU. Distracting.
Jones (8): I’m still not sure how I feel about “5280” across the chest. I understand the significance, but how many numbers do you need on the front of a jersey? It takes away from the Denver skyline in the background.
Edwards (1): Whoever came up with this jersey should be suspended (with pay, of course). I’m sorry. I like Denver as a city, and I love the Nuggets, but these are comically bad. Some players will have six numbers on the front of their jerseys when Denver wears them. Six.
Edwards (12): Do these glow in the dark? If not, that’s disappointing.
Iko (12): Somehow, some way, I blame (Pelicans writer) Will Guillory for these.
Jones (4): The perfect jersey to wear around Halloween.
Edwards (20): I like the color combinations, as well as the font of “OKC.” I’m a fan of these.
Jones (5): This scheme matches the “Love’s” patch. Maybe that was intentional. The orange jumps out, but it’s pretty simple overall.
Iko (4): This makes me think of McDonald’s. These are pretty blah, but they might look better framed.
Edwards (17): I wanted to knock it down some points for being so basic, but the ugliness of some other jerseys made it hard to penalize the Clippers for not trying.
Iko (7): Did Marcus Morris make this as a parting gift? Morris averaged 12 points as a Clipper. This is that, but in jersey form: I came to work and I did the job that was asked of me.
Jones (6): Nothing too fancy with this. No cool backstory or details in the description. Just a plain “Clips” jersey.
Edwards (15): I ended up with them in the middle of the pack because I don’t like the placement of “Chicago.” It should be a little bit lower. That messed it all up for me.
Jones (12): The intent is to be a nod to the old Chicago Stadium of the early 1990s. “Chicago” down the front of the jersey reminds me of the shooting shirts worn by a young Michael Jordan. It’s not the most imaginative, but it works.
Iko (3): I understand the reference to Chicago Stadium from the ’90s, and I’m sure the locals really draw to the style, but I’ve never been a fan of the vertical lettering. It just makes for an awkward space in the middle.
Jones (11): There’s a lot going on here. Pinstripes. Doubling up on “New York.” The black down the side. Just a lot.
Iko (11): I feel like the Knicks have had a version of this every year for the last 10,000 years. It’s like the printer lagged out.
Edwards (9): A drunk version of a Knicks jersey. That’s all I got.
Jones (15): Nothing will top the MLK jersey for me. I like the blue on this, but it’s pretty basic compared to some of the previous versions.
Edwards (14): They’re fine. They’re middle of the pack to me, which might not say a lot because there are some absolutely horrendous City Edition jerseys.
Iko (13): Maybe it’s the combination of the lowercase font on these and the peachy color that throws me off, but it just seems OK. There’s no story or anything that really speaks to me. It’s fine — nothing more, nothing less.
Iko (19): I didn’t expect the Spurs to go with the white base, but this will look really dope under the arena lights. Also, Ricky’s Tacos in San Antonio is the best place many have never heard of.
Jones (14): Would I wear this one? Probably not … but I like it. It’s very San Antonio. It definitely fits the city.
Edwards (10): The lettering is cool. That’s about it. This is too basic.
Iko (18): San Francisco is a unique city, from its transportation system to landscape. That matches the lettering of these jerseys. I’ve ridden through the streets for years, and each time, the hills surprise me. The black on the jersey also is really emboldened, if that makes sense.
Jones (17): The more I look at it, the more I like it. The cable car design of the “San Francisco” lettering works. The simplicity of the design with hints of the cable car history makes this a nice alternate jersey.
Edwards (11): The idea was cool, but the execution is meh to me. It’s an OK jersey with awkward lettering. Not the best, but not the worst.
Iko (20): Sweet threads. I love the cultural melting pot Toronto is, and that is reflected in the making of this jersey. These will be a hit in the city.
Jones (20): The gold and lightning accents make this one of the Raptors’ best jerseys. “We the North” also reminds everyone that Toronto truly is an international city.
Edwards (7): I don’t like gold uniforms at all. Just a personal preference. I love Toronto, though. It’s my favorite North American city. However, hard pass on the jersey.
Edwards (21): I want to first shout out Erykah Badu while we’re on the topic of Dallas and R&B. Legend. This jersey is one of the better ones simply because of the font, colors and simplicity. It’s clean, and it pops. Hard to not like this.
Jones (13): Tapping into the R&B history of the region makes for a cool backstory. The jersey itself is pretty simple, but the details via the input of Leon Bridges are a nice discussion point.
Iko (16): I was actually curious about how and where Dallas would draw inspiration prior to these coming out. Leon Bridges is awesome, especially tied with the city’s history of R&B (shout-out to Tevin Campbell). For some reason, I keep thinking about Michael Finley when I see these.
Iko (26): Loooove these. The way the white dissolves into the blue gives a chilling effect. My mind immediately jumps to rapper Lil Yachty: “Cold Like Minnesota.”
Jones (19): This gives off calm and soothing vibes, perfect for the Land of 10,000 Lakes. If the Timberwolves ran back the Prince alternate versions every year, I’d be happy, but this is a nice bounceback after last season’s version.
Edwards (8): I guess I’ll be Debbie Downer here. These are mid, at best. Everything is smooshed at the top — the change in color, the number, “Minnesota” and the sponsors. I don’t love how small “Minnesota” reads. These would be lower for me if it weren’t for some of the nastiness that we’ve already talked about.
Iko (21): You can never go wrong with teal and blue, and I really like how they incorporated the hornet influence. I can almost see Baron Davis crossing someone over in these. Nice work.
Jones (18): Charlotte’s colors are some of the best in the league. I’m digging the gold touch, too. Much better than last season’s edition.
Edwards (16): I agree with Jason. The Hornets have some of the best colors in the league. Hard to mess that up. These are clean, not too much.
Edwards (22): If you’re not going to be creative, then keep it clean. Boston did. For my Michigan people, this jersey looks like an ad for Vernors.
Iko (17): Maybe I’m in the minority, but I actually like the blending of the white on the front with the wood grain texture on the sides.
Jones (16): Who knew Boston had a history of furniture making? I sure didn’t. The wood coloring on the side is also a nod to peach baskets, the part of history I would expect.
Edwards (26): I’m going to sound like a hypocrite here, because the lettering doesn’t bug me nearly as much as the “Chicago” on the Bulls uniform, even though it’s just as high up the jersey. I think it’s because of the different colors. It breaks it up a little bit. These colors go together well. It’s sleek and clean.
Jones (22): I’d be in favor of the Kings rocking this full-time. We need something that connects the Kings to their history with Oscar Robertson, and this jersey works.
Iko (8): This is another one that James and Jason probably like, but I just can’t bring myself to it. Maybe it’s the width of the “Kings” stripes, but there’s a lot going on for me. I do like the colors, though.
Jones (25): Another winner for the Bucks in the City Editions. The blue pops, and the cream “wave” is a nice touch. I’m just glad they didn’t go for a black jersey.
Edwards (23): I like the colors, especially the cream design across the middle and down the side.
Iko (9): I’m definitely in the minority with these. I love the historical connection to water used here, but really … using the arch as an ode to Fiserv Forum? Didn’t the arena open, like, five years ago? Not a fan.
Jones (24): The plaid in honor of Dr. Jack Ramsay makes this a winner. It’s subtle, but it’s a great look. The Blazers kept it simple, but the history is in the details.
Iko (23): Black is always a good default, and the Blazers did well with these. You don’t have to go for a home run all the time: A simple base hit will suffice.
Edwards (18): Hard to hate it, easy not to love it. The plaid inside the lettering is a nice touch, visually and in terms of the backstory.
Edwards (25): I’m a sucker for navy blue, red and white. Those three colors go together so well for me. I also really like the font on the front. Two thumbs up.
Iko (22): It’s always hilarious hearing Philly associated with love, having spent quite a bit of time at 76ers games. But, really smooth color transition here, and the lettering is neat.
Jones (21): Navy blue was a good play for the red and white. The Reading Terminal Market lettering also is a great addition. I’m always going to like seeing “City of Brotherly Love” on a jersey.
Edwards (27): I like the connection to Phi Slama Jama. It looks classy. It’s not over the top.
Iko (24): If you’re not from the city, you probably won’t get the cross reference between the University of Houston and the old Rockets teams, but this is a classic blend. This will sell like hotcakes at the Galleria.
Jones (23): Phi Slama Jama gets some love with this design. Had to look up the shooting shirts worn by the University of Houston during Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon’s college days to truly appreciate the design. Going with “H-Town” across the chest is a nice touch.
Iko (30): My favorite. T-Mac. Penny. Shaq. Türkoğlu. All Magic legends, just like this jersey. It’s nostalgic. It’s smooth. It’s fire. This is how you do it. Take notes, Brooklyn.
Jones (28): Going navy blue with the chain-link stripes feels like a modern version of the early Magic jerseys — which I like. The star for the “A” in Orlando is placed perfectly and will look good on the court.
Edwards (19): I agree with the fellas. A modern twist on a ’90s basketball kid’s favorite jersey. Good job, Orlando.
Iko (27): These are really dope. There’s intricate detail around the edges, and using the gold to highlight Cleveland’s theater scene is exactly the type of historical tidbit we never hear about. Awesome stuff.
Jones (26): These jerseys work best when I learn something new. I had no idea of Cleveland’s connection to theater until learning about this jersey design. Cleveland has the largest performing arts center outside of New York? Wow. It’s simple, but the details make this one nice.
Edwards (24): I didn’t know that either, Jason. Shout-out to the Cavs. It’s basic, but it’s done well. Good story. Definitely a top City Edition jersey.
Edwards (29): The Karl Malone/John Stockton-era jerseys are some of my favorites of all time, and this is a great tweak of those. Give me any purple on a jersey. These aren’t as good as the Jazz uniforms from the ’90s — those are some of the best ever — but they are nice.
Iko (28): Can the Jazz keep these forever? These are perfect. It’s not too much mountain for Utah fans, I don’t think, and the purple rocks.
Jones (27): I’d take these over what the Jazz normally wear. The purple is perfect. The skyline works in paying homage to the best teams that played in Utah. I move that the Jazz stick with these jerseys.
Jones (30): One of the worst things from the late 1980s/early ’90s was that the Bad Boy Pistons didn’t play in black uniforms. Alternate jerseys weren’t the thing back then, but if they were, these would have been perfect. And how would anyone not like the crossbones here? The uniform captures the essence of the era perfectly.
Edwards (30): These are clean. The connection to the “Bad Boys” era makes sense. It’s different from what the Pistons have done in the past. Well done. Very well done.
Iko (25): I’d think Bill Laimbeer would rock these passionately. Everything about these screams Detroit Pistons basketball from back in the day — tough as nails, sleek and dark.
Iko (29): It takes real talent to make purple and pink go together. These are the jerseys that make people smile. Well done.
Jones (29): I love foreign languages on jerseys; the Suns hit a home run with this design. I also love the acknowledgement of lowrider culture. The design puts me in a custom ’64 Impala on a sunny day that’s bouncing down the street on switches.
Edwards (28): Purple is my favorite color. I also like pink and teal. So, yeah, I’d be first in line to grab this if I were a Suns fan. Also, like Jason, I’m a fan of foreign languages on a jersey.
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NBA lineup changes: Who’s the same? Who’s different? Are rotations here to stay?
(Illustration: Sam Richardson / The Athletic; photos courtesy of Nike and the NBA)
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What time is it? That’s right … it’s time to make some outlandish statements that people will look back on next spring and cackle hysterically.
OK, that’s not actually the goal, but it is certainly an occupational hazard. Prognostication makes fools of us all; there are just too many things we can’t possibly have seen coming. Thank goodness for that, actually, as sports would be pretty boring otherwise.
That won’t stop me from trying, though. With the regular season starting next week, now is the time to gaze into my extremely hazy crystal ball and make some calls for what will happen in the coming months. In particular, the goal is to make some calls that might go against the tide and are actually, y’know … bold. For instance, “Nikola Jokić will make the All-Star team” is a defensible prediction that likely will come true but doesn’t really clear the bar for this particular exercise.
A bolder prediction, on the other hand, would be something unusual or unexpected. Like, say, predicting that something that hasn’t happened in two decades might happen this season. That would be a rookie — a true rookie — making the All-Star team. The last rookie to make it was Blake Griffin in 2011, but he was in his second season under contract with the LA Clippers after missing his entire first campaign. A fresh-from-the-draft rookie hasn’t made the squad since Yao Ming was voted in as a starter in 2003.
We can qualify that even further because Yao only averaged 13 points a game that season and was voted in despite production that clearly paled next to the other potential options. (To be clear, Yao deserved his next six selections. Just not that year.)
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The 24 biggest questions for the NBA season: Nuggets repeat? Wembanyama not ROY?
To go back a bit further, to the last time a just-drafted rookie both made the All-Star team and had numbers that truly warranted his inclusion, one would need a full quarter-century. And, what a coincidence … that player happened to be Tim Duncan, in 1998, in his first season as a San Antonio Spur.
Well, 25 years later, I’m going to go out on a limb and say a top overall pick of the Spurs will once again make the All-Star team … and will make it on merit.
Don’t let one bad summer league game get you twisted: Victor Wembanyama is as unique a basketball player to ever enter the league, a rim-denying giant at one end with a guard’s mentality and skill set at the other. You thought Kristaps Porziņģis was a unicorn because he could shoot 3s at his size? Well, picture the same package except with genuine ball skills and the ability to play out of the pick-and-roll.
I watched Wembanyama twice in Vegas last year and announced several of his French games for the NBA app; in every single one, he did something absolutely mind-blowingly unique, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody do that before” type stuff. He was far and away the best player in a good overseas league at the age of 18.
Here’s the crazy part: His preseason has been way better than that. Wembanyama seems to have made significant improvement both in his capability as a ballhandler and in his end-to-end speed (it helps when you can Eurostep to the rim from the 3-point line without needing to dribble), producing cascades of easy baskets for himself and those around him.
While his French tape showed flashes of this, he’s been able to do it with greater consistency in the more open floor of the NBA and shown marked improvement in his reading of the court and playmaking. Through two preseason games entering Wednesday night (I know, but humor me), the top pick in the draft has averaged more than a point per minute on 71.4 percent true shooting, blocked four shots and dissuaded countless others from being attempted and compiled a 33.9 PER.
I had thought Wembanyama might need a year to get his NBA sea legs before we really saw his impact. To hell with that. He’s already quite clearly his team’s best player and is likely good enough to lead the Spurs to a win total that may make them slightly uncomfortable. It’s becoming more and more apparent that he’s going to end up with an All-Star-caliber stat line that could, at the very least, put him on the short list for selection.
Here’s the other part: The Western Conference is laden with star talent, but as a frontcourt player, Wembanyama should have an advantage. Other than Jokić, all of his main rivals for those spots have the words “if healthy” permanently attached as suffixes to the end of their names. Between LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard, Zion Williamson and Kevin Durant, surely at least one and possibly several will miss the festivities in Indy this February.
Other players will be in the mix too, of course — Memphis’ Jaren Jackson Jr. and Utah’s Lauri Markkanen made it last year, for instance, and Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns is still here — but between the shock and awe value of Wembanyama’s play and the likelihood of injury replacements on the West roster, he has a great chance of making the team even if he isn’t voted in as a starter.
Wemby on the All-Star team is my first bold prediction, but it’s not the only one. Here are some more for the coming season:
No coaches will be fired before the All-Star break
Any prediction involving job security in the NBA coaching profession is a daring high-wire dance above a fiery lava pit, but this might be the season to pull it off. The league’s coaching roster looks as stable as it has in some time; while you can imagine seats getting hot in a few places with a slow start, there’s also the undeniable fact that recent turnover has been so high that there are relatively few long-tenured coaches remaining to get the ax.
Do you know how many coaches have been on the job since before the pandemic year? Four! That’s it! Those are the league’s four “made men,” championship-winning coaches Gregg Popovich, Erik Spoelstra, Steve Kerr and Michael Malone, who have a combined 59 seasons with their current teams. They’re not going anywhere.
Meanwhile, 13 teams have a coach in either his first or second season, which would make them unlikely to be dismissed so quickly. Five others are in Year 3, when the pressure normally increases, except four of those clubs are rebuilding and have limited expectations this season. Add it up and, for 21 of the league’s 30 teams, an early-season coaching change seems hugely unlikely.
Again, this profession isn’t exactly renowned for its stability — last season’s first coaching change (the Nets’ Steve Nash) happened on Nov. 1! — so this prediction may end up looking hilarious come February. For the moment, however, we seemingly enter the season with almost unprecedented stability in the league’s coaching ranks.
Minnesota will win a playoff series for the first time in 20 years
That’s right, I have a second thing that hasn’t happened in 20 years that I’m predicting will happen in 2023-24. Good things to happen to the Timberwolves? Have I lost my mind?
Thus far, the preseason focus has been on other West locales — the world champion Denver Nuggets, the reloaded Phoenix Suns and the recent champions in Golden State and L.A. — while the Wolves haven’t garnered nearly as much attention. However, they quietly played well over the second half of last season, going 26-19 after the turn of the new year, and I’m projecting them to land one of the top four seeds in the West.
If that happened, it would be the first time since their conference finals run with Kevin Garnett in 2004. In the only other three playoff appearances for the Wolves since then, they’ve been first-round roadkill as the West’s seventh or eighth seed.
While it’s a little early to pencil in who might be their first-round playoff opponent, the Wolves would have home-court advantage in the first round based on their projected finish, and, particularly if they get the No. 3 seed or higher, would be in a historically strong position to advance.
Additionally, there doesn’t seem to be any particularly compelling reason to bet against Minnesota once it reaches the postseason; the Wolves have the requisite inside-outside weapons in Anthony Edwards and Towns, their potential top-seven playoff rotation looks strong and, besides Towns, the team has strong individual defenders. Will this be the season we see Minnesota play in May?
Jayson Tatum will beat Nikola Jokić for MVP…
Because he’ll be the only player eligible for the award! I kid, slightly, but the league’s new 65-game requirement for most of the major awards may knock some fringe MVP candidates out of the running. (Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo finished third last season with 63 games played; Memphis’ Ja Morant finished seventh while playing 57 in 2021-22; and Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid finished second while playing just 51 of the 72 games in the shortened 2020-21 season.)
More seriously, and in keeping with the theme of bold predictions and not regurgitating chalk, I expect the award to come down to Jokić and Tatum in April. There’s an obvious risk in my saying Tatum will win since Jokić enters the season as an overwhelming favorite, which is the blowback from a league-wide sentiment of mea culpa for not giving him the trophy a year ago.
However, Tatum’s durability may give him a leg up in MVP voting despite the fact that he’s not perceived as the best player in the league. He nearly led the league in minutes a year ago and is young enough at 25 to again take on a big playing time load. Additionally, Boston could easily end up with the best record in the league and may do so by several games. As the team’s best player, Tatum almost automatically becomes a leading candidate.
Finally, it’s entirely possible Jokić treats the regular season with a bit less urgency — much as he did in the final month last season — while he tunes up for the games in May and June that truly matter. (On the flip side, Denver’s bench may be so bad that he doesn’t have the luxury.) A Nuggets finish in the middle of a crowded West pack would also dampen his quest for MVP No. 3, and that’s definitely in the cards too.
The West will regain dominance over the East
The East had a better record than the West for the second straight season in 2022-23, ending up with 22 more wins. That’s been a rarity over the past three decades; the West has been vastly superior nearly every season since Michael Jordan retired, culminating in the 2013-14 season in which identical 48-win seasons got Toronto the No. 3 seed in the East and earned Phoenix a ticket to the lottery in the West.
The NBA’s three best records also belonged to the East last year, and that part may hold up … partly because the depth of the West is so strong that it will be difficult for any individual team to push its win total much into the 50s. Nonetheless, the unusually tame regular seasons from expected West powers last season are unlikely to be an enduring feature; the Lakers, Warriors, Wolves, Clippers and Suns all figure to add several wins compared to 2022-23, while at the bottom of the conference, the 60-loss Rockets and Spurs could both be vastly improved. Only Portland will take a step back in the West.
In the East, the opposite trend holds. While Boston and Milwaukee look as strong as ever and Cleveland is on the rise, Washington, Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Chicago will have a difficult time matching last year’s win total. The flows of All-Star talent are another indicator: Damian Lillard went East, but since the last trade deadline, Bradley Beal, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Fred VanVleet and Marcus Smart have all gone West, and James Harden might be next.
The Clippers will re-evaluate everything
OK, this prediction needs a bit more time to breathe and might not really come to fruition until next summer. Still, watch the Clippers, especially if they start slowly. Yes, LA is still all-in on winning and will cut another massive luxury-tax check to the league (their estimated penalty right now is a cool $100 million), and the Clippers could easily add to that figure if they end up trading for Harden.
Nonetheless, this season is a clear pivot point for the team, thanks in part to a new CBA that makes life much harder for teams that spend past the second luxury-tax apron, where the Clippers currently reside. After this year, teams in that position can’t aggregate salaries in trades or take back more money than they sent out. They also can’t use cash in trades, use their midlevel exception, sign bought out players or wear sneakers. Staying over the second apron next year would also result in their 2032 first-round pick being frozen and, if the payroll didn’t come down in future years, ultimately pushed to the back end of the draft.
All this is happening right at the point when Steve Ballmer is surely questioning his ROI on the huge luxury-tax checks; over the past two seasons, his team is 86-78 and has won a single playoff game.
Two other timeline items stand out: First, the Clippers’ new Intuit Dome arena is set to open next year, and second, Paul George and Kawhi Leonard can become free agents this summer. You’ll note that you’re not hearing much about contract extensions for either player right now.
The Clippers still owe future draft picks to the Oklahoma City Thunder through 2026, so it’s not a blow-it-up scenario as much as a scaling back. They have scenarios in which they could bring back Leonard and George while still skirting the second apron … or perhaps, dare we say it, even staying below the first apron and using their entire midlevel exception to balance out the roster.
Still, this looks to be a tricky dance. Ballmer is willing and able to pay virtually anything for a winner, but the league has never punished expensive rosters like this. Waiving Eric Gordon this June seemed like the first salvo in an organizational rethink about the merits of blasting money out the firehose under the new CBA.
Tyrese Maxey will win Most Improved Player
Consider this partly a bet on Tyrese Maxey’s talent and partly a bet against Harden playing a significant role in Philly this season. If Harden is going to either be traded or behave so badly that the Sixers wish they had traded him, then Maxey should be the obvious beneficiary in terms of touches and shots.
Maxey averaged 20.3 points per game last season, but the number ballooned to 24.8 in the 13 games he played and Harden didn’t; that latter average would have placed him 15th in the league.
His other arrows are pointing up too. Maxey won’t turn 23 until November and is still figuring out how to weaponize his proficient 3-point shot (41.4 percent career) with more off-the-dribble attempts and how to parlay his blazing first step into more free-throw attempts. He’s an 85.8 percent career foul shooter but only attempted 3.8 free throws per game last year. That number should only rise as he gets more on-ball reps and figures out the dark arts of foul grifting.
Note that Maxey should also be highly motivated to produce this season, as the Sixers have held off on signing him to a contract extension to preserve 2024 cap space. With a good year, he’ll be able to sign for the Maxey-mum (sorry) next summer.
Two other players will make their first All-Star team: Jalen Brunson and Jamal Murray
Denver’s Jamal Murray might be the most obvious first-time All-Star pick in a while, coming off a fabulous postseason that signified his full recovery from a torn ACL in 2021. He posted a 21.6 PER in 20 playoff games, or about a quarter of an NBA season (or half of one if you’re a Clipper); those numbers alone would get him in range of selection, and keep in mind they were posted against playoff defenses. Presumably, life will get easier for him when we add some Blazers and Wizards back into the mix.
As for Brunson, he missed the team a year ago while fellow Knick Julius Randle made it, but the playoffs may have been the tipping point in a swap of leading men in New York. Yes, Randle’s injuries were a factor, but Brunson averaged 27.8 points in the playoffs while taking by far the most shots on the team (over 20 a game). Moreover, those playoff stats were a continuation from the second half of the season: After a slow start, Brunson averaged 27.8 points per game after Jan. 1. Entering his age-27 season, Brunson, it would seem, is primed for a career year.
The Knicks are likely to get one rep in the game if they’re again among the top seven teams in the East when the voting happens, and if so, it seems more likely the choice would be Brunson this time around.
While we’re here, apologies to the Grizzlies’ Desmond Bane and the Nets’ Mikal Bridges, two other players I think will post strong resumes that get them serious All-Star consideration. It’s hard for me to pull the trigger on predicting them to make it unless there is a rash of injuries to elite backcourt players in each conference, especially with Brunson and Murray claiming spots.
The Bulls will blow it up
Consider this a prediction in two parts: First, that the Bulls won’t be good enough to justify keeping the DeMar DeRozan–Nikola Vučević–Zach LaVine band together any longer, and second, that they’ll break out the dynamite at the trade deadline. The key here is timing: DeRozan is a free agent after the season, so the Bulls need to either cash in their stock on the high-scoring 34-year-old forward or sign him to an extension.
Moving off him would be the necessary first step in a process that would likely see the Bulls deal LaVine and Vučević as well, although LaVine has four years left on his deal and thus might be shopped more profitably at the draft in June.
Historically, the Bulls haven’t been fans of tanking, and their first choice will (and should!) be to see how many games this nucleus can win. However, this particular decision might already have been made for them, as the endgame has seemed apparent ever since the seriousness of Lonzo Ball’s knee injury became clear. Chicago can either forge ahead with an expensive, not very good team with limited flexibility, or the Bulls can start over and hope they get lucky in the loaded 2025 and 2026 drafts.
Taylor Jenkins will win NBA Coach of the Year
This has nothing to do with who I think the best coach is (Spoelstra, duh) but rather my reading of the trend lines of the history of this award, which skews heavily toward the biggest surprise in the top third of the standings.
Based on my projections for the coming season and the comparative amount of buzz about the teams I have slated for winning records, the three most likely candidates would seemingly be Jenkins in Memphis, Darko Rajaković in Toronto and J.B. Bickerstaff in Cleveland. (Grizzlies alumni represent!) Boston’s Joe Mazzulla would be a strong candidate too, especially if the Celtics end up with the league’s best record by several games, as I suspect they might.
Nonetheless, Jenkins has the best ingredients in his favor for winning: Nobody is expecting all that much from his team, the Grizzlies are actually pretty good, and there’s a built-in narrative (“Didn’t have Ja Morant for the first 25 games and still …”) ready and waiting. Additionally, the margins in the West are tight enough that the Grizzlies don’t really need to overachieve much to get people’s attention, as I’m projecting a 50-ish win total might be enough to top the conference.
Phoenix won’t have the West’s best record but will make the NBA Finals
I would take the field over any individual team in the West, and there’s a risk in making any prediction at all given that several contenders will likely make in-season moves to reshape their rosters. Seven teams have at least a somewhat realistic shot of advancing out of this pool, and that number could expand if a team in the middle class decides to get frisky with an all-in trade.
Nonetheless, right now, I like the playoff version of the Suns better than anyone else in a warty contender field. By the spring, Phoenix will hopefully have figured out some of the balance in its three-headed Bradley Beal-Devin Booker-Kevin Durant monster, and it’s quite possible the Suns will have used another trade chip or two to get more size and depth.
Ultimately, it will come down to Phoenix and Denver, most likely, regardless of which round they end up meeting — much like last year when their conference semifinal series was effectively for a place in the NBA Finals. This time around, I like the Suns’ answers off the bench much more than the ones they came up with a year ago, and I like the Nuggets’ quite a bit less. At the margins, I think that tilts the advantage slightly Phoenix’s way … even with Denver undoubtedly having the best player.
Boston will outlast Milwaukee in the East
The thing about Milwaukee getting Lillard is that it also allowed the Celtics to turn Malcolm Brogdon into Jrue Holiday. Holiday, of course, is about the best antidote to Lillard that mankind has come up with so far, dating to the 2018 series with the New Orleans Pelicans when Holiday harassed Lillard into 35 percent shooting in a four-game sweep.
That said, the Bucks present some real problems for Boston. The Lillard-Antetokounmpo two-man game threatens to be the best in the entire league, and the Bucks certainly can surround it with enough shooting. Dealing with Antetokounmpo might require heavy doses of an aging Al Horford, especially with Robert Williams gone to Portland, and Milwaukee’s dynamic duo also is one that could expose Porziņģis defensively.
There’s also some risk in choosing Boston here based on how the past few postseasons have gone, where the offense too easily degenerates into isolation-heavy slogs with Tatum and Jaylen Brown playing your-turn my-turn. (The Celtics also seem to lose all their mojo at the mere sight of Miami Heat jerseys, but that might not be a factor this season.)
However, that’s where Porziņģis can really help. His ability to punish switches by posting up shorter players is an option that Boston simply didn’t have last year, and it could be a real factor against the postseason switching defenses that have tended to gum up Boston the last few years.
I’m excited just thinking about this series … but I think the Celtics will prevail slightly in the end, much as they did in the second round two years ago.
Boston will beat Phoenix in the NBA Finals
Boston vs. Phoenix would be an incredible Finals because it would involve the Suns’ eternal quest for a first crown against the Celtics’ hope of raising an 18th banner, which would once again give them a leg up on the Lakers on the all-time list. Of course, it would be a first of sorts for Boston as well, as the Celtics haven’t won since 2008 and the current Tatum-Brown-Horford core has yet to get over the final hump.
It seems risky to pick Boston to win four straight playoff series despite the Celtics’ imposing defense and impressive top-seven rotation for the postseason. Historically, the postseason has been about having That Dude, and only a few teams have managed to get to the mountaintop with more of an ensemble cast. Tatum is one of the best players in the league, but he hasn’t yet shown himself to be a playoff cheat code on the Jokić/Curry/Kawhi level.
On the other hand … Boston just has so many ways to hurt you that Tatum doesn’t have to play at an exalted level for the Celtics to win the title. Two years ago, they were up 2-1 on Golden State in the Finals, for instance, before succumbing in six games. Curry was the best player in that series and Tatum only shot 35 percent, yet the Celtics were still in it.
Again, the Porziņģis acquisition potentially looms large, especially if he can hold up on defense, because it allows the Celtics to punish some of the switching schemes that so badly stagnated them in previous postseasons. At the other end, Boston is also one of the few teams with enough elite perimeter defenders to not sweat matching up against Beal, Booker and Durant at the same time. In the end, the Celtics’ defense is good enough that I worry less about the offense.
So, book your hotels for Boston in June, print this out and file it away and prepare to laugh uproariously when 50 things we couldn’t possibly have imagined reshape the season in totally unexpected ways. That’s the beauty of sports, but I’ll keep trying to get this hazy crystal ball to give me a few tips.
(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; photos: Maddie Meyer, Paras Griffin, David Dow / Getty Images)
The New York Times
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TORONTO – In his first ever NBA pre-season, forward Gradey Dick promised himself to put in long hours at the Toronto Raptors’ training facilities and do whatever his coaches asked of him.
That dedication quickly paid dividends as it led to him appearing in a music video with famous Toronto rapper Drake.
Dick had returned to the OVO Athletic Centre, the Raptors facility in downtown Toronto, after the team’s training camp in Vancouver because he had left some things in his locker.
“I just saw people running around with cameras and I was like ‘what’s going on?’” said the 19-year-old Dick on Thursday after practice. “It was Drake filming a video with his son.
“I had plans to meet Drake when he came back to Toronto but we happened to just be there randomly but he was like ‘hey, why don’t you hop in for a little cameo?’”
Although Drake is in the video, it’s actually a song by his six-year-old son Adonis called “My Man Freestyle.” Dick, Adonis and Drake all sit alongside each other at a news conference podium as Adonis raps.
Dick’s whirlwind foray into the world of hip-hop happened so quickly his new teammates didn’t even have time to react to his distinctly Toronto experience of meeting Drake.
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“It was so random that no one really knew what was happening,” laughed Dick.
Aside from rubbing elbows with local celebrities and their kin, Dick is trying to get up to speed with the NBA’s pace. Dick was drafted by Toronto in the first round, 13th overall, after averaging 14.1 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 1.7 assists in 36 NCAA games with Kansas last season.
“I think the schedule here calls for a lot more because, obviously, at school there’s more to juggle,” said Dick. “Here it’s just practice, get your work in, and then you have all day to really kind of utilize for your advantage whether that’s watch more film, sit down with coach, it’s just a lot more is asked of you.”
Added Dick with a laugh “Just no homework.”
Point guard Dennis Schroeder, who signed with Toronto as a free agent in the off-season, said that Dick is still “a little hectic” when he plays, but that he’s a good guy and already showing his professionalism.
“Still trying to find his ways,” said Schroeder. “But I think we’ve got a good group of guys who are guiding him and trying to teach him and hopefully he’s going to embrace that role and get better every single day.
“But I mean, when I was at 18, 19 and came (to the NBA) I was only one speed too. So, I mean, that’s the process. You’ve got to go through it and he’s gonna get it.”
Toronto hosts the Washington Wizards at Scotiabank Arena on Friday in their final game of the pre-season. Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic said he’s looking for his team to keep flowing on offence.
“I think it’s going be very important for us in this last game to continue building our habits in transition,” said Rajakovic at the OVO Centre. “I think we’re doing a much better job of getting to extreme corners, opening up the floor for each other.
“I think in the half court, (we’re looking for) decisiveness and aggressiveness of going downhill and reading the game from there, being able to find layups or finding the wide open man from there.”
DEFLECTIONS — Rajakovic has said throughout the pre-season that he wants Toronto to be disruptive on defence. Deflecting shots and passes is the most quantifiable reflection of that approach. He noted that the Raptors surpassed their goal of 32 deflections in a 106-102 victory in Chicago on Tuesday.
“We had 37 deflections in the game and that’s something we’re focusing a lot of effort (on), watching video, doing drills so we can continue to build on that,” said Rajakovic.
INJURIES — Centre Jakob Poeltl is expected to be available to play for Toronto against Washington on Friday. He has not played or practised for days due to an illness. Forwards Otto Porter Jr. (toe) and Precious Achiuwa (groin) practised with the team on Thursday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 19, 2023.
© 2023 The Canadian Press
The NBA’s 180 on load management is giving me whiplash.
Five seconds ago, every available piece of science the NBA told us it had in its possession from its teams said – screamed – the same thing: players not only needed more time off but that the league would be derelict in its partnership with its players if it didn’t align with teams, whose data said: rest.
The league cut way back on back-to-back games. Many teams eliminated morning shootarounds, as they were viewed as disruptive to players’ sleep patterns. Every team had a “Director of Very Important Sports Science and Cutting Edge MahnaMahna” and scores of eager data collectors. Wearables tracked every waking moment of every player, what they ate, and when. Cameras high above each arena tracked every movement of every player on the court.
So, Joel Embiid rested. Kawhi Leonard rested. LeBron James rested. Everyone rested. Including in your city, after you plunked down $300 to take the family to see the Dubs’ one appearance in your city that season. Sorry, Felicity and Mikal: Steph’s in street clothes tonight. Wave to him; he’ll wave back.
And now … psych.
“Before, it was a given conclusion that the data showed that you had to rest players a certain amount, and that justified them sitting out,” NBA executive vice president of basketball operations Joe Dumars told national media in a conference call Wednesday.
“We’ve gotten more data, and it just doesn’t show that resting, sitting guys out correlates with lack of injuries, or fatigue, or anything like that. What it does show is maybe guys aren’t as efficient on the second night of a back-to-back.”
Dumars’ words echo those of Commissioner Adam Silver, as he introduced the league’s new “Player Participation Program” that was approved by the league’s Board of Governors last month.
“Honestly, that’s what I’d been told as well, that it was the science,” Silver said. “I think it may be why the league didn’t become involved maybe as deeply as we should have earlier on. Part of the discussion today was about the science, and frankly, the science is inconclusive.
“I think in the case here, that part of the commitment here from the league office is we are putting together a group of team doctors and scientists and others and trying to better understand it. One thing I want to make clear: The message to our teams and players is not that rest is never appropriate. And realize, there’s a bit of an art to this, not just a science.”
GO DEEPER
Load management has frustrated NBA, fans and TV partners. But will new rules help?
Now, the NBA has a lot of smart, smart people in its sports medicine department. The department, led by Dr. John DiFiori, helped create the Orlando Bubble in 2020 out of thin air – and, more or less, pulled it off. It then created a comprehensive return-to-play program for the following season that was lauded by other medical people for its thoroughness and honesty about how to deal with COVID cases when and if they occurred. The league had extensive and continuing dialogue with the Players’ Association, before, during and after the two sides hammered out the newest Collective Bargaining Agreement about these kinds of issues. It’s a partnership.
And during all of this, the NBA’s position was consistent: the science, the science, the science tells us so.
Just eight months ago(!) this is what Silver said during All-Star Weekend in February, in Salt Lake City: “I hesitate to weigh in on an issue as to whether players are playing enough because there is real medical data and scientific data about what’s appropriate. Sometimes, to me, the premise of a question as to whether players are playing enough suggests that they should be playing more – that, in essence, there should be some notion of just get out there and play. Having been in the league for a long time, having spent time with a lot of some of our great legends, I don’t necessarily think that’s the case.
“The world that we used to have where it was just, ‘Get out there and play through injuries,’ for example, I don’t think that’s appropriate. Clearly, I mean, at the end of the day, these are human beings – many of you talk to and know well – who are often playing through enormous pain, who play through all kinds of aches and pains on a regular basis. The suggestion, I think, that these men, in the case in the NBA, somehow should just be out there more for its own sake, I don’t buy into.”
And now … forget all of that?
To be fair, Silver has said, multiple times over the last few years, that he was concerned about the effect of load management on the league’s fans, who were increasingly paying to attend games in which no one they hoped to see play had on a uniform. And it became especially hard for the NBA to push teams to push their players to play after COVID reached our shores, though the league’s $100,000 fines instituted in 2020 for teams that group rested players was limited to nationally televised games.
The league also clearly leaned into, let’s say, encouraging its players that more participation was warranted by tying a minimum games played requirement for many of its individual awards going forward.
But at every turn, the league dropped back to its default position: We’re following the data.
So, are we to believe the science turned on a dime? Since February?
Did NBA players skip the line in the evolutionary process this spring, and suddenly grow a third lung, that now gives them greater breathing capacity? Have they been enhanced, like Grace in Terminator: Dark Fate, now better able to withstand the grind of an 82-game season, after not being able to go on past game 65 or so without congealing?
And, coincidentally, I’m sure: the data changed that quickly just as the league is reaching a key moment in its discussions with its current and potentially new media partners on a new rights deal, to replace the expiring one in 2025? Or, did the networks and/or tech companies vying to air or stream NBA games in the near future say, with justification: “For our eleventy billion dollars we’re spending to buy these rights, you damn sure are gonna make sure that Giannis and Steph and the Joker suit up on the regular”?
I’m not saying it’s the only consideration for TV/tech companies — who don’t know that they’re scheduling the Lakers back-to-back when they make their schedule requests; they don’t see the full 82 until you or I do. But it’s hard to believe they don’t push hard on that particular action item with the league’s media committee.
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Let’s talk load management: Is it a problem? How do we know it works?
For the last decade-plus in the NBA, it’s been all about the numbers, all about the data, all about the science, even as the league (he noted, quietly) implemented both a Play-In tournament after the 82-game regular season, and before the two-month-long playoffs, and will now have an in-season tournament during the 82-game season, which will add an 83rd game to the two teams that make the in-season tournament final.
Rest, but play a little more, too, so that the regular season actually means something – and so we have another package to parlay into another sweet revenue stream.
The numbers ruled. And so, midrange jumpers were now stupid; rebounds no longer mattered. Big men who got in the way of all the driving and kicking were anathema; we only want rim runners now. And teams’ medical staffs all erred on the side of caution, to try to head off stress injuries and similar maladies before they got worse, by sitting players as much as possible. The days when players, proudly, would play all 82 games because that was what was expected of them were dismissed as Codger Thinking, ridiculous clinging on to the old days by old people who didn’t understand that they were shortening their careers by playing in meaningless games. (It wasn’t as if players back in the day didn’t deal with mental health issues as well.)
The NBA seems to want everyone to forget.
What’s more likely: All the teams’ data for the last half-dozen years has suddenly been discovered to be irreparably, incontrovertibly wrong? Or, the league went along with that data, ignoring those who said “Wait; Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson and Larry Bird and Isiah Thomas and John Stockton and Karl Malone and Patrick Ewing all suited up as much as possible, year after year, and didn’t fall apart,” because it didn’t want to push back against alleged “modern thinking”? That it couldn’t take a position of “Well, we trust our players,” because someone would present a paper at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference calling such thinking outdated? That it had to justify what every team, from its hedge fund CEO ownership on down, was now saying was “best practices?”
Dumars, one of those codgers, said Wednesday: “Obviously everybody’s not going to play 82 games, but everyone should want to play 82 games. And that’s the culture that we are trying to reestablish right now.”
Whatever the process the NBA used to go back to the future, I’m glad it did. It’s all right to keep some old-school thinking along with the new jack intel.
Fans can’t be guaranteed they’ll see the league’s top stars when they buy tickets; legit injuries happen. But if the league leaves it up to teams to make close calls on player health, the teams will protect their investments, every time. And I know enough about most players to know that, given the choice, they’ll opt to play. Whether out of ego or incentives or genuine care about the fans who pay top dollar to see them, they want to suit up.
That’s how you make the regular season more meaningful.
(Photo of Adam Silver: AAron Ontiveroz / The Denver Post via Getty Images)
The New York Times
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As the NBA offseason calendar shifted to September and there was no trade in sight to his preferred trade destination of the Miami Heat, Damian Lillard incorporated himself back into the Portland Trail Blazers’ ecosystem. For the last two weeks, team sources say Lillard has been working out at the Blazers practice facility, interacting with players and coaches.
Nearly three months after his trade request, was there a reconciliation in the works? No, but Lillard wanted the Blazers to know he was willing to remain patient while his uncomfortable exit played out.
On a call between Lillard’s agent, Aaron Goodwin, and Blazers general manager Joe Cronin earlier this month, it was communicated that Lillard would be content rejoining Portland for training camp. Lillard let the Blazers know he was willing to be fully present for the start of the 2023-24 season, if only to give the organization more time to work toward a potential trade with the Heat, sources briefed on those conversations say. But according to league sources, Cronin expressed skepticism about that approach. The Blazers were determined to get a deal done before the start of camp.
Over the next two weeks, the Blazers’ focus turned toward trading Lillard before the start of training camp and media day on Oct. 2 — and removing the speculation and what they believed was a cloud over the organization. Cronin and his front office have amassed tremendous young talent in Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe, and the Blazers were ready for a drama-free camp.
So the Blazers made the much-awaited blockbuster trade on Wednesday, trading Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks in a three-team deal that sent Jrue Holiday, Deandre Ayton, Toumani Camara, a 2029 first-round Bucks pick and two Bucks pick swaps in 2028 and 2030 to Portland. Jusuf Nurkić, Nassir Little, Keon Johnson and Grayson Allen are off to Phoenix.
The trade has massive implications for the landscape of the NBA. The Bucks are now one of the favorites to win the 2024 championship, teaming Lillard with Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez, NBA Sixth Man of the Year candidate Bobby Portis and shooters Pat Connaughton and Malik Beasley.
After he made public comments about being unsure about the Bucks’ desires to contend for a title and being unsure himself of signing an extension, Antetokounmpo has been delivered an All-NBA player who is a perennial All-Star and was voted onto the NBA’s 75th-anniversary team and The Athletic’s NBA 75 list.
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Damian Lillard to the Bucks? A deal that makes the NBA say, ‘Holy (bleep)!’
In 2020, with Antetokounmpo’s future uncertain ahead of what was a super-maximum contract extension, the Bucks traded for Holiday to push the team closer to a championship. Eight months later, they secured their first NBA championship in 50 seasons with a victory over the Suns in the 2021 NBA Finals.
Three years later and with similar questions about Antetokounmpo’s future amid extension eligibility, Bucks general manager Jon Horst lands Lillard by making the tough and emotional decision to trade Holiday, the player for whom he traded to help the Bucks secure that title in 2021. And the move could go a long way in securing the future of the Greek Freak once again.
But this was a deal that shocked much of the NBA world. With much of the expectation throughout this process being that Lillard could end up in Miami and with the loudest chatter in the days before the blockbuster trade being that he could go to Toronto, a deal with the Bucks seemed to be far off the radar.
Here’s how it all came together.
From the moment Lillard requested a trade from the Blazers on July 1, he informed the team that he wanted a deal specifically to the Eastern Conference champion Heat, sources briefed on those talks say. Lillard believed he gave the Blazers loyalty over 11 seasons and wanted the franchise to move him to his preferred landing spot.
The Blazers and Heat had multiple conversations in July, but the sides never engaged in substantive negotiations, according to those sources. In an initial call, the Blazers asked the Heat for Jimmy Butler or Bam Adebayo. The Heat came to believe that the Blazers had little to no interest in engaging in a deal with them, and as much as Lillard and Goodwin wished that the Blazers would attempt to satisfy the seven-time All-Star’s wish, Portland refused. As the summer progressed, Lillard wanted the Blazers to find a deal with Miami, but those wishes, in his mind, also went unfulfilled.
For their part, the Heat, league sources say, were prepared in July and August to offer up to three first-round draft picks — with Tyler Herro going to a third team — and multiple second-rounders and swaps along with expiring contracts and 2022 first-round pick Nikola Jović. But the Blazers were disinterested with each side developing a level of contentiousness.
As the Blazers began to start serious trade talks across the league on Sept. 18, a bevy of teams — the Bucks, Boston Celtics, New Orleans Pelicans, Toronto Raptors, Minnesota Timberwolves and Chicago Bulls — all showed interest in Lillard, league sources have told The Athletic. For all involved, the questions revolved around the price tag for Lillard and whether the roster would be able to compete for a championship post-acquisition.
Meanwhile, in Lillard’s camp, sources briefed on the matter say there was a realization that he would need to start seriously considering the prospect of playing somewhere other than Miami. That had been the case since the start, back when Lillard fielded a recruiting call from the Celtics’ Jayson Tatum not long after his trade request.
But when Cronin stopped responding to all communication from Goodwin in mid-September — with the tension rising between both sides along the way — sources briefed on the discussions say it inspired the agent to explore other team options that would be to Lillard’s liking. And Tatum, as it turned out, was hardly the only superstar who wanted to bring him to town.
Antetokounmpo also was a big fan.
GO DEEPER
Bucks trade for Damian Lillard signals one thing: It’s time for another championship push
Throughout this Lillard saga, there was the looming question of whether a team would take on his massive contract if he didn’t want to be there. Lillard has three years remaining on his deal plus a player option for 2026-27 for a projected $63.2 million. For example, the Raptors’ interest was serious, but Lillard’s disinterest in playing in Toronto remained an obstacle until the end.
Yet once Lillard was convinced that joining the Heat was virtually impossible, sources briefed on discussions say he became open to the prospect of playing for the Bucks and the Brooklyn Nets. The backchannel blessings commenced. Goodwin, sources briefed on the talks say, communicated Lillard’s interest to those teams as a way of paving the way for a possible deal. League sources say the Suns, with their sights set on Nurkić and other roster depth, were planning to be a part of trades with the Bucks, Nets or Heat.
The Blazers began discussing the framework of the Suns’ involvement with the Ayton-for-Nurkić swap in mid-July but needed two months to find the third team for Lillard and ensure that they wouldn’t be entering the luxury tax given Ayton is on a max salary.
For the Trail Blazers, Phoenix was an essential component of any Lillard trade. Portland valued Ayton, 25, as a foundational piece to anchor a roster headed by Henderson and Sharpe, and the talented big man is sure to be a 20-and-10 threat in his new home. In terms of Holiday, the expectation around the league is that the Blazers will work on finding the two-time All-Star a new home with several playoff contenders squarely in the mix.
In Phoenix, Nurkić is seen as a better fit for the Suns’ style of play and culture, and his contract (three years, $54.4 million), compared to Ayton’s deal (three years, $102.1 million) gives the franchise additional flexibility moving forward on a roster with three max salaries in Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal.
After their lackluster finish in the Western Conference semifinals last season, indications from the Suns organization were that it would be open to moving Ayton in a trade that made sense — and general manager James Jones, CEO Josh Bartelstein and owner Mat Ishbia found one with the Blazers.
Milwaukee became seriously engaged over the last week, believing that pairing Lillard with Antetokounmpo would serve as a convincing factor for Lillard to want to be with the Bucks, even though they weren’t his original preferred destination.
Now, Antetokounmpo is eligible for a three-year, $186.6 million extension with the Bucks before the start of the regular season or a commitment for up to four years and $260 million next offseason. The Bucks delivered the max, three-year extension to Antetokounmpo in recent days, league sources say, and it is immediately unclear how he and his representatives will reconsider a potential deal now versus waiting to evaluate after the season.
Milwaukee owners Wes Edens and Jimmy Haslam showed genuine aggressiveness Wednesday, taking on the four years and $216 million remaining on Lillard’s contract. It went a long way toward showing Antetokounmpo that, yes, they want to win badly too.
GO DEEPER
How do the Heat recover from losing out on Damian Lillard? They can’t just stand pat
For Lillard’s part, he finally gets the chance to win it all, something he has always wanted, even if the city where he landed isn’t exactly what he had in mind.
He has everything but a championship on his résumé. Seven All-Star appearances. Seven All-NBA selections. All those playoff memories that helped make him the greatest Blazers player of them all.
But this — a title-contending roster that fits so well with his generational skill set — is what he always dreamed of in the City of Roses.
“In a perfect world, I could spend my entire career in Portland,” he said on a podcast earlier this month.
This was an imperfect process, to say the least, and a flawed pairing in these recent years. But both sides found a way to win, just in time for the games to begin.
Quick: After Lillard trade, what remains is worth celebrating
Harper: Grading the NBA’s latest megadeal
(Photo by Amanda Loman / Getty Images)
The New York Times
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Cousin Greg from “Succession” appeared at the Raptor’s game against the Indiana Pacers last night.
Nicholas Braun, who plays the lackadaisical and beloved character, was seen courtside at the big game at the Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto on March 22.
The Emmy-nominated actor appeared briefly on the jumbotron, smiling and nodding toward the camera. Braun seemed to be in attendance with his rumoured girlfriend.
Courtside Cousin Greg in Toronto ‼️#NBACelebRow pic.twitter.com/FDTQ6Ht6r4
— NBA (@NBA) March 23, 2023
Braun was lucky enough to earn some love from the Raptor’s mascot as the red dinosaur exchanged a hug with the “Succession” star.
he’s at the raptors game now pic.twitter.com/q45YXw7kOo
— irrelevant pauper📈succ spoilers (@4clownshiponly) March 23, 2023
Cousin Greg from Succession is in the house. The Raptor is starstruck pic.twitter.com/1Zgve3XPVP
— ℳatt (@matttomic) March 22, 2023
It’s unclear which team the actor was rooting for. However, this isn’t his first time attending a Raptors game. In December 2019, Cousin Greg first appeared at a home game where the Raptors were up against Miami Heat.
READ MORE:
‘Succession’ Star Sarah Snook Is Pregnant, Debuts Baby Bump At Season 4 Premiere (Exclusive)
Greg attended that game with his brother Deyo and tweeted support for both teams by the end of the game.
Unfortunately, the Raptors lost both games Braun has attended, with the team losing 118-114 last night to the Indiana Pacers.
Emerson Pearson
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CLEVELAND — Pascal Siakam had 26 points and nine assists, O.G. Anunoby scored 26 points and the Toronto Raptors rolled to a 118-107 victory over the Cavaliers on Friday night, becoming the first East team to win in Cleveland this season.
Scottie Barnes scored 25 points and Fred VanVleet added 18, helping Toronto beat the Cavaliers for the third time in three games this season. The Raptors made a season-high 19 3-pointers, with Anunoby tying his career best with six.
“We just wanted to play with speed and be aggressive from the start, make them take tough shots and go out and gang rebound,” Anunoby said. “If we play with energy and play with force, good things will happen.”
Siakam, who scored a career-high 52 points Wednesday at New York, also had seven assists. Barnes grabbed 10 rebounds, Anunoby had nine and VanVleet added eight.
VanVleet’s third 3 of the third quarter gave Toronto an 83-57 lead three minutes in, prompting Cleveland coach J.B. Bickerstaff to pull his entire starting lineup. Donovan Mitchell had four points at the time and finished with 12 on 4-of-16 shooting.
“They weren’t holding up their end of the bargain and they knew it,” Bickerstaff said. “If you get complacent in the NBA, someone will kick you in the face — and Toronto is a team that can do it.”
The Cavaliers fell to 16-3 at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, including 11-1 against the East. Minnesota and Sacramento are the other teams to win in Cleveland.
Darius Garland had 17 points and eight assists, and Isaac Okoro scored 15 points for the Cavaliers, who are 4-1 on their season-high, six-game homestand. Cedi Osman and Kevin Love each scored 13 points off the bench.
“This game is part of our growth and we have to keep that in mind,” Bickerstaff said. “Donovan is the oldest dude in our lineup and he’s only 26. We’re still a very young team that’s learning how to win in this league.”
The Raptors, who entered shooting an NBA-low 32.2% on 3-pointers, made 12 of 21 in the first half and wound up shooting 51.4% beyond the arc.
Toronto won for the second time in eight games and is 4-9 since beating the Cavaliers on Nov. 28.
“Pascal kept saying, ‘Don’t get bored with the lead, keep getting stops,’” Barnes said. “So we came out in that third quarter really strong. Fred make some shots, Pascal made some shots. We just came out ready to play.”
The Cavaliers announced a sellout crowd of 19,432, but the arena was less than two-thirds full as a result of sub-zero temperatures and poor road conditions in Northeast Ohio.
TIP-INS
Raptors: C Khem Birch (non-COVID illness) missed his second straight game, but coach Nick Nurse said he was improving. … F Precious Achiuwa (right ankle sprain) last played on Nov. 9 and F Otto Porter Jr. (dislocated left toe) has been out since Nov. 16. … Toronto has the third-lowest field goal percentage in the NBA at .449. “At some point, we’ve got to make those shots, right?” Nurse said. “And I think we will.”
Cavaliers: F Evan Mobley is one of four players averaging more than 14.0 points, 9.0 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.0 blocks, along with Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid, Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Lakers’ Anthony Davis. … F Lamar Stevens (right knee soreness) returned from a three-game absence. … Love leads the NBA with 14 charges drawn and is third among bench players with 7.0 rebounds per game.
UP NEXT
Raptors: Host the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday night.
Cavaliers: Host Brooklyn on Monday night.
———
More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports
It’s time for our silliest preseason tradition: The 11th (how???) annual League Pass Rankings, a watchability scale to help you avoid wasting time on things like, “Wait, has this team actually ordered its players to tie their shoes together as part of its Lose-A-Rama for Victor Wembanyama campaign?”
These are not power rankings! They are derived from a formula Bill Simmons found scrawled on parchment paper inside a glass bottle that washed up on the shores of Malibu.
Teams are scored 1-10 in five categories:
ZEITGEIST: When you talk about this team at parties, do people slink away?
HIGHLIGHT POTENTIAL: Do you linger on games in case a superstar does something amazing?
STYLE: Where are they on the continuum from “Golden State Warriors beautiful game” to “Julius Randle just took four jab steps and launched an 18-footer”?
LEAGUE PASS MINUTIA: All the little things that mean too much to damaged die-hards: announcers, court designs, uniforms.
UNINTENTIONAL COMEDY: Google the Washington Wizards of the early 2010s.
The Jazz aren’t really a basketball team after detonating the Donovan Mitchell–Rudy Gobert-Quin Snyder-Making-Amazing-Faces era. They are an airport waiting area for players, only those players have to play together a bit because the NBA mandates the Jazz field a team instead of working together “Ocean’s Eleven”-style to rig the lottery.
They are the NBA Spider-Man Pointing meme of shoot-first combo guards: Jordan Clarkson, Collin Sexton, Talen Horton-Tucker, Nickeil Alexander-Walker. Lauri Markkanen and Malik Beasley aren’t exactly prime John Stockton, either. Poor Mike Conley can bring the ball up, pass it once and head into the stands for a drink. (I am excited to watch Sexton again. He averaged 24 points on 47.5% shooting two seasons ago, and purists dismissed it because the Cleveland Cavaliers stunk and Sexton’s a blah passer. Putting up those numbers is not easy. Sexton plays with classic little guy bravado, flinging himself inside for rebounds and going at larger superstars as if they should be scared of him.)
We are only one year removed from the Utah broadcast team shrieking at Rudy Gay’s debut as if the Jazz were getting prime Karl Malone. I can’t wait to hear how the Jazz are not really tanking, how dare anyone suggest it, the honorable caretakers of this community treasure would never allow that toxin to infect your beloved Jazz Men.
The new uniforms are a crime against NBA art:
The black and yellow ones are high school gym class-level. Why is a team with such a rich color palette going all-in on black? The white ones are passable only because the Jazz note — a perfect piece of sports art — is front and center, but they’ve even sullied that by removing the blue, yellow and green in the note head in favor of (yup) black.
The new court at least has the smoky white-gray shadow of that note along the sidelines.
Jarred Vanderbilt is cool.
The Pacers are one trade from challenging the San Antonio Spurs as frontrunners for the league’s worst record. They fall behind the Spurs here only because of the “zeitgeist” category; winning five titles buys San Antonio gravitas, especially when their last tank job kick-started that dominance.
Tyrese Haliburton is more entertaining than the entire Spurs team. He operates two steps ahead of defenses, and takes joy in passing. He gets off the ball early instead of hunting assists. When Haliburton is on the floor, the ball flies. He celebrates assists more loudly than baskets. You will sometimes catch Haliburton shouting with glee as his big man is about to cram one of his feathery lobs. (Haliburton and Isaiah Jackson are a fun alley-oop connection.) He might lead the league in assists.
Indiana’s young (and raw) bigs seemed to catch Haliburton’s spirit; the Pacers had the ball shifting side-to-side. Terry Taylor is the most ferocious offensive rebounder you don’t know. He will Kool-Aid Man through four guys to snag a second chance.
T.J. McConnell must be furious Jose Alvarado seized his throne as the king of the back-court sneak steal. I expect McConnell to respond by wearing a Hamburglar mask and hiding in the stands.
Chris Duarte bobs and weaves behind screens with liquid veteran guile. Bennedict Mathurin is a blast of athleticism for a team that ranked 27th in dunks. There’s plenty of room on Aaron Nesmith Island!
The Spurs were for so long the League Pass nerd team: Manu Ginobili driving Gregg Popovich mad with thread-the-needle passes; Boris Diaw’s roly-poly, spinning, shoulder-checking drives; Kawhi Leonard snatching the ball from people. They birthed the Spursgasm, and raised the sport to perhaps its stylistic zenith in 2013-14.
Welp.
Can I interest you in the Low-Risk Point Guard Sibling Olympics between Tre and Tyus Jones? What about Point Josh Primo? Keldon Johnson and Devin Vassell should develop into really good support starters, but it’s hard to hone your secondary playmaking on a team this light on first-option types to bend defenses — even if Popovich will have everyone sharing and moving. (Vassell is the biggest draw — a potential 3-and-D monster who has flashed ball-handling chops.)
At least Jakob Poeltl free throws have drama; he has hit below 50% over three seasons, and that will be a big deal if Poeltl — a fine player — ends up on a playoff team again.
Jeremy Sochan is fun, and leads three 2022 first-round picks who should see minutes.
Is this the best non-fiesta jersey in Spurs history — maybe the best, period?
I love that spur jutting out of the “X” in that new “SATX” wordmark. That gorgeous pattern down the sides is rendered in the style of Mexican serapes. The Texas state logo is a nod to the team’s origins as the Dallas Chaparrals in the American Basketball Association.
This 50th anniversary court, though …
The gold doesn’t go, and the center-court logo looks as if someone draped a carpet over the big spur.
They’d be at least three spots higher with Chet Holmgren healthy. Without him, the roster is a morass after the strange-but-cool Shai Gilgeous-Alexander/Josh Giddey/Luguentz Dort trio. I mean this in a good way: It is really hard to find a perimeter trio with almost zero overlapping skill among them.
Giddey is the tall genius passer who dares long-range, no-look lasers with zero margin for error. Dort is the brick wall who lofts ceiling-scraping 3s and bulldozes inside. Gilgeous-Alexander is the ungraspable phantom, everywhere and nowhere at once as he slithers into the lane — different limbs seemingly operating at different speeds, and moving in different directions.
Good luck distributing minutes beyond that. If you’re chasing wins, you’d play Kenrich Williams and Mike Muscala. Then there are at least seven young guys who merit time — including three of the first 34 picks in the last draft.
Aleksej Pokusevski has shown hints that he’s a basketball player, not just a gangly novelty. He has vision, and a knack for blocking shots. (Does he think you get more points if jumpers go in at higher velocities?) Tre Mann is crafty. If a Darius Bazley corner 3 hits the side of the backboard, does it make a noise? (Don’t sleep on the Thunder hiring Chip Engelland — longtime assistant coach and shooting guru for the Spurs.)
A juicy subplot: midtier playoff teams cannot afford losses to the Wembanyama Brigade. Those can be the difference between No. 6 and the play-in. The Thunder signaled doom for the Los Angeles Lakers last season with two massive early comeback wins.
The broadcast is less propaganda-y than it once was. Progress!
The cherry blossom uniform is the best thing to happen to this franchise since the Charlotte Bobcats took Michael Kidd-Gilchrist No. 2 in 2012. They should give these uniforms a no-trade clause.
The team with perhaps the most blah art collection of the last 15 years — this is the first season they’ve used multiple courts! — nailed every detail: the soft-pink; the gradual shift to gray on the shorts; the stenciled flowers dripping down the sides.
Gandalf is back!
After years of ignoring their kooky wizarding heritage, the team is tiptoeing into some semi-ironic hipster embrace of it. It took me years before I realized the contrast between the wizard’s white beard and black cloak formed a “W.” (I might have problems.)
Oh, the team! The Wiz could push for a high-end play-in spot, or skid early and Avada Kedavra themselves into the Wembanyama sweepstakes.
For a team that has been under-.500 since 2018, they have few (if any) young prospects you are dying to watch. Deni Avdija is a heady ball-mover who enjoys defense — remember when he started forming an “X” with his forearms after stops? — but needs to do more on offense. Rui Hachimura was empty calories last season; he has a lot to prove in the final year of his rookie contract.
Kyle Kuzma was awesome across the board, and elevates NBA fashion. Bradley Beal is one of the league’s most artful three-level scorers — a sleek blend of old school and new school. You often hear how Beal can’t be the No. 1 guy on a title team, but who cares (other than Wiz fans who can recite his salary cap hit in 2027)? How many such players exist? Beal is a star, and would look incredible as the second-best player — and maybe No. 1 scorer — on a great team stacked with defenders. (In other news, the Wiz had a three-year window in which they could have traded Beal for a gazillion draft picks.)
Daniel Gafford is a nasty dunker. Kristaps Porzingis is here.
The funniest random NBA streak is Orlando’s 10-season run ranking 20th or worse in points per possession. That is Dimaggio-level consistency in offensive incompetence. I really hope they are 20th on the last day of the season and go all-out for 19th.
I think we are on rebuild No. 3 post-Dwightmare? This one might take. Paolo Banchero is the offense-first fulcrum the Magic have searched for this entire decade — an all-court hub with the passing and shooting chops to lift his teammates. Franz Wagner is an ideal secondary wing — all heady cuts and snappy passes, with the touch and ball-handling guile to take the reins mid-possession. Wendell Carter Jr. is only 23, and he’s already a decent starting center. They should land another high pick in this draft.
Cole Anthony plays as if he thinks he’s the best player on the floor, and I love it. He’s a solid backup and spot starter.
Everything else is a mystery. Unless Wagner becomes an every-possession point-forward — that seems a stretch — the Magic still need a perimeter orchestrator. What, exactly, is Jalen Suggs?
Jonathan Isaac’s return sometime between now and 2030 would introduce some ultra-modern lineup combinations. Can you go giant, with Wagner and all three of Isaac, Banchero and Carter? What about the center-less front-court of Wagner/Isaac/Banchero? I will never give up on Chuma Okeke!
The broadcast trio of David Steele, Jeff Turner, and Dante Marchitelli is tremendous. They have fun without degenerating into shrill homerism.
This is the floor for a team featuring one of the league’s most inventive passers in LaMelo Ball; Eric Collins’ rapturous play-by-play; Kelly Oubre Jr. talking trash to everyone in earshot; and some of the league’s best and most immediately identifiable art. (Here’s hoping they bring back the mint shade they unveiled two seasons ago; the Hornets can own that.)
This alternate court is another hit:
That all-purple silhouette of a scary-looking Hornet leaps off the screen. The stinger theme echoes along the sideline, and on the outside of the “H” and “S” of the accompanying jersey:
The half-basketball with turquoise lining is the rare instance where dividing the circle by color works.
The Hornets played fast and ranked No. 2 in dunks last season, but almost half those dunks belonged to Miles Bridges and Montrezl Harrell. Steve Clifford teams typically don’t play fast, or experiment with the funky “nothing else is working, let’s try this?” zone defenses James Borrego cooked up.
(Clifford is a really good coach. Even so, we have not spent nearly enough time discussing how hilarious and perfectly Hornets it is that Charlotte hired one coach — Kenny Atkinson — only for him to bail once he got a look inside, and then turned to the coach they fired four years ago.)
Pairing Clifford with a chaos agent like Ball will either result in an untenable tug-of-war or a healthy meeting in the middle. (Clifford has little choice but to play a pile of unproven young guys.) I’m curious how Ball finds his footing in slowed-down, half-court sequences — what moves and passes he leans on, how he incorporates teammates.
Terry Rozier has canned an inexplicable number of clutch jumpers over the last two seasons. There is something mesmerizing about watching Mason Plumlee decide, “Screw it, I’m going to unleash this reeeeeeaaaally slooooooowwwww spin move from the foul line. It’s my time to live, baby!” Did you know Plumlee switched to shooting free throws lefty last season? That happened!
The Knicks played at the league’s second-slowest pace, and their games featured tons of free throws. Their starting five was unwatchable, unless you enjoy Julius Randle, RJ Barrett and Mitchell Robinson bumping into each other. The rollicking bench shocked them to life, and if the basketball gods are kind, we will see more Barrett alongside Obi Toppin and Immanuel Quickley. (You never know when Toppin might stage his own in-game dunk contest.)
Toppin is a quick-twitch ball-mover, and Quickley went up two levels as a playmaker last season. Isaiah Hartenstein will have the ball popping, and stitch the bench together. If Robinson isn’t on point, we might see Hartenstein finish games.
Jalen Brunson should restore order and spacing to the starting five. The Knicks boast Mike Breen and Clyde Frazier, Madison Square Garden’s theater lighting and a pristine royal blue court. (I will drop them one spot if they introduce more black-and-orange art. You are the Knicks of New York freaking City. Do not be Team Halloween!)
I would like an in-game feed of Leon Rose and slouching, hangdog James Dolan sitting next to each other in silence, only the Knicks would never risk accidentally broadcasting Dolan shouting back at fans urging him to sell the team. (The camera might also catch them frowning at Tom Thibodeau’s refusal to play Cam Reddish.)
The potential for cranky Randle turning against the fans again adds to the comedy score.
On the one hand: Houston ranked first in dunks and second in pace, and features a bunch of telegenic young players. Jalen Green goes from zero to 100 in a nanosecond, and hunts bodies at the rim. He can also slow down for smooth midrange pull-ups — a nice break from Houston’s dunks-and-3s credo.
How do you even describe Alperen Sengun? He attempts such unusual feats of pivotry that you sometimes wonder if he traveled even though you just watched him shift both feet three times without dribbling. Was that so weird, it was somehow legal? Sengun could carry the ball 20 steps and still be astonished the referees whistled him for traveling.
He sometimes pass fakes to no one — literally to empty space — just to get defenders leaning into that void. Is it genius or madness?
Kenyon Martin Jr. gets eye to eye with the rim, and dunks like he wants to tear the basket down. Daishen Nix has a little John Bagley/Sherman Douglas-style bulk to his game.
On the other hand: Houston fouled the bejesus out of everyone and gagged up one of the highest turnover rates in recent history; its style of play — young guys running and gunning — lends itself to raggedness.
Tari Eason will clean up the defense. He is here to lock victims up. Jabari Smith Jr. brings some preternatural polish.
Do Derrick Favors and Maurice “I’m coming for Ish Smith’s record” Harkless ever wonder, “Wait, what city am I in?” It hurts the comedy score that Eric Gordon is too professional to write “Trade me!” on his shoes a la Chris Morris.
Boban Marjanovic cameos are always welcome. Every move Garrison Mathews makes — kicking his legs out on jumpers, running smack into picks — carries a hint of danger. Every team needs a Jae’Sean Tate.
This is too low for Sacramento.
You never know when the #KANGZZ might appear in-game. Example: Remember when NBA Twitter kicked into Conspiracy Theory mode because Vivek Ranadive sat courtside between the general manager he had recently fired (Vlade Divac) and Divac’s replacement (Monte McNair)? Because it was the Kings — with their “Game of Thrones”-style power structure and habit of hiring coaches before GMs — anything was possible.
In describing that bizarre scene, Jason Jones of The Athletic recalled Ranadive tweeting happy birthday to Jimmer Fredette (whose selection at No. 10 in 2011 after a nonsensical trade down is another #KANGZZ moment) “while negotiating a buyout [with Fredette] at the same time.” Even the tweet in question has a hidden #KANGZ treasure:
Happy bday @jimmerfredette pic.twitter.com/dyJqAzJBOu
— Vivek Ranadivé (@Vivek) February 26, 2014
Ranadive is making the “hang loose” gesture in front of another photo of him flashing the “hang loose” gesture.
Anyway, Team Play-In-Or-Bust should be a fast-paced scoring machine built around the already sophisticated De’Aaron Fox-Domantas Sabonis two-man game. They are a natural match: opposites in build, but tethered in craft and wink-wink IQ. Sabonis might flip the angle of his screen two, three, four times, and Fox shifts in sync with each move. Sabonis can brutalize switches, push in transition and even run the occasional inverted pick-and-roll.
Malik Monk is a show, Kevin “Red Velvet” Huerter adds shooting and underrated playmaking, and Keegan Murray intrigues. I will miss the Haliburton-Richaun Holmes lob connection, but Holmes’ push shot — the best of its kind — carries on.
Every Kings opponent will score a lot too. Kent Bazemore and Matthew Dellavedova complete your 2010s NBA Mad Libs.
The algorithm is angry Miami discontinued its instantly iconic “Miami Vice”-style jerseys.
The Heat are a sneakily hard sell for casual fans. They were 28th in pace and 26th in dunks, and they foul a lot. Watching Jimmy Butler, Kyle Lowry, and Bam Adebayo make magic in tight spaces is an acquired taste. You have to really pay attention to notice all the smart cuts, shoulder fakes, give-and-gos, and slick interior passes that make Miami’s half-court offense hum — when it hums.
Lowry gets them moving with overzealous full-court hit-aheads. I’m excited to see what Tyler Herro does as a permanent starter. He became over-infatuated — with the team’s encouragement to some degree — with becoming a high-volume pick-and-roll ball handler at the expense of some catch-and-shoot 3s. He should recalibrate 15% or so in the direction of Klay Thompson.
There is something beautiful and almost contradictory about Jimmy Butler’s bruising game. He doesn’t just plow into people. He’s violent and physical, but never reckless. In a blink, he can transition from a burrowing drive into a stop-on-a-dime jumper that drips with surprising softness. He brings the same balletic ferocity to his off-ball cuts. (Butler might be the league’s most underrated cutter.)
Erik Spoelstra has thorny minutes decisions with Duncan Robinson, the (hopefully?) revitalized Victor Oladipo, Gabe Vincent, Caleb Martin, and Max Strus. Don’t sleep on Big Yurt (Omer Yurtseven)!
The flip side of self-serious #HeatCulture is that there is almost nothing funny — unintentionally or otherwise — about the Heat.
There is nothing in basketball like an avalanche of Damian Lillard 3s. In Portland, the buzz builds as fans realize: We might see one of those nights. It reaches a euphoric crescendo when one final 30-footer forces a timeout, and Lillard, scowling, stares and nods at the crowd in his house.
On the road, you hear fear — really hear it. It starts with low murmuring: Uh oh. As the streak unfolds, the noise morphs into a sort of collective shriek that begins when Lillard pauses mid-dribble as if he might launch.
For the first time in ages, the Blazers have surrounded their star with some oomph: Josh Hart rampaging end-to-end; Nassir Little testing the limits of his game; Anfernee Simons flicking 3s and hunting tin; Gary Payton II rim-running and committing felonies on defense; the unknown of Shaedon Sharpe.
Simons might have the league’s prettiest floater; he pogo-sticks into the clouds, above reaching defenders, and flips that baby from all angles.
Trendon Watford has a nifty floater too. Drew Eubanks dunks and swats with rage.
Chauncey Billups might have to start from scratch on defense after last year’s blitzing scheme failed.
The Blazers have the best team name, and maybe the best top-to-bottom art. This floor is close to seizing my No. 1 court design spot from the Lakers:
A few teams have experimented with differently colored painted areas. That contrast works better on the boundaries — as the Blazers have done here. The pinwheel might be the best logo in U.S. sports; whoever decided to extend the striping from the center-court pinwheel onto each sideline deserves a big raise.
Lillard planted the pinwheel smack in the center of the new jersey he helped design — and echoed its striping down the sides:
More teams are trying jerseys showing only their primary logo — no wordmark at all — and the pinwheel is well-suited to that. The Blazers were smart to render the numbers in white instead of black.
This an eight-spot drop from last year, reflecting Lonzo Ball’s importance as Chicago’s fast-break engine and the connective tissue between the disparate styles baked into the roster.
I was gobsmacked watching from courtside last November as the Bulls ran circles around the Lakers at Staples Center. LeBron James didn’t play, but Chicago’s blowout win was so emphatic, his absence seemed almost immaterial. The younger, bouncier, cockier Bulls looked as if they were playing a different sport. They passed and cut and jacked 3s ahead of the Lakers. Ball and Alex Caruso terrorized L.A. on defense. The Lakers quit. The Bulls danced.
That team vanished six weeks later, and has never returned. It got slower, more predictable, over-dependent on DeMar DeRozan’s graceful but somewhat repetitive midrange game. Zach LaVine is the best dunker since Vince Carter, but wings don’t dunk often enough to warp viewing habits; Lavine dunked 62 times in 67 games. (Derrick Jones. Jr. might literally jump over someone at any moment.)
If LaVine cans one or two fading step-back 3s — he’ll do that from the corners too! — definitely stick around. A high-degree-of-difficulty swish-fest may be coming.
Nikola Vucevic is a footwork artist on the block, but playing alongside LaVine and DeRozan marginalized that part of his game and turned him into a run-of-the-mill pick-and-pop shooter; Vucevic averaged eight post touches per 100 possessions, second-lowest of his career, per Second Spectrum.
Ayo Dosunmu and Patrick Williams offer the appeal of the unknown, and how they develop — and how fast — is of immense importance to a team that could be trapped in upper-class mediocrity. Williams’ career could spin in an unusual number of directions; the Bulls might even spot him minutes at center.
Adam Amin and Stacey King keep the broadcast light-hearted, and lose nothing when Jason Benetti fills in. The logo, court, and jerseys (other than anodyne black alternates) are top-notch.
Some fans are concerned about strategic homogeneity — every team playing spread pick-and-roll, chasing the same shots. That concern is overblown, but there is an easy antidote: Watch the positionless, avante-garde basketball experiment unfolding in Toronto!
The Raptors’ rotation amounts to Fred VanVleet and several tall people who can do lots of things on offense and guard everyone on defense. They leverage their length in ways you’d expect, and some you might not: switching, playing wacky zones, bombarding the offensive glass, and posting up size mismatches. They do the unthinkable on defense: allow lots of 3s (basically) on purpose, confident their speed and preposterous arms make for frightening closeouts. (Only Matisse Thybulle has blocked more 3s than Chris Boucher over the past three seasons.)
Playing mismatch ball can be laborious; Toronto possessions after made baskets lasted 18.3 seconds — highest in the league, per Inpredictable. But even the grueling nature of its half-court offense runs counter to trends in a way that makes it appealing.
Scottie Barnes — 6-9 point-whatever — is the perfect foundational player for this ethos, and might soon grasp the superstar tools to lift Toronto’s offense from the muck. He seemed to play last season in second gear, digesting the speed and dimensions of the NBA before pushing the throttle. By the playoffs, he appeared to have a better understanding of how good he could be.
Pascal Siakam is a fine all-around No. 1 option, and VanVleet is that greater-than-his-statistics guy you appreciate more the longer you watch him. Every seemingly innocuous move — every cut, dribble, wink, shoulder fake — opens a few inches of space, and those inches eventually add up to an open shot.
You never know where that first Precious Achiuwa dribble might lead — everything from a dunk to a pass into the fifth row is in play — but his transformation into a stretch center changed Toronto’s offense.
The announcers, court, and red-and-white jerseys are all great. The pitch on Jack Armstrong’s “Get that gah-bage outta here!” call somehow gets higher every season. Thumbs down to the alternate black-and-gold look.
Cade Cunningham has that rare Luka Doncic-style ability to find life in places where possessions often die — in the extended paint with a live dribble that doesn’t appear to be going anywhere, against a set defense.
Cunningham is strong enough to keep pushing, tall enough to see everything. Most of all, he’s smart enough to know how every pivot and twist might manipulate the defense. One lunge inside from a help defender, and zip — the ball finds a shooter. Once Cunningham refines his touch around the rim, every possibility will open up.
Jaden Ivey’s lightning-bolt drives might form the perfect duality alongside Cunningham’s patient game. Corralling the Pistons could someday be like facing consecutive pitches from Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson.
Bojan Bogdanovic widens the floor. Saddiq Bey should find the right water level in his game. Don’t mess with Isaiah Stewart. Beef Stew should shoot more 3s, and he’s the keystone to Detroit’s switch-everything defense. Jalen Duren is a high-flying, rim-munching backup center who might even share the floor with Stewart in short stints.
The rest of the bench is a bit of a mystery.
There’s also this:
Was anyone yearning for the return of the 1990s teal and flaming horse? Do fans like these now? Is the affection ironic or genuine? Do teal and red mesh? The flaming exhaust pipes and “DP” corner logos are kinda cool.
The new black jerseys — with fat striping as a Bad Boys call-out — are a bust. Black has been every team’s “whatever” alternate for a decade, and the blocky, outlined black lettering looks generic.
I do like Detroit’s two main courts, with the edges of a basketball along each sideline echoing the central logo:
The Clips are about as entertaining as it gets for a slowish team that lives on jumpers and rarely flies above the rim. Paul George glides in a way that makes everything (except dribbling through traffic) look effortless.
There is majesty — power, strength, rigid up-and-down precision — to Kawhi Leonard’s pull-up game. Leonard showed two seasons ago that he can still dial up peak Spurs-era sharktopus mode on defense, and there is no wing player alive who instills the same level of panic as Sharktopus Kawhi. He is the rare weakside help defender who dictates terms — vibrating on his toes, arms spread fingertip to fingertip — in that netherworld between a corner shooter and the big man rumbling down the lane. Even the best ball handlers freeze at the sight of that menace: Is Kawhi’s guy open? Oh, wait, Kawhi is gonna apparate into that passing lane. What about the lob inside? Could he snatch that too? Overthink, and Leonard has already won.
If that Leonard is back when it counts, the Clip are in the inner circle of contenders.
John Wall, Norman Powell and Terance Mann are the jolt of head-down, north-south speed this team needs. (The Clips are so deep, a lot of preseason analysis has skirted past Powell. He is a critical variable, and should finish lots of games.) The Clips will play five-out, centerless lineups, and every game will teach us something about which perimeter trios work best around Leonard and George.
You know your art is dull when no one notices the difference between your primary court and the “special” alternate:
These are supposed to be clipper ship sails:
Scrap it all and start over.
Jim Jackson is a broadcasting star.
This is shockingly low for a 64-win team with a layered pick-and-roll attack, potential for drama with Deandre Ayton, and the return of the classic purple sunburst jerseys.
Phoenix even amped up the pace last season, unusual for a Chris Paul team. Devin Booker is a vintage scorer, with his velvety leaning midranger and a sneaky-nasty post game. He and Paul rain old-school fire. Paul’s maximize-every-edge perfectionism can be irritating — the rip-through is coming the second Phoenix enters the bonus — but it’s what makes him who he is.
(It also results in on-court disagreements, one of which gave us the iconic fake-laughing meme. That thing transcends basketball. Try it out in your life. It’s a great way to end those exchanges of small talk with long-lost high school classmates you don’t really like.)
It is so satisfying when Paul kicks that fastidiousness and decides to preen — showing off fancy yo-yo dribbles, or nutmegging someone just because he feels like embarrassing them.
The young guys will stretch themselves; Cameron Johnson piled up 20-plus-point games last season, and Mikal Bridges has dabbled with quick-hitting duck-ins. (Bridges’ defense is a show. He envelopes people — the rare wing defender so long, he can block his own guy’s shot before the ball really escapes the shooter’s hand.)
But we’ve seen and enjoyed this movie enough for now: Paul and Booker snaking their way to midrangers from the right elbow, the Suns’ steadfast defense forcing those same shots on the other end. They are Team Bizarro Shot Selection.
Monty Williams has to suss out roles for Landry Shamet and Dario Saric. Josh Okogie is an in-your-jersey defender. Kevin Ray and Eddie Johnson have great chemistry on the call.
The algorithm underestimates how interesting it will be watching Trae Young and Dejounte Murray figure out how to amplify each other. There could be hiccups over the first 20-plus games. Will Murray make enough catch-and-shoot 3s? Will Young play off the ball, like, at all?
The variety is welcome. Young can do almost whatever he wants against any pick-and-roll scheme. We know about the 3s ands floaters (and foul-baiting flails), but Young still doesn’t get enough credit for his next-level anticipatory passing. He sees everything early, and can make almost any pass — including long lefty slingshots and other across-the-floor reads off-limits to most 6-1 guards.
Still: Too much of anything gets redundant, and Murray offers a reprieve — plus the ability to float across huge chunks of space on defense.
Young’s lob passing makes Atlanta a perennial top-10 dunk team. John Collins gets way above the rim and finishes with panache and power. Onyeka Okongwu is a two-handed thunder dunker. Okongwu will be a starter sooner than later; he and De’Andre Hunter are the biggest X factors for the Hawks now.
Young leaning into WWE-level villainy is great television. Bogdan Bogdanovic punctuates hot streaks with sumptuous snarling trash talk. Aaron Holiday is a little cinder block who attacks the rim with the aggression of someone a foot taller.
We’re in the range where every team feels too low, and this will indeed end up low for the Cavaliers. Between their four stars, Cleveland has something for every fan. Donovan Mitchell supplies the highlights; he is a hunched blur, attacking along sharp diagonals and seeking to inflict pain at the rim. Jarrett Allen fears no dunker at the summit. Darius Garland is all staccato craft and demoralizing ultra-long 3s. Evan Mobley is getting ready to show the breadth of his game. They all complement each other.
I have never liked the Cavs wine-and-gold scheme, but their creative team has produced a clean new jersey set:
Both shades are muted in a pleasing way. The Cavs found a spot — on the left side of the shorts — where their gigantic “C” stands out without dominating. Turning the “V” in “Cavs” into a basket is a nice homage to the Mark Price/Brad Daugherty era.
They’ve cleaned up the court too, refilling the painted areas and erasing the shaded city skyline:
We need another Ricky Rubio–Kevin Love reunion tour. Remember how unhappy Love seemed as the lone championship holdover on a rebuilding team? That story almost never ends with said veteran sticking around to enjoy the fruits of that rebuild, and it’s remarkable Love is here and happy.
J.B. Bickerstaff proved last season that he is willing to buck convention: ultra-big lineups, Mobley lording over the top of zone defenses, copious amounts of Dean Wade.
For reasons I can’t explain, I enjoy how Robin Lopez sits on the floor in the corner instead of on the bench.
John Michael and Austin Carr are a nice mix — the serious one and the silly cackler. Keep an eye on Michael at the broadcast table, standing and leaning and crouching to keep eyes on the action. He does not want to watch through a monitor.
Joel Embiid guarantees a top-12 finish here. Few athletes have ever combined so much grace, power and high-IQ feel. On three straight possessions, Embiid might: rain in a soft midranger; then obliterate someone on the block and dunk them through the floor; and finally pump-and-go from the arc, Eurostep around one sucker, and kiss in a falling layup.
The James Harden-Embiid two-man game was so potent, Embiid so effective scoring off Harden’s pocket passes, defenses resorted to desperate and dangerous counters: Should we, umm, not even leave Embiid and just let Harden drive almost to the rim — and then swarm from one of Philly’s shooters? We get to see a whole season of that cat-and-mouse-and-beard game. (They lose points for how many free throws they generate. It’s a slog.)
Tyrese Maxey takes over when Harden rests, but he’s almost more fun playing off Philly’s two stars. He waits along the arc, like a sprinter in the starting block, primed to catch a kickout and fly through the diagonal crease Harden has unlocked.
Matisse Thybulle teleports on defense. He is way over there, and then suddenly and implausibly, he is blocking your shot. There is a feast-or-famine element to almost every Philly reserve. You can’t look away.
Philly a top-four art team. Kate Scott and Alaa Abdelnaby are talented enough that they don’t have to resort to homerish propaganda. It hurts the credibility of the overall product.
I appreciate referees for allowing Montrezl Harrell to do pull-ups on the rim after dunks. I’d watch a broadcast that just zooms in on P.J. Tucker making life miserable for opponents.
Stay tuned for the top-10 on Thursday!
