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  • Why Do So Many People Hate Pace-and-Space?

    Why Do So Many People Hate Pace-and-Space?

    I OFTEN THINK ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF BASKETBALL and the way the narratives and perceptions surrounding different eras of the game metamorphosize over time. So I naturally found it interesting when NBA and international elder statesman Pau Gasol — one of the league’s most consistently thoughtful people — recently said the following:

    “It has changed a lot. For me, the big change is the game itself. There are very fast shots, very short possessions, few passes in each attack. There are many hasty shots. When I was younger, some of the shots that are attempted today would have seen the coach send you to the bench as a punishment. Now it is encouraged to shoot in the first eight seconds of possession. It has lost the beauty of the game, the purity it had, the fact of moving the ball from one side to the other, the ball inside-outside, which was to play with two in the post. Now there are times when there are teams that play with five small guys. [Mario] Hezonja played the other day as center with us.”

    He continues, “I don’t know, it’s different. I want to keep fighting, I think you can win by playing with two tall players. I wish I could contribute to this theory, really, in the time I have left as a player. The fact is that the NBA likes this dynamism, this speed. This is how society and the world, in general, are evolving. Everything is like that, everything is more dynamic, faster.”

    Via Marca

    A lot to unpack there. While we could debate the value judgment he seems to be attaching to it, concluding the NBA acts as a sort of mirror for the broader accelerated culture around us is probably a fair assessment. It is also its own dissertation or 300-page hardcover book, so let’s set it aside for the time being.

    Instead, let’s talk about a very specific word he uses, and what it means for the larger conversation about the stylistic direction of the league: “purity.” If Pau’s phrasing were any more loaded, it would be belting out “Don’t Stop Believin’” at a karaoke bar at 1:30 AM. With one word, he is effectively subtweeting an entire generation of players, fans, coaches, and executives. While it’s amusing to see an ACTIVE NBA PLAYER already deploying the “back in my day” rant, there’s nothing all that interesting or novel about it. We’ve seen nearly every legend who came up in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s make the same argument, and it will smack of the same cognitive bias/narcissism/ego it always has until the very end of time. Nothing new under the sun. [The truly hilarious part is seeing someone wax nostalgic about the early/mid aughts — widely considered the single worst era in NBA history — as some sort of Golden Age of Beautiful Basketball. I was there. It was mostly lousy.]

    But this idea of the “purity” of the game is something different. The not-so-subtle inference Pau is making is the shot which results from an offensive possession is not meant to be predetermined. It is purely a function of the movement which preceded it and the ecosystem in which it takes place. By contrast, he’s saying today’s players are essentially reverse engineering possessions to get to the most efficient shot as quickly as possible, rather than the “right” shot. It’s a plea for art over science, and at some aesthetic level, he isn’t wrong.

    The challenge with the argument is it elevates a secondary goal over a primary one. The objective of basketball is to score more points than the other team, not to realize some Platonic ideal of hoops artistry. Strategies evolve to best meet the primary objective, and if the unintended consequences of those changes become too much of a drag on the entertainment factor for the fans, the league eventually adjusts the rules, at which point the process begins anew. For the NBA, it’s an unending struggle to find the proper balance. We’re currently in the middle of the cycle, which is why these aesthetic considerations are gaining traction. Overall, the NBA business continues to prosper amid a talent boom and a growing cohort of young and international fans with an appetite for the pace-and-space style of play. Yes, we all tend to have stronger associations with experiences from formative periods in our lives, but that’s only part of the explanation.

    Stats are not the be-all, end-all in this sort of discussion, but they can help us interpret what our eyes see. In this case, they confirm Pau’s assertion: the game is faster and more dynamic. The following are all incontrovertible facts:

    • Over the first 160 games of the ’19-’20 season, the league average pace is 102.2 possessions per 48 minutes. The NBA has not played this fast since the early/mid-80’s, an era many old school fans view as the apex of entertaining team play.
    • In the 2018-19 season, the league average for Effective Field Goal Percentage (which accounts for the added value of a made 3-pointer) was 52.4%, an all-time high. The average Turnover Percentage was 12.4%, an all-time low. The average Offensive Rating was 110.4 — you guessed it — an all-time high. And the average Free Throws per Field Goal Attempt, a good measure of how frequently the game is being stopped for foul shots, was .198, one of the lowest in history.
    • The average team notched 24.4 assists per 100 possessions last season, the highest figure since 1995-96, which for the record, was five years before Pau Gasol was drafted. [Related: Second Spectrum tracks Passes Thrown, but this data only goes back to 2013-14, so it’s unclear how current trends stack up relative to earlier eras.]
    • The top-10 teams by Defensive Rating last season won an average of 48.2 games. So far this season, the top-10 are a combined 71-36.

    Taken together, this data suggests a league which plays fast, clean (in terms of fouls and turnovers), and efficient. The ball moves, and the most successful teams are generally the ones who play the best defense. The depth of talent is at an all-time high, the league is full of multi-skilled players at every position (or no position, depending on your vantage point), and the lumbering big men have mostly been driven into extinction.

    So what is there not to like about the pace-and-space era? Why is there such a large contingent of people who disapprove of the on-court product, when by nearly any objective standard, the game of basketball itself is being played better?

    I’m not here to crap on Pau Gasol, but it’s not difficult to draw a through line from “I’m a post-up big man who doesn’t run the floor well or defend in space” to “it makes me sad the league is phasing out players like me.” Gasol has a vested interest in his legacy at this point of his career, and propping up the version of the game which allowed him to be his best self serves those interests. Fine.

    But his stated argument boils down to “bad shot selection is ruining the beauty of the game.” If these “hasty” shots early in the shot clock aren’t actually the result of less passing (which we have no identifiable evidence of), and they ultimately result in more points being scored, both in total and on a per-possession basis, then what exactly about them hurts the “beauty” and “purity” of the game? When you strip everything else away, it sounds an awful lot like Gasol — a Hall of Fame player and basketball genius, mind you — is essentially making the same argument as all the old school nostalgics out there on the interwebs: “I don’t like all these durned three pointers.”

    THE MIGRATION FROM the post up-centric attack (and its supposedly extinct bastard cousin, the midrange game) to the slash-and-kick, three-heavy modern style has been well-documented by now. When Pau entered the league (2001-02), teams averaged 16.1 three point attempts per 100 possessions. In the early stages of this season, that pace has almost exactly doubled (32.3). While post ups have become less frequent over time, the percentage of shots taken from ten feet and in has remained mostly stable throughout the century. [The field goal percentage on these shots has gradually increased, probably a result of the combo of less inefficient post ups and better spacing to attack the hoop.] No matter how much shot profiles have changed, the area around the rim remains the most important real estate in basketball.

    Most of the difference has come in the form of midrange jumpers and long twos becoming threes, especially from role players. Star shot creators still utilize the midrange extensively — seriously, watch any Kawhi Leonard game — but if you aren’t a primary creator, you damn well better be able to catch and shoot from beyond the arc in 2019. [If you want the actual numbers, here they are: in ’01-’02, 38.3% of field goal attempts came from between 10 feet and the 3-point line, vs. 18.1% from downtown. In ’19-’20, those figures have essentially flip-flopped, with 17.7% of shots coming from midrange and 37.2% from deep.] The spacing and the math work symbiotically. Dragging defenders out further opens up driving lanes, and while league average from midrange/long two usually hovers around 38-40%, league average from three is typically around 35-36%. People can resist embracing analytics all they want, but there is simply no way to fight the math on this one. It’s here to stay.

    [The exception that proves the rule is, of course, former Gasol teammate LaMarcus Aldridge, who shoots over 50% of his shots from midrange AND is consistently one of the leaders in post up attempts per season. He’s been an All-Star seven times, including the last two seasons as the league-wide three-point barrage has continued to ramp up. If you want to read more about the Spurs’ tug-of-war between the past and the future, The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor wrote an excellent breakdown of it here.]

    As I mentioned, a full 37% of field goal attempts have been threes this year. Definitely a high number, but not exactly the reductive, “it’s just Pop-a-Shot now” argument emanating from the online fever swamp. Two factors are likely fueling the aesthetic backlash to the pace-and-space revolution. First, like most revolutions, it has happened a lot faster than we realize. Average three-point attempts per 100 possessions didn’t crack ten until 1993-94. It ticked up briefly when the league moved the line in from ’94-’97, but then regressed again, and didn’t hit 20 until 2011-12. So it took 18 full seasons for the rate to go up by ten attempts per 100 possessions. In the ensuing 7+ seasons, the rate has gone up by another 12.3 attempts. Fans, especially long-time ones, can tend to be slow in embracing stylistic changes, regardless of sport. [Ask any 50-or-older person what he/she thinks of the shift in baseball, and then brace yourself for the string of profanities to come.] And this shooting diaspora has been anything but gradual. The speed and geometry of the game look vastly different in 2019 than they did even five years ago, when the Warriors first became THE WARRIORS. [Seriously, that was only five years ago, even if it feels like a lifetime in NBA years.]

    This leads to the second factor, which ties in with Pau’s original point: it isn’t just the location of the shots, but the types of shots, who is shooting them, and when. Hunting corner threes as an offensive goal feels quaint now, because it is. The efficiency of the corner three remains robust as ever (league average is between 38-40% virtually every year, almost identical to all those “lost art” midrangers), but as defenses have evolved to limit the damage from these juicy shots, the percentage of corner treys as a function of total three-point attempts has consistently dropped. [Overall, corner three attempts account for only 19.9% of total attempts from deep so far this season, down from 25.3% in 2014-15.] You can’t have pace-and-space without the latter part, so as that profitable area on the court has been neutralized to an extent, offenses have acted like residents of metropolitan areas and sought out space in the only place it is available: by expanding outward.

    Above-the-break threes as well as deep threes have become purposeful weapons as opposed to end-of-clock last resorts. Stars such as Steph Curry, James Harden, Trae Young, Dame Lillard, Luka Doncic, and even LeBron James have all expanded their games by increasing the amount of court in which they have to be guarded. Without a doubt, seeing a guy pull up off the dribble from 30+ feet away, especially in transition, can be triggering for basketball purists, and understandably so. It is the very definition of what we’ve all considered a “bad shot” (or “hasty,” in Pau’s words) for as long as we’ve been alive. And lesser players certainly shouldn’t be attempting such high degree-of-difficulty shots early in the clock, when something better may be available. No argument there. But if a star player can 1) make the shot with reasonable proficiency, and 2) force the defense to stretch itself even thinner on subsequent possessions, thus creating more space to attack the basket, then is the problem one of shot selection, or merely our own lack of imagination?

    So far, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about league averages because they are a useful shorthand for the overarching trends we’re witnessing. It’s also important, however, to zoom in from the ten thousand-foot view of the debate and look at the extremes to see how they inform it. At one end, there are the Spurs, shooting by far the most midrange shots — primarily due to the throwback games of Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan — while ranking 29th in 3-point attempt rate. [KOC’s piece does point out how San Antonio has embraced some pace-and-space elements, particularly during non-LMA/DeRozan minutes. Dejounte Murray appears to be shot out of a cannon whenever he gets in transition, and it should come as no surprise Gregg Popovich is figuring out how to use the entire buffalo when it comes to the skill sets on his roster. Even so, San Antonio currently sits at 5-6, ninth in the crowded West.]

    The polar opposite of the Spurs’ retrograde attack is, of course, the Houston Rockets. Houston is 8-3 (currently tied for 2nd in the West), though their schedule has been soft and their play a tad uneven to this point. In any case, the Rockets are the distillation of Pau’s point, playing at the league’s second-fastest pace, excising post ups and midrange jumpers from their arsenal almost entirely, and taking over half of their field goal attempts from beyond the arc, by far the highest in the league. Owing mainly to the isolation brilliance of James Harden, the Rockets have the league’s highest free throw rate, and despite their stratospheric 3-point rate, they are 29th in the league in percentage of 3-point makes which are assisted. [Portland is dead last, which makes sense given how Damian Lillard is basically doing a poor man’s Harden this season. But Dame’s got bars, so I guess that’s better?] The Rockets rank near the bottom of the league in both Passes Thrown and assists per game. Pau might as well have looked straight into the camera and said, “I’m talking about you, Houston. Fuck you.”

    Dumping on Houston’s style (and Harden’s theatrics) has become a cottage industry. It’s hard to argue against the idea they’ve turned basketball games into science experiments, testing the limits of analytics on winning in real time. [This line of thinking discounts how the math doesn’t work without a transcendent creator like Harden doing the heavy lifting, but I digress.] Here’s the thing: once again, it is not the Rockets’ job to play a style of basketball which the average fan finds scintillating. It is their job to win games, a task at which they have been consistently successful since Harden came over from Oklahoma City. Why does it cheapen the game to see how far they can run with a specific idea? Isn’t there some artistry in pushing boundaries? And even if you don’t believe that, then you aren’t contractually obligated to consider it some sort of blight on the purity of the game — just root against them!

    In the long run, the league always adapts its rules to create a better equilibrium between competitive balance and entertainment value. They widened the lane, added the three-pointer, adopted the Defensive Three Second Rule (a sneaky-important change in league history), and abolished the hand check, among many other tweaks. We aren’t there yet, but if the analytics/three-point boom threaten to overwhelm our fundamental concept of how basketball works — say, teams begin selling out so hard to stop threes that they willingly concede open layups and dunks as their overall defensive strategy — then the NBA will make changes to reestablish homeostasis. [They could move the line back, or get rid of the break (effectively removing the corner three), or eliminate three-shot fouls, or change the size/shape of the lane to encourage easier post play, or tighten up enforcement of illegal screens (for real this time), etc.] Point is, there are ways to legislatively counteract the math if it comes to that. For now, let’s give the defenses more time to adjust to this new paradigm before we throw the baby out with the bath water.

    The league remains in a phenomenal place, illustrated by the fact we’re left to argue about such abstract things as stylistic beauty and purity, as opposed to tangible things like head injuries, or PED use (yeah, I know), or financial issues, or criminal scandals. Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion on which version of the NBA game is/was “best” in an entertainment sense, but trying to argue the game we’re watching now is objectively worse than what we grew up with amounts to little more than “get off my lawn” curmudgeon-speak.

    Get on my lawn. The grass is plenty green over here, and as pure as a transition 32-footer splashing the net.

    All stats accurate through Wednesday night’s games, and courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

    Top Photo Credit: Soobum Im/USA TODAY Sports

  • The Miami Heat Are Trying To Crash The NBA Contender Party

    The Miami Heat Are Trying To Crash The NBA Contender Party

    If someone had told me two weeks ago Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra would be doling out approximately 106 combined minutes per night to the foursome of Tyler Herro, Duncan Robinson, Meyers Leonard, and undrafted rookie Kendrick Nunn, my reaction would have been that picking them to finish fifth in the East was more than a bit of a reach. Yet here we are. The Heat are sitting at 5-1 against a non-patsy slate of opponents, despite new alpha dog Jimmy Butler missing three games for the birth of his child, and the style of basketball they are playing appears mostly sustainable. In the early going, it’s easy to focus on teams which have disappointed (like Golden State, Sacramento, Brooklyn, and Chicago), but on the other side of the coin, there is a success story brewing in South Beach, where Spo has taken a roster full of misfit toys and quickly forged it into something with the vague outlines of a contender. The Heat won’t win sixty games (like the burgeoning colossus in Philadelphia), but we’ve seen enough to conclude this is a squad with a chance to make some real noise in the East.

    The numbers paint an incomplete picture at this early juncture of the season, but even with all small sample size caveats applied, everything’s coming up Milhouse for the Heat through their first six games. The defense has been predictably stout, with Miami sitting at third in Defensive Rating (behind only the Lakers and Jazz). The pleasant surprise has come on the offensive end, where Miami has jumped from 26th in Offensive Rating in ’18-’19 all the way to 7th this year on the strength of a much faster pace (6th in ’19-’20 vs. 23rd last year) and perhaps unsustainable outside shooting (40.1% from deep as a team). They are eighth in the league in 3-point attempt rate, second in free throw rate, and first in True Shooting Percentage. The playmaking chops of wings Butler and Justise Winslow allow Spoelstra to play big minutes without a traditional point guard — veteran Goran Dragic is averaging around 27 minutes a night and there are no other “true” PGs on the roster — which contributes to the strength and versatility of the defense. Put it all together — a fast-paced attack which shoots efficiently from every level without sacrificing anything on defense — and it should come as little surprise Miami currently leads the league in both point differential and net rating.

    Butler has struggled from the field, but otherwise he’s been as-advertised, and plugging him in as the offensive hub has enabled everyone else to slot into the proper role. They’ve been highly egalitarian, with eight players averaging double-figure points and no Usage Rate higher than 26.1 percent. Dragic has embraced the sixth-man role and is as steady as ever. In his third season, big man Bam Adebayo has stepped into a starting spot and thrived as an across-the-board producer, including a double take-inducing 5.2 assists and 3.0 “stocks” (steals plus blocks) per game. His defensive awareness has improved by leaps and bounds, and he is even experimenting with adding corner threes to his arsenal. If Bam achieves even basic competence from the corners, his ceiling goes from “above average starter” to “possible All-Star.”

    First-round pick Tyler Herro has immediately proven he belongs on an NBA court. He’s been exactly the confident shooter he was billed as coming out of Kentucky (36.4% from deep on 5.5 attempts per game), but he’s also flashed more of a floor game than his reputation suggested. [John Calipari keeping the full breadth of his players’ talents under wraps — a tradition unlike any other.] Herro is averaging 15.7/ 6.0/ 2.8 in a robust 32.5 minutes a night, and there’s no reason to suspect his role will diminish going forward.

    With all due respect to Herro, the true rookie surprise has been the little-known Kendrick Nunn. The 6-foot-2 shooting guard has taken a circuitous route to NBA stardom. He played three seasons at Illinois before being dismissed from the team in response to a domestic violence allegation. [Nunn pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was sentenced to community service and counseling.] He later played one season at mid-major Oakland, but went undrafted in 2018 despite averaging 25.9 points per game his senior season. He signed a partially guaranteed deal with the Warriors, but was waived in training camp and assigned to their G League team, where he averaged 19 points per game for Santa Cruz last season.

    Miami scooped up Nunn at the tail end of last season, signing him to a partially guaranteed, “prove it” deal which runs through next season. He has rewarded Miami for giving him the opportunity by leading the Heat in scoring (19.5 PPG) on blazing 44.4% shooting from three. As an undersized two-guard, it remains to be seen whether Nunn can hold up on defense over the course of a full season, but conjuring up a starting-caliber player out of thin air is the sort of personnel move which can instantly change the trajectory of a season. Credit to Pat Riley and his staff for unearthing a diamond in the rough.

    Nunn isn’t the only unheralded player from whom Miami has gotten contributions. Brazilian rookie big man Chris Silva has been an able-bodied banger in limited minutes. Meyers Leonard has been resurrected after being discarded by Portland, and is hitting 62% of his threes thus far (on an admittedly small number of attempts, but still). And former Michigan forward Duncan Robinson has given the Heat another rangy wing who can space the floor (17-of-34 from deep in 22 minutes a night). [Leonard and Robinson give Miami the added benefit of being able to run out a credible “whitewash” lineup (Dragic, Herro, Robinson, Leonard, and Olynyk) which can actually hold its own, a rarity in the modern NBA. This 5-man combo has yet to take the floor together, but a guy can dream.] Veteran bruiser James “Bloodsport” Johnson is back after missing the first five games, and Dion Waiters is once again available to play, though it’s debatable whether or not that qualifies as a good thing. Point is, Miami is strong, deep, skilled, and versatile, all of which suggests they should be able to hang in virtually any matchup under the sun.

    So start planning the parade down South Beach, right? Slow down. Again, it’s only a six game sample, and they’ve already had some things break their way. The first game was against Memphis, an inarguably bad team. Their most recent game was against Houston, a good team currently moonlighting as a crappy, dysfunctional one. In-between, they won back-to-back games against Atlanta where Trae Young injured his ankle early in the first and subsequently didn’t suit up for the second. [With Young in the lineup, the Hawks are an exciting, dynamic young team. Without him, they are one of the very worst teams in the league.] The Heat tried to give away the Milwaukee game in every conceivable way, and the Bucks simply refused to take it. If a handful of plays had gone differently over the last two weeks, we’re probably not having this conversation.

    Beyond the sample size, there are roster considerations to work out as well. As Johnson and Waiters re-integrate, will there be a minutes crunch? How will it affect the overall team dynamic if guys see their roles reduced? Miami’s culture is built to handle these types of stresses, but it doesn’t guarantee anything. Fair or not, character questions will hang over Nunn until further notice, and Johnson, Waiters, and especially Butler are all known to be somewhat volatile personalities, if we’re being charitable. Teams tend to take on the mindset of their leader, and with those other guys alongside Butler, the potential for knucklehead cross-mojonation is very real. The outside shooting will likely regress to the mean, and Herro and Nunn could both be reined in as teams develop scouting reports on them. They face a grueling, three-games-in-four-nights road stretch the rest of this week (against Denver Tuesday night, followed by a back-to-back against the upstart Suns and rampaging Lakers on Thursday and Friday) before the slate eases up some again. The Heat could easily be 5-4 by the time they return home to play Detroit a week from now, at which point we would interpret their opening stretch in a rather different light. But that’s life in the NBA.

    The season will ebb and flow, but for now, Miami has staked a claim to a spot in the top group of Eastern Conference squads, along with Philly, Milwaukee, Boston, and Toronto. Those wins are in the bank, the style which rendered them appears sustainable, and Pat Riley could yet have a trade to make to further shore up the roster. For a franchise considered little more than an also-ran just a few weeks ago, thrusting itself into the mix in a wide-open East counts as a rousing success.

    Top Photo Credit: Steve Mitchell/USA TODAY Sports

  • Kit KAT: The NBA’s Opening Week As Halloween Candy

    Kit KAT: The NBA’s Opening Week As Halloween Candy

    The NBA season is now a week old, and with Halloween approaching, there has already been no shortage of tricks and treats. Since the only thing better than a tiny candy bar is a good gimmick, today we’ll combine the two, comparing early surprises and story lines to the best (and worst) treats one can happen upon while wandering the darkened streets in search of Type 2 diabetes. Where else to begin but with the league’s most impressive player over the opening stretch…

    Karl-Anthony Towns — Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup:

    You thought I was going to say Kit Kat, didn’t you? Far too easy. No, to properly appreciate the league’s most dominant interior-exterior threat over the first week, we need only look to the king of all single-serving candies, the mighty Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Towns has been the driving force in Minnesota’s unexpected 3-0 start, and his balanced, unicorn-like play at both ends would make even the delectable combination of chocolate and peanut butter envious. The numbers are majestic: 32.0/ 13.3/ 5.0 plus 3 steals and 2 blocks per contest, 51.7% from three (on 9.7 attempts per game — for a center!), a +39 net rating per 100 possessions, a 40.5 PER, and .423 Win Shares per 48 minutes. Statisticians have been scrounging to find historical comps for KAT’s fast start, and the name which keeps coming up is Wilt Chamberlain. That’s usually a good sign you’re doing some impressive work.

    No doubt he’ll regress to the mean to a degree, and the Wolves almost certainly won’t remain at the top of the West for too long. But in his age-24 season, the leap Towns is making appears very real. Most of us already knew what a lethal, multifaceted offensive threat he was, though his increasing comfort as a shooter and playmaker is encouraging. What could really propel him to the tippy-top tier of the league’s hierarchy (and perhaps the MVP discussion if the team keeps winning) are the strides he’s made on the defensive end.

    His blocks and steals are up, of course, but the impressive part has been the improvement of his timing and instincts. He doesn’t wildly chase near-impossible blocks as much, and correspondingly isn’t committing silly fouls or leaving the weak side glass unmanned for offensive rebounds. [The play in the third quarter against Charlotte is a great example. Towns thinks about going after the floater by Marvin Williams, realizes Josh Okogie is in position, and retreats to the other side of the rim, where he’s waiting for the defensive rebound. No chance he makes that read in previous seasons.] KAT appears stronger in traffic, snaring contested rebounds and attacking double teams aggressively. His ability to bang on the interior means coach Ryan Saunders can mostly pair him with Robert Covington and/or Jake Layman in the front court, making the defense more versatile and switchable.

    Offensively, KAT is on another planet. He’s reading the now-mandatory double teams quickly and hitting open cutters and shooters on-time and on-target. His jump hook remains unstoppable. He looks smooth attacking off the dribble, and he finishes well through contact at the rim. Just take those elements, and we’re talking about an elite offensive weapon. Then add his marksmanship from deep, where his unorthodox set shot allows him to release the ball quickly, and he becomes a nightmare to contain.

    The caveat here is that Brooklyn and Charlotte don’t exactly look like world-beaters, and Towns was “held” to a 23/11/4 line on 38% shooting against a better defense at home vs. Miami on Sunday night. He will have to prove his monster production and elite defense can continue as the Wolves begin to face the gantlet of Western Conference foes. But for everyone who has been waiting for his performance to catch up to his prodigious talent, KAT’s start has got to be extra sweet.

    Trae Young and Luka Doncic — Twix:

    The running joke in Twix’s ad campaign is that even though both Twix bars in a package are fundamentally the same, everyone has to take a side and choose which one they prefer. Much the same is true of these two second-year phenoms who were swapped for one another on draft night, and whose careers will forever be viewed in parallel. Just as there is no right answer in the left Twix vs. right Twix “debate,” the answer to the question “Did Dallas or Atlanta win the Doncic/Young trade?” may end up being, “Yes.”

    Both players have built off their historic rookie seasons and come out blazing in Year Two. At only 20 years old, Doncic looks the part of one of Earth’s greatest players, averaging a monstrous 29.3/ 10.3/ 7.3 on 50/31/79 shooting during the Mavs’ 2-1 start. Young has been even more lights-out for the upstart 2-1 Hawks, checking in at 34.0/ 6.0/ 9.0 on preposterous 52/52/81 shooting. Young’s stats will inevitably normalize (Luka’s, maybe not?), but in any case, both guys are light years ahead of schedule, even factoring in the considerable hype surrounding them. They’ll each probably crack their first (but certainly not last) All-Star roster this season, and All-NBA nods aren’t out of the question. [The latter would be a pretty big deal if it happened. Since the turn of the century, a number of players have made an All-NBA team during their third season, but only LeBron James and Dwyane Wade were chosen in their second season, when they both received second-team honors back in 2004-05. That was in a league with a much more diluted talent pool, however, so Trae and Luka are swimming upstream on this one.]

    Accolades or no, Young and Doncic (and Towns!) represent the vanguard of a league-wide trend: the NBA is stacked with under-25 talent right now. For all the challenges the league faces in terms of changing media and political landscapes, in the end, star talent and quality of play are what drive success. With Trae and Luka putting up bonkers numbers and pushing the sport forward stylistically, the game is in good hands.

    Phoenix Suns and Atlanta Hawks — 100 Grand:

    Like the 100 Grand bar, these squads were no one’s first choice, but they both provide an unexpectedly fun and satisfying experience. The Suns are 2-2 after a narrow loss to Utah on Monday night, but their current .500 record qualifies as a win given how they’ve looked, the competition they’ve faced, and the depths from which they are emerging as a franchise. Even without starting center DeAndre Ayton (suspended 25 games for testing positive for a diuretic), Phoenix has been shockingly competent on both ends against legit Western contenders, with close losses to Denver and Utah sandwiching an impressive win over the Clippers.

    Their offseason moves didn’t garner a lot of attention, but the net result is a roster which, for once, actually goes 10-11 deep with real NBA players. Kelly Oubre, Jr., now 24, is finally getting starter’s minutes and has become something like the player the Wizards thought they were drafting (20.5/ 6.3/ 1.8 on 47/33/91 shooting). Frank Kaminsky is playing the best ball of his career in place of Ayton. [Even Frank the Tank, who it feels like has been in our lives forever, is still only 26 years old, the very beginning of most players’ primes. I know I harp on this a lot, but we as fans have to stop judging these guys when they’re 22 or 23. They are not the players they will one day become, and most will also have a change of scenery at some point which will alter their professional destinies. OK, rant over.] Jevon Carter and Aron Baynes are both brick walls on defense who have also been hitting from outside, and Dario Saric, Tyler Johnson, Cam Johnson (no relation), and Mikal Bridges all offer positional versatility and at least theoretical floor spacing.

    At the top of the roster, Devin Booker is still getting his as the focal point of the offense, and has been less disastrous on defense with better talent and a better scheme around him. He has also benefited from being off-ball a bit more with the addition of Ricky Rubio at point guard. Rubio really has been in our lives forever at this point, and we know what he is, namely a perfect fit for a young team in need of a competent, professional floor general to get guys in the right positions and feed them the ball accurately. He was miscast in Utah because he’s a “floor raiser,” not a “ceiling raiser.” He’s never going to be the missing piece of a championship puzzle (what the Jazz needed), because the one giant hole in his game (scoring) becomes a glaring weakness in that environment. However, for a team like Phoenix, with strong scorers already in place but still trying to get the trains to run on time, Rubio is a terrific adult to have in the room. His shooting has been predictably poor thus far, but his floor game is robust as ever, to the tune of near triple-double averages (10.0/ 8.0/ 9.3) and his usual underrated defense.

    That defense has been the truly unexpected surprise which has vaulted this edition of the Suns to at least something like mediocrity. After finishing the last four seasons 25th, 28th, 30th, and 29th in Defensive Rating, they are currently sitting at 6th against a difficult slate of opponents, and nothing about their performance seems fluky or prone to regression. They have long-armed, active defenders at nearly every spot in the rotation, and new head coach Monty Williams looks like a massive upgrade on the Hornacek/Watson/Triano/Kokoskov turducken of incompetence they’ve offered up for the slaughter over the last few seasons. When Ayton returns, he could even be a net positive on defense as well. I’ve given him a lot of crap in this space for how egregiously he mailed in his lone season at Arizona, but to his credit, he has worked hard and shown improvement thus far as a pro. [Ayton is the basketball equivalent of Cam Newton. Both were no. 1 overall picks with all the physical talent in the world, whose transitions from college to pro removed the only obstacle to their success — the ability to get paid. Allegedly.]

    Cracking the playoff field is probably still a bridge too far for this squad, with the West being the bloodbath it is. But merely escaping from the league’s sub-basement and allowing their fans to bask in some, ahem, sunshine still counts as an unqualified success. Now let’s hope cheesedick owner Robert Sarver stays out of the damn way.

    We already talked about Trae and the Hawks above, but like Phoenix, this is another team which has risen from the ashes and put together an entertaining, competitive young team. They took a tough 105-103 loss at the hands of the gargantuan Sixers on Monday night to drop to 2-1, but through three games, they look like a team ready to stir up some shit in the wide-open Eastern Conference. Shot attempts are down a bit for third-year big John Collins, but they should bounce back as Young’s unsustainable Usage Rate normalizes, and Collins will still be an All-Star candidate this season. De’Andre Hunter looks like a ready-made, 3-and-D combo forward, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he develops into more as the season progresses. Alex Len is a solid traditional center who can play as much or as little as the matchup dictates. The bench options aren’t awe-inspiring, but there’s enough of a combination of stuff there that it shouldn’t cost them too many leads or games.

    This team will go as far as Young and Collins take it, but with wins already in the bank against 2019 playoff teams Detroit and Orlando, the proof of concept is there.

    Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images

    Indiana Pacers and Sacramento Kings — Good & Plenty

    The most disappointing possible candy goes to our two most disappointing teams to begin the year. [Apologies to those strange birds who enjoy licorice candies, but I am all the way out.] There were red flags going into the season for the Pacers. Besides the indefinite absence of Victor Oladipo, fit questions swirled around the front court pairing of Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis. Malcolm Brogdon had never before acted as a primary creator. [So far, so good on that front — he’s averaging 22.3/ 4.3/ 10.7 on blistering 46/44/94 shooting.] The wing depth is suspect. They have three dudes in their rotation named T.J. [OK, maybe not a red flag per se, but definitely a curiosity.]

    Even so, Indiana’s 0-3 start has been particularly disheartening. Two of the losses have come at the hands of the Blake Griffin-less Pistons, which book-ended a spanking by the rebuilding Cavs. The combined size of Turner and Sabonis is supposed to be the strength of this club, yet they’ve been manhandled by the likes of Andre Drummond, Tristan Thompson, Kevin Love, and even Christian Wood. Their early-season slate is rather forgiving (next 5 games: @Brooklyn, vs. Cleveland, vs. Chicago, @Charlotte, vs. Washington), so they can still right the ship. But if they can’t make hay while the sun shines on the schedule, the season could go south with a quickness. Calls to trade one of the bigs will intensify if the duo proves untenable. Oladipo will be brought back even more slowly if the season is in the tank. We should all give it a couple more weeks to see if they tighten things up, but one doesn’t have to squint too hard to see the worst-case scenario for the Pacers, and that’s a bitter pill to swallow. You know, like a Good & Plenty.

    All due respect to Indiana (and Golden State, and New Orleans), but the most dispiriting start to the year has to go to the Sacramento Kings. Credit to them for hanging in there against the now-gritty Denver Nuggets on Monday night, but otherwise, Sacramento’s 0-4 start has been an utter travesty. The Kings are dead-last in the NBA in Offensive Rating and Net Rating, and they will still be without notable source of offense Marvin Bagley III for another 3-5 weeks with a broken thumb. Coming off an encouraging 39-win campaign last year, the frequently baffling front office fired known quantity Dave Joerger and brought in Luke Walton as head coach. Walton had just finished “leading” the Lakers who, as you may have heard, employ LeBron James, to only 37 wins and a 24th-ranked offense. [Luke’s successful stint as interim coach for the record-setting Warriors back in 2015-16 increasingly appears to be in spite of him and not because of him.] Here’s a live look-in at Kings’ fans:

    Sacto’s three main perimeter threats, De’Aaron Fox, Buddy Hield, and Bogdan “Double Bogey” Bogdanovic, have all been cover-your-eyes awful from the field, combining to shoot 51-of-148 (“good” for 34.4%) thus far. The only guy who’s played remotely above his station is 24SS-favorite Richaun Holmes, who put up a 24-and-13 in 30 minutes against Denver when Walton belatedly realized he’s good and should get playing time.

    It’s tough to imagine they’ll keep shooting this poorly over an extended stretch, but the first step in recapturing last season’s magic will be to return to pushing the pace (24th so far vs. 5th in ’18-’19) and getting easy buckets. Fox will need to be better, and he was against Denver, putting up a 20/3/9 line and a +2 in 36 minutes. But for a team many expected to cement their gains from last season, it’s beginning to look as though they may instead be falling victim to Bill James’ Plexiglass Principle.

    This year’s rookie class — Starburst:

    The loss of Zion right before the season began dampened the enthusiasm for the ’19-’20 rookie class much in the same way one feels when getting a chewy fruit candy which invariably sticks to your teeth in lieu of a delicious chocolate bar. Also like a package of Starburst, this class is a mixed bag, with some rooks already looking like tasty reds and pinks, while others show early signs of being the draft equivalent of the disappointing yellows and oranges. It’s far too early to label anyone a bust, of course, but we’ve seen enough to highlight those who have impressed.

    It starts at the top of the draft with no. 2 overall pick Ja Morant of the Grizzlies. The Murray State product has shown typical rookie inconsistency, particularly by giving the ball away as if it actually were Halloween candy (16 turnovers in three games so far). At the same time, he has flashed game-breaking ability, especially in slapping up a 30/4/9 on 13-of-22 shooting in a one-point win over Brooklyn on Sunday. Since 2000-01, there have only been 29 instances of a rookie meeting those benchmarks for points/rebounds/assists in a game, and it’s a pretty impressive list. [Plus Tyler Ulis. Never underestimate the power of late season tank-ball to spit out some wild stat lines.] Morant’s lofty draft position was no fluke. His star potential is manifestly obvious, and with Ja, Brandon Clarke, and Jaren Jackson, Jr. in place for years to come, the Grizzlies’ future is brighter than a Starburst wrapper.

    The Knicks have been a predictable train wreck, but the play of third overall pick RJ Barrett has been a beacon of hope shining through the deep, dark abyss of Knicks fandom. He’s averaging 20.5/ 7.5/ 3.3 and 2.0 steals on 50/47/44 shooting — yeah, the free throw shooting is unsightly, but it should come around — and has displayed more efficiency than his reputation from Duke would suggest. Barrett is already one of New York’s better defenders, which again, bad for the Knicks, but good for RJ’s prospects. He doesn’t look out of his depth as either an NBA scorer or playmaker, and his perfectly reasonable Usage Rate of 24.2% (given the “talent” surrounding him) indicates he may not be the unconscionable gunner some feared. Barrett was a somewhat divisive prospect, but so far, he’s making his proponents look wise.

    Further down the board, a number of rookies are getting ample opportunities for struggling teams and making the most of them. PJ Washington (12th overall) has immediately stepped into the starting power forward role for a Charlotte squad with limited options and been pretty productive. He came out smoking in their opening win over the Bulls, hitting seven threes on the way to 27 points in his debut. He has a strong body and a high basketball IQ at a young age, and a clear path to as many minutes as he can handle. Speaking of Chicago, many thought no. 7 overall pick Coby White would have a limited role out of the gate behind veteran guards Tomas Satoransky and Kris Dunn, but he has commanded minutes with his aggressive play, and is currently third on the team in both shot attempts and scoring average (12.0 FGA/G and 13.8 PPG, respectively). There are still a lot of roles and responsibilities to sort out for this Bulls team which has scuffled on both ends, but White seems to have no such confusion. Receive ball, score ball. For now, that’s enough.

    No. 9 pick Rui Hachimura has provided early offense for a Wizards outfit which has needed it, putting up 16.3 PPG on decent shooting. His size and athleticism are real, and his defensive awareness is further along than anticipated. [As bad as the team was, I suspect getting reps as “the man” for Japan in the World Cup over the summer was an invaluable experience for Hachimura. He knows he belongs on the court with the world’s best players.] The Grizzlies’ Brandon Clarke (no. 21 overall) dominated Summer League and the preseason, and now that the real games have begun, he certainly looks to be here to stay. He’s shooting well so far (56%, mostly in close to the hoop), but his athleticism and defensive instincts will be his calling cards early in his career. At 3.4 “stocks” (steals + blocks) per-36 minutes, he looks like the most impactful draftee on the defensive end this side of Matisse Thybulle. Speaking of Thybulle, he’s been a complete nothingburger offensively for Philadelphia so far, but his defensive impact is as-advertised. He’s averaging 6.6 stocks per-36, just a mind-boggling number. He seems to have a magical ability to know where the offensive player is going with the ball and to get his hands there first. It’s honestly spellbinding to watch. He’ll obviously need to become a much better offensive player to get real minutes for a loaded team like the Sixers, but they may have found themselves a gem late in the first round.

    The last guy we need to talk about is someone with whom most fans are unfamiliar, Miami Heat shooting guard Kendrick Nunn. The undrafted rookie has been filling minutes in the absence of Jimmy Butler, but he’s been so effective that head coach Erik Spoelstra will have no choice but to slot him into a role even when Jimmy returns. Nunn is averaging 22.3/ 3.3/ 3.3 with 2.0 steals on 52/42/100 shooting in a non-trivial 31.7 minutes per game. [In ESPN fantasy leagues, Nunn went from 0.4% owned to 42.5% owned in just the first week, which gives you a good indication of the sort of come-up he’s on.] It’s always enjoyable to watch lesser-known players get an opportunity and make the most of it, so just wanted to give him a shout-out.

    Everyone have a happy and SAFE Halloween. May you receive only your most favorite treats, and leave the Good & Plenty for those other poor saps.

    All stats accurate through Monday night’s games.

    Top Photo Credit: Getty Images

  • Paging Captain Obvious: The Clippers Are Incredible

    Paging Captain Obvious: The Clippers Are Incredible

    We’re only three nights into the slog of the NBA regular season, and the “wide-open league” narrative from the summer already feels more than a little quaint. Sure, a couple supposed bottom feeders have looked shockingly competent (Phoenix, Charlotte), along with two Eastern contenders who are who we thought they were (Philly, Milwaukee). But with all due respect to the other story lines emerging from this fledgling season, nothing has been as glaring as the rapid dominance of the black sheep L.A. team. The Clippers are fucking scary.

    The fast start shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. The Clips were considered by most (including me) to be in the very top tier of contenders heading into the season. What is jarring is how complete and cohesive they have looked in dismantling another supposed contender (the Lakers) and what had been the dominant team of the last half-decade (the Warriors). Besides a slow start on opening night, they have been in total control of both games, and in the third quarter last night, they did to Golden State what the Warriors had spent the last five years doing to everyone else, walloping the Dubs 46-33 on their way to a 141-122 win which wasn’t even as close as the final score indicated.

    The really scary part? They haven’t even needed Paul George to be head-and-shoulders better than their opponents, who again, are both quality teams. After watching those two games, it feels borderline hack-y to wax poetic about a symbolic passing of the torch — both from LeBron to Kawhi as the best player and from the Warriors to the Clippers as the best team — but sometimes the obvious takes are that way for a reason. Kawhi and the Clips are our new basketball overlords now, and I, for one, welcome them.

    There are a lot of unknowns going into any season in any sport, but as fans, we tend to construct a Platonic ideal in our minds of what any given team can look like if things break right for them. Despite having our hearts broken time and time again, we remain sports optimists, and it’s frankly kind of adorable. Then the season begins, and in most cases we’re reminded why hope is a four-letter word. So it’s strange to watch a team — especially one with a brand new alpha dog — waltz out onto the floor and almost instantly be the ideal version of itself.

    It starts with Kawhi, of course. He has picked up right where he left off in the Finals, using his strength and Terminator-like precision to get to any spot on the floor he wants. Not to read too much into a two-game sample, but there are a couple things I’m seeing which suggest he is actually going to be even better than he was in last year’s playoffs. First, he looks healthy, which was not the case over the last two rounds of the postseason. [Kawhi has said he does not expect to be load managed this season, at least not to the same degree as in Toronto, and if the Clips are going to play this well and carry 20+ point leads into the fourth quarters of games, he won’t need to be. His game and minutes load could end up looking eerily similar to last year’s first-time MVP winner, and if that’s the case, I immediately regret ranking Kawhi so low in Tuesday’s column. The moral of the story, as always: I’m a dumbass.]

    Second, we know what Kawhi is as a scorer, but he appears to have made massive strides as a playmaker. Again, small sample size theater, but he’s averaging seven assists per game thus far, which would exactly double his career-high for a season. The numbers bear out what the eye test is showing. Doc Rivers is empowering him to be more of a pick-and-roll ball handler than he has been in previous stops, and the results are encouraging. Kawhi is firing cross-court lasers to open shooters, pocket passes to the screener on the short roll, and hesitation dump-offs to cutters and divers, all things that either weren’t in his repertoire before or weren’t allowed to be uncorked:

    [That play where he comes off the consecutive screens with a head of steam is particularly sinister. I get a sense we’ll be seeing that one a lot this year, and when they combine it with a pin-down screen for PG on the weak side, it’s going to be utterly unstoppable.]

    Kawhi is so inscrutable as a person, and his career has progressed along such a strange trajectory, we tend to overlook how historically great he is. Well, that greatness is now in full bloom. His game is wildly impressive without ever being flashy. He can’t be sped up or slowed down, and he seemingly can’t be deterred from getting where he wants to go. His length, strength, and gigantic hands give him this enormous base of physical skill from which his technical brilliance is able to flow. It often appears as if his defender is less of an active participant in the play and more of a prop to be maneuvered into the right spot for Kawhi’s purposes. It’s blasphemy to compare anyone to Michael Jordan — like a Reverse Godwin’s Law — but MJ is the only other player I’ve ever seen who just seemed immune to whatever the defense was doing to him. Even apex LeBron always felt like more of a schoolyard bully giving the entire defense a giant noogie, whereas Kawhi is more like Neo from The Matrix, bending reality to his will as if by some unseen force.

    Kawhi has been a Klaw-in-glove fit with all of the other elite role players the Clippers can trot out. Lou Williams is a magician. He’s all herky-jerky sleight of hand, but even after 14+ seasons, no one can figure out how the tricks work. His pick-and-roll partner-in-crime, Montrezl Harrell, has assumed an even more central role this year (17.5/ 6.5/ 3.5 in 31.5 MPG so far) and unlocks all the different lineup variations at Rivers’ disposal. Ivica Zubac, JaMychal Green, and Mo Harkless allow them to toggle the front court matchups as needed, and all three have been up to the task on defense. The Clips are sniping from deep, hitting 46% of their threes, with Landry Shamet, Green, and even the exhumed corpse of Patrick Patterson lighting it up from the perimeter. Throw in Pat Beverley acting as the ultimate spark plug and irritant, and they simply have the personnel to play any style the opponent wants, and do it better. And oh yeah, at some point they’re going to add a 6-time All-Star who finished third in MVP voting last year to all of this. That crazy haunted house in Tennessee run by the unhinged lunatic isn’t as frightening as this team.

    There will be role and rotation questions to answer once PG returns to the lineup, but that’s about as first-world of a problem as an NBA team can get. And if they for some reason decide they need further reinforcements (hint: they don’t), they have young assets and Harkless’s expiring contract as appealing trade chits. We all thought this team could be great at some point this season, but as I mentioned in the MVP column, the questions were how soon and how often they would get there. Well, guess what? They’re there, and they’re spectacular. Kawhi, the final word is yours:

    Top Photo Credit: Getty Images

  • Will Giannis Repeat As MVP?

    Will Giannis Repeat As MVP?

    With the 2019-20 NBA season set to tip off on Tuesday night — minus Zion, tragically — there is no better time to prognosticate with wildly incomplete information and choose this year’s MVP. If you need a primer on my methodology, here is a link to last year’s column which, despite being comically dumb in spots (the Kyrie section — woof), did actually lead to the correct answer. The process will be similar this year, but first, let’s narrow the list down to the most likely candidates.

    Here are the current MVP odds at Bovada:

    • Giannis Antetokounmpo +300
    • Stephen Curry +550
    • LeBron James +650
    • Anthony Davis +700
    • James Harden +800
    • Kawhi Leonard +900
    • Joel Embiid +1200
    • Nikola Jokic +1200
    • Russell Westbrook +1400
    • Paul George +1600
    • Damian Lillard +2800

    There are a couple other mildly intriguing long-shots further down (Kyrie at +3300, Donovan Mitchell at +4000, Jimmy Butler at +7500), but in all likelihood, the winner is going to come from the list above. I am preemptively crossing Westbrook and George off the list. If Houston dominates to the extent where there is an MVP on their roster, then the winner is almost certainly James Harden. [Nothing we’ve seen in the preseason has made me doubt this assertion.] George is set to miss the first ten games of the year at bare minimum, and teams often undersell how long a guy will be out in these scenarios. The Clippers could ride out PG’s absence and still end up with a top-3 seed in the West, but as with Westbrook, if it comes to pass, we’re talking about Kawhi Leonard as the MVP candidate, not George. I’ve discussed previously how the “best player, best team” rubric is a bit oversimplified, but for it to work at all, the player in question actually has to be, you know, the best guy on his own team. Neither Brodie nor PG passes the test.

    Let’s run down the rest of the options, using the patented “Win/Stats/Narrative Triangle” to gauge the likelihood of each player taking home the hardware. There are no “easy” cuts on this list, but of the options, I struggle most to see the award going to…

    Damian Lillard, Portland Trail Blazers:

    WINS: As a refresher, it’s important to remember that since MJ’s second retirement (after the ’98 season), the MVP winner’s team has averaged 61 wins, and outside of Westbrook’s anomalous campaign in ’16-’17, the lowest win total for an MVP in that span has been 54 (Steve Nash’s Suns in ’05-’06). [Giannis’s Bucks last year: 60 wins. Do not forget for a second how vital team success is to MVP voters.]

    This is a long-winded way of saying I don’t entirely trust the Blazers to be a legit contender this season. Yes, they won 53 games last year and rode a favorable draw in the Western playoff bracket to the conference finals. So as usual, we underestimate them at our peril. Dame Dolla finished sixth in MVP voting last year and fourth in ’17-’18, but he looks to have an even heavier lift this season, along with stiffer competition. Portland’s over/under for wins at most of the books in Vegas is around 46.5, and while the Blazers typically overachieve, getting to 55+ wins might be a bridge too far. Jusuf Nurkic enjoyed a career year on both ends in ’18-’19 before suffering a gruesome leg fracture in March. He is likely to be out at least through February, and perhaps longer. His potential replacements are Hassan Whiteside, who loafed his way out of Miami and will have to prove to Portland’s coaching staff he can play the good soldier, and Zach Collins, who remains a talented prospect but needs to add a lot of strength to consistently bang on the interior and become a plus rim protector. Depth on the wing is a legitimate question mark, especially considering how beefed-up the West is now at those spots. Put it all together, and the Blazers are a team which could once again outstrip its projections, but an awful lot would need to go right for Dame to crack the top tier of MVP contenders.

    STATS: Dame’s last three seasons have essentially been carbon copies of one another (here, look), and at 29 years old, there’s little reason to expect any regression in either direction this year. [Related: imagine someone looking at Lillard’s stats 50 years from now and coming across his ’16-’17 season. Dude averaged 27/5/6 on 44/37/90 shooting splits, played 75 games, and didn’t make the All-Star team. The West is crazy.]

    Anyway, it would take another significant jump in either Usage or efficiency for Lillard to ascend into the top group of candidates, and it’s difficult to see where that leap comes from. There’s no shame in being a second-tier superstar, but it’s tough to win MVP awards when several others have higher ceilings.

    NARRATIVE: Again, not much has changed from previous seasons. He had an awkward rap beef with Shaq, so that’s something, I guess?

    VERDICT: He’ll finish higher than we think yet again, and his historical resume continues to grow, but for the purposes of this conversation, we’re in Ricky Bobby territory: if you ain’t first, you’re last.

    LeBron James and Anthony Davis, Los Angeles Lakers:

    WINS: Look, I’ve made my thoughts on the Lakers’ prospects abundantly clear. Maybe I’m totally wrong, and having two of the best six players in the league (and not much else) is enough to crank out 57 or so wins, even in the absurd West. If that happens, it means both guys stayed relatively healthy and put up massive statistical seasons, so one or both of them are in the MVP conversation. Problem is, we’ve seen this movie before, and recently. Last year, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant combined for 147 games played, put up numbers right in line with their historical norms (in both volume and efficiency), the team won 57 games… and they finished 5th and 8th in MVP voting, respectively. Regardless of how successful the team is, it’s extremely difficult for two mega-stars of roughly equivalent value not to cannibalize each other’s vote share. With the number of worthy options, if you give voters a reason not to pick someone, they’ll take it, and “I can’t tell if that guy is the most valuable player on his own team” is a pretty compelling reason.

    STATS: Again, both guys are likely to put up numbers which pass the MVP smell test on their own, and the pick-and-roll chemistry between the two of them is going to be majestic. But the problem remains the same.

    NARRATIVE: Davis’s clumsy exit from New Orleans isn’t going to play well with voters, and LeBron’s complicity in the whole affair doesn’t help his case, either. Time is on AD’s side. He’s still only 26, and as memories of “That’s All, Folks!” fade in the minds of voters and LeBron ages out of the alpha role, Davis will be in a prime position to capitalize on his narrative in future seasons. LeBron has no such luxury. He’s won four MVPs already, so while no one is clamoring to add more hardware to his existing pile, if things break just right, the “aging legend busts out one more signature season” narrative could still swing in his favor. FWIW, I don’t see this happening; just know it’s in play.

    VERDICT: A high-end, buddy comedy popcorn flick, but the Academy doesn’t recognize those.

    Kawhi Leonard, Los Angeles Clippers:

    WINS: The fully operational Clippers’ Death Star is going to be good. Like, really, really good. The question marks are: how long will it take to get there? And how often will we see it? As mentioned earlier, George will be out for an indeterminate length of time as he continues to recover from surgeries on both shoulders, and it will take a lot of reps for an equal opportunity offensive ecosystem predicated on ball movement and the pick-and-roll artistry of Lou Williams to adjust to Kawhi’s Terminator-like ball dominance and iso brilliance. The end result will be something nigh-unguardable when April rolls around, but there will be hiccups along the way. When every game in the West is such a dogfight, a prolonged “getting to know you” phase can result in a win total suppressed juuuuust enough to be a dealbreaker. Combine it with Kawhi’s probable load management — I don’t think it will be as pronounced as last season, but it isn’t going to go away entirely — and there are enough chinks in the armor to keep the defending Finals MVP out of the top tier for the regular season award.

    STATS: Kawhi is going to score. Mercy, will he score. The gap in Leonard’s statistical profile — besides games played — has always been assists. For his career, he averages 2.8 helpers per-36 minutes, and he’s never averaged more than 3.8 per-36 for a single season. To his credit, his passing has looked less paint-by-numbers in the preseason, so it could presage an increased playmaking role as a Clipper:

    ESPN’s Kevin Arnovitz penned a phenomenal piece recently about how the Clips’ offensive attack might work, and discussed at length how devastating a Lou Williams/Kawhi Leonard pick-and-roll (in either direction) could be, so there’s a chance we’ll see that become a much more prominent part of Kawhi’s arsenal in his new digs. In any case, it’s hard to imagine Kawhi’s stats holding him back from MVP consideration.

    NARRATIVE: Something of a net-neutral, most likely. His gangster-ass power play to (allegedly) facilitate PG’s move to L.A. might turn off some old-head voters. Until further notice, he’ll be viewed as a “sixteen-game player” as opposed to a regular season player, a narrative which helps his case as a historical great but works against him in this context. When fully engaged, he remains Earth’s most terrifying perimeter defender, but voters won’t want to reward him if he conserves his energy and picks his spots throughout the regular season grind, as he appeared to last season in Toronto. Perhaps most important, winning awards like this seems to be the sort of thing about which the Vulcan-like Kawhi couldn’t give the slightest shit. He cares about making his teams better and winning championships, two things he has done with ruthless efficiency to this point in his career. Winning an MVP is a consequence of greatness, of course, but it also tends to be a goal unto itself. Kawhi is not the sort of person to set an individual goal if it in any way conflicts with his primary objectives. Let the narcissistic mortals have their accolades. Terminators have work to do.

    VERDICT:

    Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors:

    WINS: I get it. Saying win-loss record is the thing which will hold back the MVP case of Steph Curry — of the Golden State Warriors — sounds completely fucking crazy. Yet here we are. Giving the ultimate green light to the ultimate green light player on the best team of the last half-decade seems like a can’t-miss MVP recipe, but man, does this team have a lot of questions. Their defense slipped last season, and without Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant, Andre Iguodala, and Shaun Livingston, it could easily crater to the bottom third of the league this year. The Dubs will still score a ton, but it is incredibly difficult to crank out 55+ wins if you can’t consistently get stops. How motivated Draymond Green is, how well D’Angelo Russell slots in alongside Steph, and how soon (if at all) Klay can return from his torn ACL are all mitigating factors in the success of this transitional Warriors’ outfit. Beyond that, everyone past Kevon Looney in the rotation is the human equivalent of a giant shrug emoji. I naturally hesitate to question Steph’s ability to turn all this chicken shit into long-range, death-from-above chicken salad. If anyone can do it, it’s him, but the burden will be immense, and any missed time on his part would be a death sentence for both the team and his corresponding MVP case. It feels like too much.

    STATS: That said, Steph’s numbers are going to be BONKERS. In 2015-16, when Curry won the only unanimous MVP in league history, he averaged 30.1/ 5.4/ 6.7 (and led the league in steals) on unfathomable 50/45/91 shooting splits for a record-breaking 73-9 team. Now, as previously discussed, the record is unlikely to do any of the heavy lifting for Curry this time around, but let’s say for argument’s sake, Steph puts up similar numbers on a 53-29 team. Does he win MVP in that scenario? If not, just how historic do the numbers have to be? What if he averages 34 a night? 36? Does it matter? We basically saw a version of this with Harden last season, minus the ridiculous efficiency. With Kevin Durant passive-aggressively tweeting his way through rehab in Brooklyn, there is finally a window for a Steph Curry team to exceed expectations. In the absence of that, however, his path to a third MVP award appears murky, presumptive video game numbers notwithstanding.

    NARRATIVE: The inevitable dominance of the Warriors’ death machine is no longer working against Steph, so he’s got that going for him. But it ultimately feels like he’s threading a very fine needle, and voters will opt for a fresher candidate on a more powerful team if given the opportunity.

    VERDICT: The numbers will be eye-popping, and there’s a chance we’ll all be eating crow for doubting history’s greatest shooter. I just can’t quite get there with this roster.

    Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers:

    WINS: This category has the potential to be a big, ahem, win for JoJo. The post-Process Sixers won 52 and 51 games the last two years, and are in position to exceed expectations and jump up to the 60+ win plateau this season in an Eastern Conference with no one but Milwaukee to stand in their way. Yes, this year’s Sixers are going to be weird and gigantic and occasionally awkward. They are an intentional ‘zig’ when the rest of the league continues to ‘zag.’ Their smallest starter is likely to be 6-6 Josh Richardson. That’s nuts.

    At the same time, we’ve learned throughout history that rosters built on long, talented, athletic players have the highest defensive ceilings. [OKC/Orlando/Milwaukee last season; 2016 Thunder, pre-Klay detonation in Game 6 of the WCF; ’96 Bulls, if you’re looking for examples.] No matter how the pieces fit together offensively, this edition of the Sixers is going to be FIERCE on defense. Losing Jimmy Butler’s ability to commandeer a crunch-time offense matters, but his actual defensive performance hasn’t lined up with his reputation over the last few seasons, and bringing in Josh Richardson in the Butler sign-and-trade represents at worst a lateral move on the defensive end. Ben Simmons’ quickness and versatility make him a matchup nightmare. GM Elton Brand maneuvered around the draft this year to snag Washington wing Matisse Thybulle, who in preseason validated the scouts who thought he could be one of the NBA’s elite defensive players. He might already be the best perimeter defender in the league, crazy as it sounds:

    As good as Thybulle looks so far, he is somewhat beside the point. In free agency the Sixers also added Al Horford, one of the best, most cerebral defensive big men of the decade, to a lineup which already includes Embiid, who has made it his stated goal to become both Defensive Player of the Year and MVP, a feat which has only been accomplished in the same year by Michael Jordan (’87-’88) and Hakeem Olajuwon (’93-’94). Head coach Brett Brown will be able to stagger the minutes of Embiid and Horford to allow an elite defensive center to occupy the middle at all times. Scoring against this team will be an absolute bear.

    There’s no doubt this Philly team is ultra-weird, but the Eastern Conference offers them a soft landing to figure out exactly what they are and how best to deploy their unique gifts when they come up against real competition. If they have to spend the first half of the year grinding out low-scoring wins while they establish offensive chemistry, it probably won’t cut much into their final win total, and it will only bolster Embiid’s statistical case. Speaking of…

    STATS: The ‘games played’ stat is always going to be the key one for Embiid, and of course there is an argument to be made that load management will push him out of the top tier of MVP contenders, especially with Horford now in the fold to take some of the weight off Joel’s shoulders. Embiid played a career-high 64 games last season, and unless this number bumps up into the 72-74 range, it’s tough to make a convincing MVP case.

    There are reasons for optimism, however. Speaking of weight, Embiid says he has lost about twenty pounds since last year, which should help decrease the pressure on his lower extremities and render him even more nimble than he already was for such a giant human. He is saying all the right things, and generally seems more committed to caring for his body as he moves into the prime of his career. It feels as though Embiid has been in our lives for a long time, but he’s only 25, has limited miles on him, and over the past two years has put up per-minute numbers which rival prime Shaq. And he can still get A LOT better. His turnover rate has declined each season, while his assist and rebound rates have increased. He remains a slightly overeager outside shooter given his ability to dominate on the interior, but if his attempts drop a bit and his percentage approaches league-average, he’ll become a net-positive from deep. If he can continue along these trend lines and excise the fat (from both his body and his game), the potential is there for some rarefied statistical air among NBA big men.

    NARRATIVE: Embiid’s overall likability and the potential for the Sixers to round into form as an old school, hulking, 60-win juggernaut both work in his favor here. If he looks fit, engaged, and healthy throughout much or all of the season, the NBA hive-mind will begin to coalesce around his candidacy. It’s just difficult to put your money or your credibility behind it happening because we’ve yet to see it.

    VERDICT: In any given game, Embiid can be the best player in the league. But this is an 82-game award.

    James Harden, Houston Rockets:

    WINS: As I discussed last week, how things will come together for this Rockets team is one of the league’s biggest variables. If the preseason is any indication, it does not appear as though Harden is going to take much of a step back (see what I did there?) in terms of Usage, even with noted possession strangler Russell Westbrook in tow. Their closing five (Harden, Westbrook, Eric Gordon, P.J. Tucker, and Clint Capela) can go toe-to-toe with any lineup in the league, so Houston’s current over/under (around 54.5 at most books) feels just about right, with some potential upside. If the Rockets bump up near 60 wins again and The Beard slaps up a 30/6/8 — totally reasonable, given his numbers the last few seasons — then we have no choice but to include him in the very top tier of the conversation for the fifth time in the last six years. [We tend to be prisoners of the moment when it comes to Harden because of his style of play and postseason struggles, but one day, historians will look back at his stretch since 2014 and be insanely confused about how some people thought he was a gimmick, or somehow bad for the game.]

    The universe and the NBA both bend toward entropy, so there is a world where Russ becomes disgruntled with being a distant second fiddle and he further upsets the apple cart for an organization already teetering on the edge of disarray after recent events. But that’s an unlikely outcome, and it’s where we’re at with James Harden: the absolute worst-case scenario is the only way to dislodge him from the MVP conversation.

    STATS: As I mentioned above, there is no reason to suspect Westbrook’s presence will cause Harden’s stats to regress nearly enough to make anyone question whether he is MVP-worthy. Beatings and video game numbers will continue until morale improves.

    NARRATIVE: There is always a desire among writers for new blood and a new angle — see below — so Harden’s past victory and consistent excellence work against him to a degree, fair or not. There’s no “next level” for Harden to reach in the regular season, so his case comes down to how well the two Hall of Fame guards jell, and whether or not the team exceeds expectations.

    VERDICT: The numbers will continue to be superhuman, but there will be two candidates with a more compelling overall case.

    Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets:

    WINS: The projections for this Nuggets team are all over the map. Some analysts say they got lucky in a lot of close games last season, and this year they’ll end up being a better actual team but have a worse record. Others think their depth, additions, and internal improvement make them a strong contender for the top seed in the West.

    Based on Jokic’s placement in these rankings, you can probably guess I count myself among the latter group. I can’t stress enough how important the addition of Jerami Grant will be to this team, both as a complement to, and eventual replacement for, Paul Millsap. Grant provides Denver an element of athleticism in its frontcourt that has been lacking since Jokic’s ascendance, and he’s a sneaky-good shooter from the corners who will feast on Big Honey’s historic court vision.

    Jamal Murray was streaky in the playoffs, but he also had some monster performances in key spots. He’ll be 23 in February, so for as much as the critics have tried to write the book on him already, he is still only beginning to mature into the player he’ll ultimately be. [Being the owner of a new, $170 million contract is probably a nice confidence booster as well.] There is also oodles of upside for fellow young’ins Gary Harris, Monte Morris, Malik Beasley, Juancho Hernangomez, Jarred Vanderbilt, and whatever the hell Michael Porter, Jr. and Bol Bol become.

    All of this is to say, there are a lot of reasons to believe last season was merely the tip of the iceberg, and we haven’t even touched on the development of Jokic himself. Sixty wins isn’t out of the question at all, and if the Nugs make that sort of leap as a unit, then Jokic undoubtedly lands squarely in the middle of the MVP race.

    STATS: Jokic’s playoff performance this past spring provides the statistical blueprint for what his MVP campaign would look like. In 14 postseason games, His Groundness threw up averages of 25.1/13.0/8.4 on 51/39/85 shooting. Do that for a full season on a 57+ win team, and this thing’s a wrap. Yes, I know he played a ton in those games, and head coach Mike Malone will obviously manage his minutes more carefully during the regular season. But here’s the catch: Jokic put up those numbers with a Usage Rate of only 26.5%. [For reference, Embiid had a Usage Rate of 33.3% (repeating, of course) last season. Harden led the league with a historic 40.5% rate.] Point is, as much of a focal point as Jokic is within Denver’s offense, he could still do A LOT more, and combining his signature passing ability with a souped-up blend of aggressiveness and efficiency would result in a player profile unlike anything basketball has ever seen.

    Do I have moderate concerns about Jokic staying healthy, given the amount of basketball he played over the spring and summer? Sure I do. He’s a hefty guy, and as we’re already seeing with Zion Williamson, carrying around extra bulk tends to put undue pressure on the knees and feet. The difference between the two is Zion’s athleticism, which puts his knees in position to absorb a ton of impact. Being ground bound has a protective effect for Jokic, in that it is much more difficult for him to land awkwardly, and each landing carries a lot less force. [Someone far smarter than me could probably write a whole dissertation on the health costs and benefits of coming up through the European pro ranks vis-a-vis the AAU system in the U.S., but that’s a topic for another day. Suffice it to say, I suspect Jokic has less miles on his legs than the average 24-year-old American-born NBA star.]

    Denver’s offense will still be elite, and with the amount of shooters and scorers around Jokic, it’s not crazy to envision him leading the league in assists. Shoot better from outside (only 31% from deep last season), bump up the scoring a few points, and play passable defense (which he generally does, despite his reputation), and suddenly things get really interesting in a hurry.

    NARRATIVE: Jokic was named First Team All-NBA last season and finished fourth in MVP voting, so it’s not as though he hadn’t already “arrived.” But at 24 years old, with a deep-ish playoff run and some accolades under his belt, as well as a young team ready to make a leap, the narrative tides may be turning in his favor. There could be even more wind at his back because he is such a unique superstar. Again, the voters are writers, and what writer wouldn’t want to tell the tale of the pudgy, Serbian savant who can barely jump over a phone book becoming the most valuable player in the world?

    VERDICT: Everything is set up perfectly for him. There’s just one giant, multi-syllabic obstacle in his way…

    Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks:

    WINS: This category essentially vaulted Giannis to the top of the race last season. The Bucks smashed through preseason expectations — not mine, as you may recall, but let us not be braggadocious — on their way to a league-leading 60-22 record. The wins commingle with the narrative here. It isn’t just the wins that matter, but the fact they feel unexpected, a subtle advantage Giannis won’t enjoy this season. [Milwaukee’s over/under is pegged around 58.5 by most of the books in Vegas.] Even so, this is almost certain to be one of the two dominant teams in the East, so as long as their record stays in the same neighborhood, the reigning MVP has to be right in the thick of the race.

    STATS: I said this in my preview column last year, but it bears repeating: it is really difficult to envision what the ceiling is for The Freak’s statistical production. Last year, he took home the award in his age-24 season, slapping up a Kareem-like 27.7/12.5/5.9 on 58% shooting with 2.8 “stocks” (steals + blocks) per game, while finishing first in the league in PER and Win Shares per 48 minutes. We could list all the advanced metrics in which he ranked in the top-10, but ain’t nobody got time for that. It was pretty much all of them, on both ends of the floor. Giannis came within shouting distance of winning both MVP and Defensive Player of the Year (he finished second to Rudy Gobert), which as we discussed earlier, is kind of a big deal. The scary thing is, Giannis hit all of these insane statistical benchmarks last year, and he is probably only about 75% of the fully-realized version of himself.

    For all the gains he has made, Antetokounmpo is still a methodical, formulaic passer. His size and ability to break down the defense off the dribble afford him a steady diet of easy reads, and there’s nothing wrong with that. He makes those passes crisply and on-target. The more creative, intuitive passes still sometimes elude him, so there remains another big level for him to go up as a playmaker when his mental game catches all the way up to his body.

    And then there’s the outside shooting. Giannis is a career 27.7% 3PT shooter, and he was even worse (25.6%) last season. His shooting ticked up to a less disastrous level late in the year (31.5% post-All-Star Break), but until he can show some consistent improvement from deep, it will remain the only true hole in his game. In the Eastern Conference Finals, the Raptors made a concerted effort to wall off the paint against Giannis’s drives, and he’ll see much more of the strategy this year if he can’t begin to counter it by hitting an acceptable amount of jumpers. Even improving to just 33-34% would force defenders to close out a bit harder to him, leaving extra slivers of space for his rampages to the rim. If he ever cracks league average from three, we might as well just rename the damn award after him, because it’s over.

    With some development in these areas, and another year in coach Mike Budenholzer’s five-out system, what is a reasonable statistical expectation for Giannis this season? If he averaged a 30/13/8/2/2 line, would anyone be shocked? His minutes will likely still be managed, but without Malcolm Brodgon around, Giannis may have to do a bit more of the heavy lifting than he did last season as the Bucks marauded through the East.

    NARRATIVE: Having one MVP trophy in his pocket hurts his case because voters can no longer make the “it’s just his time” argument. And with only one season to go before he has to make the decision on whether or not to accept the largest extension in NBA history (and all of the politics which go with along with it), Giannis is exiting the honeymoon phase of his career and careening towards the narrative meat grinder of free agency. The Bucks are universally recognized as legit contenders now, and if they disappoint again in the playoffs, questions will start to swirl about whether Giannis can win big, in Milwaukee or otherwise. This season is his last chance to play the happy-go-lucky superstar. The Greek Freak is about to see himself turn into the villain, so he better capitalize on being the hero while he still can.

    VERDICT: Giannis ascends to another level of greatness, keeps the Bucks near the top of the East, and takes home his second consecutive MVP.

    Happy NBA season, everybody! We made it!

    Top Photo Credit: SB Nation

  • Best Supporting Actors: Which New Dynamic Duo In The West Will Have The Most Help?

    Best Supporting Actors: Which New Dynamic Duo In The West Will Have The Most Help?

    After the reorientation of the NBA’s balance of power over the summer, Big Twos are the new Big Threes, especially in the Western Conference. Marquee stars will always be the main drivers of team success, fan interest, and revenue, but in the post-Warriors landscape, teams have decided — or been forced, depending on your vantage point — to adopt a “dynamic duo plus depth” model of roster construction. The way these new star pairings will fit together (both on and off the court) has already been a matter of much debate, but nearly as important is how they will be complemented by the rest of their respective rotations.

    Hence today’s mission: to get a sense of what to expect from the supporting casts of each of the new Big Twos in the West. To keep things simple, we’re only going to look at teams with a new face (or faces) at the very top of the roster, so contenders who mostly opted for continuity (like Denver and Portland) and ones who retooled (like Golden State and Utah, depending on how you feel about D’Angelo Russell and Mike Conley, respectively) won’t get the treatment in this exercise. For each team in question, we’ll list the complementary players we expect to see significant minutes — the very back ends of the rosters aren’t particularly important here — talk about the pros and cons of each group, and then give them a rating from 1 to 5 Horrys, Big Shot Bob being the most quintessential role player in recent NBA history.

    Let’s get right to it.

    LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS

    The Stars: Kawhi Leonard, Paul George

    The Supporting Cast: Lou Williams, Montrezl Harrell, Pat Beverley, Landry Shamet, Moe Harkless, Ivica Zubac, JaMychal Green, Rodney McGruder, Jerome Robinson, Terance Mann

    Pros: Depth, overall talent, continuity, supplemental playmaking, young upside, trade assets

    Cons: Rim protection, maybe shooting

    Despite the record haul the Clips sent away to unite PG with Kawhi, they are still left with an enviable amount of complementary depth and talent on the roster, a testament to the brilliant work their front office has done in pivoting away from the Lob City era and into this new window of contention. They’ll need the depth to keep pace early on in the daunting West. George is set to miss at least the first ten games as he continues to recover from surgeries on both shoulders in the offseason, and while there is no uncertainty about Kawhi’s ability — see the 2019 playoffs if you need a refresher — the question mark will always be how much his load will be managed to keep him fresh.

    Most Western teams would have a tough time staying above water if their top two guys only play, say, 65 games apiece, but most teams with two stars don’t also have Lou Williams. The two-time defending Sixth Man of the Year is the linchpin to making this experiment work. For all of their two-way brilliance, neither Leonard nor George is a high-end playmaker. [Kawhi, for his part, has shown encouraging signs of improvement in this area during the preseason, which is genuinely scary. If his AI continues to evolve like this, the singularity (Kawhingularity?) can’t be far behind.] Sweet Lou is the perfect guy to fill in this one gap, whether or not the stars are on the floor. He was the primary engine of the 9th-rated offense from last season, and his unstoppable pick-and-roll chemistry with partner-in-crime Montrezl Harrell gives this team a secondary/tertiary offensive option better than some teams’ primary offense. Being able to deploy the Williams/Harrell PnR as a second-side attack OR use it as the primary play and have Kawhi/George attack a scrambled defense is going to be a devastating combination in crunch time. That the fifth spot can be filled by a 40-ish percent outside shooter (either Pat Beverley or Landry Shamet) is borderline unfair.

    The rest of the rotation is filled with solid guys who won’t take anything off the table. Zubac will likely start at center in most matchups, and he will offer consistent, traditional big man production in an appropriate amount of minutes. He’s still only 22, so his upside remains significant, and he’s always been an excellent per-minute performer. [He sure would’ve been a useful piece for the Lakers, had they not foolishly given him away at the trade deadline last year for Mike Muscala, who made no discernible impact for the purple-and-gold and is no longer with the team.] They’ll be able to get spot minutes as either a traditional 4 or a small-ball 5 from JaMychal Green, who came over in a deadline deal with the Grizzlies last season for Avery Bradley, who, like Muscala, is no longer with the team who traded for him. [I’m telling you, it’s uncanny how the Clips keep winning every trade.] Green is an overqualified ninth man who does most everything well, and even offers some unexpected floor spacing (he shot over 40% from deep last year on 4.6 attempts per-36 minutes). Harkless and McGruder are solid, professional wings who aren’t standouts in any one area but can fill in a lot of cracks, especially when the stars are injured or resting.

    Jerome Robinson, a 6-5 shooting guard out of Boston College, didn’t get much of an opportunity last season after being drafted no. 13 overall, but the Clips (and other teams around the league) remain intrigued by his talent. Terance Mann is a 6-7 wing from Florida State who fell all the way to no. 48 in this year’s draft due to his age — he turns 23 this week — but he looked the part of an actual NBA player among the dregs at Summer League, and he could get an opportunity to crack the rotation should injuries mount for L.A. Robinson, Mann, and first-round pick Mfiondu Kabengele (also out of FSU) all represent appealing, low-cost trade assets if for some reason the Clippers decide they need further reinforcements, which could come in the form of veteran wing stopper Andre Iguodala. Adding Iggy, even at 35 years old, to the perimeter defensive trio of Kawhi, PG, and Beverley, feels like the recipe for a top-5 (at worst) defense, along with the aforementioned offense which will present opponents with nothing but bad choices. And that, my friends, is how you construct a championship-level roster.

    Rating:

    HOUSTON ROCKETS

    The Stars: James Harden, Russell Westbrook

    The Supporting Cast: Clint Capela, Eric Gordon, P.J. Tucker, Austin Rivers, Tyson Chandler, Gerald Green, Danuel House, Gary Clark, Nene, Thabo Sefolosha, Ben McLemore, Isaiah Hartenstein, Ryan Anderson

    Pros: Interior defense, floor spacing, experience, continuity

    Cons: Age, wing depth, perimeter defense, certainty of production

    Anyone who says they know what this team will be is trying to sell you something. It is nearly impossible to predict what swapping prickly floor general Chris Paul for chaos agent (stylistically and organizationally) Russell Westbrook will do to James Harden’s carefully curated ecosystem in Houston. Introducing some chaos into the “let Harden dribble for 22 seconds and then launch a step-back 3” offense could clearly have real benefits; Westbrook’s attacking style will give teams something else to prepare for in a seven game playoff series. But those benefits also come with the drawbacks of taking the ball out of Russ’s hands and potentially turning him into a bystander, or even worse, a spot-up shooter. [Westbrook is currently the single worst high-volume three-point shooter in NBA history, whereas CP3 is at 37.0% for his career.]

    But enough about the fascinating interplay of the owners of the two highest single-season Usage Rates in the history of the game. How will the rest of the roster fit? Capela’s role shouldn’t change much (though his usage could decline a bit), and we more or less know what he is at this point. Gordon will slide up to the 3 at times to play alongside the two star guards (as he did with Paul in the mix as well), but he could be limited to a pure floor spacer in these lineups because of the anti-gravity of Westbrook. Tucker will do Tucker things, and old heads Chandler and Nene will be competent in backing up Capela on a limited basis.

    So the Rockets have perhaps the best group of guards in the league, and veteran big men who will hold down the fort. All good, right? Not so fast. First, there is clearly value in having an experienced team — both in the institutional memory created over years of pattern recognition and the survivorship bias of talent — but at a certain point, “experienced” players simply become old ones, and the Rockets are toeing that line. Houston has nine players on its roster over 30, and while Harden should remain firmly planted in his prime for at least a few more seasons, any age-related slippage from the other vets (many of whom are now sporting extensive injury histories) which isn’t counteracted by internal development from young guys — hold that thought — is highly problematic in such a cutthroat conference. Nene and Chandler are both 37. Ryan Anderson is 31 and probably washed. Tucker is 34, and his physical style may not age well. Gerald Green, amazingly, is 33, and is now out for at least 2-3 months with a broken foot. Thabo Sefolosha is 35 and has been battling injuries for the last several years. Even Gordon and Westbrook are 30 and 31, respectively, with laundry lists of injuries in the rear-view, and Westbrook showing some early signs of athletic decline last season.

    Time is beginning to bear down on the veterans, and it’s unclear if the more spry bodies on the roster will be ready when the void does require filling. Austin Rivers, for all the disrespect that’s been attached to his name over the years, has developed into a solid 3-and-D guard with just enough playmaking verve to be a threat. Gordon, as mentioned previously, can credibly slide up to the 3 for stretches because of his strength, but beyond those two, the depth and defensive acumen on the wing are big question marks. Danuel House and Gary Clark both looked like competent NBA players for portions of last season, but the jury is still out on whether either or both of them can be consistent performers over a 100-game season. Former lottery pick Ben McLemore was brought in to compete for a rotation spot, and his talent remains tantalizing, but at 26 and heading into his seventh season, it increasingly appears as though it’s never going to happen for him. They have a number of young bucks on the roster (Isaiah Hartenstein, Michael Frazier, Ray Spalding, Chris Clemons, and Shamorie Ponds), all of whom remain unproven commodities until further notice. Will coach Mike D’Antoni, whose seat is clearly warming, be willing to light developmental minutes on fire for any of those guys? It seems unlikely.

    Opposing offenses will attack Houston relentlessly on the perimeter. Their guards are all strong but undersized, so big wings will look to exploit mismatches if Clark (6-8) and House (6-7) aren’t able to stay in the regular rotation. Harden and Westbrook are both physically capable but often indifferent defenders. It’s tough to plug all the holes in a defense where multiple guys are staring off into space away from the ball, even if you have the personnel, which the Rockets do not. The defensive burdens on Capela and Tucker are going to be enormous, and while they are mostly up to the challenge, it could take a toll as the season progresses.

    It probably sounds like I’m dumping on the Rockets, but don’t get me wrong. This is still an elite team, and the Paul-Westbrook swap should eliminate most or all of the internecine squabbling which simmered just below the surface last season. [Whether any lingering effects from the ongoing Morey/China geo-beef or owner Tilman Fertitta’s somewhat erratic public behavior in its wake serve to offset those potential gains in chemistry remains to be seen.] Regardless of who the highly-paid sidekick is, questions about the rest of the rotation mean James Harden is going to have to be superhuman yet again in ways some of the other megawatt stars in the West will not.

    Rating:

    LOS ANGELES LAKERS

    The Stars: LeBron James, Anthony Davis

    The Supporting Cast: Kyle Kuzma, Danny Green, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, JaVale McGee, Dwight Howard, Quinn Cook, Jared Dudley, Troy Daniels, Rajon Rondo, Alex Caruso, Avery Bradley

    Pros: Shooting, interior defense

    Cons: Lack of continuity, knucklehead factor, secondary playmaking, perimeter defense

    I’ve already covered most of my concerns about the Lakers’ potential depth issues this season, so I’ll keep this one brief. If anything, those concerns have only intensified with Kyle Kuzma’s lingering injury and the sprained thumb Davis suffered over the weekend. The Davis injury appears to be nothing serious, but it shines a spotlight on how damaging any extended absences at the top of the roster could be to L.A.’s chances of making (or advancing in) the playoffs. The challenge in front of new head coach Frank Vogel is to integrate a group of flawed players and sometimes erratic personalities into a cohesive unit on the fly, while also dodging injuries to his two all-world mega-stars and the inevitable coup attempt from assistant coach/LeBron confidant Jason Kidd. Oh, and it’s all happening under a gigantic microscope. Otherwise, it should be a piece of cake. Let’s move on.

    Rating:

    Source: USA Today Sports

    DALLAS MAVERICKS

    The Stars: Luka Doncic, Kristaps Porzingis

    The Supporting Cast: Tim Hardaway, Jr., Dwight Powell, Delon Wright, Maxi Kleber, Seth Curry, Courtney Lee, Justin Jackson, Jalen Brunson, Dorian Finney-Smith, J.J. Barea, Boban Marjanovic

    Pros: Stylistic flexibility, supplemental playmaking, shooting, mix of veterans and youth

    Cons: Talent gap between stars and role players, defense

    “Will Dallas be any good?” is a contentious question in NBA circles at the moment, and I’m here to tell you… I really don’t know, either. The fit between Doncic and Porzingis at the top of the roster appears to be snug, and they have a glut of competent role players to fill out the rotation, but the drop-off in talent from Porzingis to their third-best player (Hardaway, I guess?) is severe. Really good teams generally have overqualified role players (or at least properly qualified ones to complement their stars), but this edition of the Mavs could suffer from being a tad underqualified at a few spots. Guys like Powell, Brunson, Wright, Curry, Kleber, Finney-Smith, and Barea are all players most GMs would be happy to have on their rosters. They just wouldn’t want all of them at once.

    Head coach Rick Carlisle has always been a genius at getting the most out of disparate parts, and the presence of a wunderkind 6-7 playmaker like Doncic and a 7-3 unicorn like Porzingis allows Carlisle to tinker with the other three lineup slots in a variety of interesting ways. They can run big, bruising groups, small, switch-y lineups, and shooting-heavy configurations, depending on what the matchup dictates. This flexibility will keep them in a lot of games where they otherwise wouldn’t stack up talent-wise, and the complementary playmaking they’ll get from Brunson (a candidate for a mini-leap in Year 2), Wright, Barea (who will still be roasting dummies in the pick-and-roll when he’s a septuagenarian like a Puerto Rican Uncle Drew), and perhaps even Curry will create off-ball opportunities for Doncic to shine.

    Team officials say they like the roster they’ve constructed. They better, because this group is mostly locked in long-term. Barea and Courtney Lee expire at the end of this season (their contracts, not them, though they are both getting up in years), but if Hardaway exercises his player option for $19 million next year — a near-certainty — then the Mavs are two years away from any meaningful cap space, at which point they’ll presumably be preparing to throw a max extension at Doncic. They are also out two first-round picks from the Porzingis trade, so improving the roster externally is going to be a tricky proposition for the foreseeable future. Dallas has acquired its franchise players, so the hardest part of the rebuild is already done. But in the competitive landscape of the West in 2019, nailing down those tent poles is necessary but not sufficient. Like the Clippers, the moves around the margins also have to consistently hit, and at this point it’s unclear whether the Mavs have put together a whole greater than the sum of the parts, or just a bunch of random parts.

    Rating:

    NEW ORLEANS PELICANS

    The Stars: Zion Williamson, Jrue Holiday

    The Supporting Cast: Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, J.J. Redick, Derrick Favors, E’Twaun Moore, Josh Hart, Nicolo Melli, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Kenrich Williams, Frank Jackson, Jaxson Hayes, Jahlil Okafor

    Pros: Guard depth, upside, perimeter defense, supplemental playmaking

    Cons: Lack of frontcourt depth, lack of continuity, inexperience

    OK, so maybe this is cheating. But have you seen Zion in the preseason? I’m not sure it’s fair to lump in Zion and Jrue with these other star duos at this precise moment, but I’m also not sure it isn’t. Mostly I just wanted a chance to talk about this team, because it is going to be a blast.

    All the usual preseason caveats apply, but Jesus TF Christ, Zion. He’s averaging over 23 PPG while shooting 71% (!) from the field, and it appears as though legit NBA athletes are utterly unprepared for the combination of speed and power he brings to bear. His unique athletic gifts are unleashed by the pace and space of the NBA game in a way the college game could not approximate, and nothing about what he’s doing feels unsustainable. [Yes, I know he won’t shoot 70% for the season, but high-50’s seems like his floor.] It’s bonkers to think about what the prime, 26-year-old version of Zion will look like because that’s still SEVEN YEARS FROM NOW. I suspect by Christmas, the talking heads will be engaging in the “Is Zion already a superstar?” conversation, and if so, it obviously bodes well for the fate of the ’19-’20 Pelicans, let alone their future prospects. Suffice it to say, the dude is the real deal. I don’t want to burden him with unfair expectations, but when he goes toward the basket, he looks positively LeBron-like. And his 55-foot alley-oop from Lonzo Ball the other night was eerily reminiscent of Heat-era LeBron:

    Lucking into the league’s next marquee superstar is fortuitous, of course, but the Pelicans have also done a terrific job in accumulating complementary talent. The number of quality guards head coach Alvin Gentry can deploy is staggering, to the point it may necessitate another trade to balance out the roster. Veteran sniper J.J. Redick was brought in over the summer on a two-year deal, and the combined offensive gravity he and Zion produce could prove unguardable. [Interesting tidbit: in his 12 NBA seasons, Redick has never missed the playoffs. On a related note, New Orleans’ over/under win total is chilling at 39.5 in Vegas. Do what you will with this information.] Lonzo Ball remains far from his ceiling, and some folks have already soured on him a bit. His defense, rebounding, and playmaking are already tangible assets, though, and if his shooting comes around, he still has All-Star potential. Ball and Holiday might make up the most fearsome defensive starting backcourt in the league. [Philly, San Antonio and a couple others may take umbrage with such a statement.] Moore and Hart are overqualified minutes-eaters. Rookie Nickeil Alexander-Walker has looked phenomenal in both Summer League and preseason, and he will command real minutes right away, despite the logjam. I even kinda like Frank Jackson, though he may have a tough time getting much run.

    The front line is a little less stacked (outside of Zion), but there is enough talent to make it work. Derrick Favors came over from Utah and, finally freed from the long shadow of Rudy Gobert, should slot in as the starting center. The fit with Zion hasn’t been airtight thus far in the preseason, and Gentry could look to employ more “Zion as small-ball 5” configurations as the season progresses, but there will certainly be a lot of matchups along the way where Favors’ elite rim protection keeps the Pels’ defense afloat. Brandon Ingram appears to have moved beyond the offseason blood clot issue which briefly threatened his career, and his continued development (or lack thereof) is a massive wild card in projecting the ceiling of this team. When he has excelled, it has been as a primary playmaker rather than as a spot-up shooter/secondary attacker. Unfortunately, with Holiday, Ball, and Williamson all in the mix, Ingram may be relegated to the latter role more often than he would like. He’ll need to continue getting stronger while also returning to the 39% three-point accuracy he displayed two seasons ago, but it’s hard to argue with having yet another potential top-50 NBA player in the rotation. The Pels signed 6-9, 28-year-old Italian combo forward Nicolo Melli to a two-year deal over the summer, and thus far he has looked like the best fit next to Zion up front. If he sticks, the front office will have conjured up a crucial rotation piece out of thin air. Kenrich Williams showed some promise in limited minutes during his rookie year, and the 6-7 twenty-four-year-old should get a little more run this year as a crack filler on the wing. Rookie Jaxson Hayes looked less raw than expected during Summer League, but still has a long way to go before he can consistently bang with grown-ass NBA big men. Jahlil Okafor is a person who exists.

    There’s no way to know where this roster goes from here, but with a franchise-altering star, enviable depth, limitless upside, and all the future assets in the known universe, the sky is the limit.

    Rating:

    Top Photo Credit: USA Today Sports

  • Let’s Get Weird: What To Expect In The Eastern Conference Playoff Race

    Let’s Get Weird: What To Expect In The Eastern Conference Playoff Race

    In my younger days, I used to spend a fair amount of time in State College, Pennsylvania, the location of Penn State University. [S/O, Nittany Lions!] There is a sandwich shop in State College called Are U Hungry, an offshoot of the original RU Hungry shops founded near Rutgers University in New Jersey. RU Hungry is the home of the “Fat Sandwiches,” which are basically subs filled with every sort of greasy, coronary-inducing food you can imagine: fried chicken, steak, French fries, mozzarella sticks, cheese, and so on. They are glorious and terrible all at once, and I miss them.

    I can actually hear you getting fatter.

    The reason I bring them up is because the Eastern Conference in ’19-’20 is shaping up to be a very fat sandwich. On one side we have the soft, fresh, delicious bread: the Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers, the overwhelming co-favorites to represent the conference in the Finals. On the other side, the stale, rotting bread which has been sitting on a curb for a week and has been picked over by ants and crows: the Wizards, Knicks, Cavaliers, and Hornets. There will be more to say about the former group in the coming weeks, while we should all do our best to pretend the latter group doesn’t exist.

    Which leaves us with the big, meaty, greasy, overloaded center of the conference. Nine teams appear to be competing for six playoff spots: Boston, Indiana, Toronto, Brooklyn, Miami, Orlando, Detroit, Atlanta, and Chicago. Let’s make the case for and against each one, and then I’ll give my predictions at the end.

    Boston Celtics: Of all the teams in this group, it feels like the most would have to go wrong for Boston to miss out on the postseason. Even with the Chemistry-pocalypse that took place last year, the C’s still won 49 games and swept their first-round series with Indiana. After Milwaukee and Philly, they have the East’s highest win total over/under in Vegas (49.5), so they should be a relative lock, but there are also a huge number of factors which could swing their total in either direction.

    If the Celtics struggle out of the gate, the pundits will be quick to attribute it to a World Cup hangover. Boston had four prominent members of this summer’s USA Basketball squad which finished an unfathomable seventh in China. There is some evidence being on an underperforming edition of Team USA can have adverse effects during the following NBA season, though there is some chicken-or-the-egg uncertainty about it because the teams are obviously not randomly selected. Kemba Walker was the veteran leader, and he played admirably for most of the tournament, though he put up his worst performance in the loss to France which eliminated Team USA from medal contention. Jayson Tatum showed the sort of aggressiveness and all-around game his doubters had been looking for in the exhibition games and the preliminary round before injuring his ankle in the final moments against Turkey. Jaylen Brown struggled to get minutes early, but then became an essential rotation piece following Tatum’s injury. He held his own against bigger players on a roster lacking quality big men, but his outside shot was inconsistent at best. Marcus Smart displayed his continued development as a shooter and playmaker (along with his usual hard-nosed defense), even as he helped to brick away the France game at the foul line.

    The unanswerable question here is whether the bad vibes from the loss and the extra wear and tear on their bodies — literally in Tatum’s case — are offset by the chemistry those four key members of the Celtics were able to build with each other, both on-court and off. Swapping out Kyrie Irving for Kemba seems like an inarguable upgrade in the chemistry department, though perhaps a slight downgrade from a performance standpoint. [Kemba has consistently been more durable than Kyrie — who just absorbed yet another facial fracture in practice this week, a recurring theme in his career — so perhaps the difference in per-minute production is worth the presumed gains in availability.]

    Last season, there was much consternation internally about head coach Brad Stevens’ insistence on continuing to play Gordon Hayward as he recovered from the gruesome leg fracture he suffered on Opening Night in 2017, despite Hayward’s erratic play. Early indications out of camp are that Hayward is beginning to look more like the version we saw in his final days in Utah, which would raise the ceiling of this team dramatically while also creating even more of a crunch for wing minutes and/or pushing them strategically toward an extreme version of small ball. If one of the Hayward/Tatum/Brown troika can stay afloat defensively at the 4 for big minutes, this team becomes near-impossible to cover, and it helps mitigate their most glaring weakness: a dearth of reliable big men.

    Besides the potentially lingering World Cup stink, the biggest strike going against this roster is the loss of Al Horford. We’ve all been harping on how underrated Big Al is for so long that he’s perhaps become a touch overrated, but it really is difficult to quantify all the things he does for a team. He can capably shift between both big men spots, captain the defense, move his feet well enough to corral guards in the pick-and-roll, set effective screens, space the floor and roll to the rim equally well, facilitate from the elbow, and make life difficult on the Antetokounmpos and Embiids of the world. [Not so much the latter anymore, but you get the point.] He simply does everything on a basketball court at an above-average level, which is not something that can be said about any of the remaining bigs on the roster.

    The tendency to dump on Enes Kanter for his defensive shortcomings has gone a little too far, even if much of the criticism is fair. He can still be a very valuable player in the right doses and against the right lineups, as he showed in his stint with Portland last year following Jusuf Nurkic’s horrific injury. The question becomes whether his role for this Boston team will be too big out of necessity, and his deficiencies will become more pronounced as the minutes pile up. The alternatives are Daniel Theis, who has proven to be a useful per-minute contributor but has had injury issues and may not translate to a bigger role, Robert “Timelord” Williams, a tantalizing physical talent who has yet to put the pieces together in his brief career, and Vincent Poirier, a French import set to see his first NBA action.

    There are a couple wild cards here. First, the presence of Grant Williams, a 6-7 tank of a forward Boston selected out of Tennessee with the 22nd overall pick in this year’s draft. He has made a career out of exceeding expectations, and could challenge for minutes early on in Boston’s frontcourt if he can quickly adapt to the length and speed of the NBA game. Second, there is no team more ripe for a trade in order to balance out its roster. The Celtics are the rare team with a glut of big wings and a lack of serviceable big men, a condition any number of teams out there would be happy to assist in remedying. There is no potential trade in the league which makes more sense for everyone involved than a Boston/Indiana swap centering around Jaylen Brown and Domantas Sabonis, so of course it will never happen. Danny Ainge has given no indication he’s fallen out of love with his young core guys, but the Celtics still have the assets — including a lightly protected first-rounder from Memphis in the hopper — to round out their roster in a hurry if Tatum makes a leap and the East turns out to be even more wide open than it currently appears.

    Source: WISH-TV

    Indiana Pacers: Speaking of Indiana, they had a net-positive offseason after their quick, punch-less playoff exit at the hands of Boston, but there are still a lot of personnel and role questions to be answered. The big unknown, of course, is the uncertain timetable for the return of All-Star Victor Oladipo and how the team will keep its head above water offensively while he remains sidelined. They backed up the Brinks’ truck for Malcolm Brogdon, a guy who, on paper, should be the perfect sidekick for Oladipo, but will have to shoulder a heavier load as a creator in the interim. They also added Jeremy Lamb on a team-friendly deal. Lamb had his best season as a pro last year in Charlotte and is still only 27, despite having been in the league for what feels like 15 years. Bringing in Lamb helps to ease the sting of losing Bojan Bogdanovic, who secured his bag with Utah after averaging 18.0 PPG on 49/43/81 shooting last season and acting as the de facto no. 1 option for the Pacers in the wake of Oladipo’s quad injury.

    Schematically, the Pacers maintain they are committed to a Twin Towers starting lineup featuring both Sabonis and Myles Turner sharing the floor. Turner profiles as just enough of a floor spacer to make it feasible, and both guys are rangy enough defenders on their own, but the fit still feels awkward. If head coach Nate McMillan is forced to stagger their playing time again (as was mostly the case last season), there won’t be enough minutes for at least one of their four best players, which is obviously sub-optimal. Sabonis is extension-eligible, and he is deservedly going to get a big pay day, whether from Indy or in the form of an offer sheet as a restricted free agent next summer. They’ve already committed big money to Turner (his 4-year, $72 million extension kicks in this year), they have multiple years of eight-figure salaries remaining on Brogdon, Lamb, and TJ Warren, and they just drafted Georgian big man Goga Bitadze, so the inflection point on what to do with Sabonis is rapidly approaching.

    The Pacers were a .500 team without Oladipo in the lineup last season. If they can do something similar and grind out enough wins to stay afloat until their star returns — tentatively sometime in December or January — they should be able to cruise to 45+ wins and a comfortable spot in the playoffs. But with a lot of new faces and questions about the rotation, the margins are going to be thin.

    Toronto Raptors: Perhaps the biggest question mark on the board. Besides the high-profile departure of Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard, the defending champs could look to the future and offload a number of the other key pieces from their title run. Team president Masai Ujiri, now a made man in Toronto, has always sought to rebuild the roster in his image ever since he took over, but the Raps have always been too competitive to tear down. Now, with house money in his pocket and several attractive veterans on expiring deals (Kyle Lowry, Marc Gasol, and Serge Ibaka), their title defense could turn out to be more 2011 Mavs than 2004 Pistons.

    Reigning Most Improved Player Pascal Siakam is now the centerpiece of the roster, and even without Kawhi, if the other vets finish out their deals, the infrastructure of a mid-tier playoff team is still in place. I suspect this will be Ibaka’s last year north of the border, but some folks around the league believe Toronto could offer extensions to both Lowry and Gasol, giving them each one last big contract as their respective careers wind down. Not to dismiss the contributions of those two great players, but this almost feels like Ujiri would be “selling low” on his political capital, locking himself and the team into an above-average future rather than sacrificing a season or two in order to get back to big game hunting as soon as possible. The market is likely to be tepid for half-year rentals with big salaries and a lot of miles on them, but if the goal is to rebuild, then getting some sort of assets (without taking on additional long-term money) probably makes sense, questionable optics notwithstanding.

    The Raptors got their championship just before the window slammed shut on them. Now it’s time for Ujiri to figure out how to pry it back open, which may require taking a big step back this year to set up future steps forward. If that happens, it could create an opening for one of the young up-and-comers we’ll discuss shortly.

    Brooklyn Nets: With Kevin Durant taking a redshirt year, the fate of this edition of the Nets is obviously tied to the, ahem, leadership of Kyrie Irving. We watched the worst-case scenario of that play out in Boston last season, so there may be both some recency bias in play here, as well as a sense that he is walking out of one situation (a team of young bucks looking to establish themselves who felt left out to dry by Kyrie) and into another one just like it. I see it, of course, but there’s a key point to remember: Kyrie didn’t want to go to Boston. He chose Brooklyn. If he can’t play nice here, then it isn’t going to happen for him. There should be a honeymoon phase at the very least, and happy, best-behavior Kyrie mixed with a potent, improving roster has big potential, even without KD. [Kyrie, for his part, has expressed penitence for his failures as a teammate in Boston, but that doesn’t mean Nets fans should let their guard down.]

    Irving is a maestro in isolation and the pick-and-roll, and his style never entirely meshed with Brad Stevens’ motion-based, egalitarian offense. Kenny Atkinson’s go-go spread pick-and-roll system (which helped elevate D’Angelo Russell from underachieving troublemaker to max contract All-Star, it must be noted) should be more Kyrie’s cup of tea. If Atkinson can get the dosage of Kyrie ball dominance correct, there is also a ton of potential for internal improvement from the young supporting cast. Caris LeVert’s grisly leg injury opened the door for Russell’s ascendance last year, and the Michigan product’s laundry list of maladies is growing more troubling by the year. But lest we forget, Levert was averaging 18.4/4.3/3.7 at the time of the injury, was garnering some early All-Star buzz, and he just turned 25 in August. His upside remains significant, and his herky-jerky, off-the-dribble game could prove to be an excellent complement to Kyrie as a second-side attacker. Joe Harris is the same sharpshooter as ever, and he displayed a little more playmaking verve than expected with Team USA. Spencer Dinwiddie got paid (though perhaps not in the exact form he wanted) and is yet another floor spacer and shot creator to keep things humming during non-Irving minutes. Jarrett Allen is still only 21 and has improved by leaps and bounds each year of his career. It’s possible DeAndre Jordan (and his unfathomable 4-year contract) ends up the starting center due to his experience, but Allen’s frightening deterrence at the rim will still earn him a healthy minutes load. He ain’t no Kia:

    It feels like Taurean Prince has been in the league for a decade, but this will actually be just his fourth season. After coming over in a trade from Atlanta, he could soak up a lot of minutes as a small-ball 4, where the Nets have a potential hole. Apropos of that, we don’t yet know how Rodions Kurucs’ legal issues will sort out — Lativian Gangbanger alert! — but if he comes out in the clear, he will also be a big part of the answer at the power forward spot. The jury is still out on last year’s first-round pick, Dzanan Musa, who spent most of the year in the G League. The no. 31 overall pick in this year’s draft, Nicolas Claxton out of Georgia, has the chance to be a steal as a theoretical stretch big with the length and agility to defend multiple positions. If Brooklyn needs some veteran stability in the rotation, Wilson Chandler and Garrett Temple are around to do Wilson Chandler and Garrett Temple things, respectively.

    Without KD, the general consensus seems to be this is a low-end playoff outfit, but with the amount of depth and untapped potential present, that may be selling the Nets short. [Unlike Mikhail Prokorov, who recently sold the Nets and the Barclays Center for a total of $3.35 billion after investing approximately $2 billion since 2010. Promise a championship you can’t remotely deliver, employ Billy King, preside over the franchise as it becomes the laughingstock of the league for a solid three years, and then walk away with $1.3 billion to show for your troubles. Talk about Russian meddling.]

    Miami Heat: Another high-variance team. Since the ignominious end of the Heatles era, Miami’s roster has been littered with solid veterans and high-upside young bucks desperately in need of a star to be the organizing principle. Enter Jimmy Butler. There are higher-wattage stars in the league (and certainly ones who come with less baggage), but his physical style and take-no-prisoners ethos both feel like hand-in-glove fits for Miami’s culture. Butler’s defensive reputation may exceed his actual performance at this stage of his career, but for a team which finished 26th in Offensive Rating and 6th in Defensive Rating last season, the infusion of on-ball talent and toughness he brings should be a boon at both ends.

    There is also the question of whether trading away Hassan Whiteside will amount to addition by subtraction. Whiteside is a baffling player. If you just looked at his defensive stats, you’d think he was a prime Olajuwon-level destroyer at the rim, yet he completely wore out his welcome in Miami with his poor attitude, loafing, and clashes with coaches and players. Young stud Bam Adebayo is set to assume Whiteside’s minutes, so there’s a chance the chemistry upgrade will more than mitigate the overall loss of size and talent, but we really have no idea until we see this new group together on the court. [Whiteside also becomes a sneaky bounce-back candidate in his new digs in Portland. He is good friends with both Dame Lillard and CJ McCollum, and Lillard is legendary for his ability to get his troops to fall in line. An intriguing “change of scenery” guy to keep an eye on this year.]

    As mentioned, Adebayo should see a major upgrade to his role, along with fifth-year point forward Justise Winslow, who made big strides last year once coach Erik Spoelstra entrusted him as the lead ball handler. Winslow averaged career highs nearly across the board and began to resemble a competent outside shooter (37.5% on almost four attempts per game). It remains to be seen how he meshes with Butler, but Winslow is trending in the right direction and is re-signed long-term to a potentially team-friendly deal (3 years/$39 million, starting this season). They have steady veterans in Goran Dragic (on a hefty expiring contract — more on that in a moment), James Johnson, and Kelly Olynyk. Dion Waiters is also back and purportedly in the best shape of his life after missing 126 games over the previous three seasons with various injuries. It feels as though the book has already been written on Waiters, and the Butler/Waiters combo could prove volatile. But he’s still only 27, so if he’s spent his time away from the game maturing and honing his famously questionable shot selection, there’s a world where he’s a useful contributor on a winning team. I talked about first-round pick Tyler Herro in my Summer League roundup, and whether he can earn a spot in the rotation for a team which will desperately need floor spacing should be an interesting subplot.

    Besides the odd fits of some of the existing roster pieces, another big variable could be whether or not this team is fully formed. Pat Riley has always looked to make splashy personnel moves, and he may be gathering his chips for another all-in push. They have the expiring contracts (Dragic at $19M and Meyers Leonard, acquired basically for free from Portland at $11M) and a useful player in Olynyk (2 years remaining at about $12M per year, with ’20-’21 being a player option) to put together a package for a second star. Chris Paul is the guy most frequently discussed, and even on the downside of his career, he represents a worthwhile target for the star-hungry Heat. By rule, Miami can’t include a first-round pick which comes before 2025 (and the ones they are already out are owed to none other than Oklahoma City, meaning the Zombie Sonics may be hesitant to assist Miami in bolstering its roster), so the logistics of any deal are tricky, but if Oklahoma City struggles out of the gate even with a healthy CP3, the rumors of a Butler/Paul dynamic duo in South Beach are sure to intensify.

    Orlando Magic: The Magic finally managed to extract themselves from the ranks of the East’s basement-dwellers last season after more than a half-decade of post-Dwight misery. So they’ve got that going for them. They jumped from 25 wins in ’17-’18 to 42 last season, mostly on the strength of an All-Star season from the newly well-heeled Nikola Vucevic (4 years, $100 million) and a disciplined Steve Clifford defense which ranked 8th overall for the season and near the very top of the league after the All-Star Break. Orlando even managed to take Game 1 off of the eventual champion Raptors in the first round of the playoffs before equilibrium was established and Toronto slapped them down over the next four games.

    Given their recent history and the degree of improvement, it was perfectly defensible for Orlando’s front office to double down on the existing core this summer, re-signing Vooch and swingman Terrence Ross (4 years, $50 million) and banking on internal improvement from their stable of young, long-armed athletes. [Signing Al-Farouq Aminu for 3 years, $29 million amid their glut of questionable-shooting big men is somewhat less defensible.] What they are left with, however, is a roster which is simultaneously expensive (currently about $3.5 million under the luxury tax line going into the season), heavily imbalanced, and only good enough to elevate the team to mediocrity last season despite most everything going right. Orlando’s top six players in terms of minutes per game all played at least 75 games, and the development of an outside shot by Vucevic (36.4% from deep on 2.9 attempts per game) gave the offense juuuust enough breathing room to be functional (22nd in Offensive Rating).

    Aaron Gordon continued his gradual improvement as a shooter and playmaker despite playing far too many of his minutes out of position at small forward. Journeyman point guard D.J. Augustin had his best overall season at age 31, and while his strong outside shooting probably isn’t going anywhere (38.1% career from three), undersized point guards don’t tend to age well. There’s a good chance last year was his high water mark, and in any case, the Magic are invested in diminishing Augustin’s role due to their trade for (and subsequent decision to pick up the $12 million team option for ’20-’21 of) ultimate mystery man Markelle Fultz. The former no. 1 overall pick is reportedly healthy at last, in both mind and body, and ready to contribute, but right now we have no way of knowing if it’s all smoke and mirrors or if he will finally begin to live up to his considerable pedigree. If he can approximate the player Philadelphia thought they were getting in 2017, it would go an incredibly long way towards fortifying a weak group of guards and introducing an element of unpredictability to Orlando’s staid offense.

    Another major wild card is the development of soon-to-be 22-year-old big man Jonathan Isaac. The incomparable Zach Lowe did his usual thorough job in breaking down the areas in which Isaac needs to improve this season and how his ascendance could impact Orlando’s ceiling. Isaac’s defensive upside is nearly incalculable, and his versatility to defend across all three front court positions (and perhaps beyond) should give Steve Clifford an endless array of personnel configurations he can deploy. The problem is one of arithmetic. How does Clifford find enough minutes for six players (Vucevic, Isaac, Gordon, Aminu, Mo Bamba, and Khem Birch), all of whom are best served at either the four or the five? Injuries could end up thinning the herd of bigs to a more manageable size, but that isn’t exactly a preferable “solution” to the problem. Maybe their size and length will make them an overwhelming defensive force and it will be enough to overcome the awkward fit, but I’ll believe it when I see it work consistently over more than a 25-game sample.

    GM John Hammond will likely stand pat with the roster and count on improvement from Isaac, Fultz, and Gordon to fuel their continued rise, but some sort of big-for-small trade would sure make a lot of sense to balance out the lineups. The Celtics are once again a natural target given their need up front, and while someone like Jaylen Brown might be too pricey, a guy like Marcus Smart would be a natural fit, and matching salaries wouldn’t be an issue. Without a bold move to remake the roster or star turns from one or all of the aforementioned youngsters, the Magic may have trapped themselves into mid-tier purgatory for the foreseeable future. That comes off as damning, but given where they’ve been for most of the decade, it might sound pretty appealing to their fans.

    Detroit Pistons: Speaking of franchises who largely eschewed a bold makeover in favor of continuity — it’s DEEE-TROIT BAAAAS-KET-BALL!!! The Pistons have made their salary cap bed with the massive Blake Griffin and Andre Drummond contracts — the two bigs will combine to make in excess of $126 million over the next two years, assuming Drummond picks up his player option in ’20-’21 — and now they have to lie in it, for better or worse. Realizing the corner they’ve backed themselves into, the front office has begun to take high-upside swings on unproven commodities (trading for former YouTube sensation-turned-disappointment Thon Maker and drafting raw-but-explosive Guinean forward Sekou Doumbouya) and desperate reclamation projects (Derrick Rose and 38-year-old Joe Johnson). Even under the best of circumstances — Blake magically stays healthy, Luke Kennard takes a big step forward, either Maker or Doumbouya shows promise, Rose has something left in the tank, the bench isn’t as ordinary as it looks, and Reggie Jackson stops doing Reggie Jackson things — what does that mean? Forty-four wins? Forty-six? Congrats, you’re still first-round cannon fodder, and probably two years from meaningful cap space or a chance to contend, by which time you’ll have a 33-year-old, possibly still ambulatory Blake Griffin on an expiring contract. Sorry, I’m out on principle.

    Source: Rocky Widner/NBAE/Getty Images

    Atlanta Hawks: OK, that last one was a little depressing; let’s put on our rose-colored glasses! Despite some early optimism from the sharps (the Hawks’ win total over/under has increased from 33.5 to 36 over the last several weeks), Vegas remains bearish on Atlanta’s chances to crack the playoff field because of their youth and inexperience. No doubt a ton of their minutes will be soaked up by 25-and-unders (and Vince Carter!), but in Trae Young and John Collins, all things are possible. After an inauspicious start to his rookie season (to put it charitably), Young found his depth and was an absolute monster offensively in the second half of the season, averaging a starry 24.7/4.7/9.2 on 44/35/88 shooting splits and a 30.8% Usage Rate after the All-Star Break. Collins averaged just a tick below 20-and-10 in his sophomore campaign on impressive 56/35/76 shooting, and is primed for a breakout third season as his game continues to expand. Put bluntly, both players could easily end up as All-Stars this season, and in the East, that’s a recipe for success almost no matter what the rest of the rotation looks like.

    Which isn’t to say there’s not talent up and down this roster. GM Travis Schlenk is clearly trying to build a sort of proto-Warriors, and despite the impossibility of accumulating that much Hall of Fame-caliber talent in one place, he has the outline down pretty well. Young is a reasonable facsimile of early Steph Curry — yes, I had to dodge a lightning bolt after typing that — and Collins and Kevin Huerter fit the “playmaking forward” and “sharpshooter with size” molds of Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, respectively. There is obviously no way to remotely replicate Kevin Durant, but Schlenk was smart to throw significant assets at big wings who project as elite 3-and-D options, moving up to select De’Andre Hunter from Virginia with the no. 4 pick and then taking Duke’s Cam Reddish at no. 10 with the pick obtained in the Young-for-Doncic swap at last year’s draft. Scouts may quibble with the upside of both selections, but the mold they fit is exactly what the Hawks need to complement Young and Collins as they ascend the NBA ranks.

    This season is clearly still about development, but as with the Nets, there are steady, competent vets on hand (Carter, Alex Len, Allen Crabbe, Evan Turner, and DeAndre’ Bembry) to right the ship for stretches when needed. [Related: I really hope at some point, De’Andre Hunter and DeAndre’ Bembry play each other one-on-one, with the winner taking ownership of the other’s apostrophe.] Head coach Lloyd Pierce will have learned some new tricks from his time as an assistant for Team USA with Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr, and the team will play fast, shoot a ton of threes, and be a hell of a lot of fun. Sure, the defense will probably still be lousy (27th in D-Rating last year), and it may be their undoing, but this is the sort of team for which League Pass was created. Watching them figure it out is going to be a blast.

    Chicago Bulls: I know, I know. The Bulls won only 22 games last year, so making the sort of jump necessary for a playoff spot is a big ask. Combined with the Vegas over/under (33.5 wins) and the front office’s history of bumbling and mismanagement, this might feel like a bridge too far. But here’s the thing: I kinda really like what they’ve done over the last year. Young teams need “adults in the room” to establish professional, winning habits, and in Otto Porter, Thaddeus Young, and Tomas Satoransky, the Bulls have acquired those exact types of guys, even if Porter’s contract is a touch onerous. Point guard play has been a debacle for Chicago for years now, and Satoransky promises to be a competent “floor raiser” at that spot. [I haven’t historically been a big fan, but I think Ricky Rubio might actually have a similar effect in Phoenix.] They’ve had no lottery luck during this recent rebuild, but even at the non-premium no. 7 spot in the last three drafts, they’ve landed promising talents in Lauri Markkanen, Wendell Carter, Jr., and Coby White. Markkanen was limited by injuries last season and still has a ways to go on defense, but at 21, The Finnisher’s arrow is pointing firmly in the right direction. White has the size, athleticism, and shooting prowess to become a star if he can corral his worst instincts and improve as a playmaker. Second-round big man Daniel Gafford out of Arkansas looked the part of a real NBA talent in Summer League and may turn out to be a steal. Young-ish complementary pieces Chandler Hutchison, Denzel Valentine, and Ryan Arcidiacono could all continue to improve into valuable contributors.

    And then there’s Zach LaVine. Coming off an ACL tear in 2017, LaVine had easily his most productive individual season in a featured role with the Bulls last year, averaging 23.7/4.7/4.5 on solid 47/37/83 shooting. He was clearly overburdened as the primary option on a young team, but his scoring and assist numbers scream inefficiency for a guy with a a 30.5 Usage Rate, and his defense remains a train wreck. Perhaps another year removed from the injury and better quality teammates around him will propel LaVine to the next level, but much like Devin Booker — crap, all these Phoenix comps can’t be a good thing — until both the defensive effort and results improve, fair or not, he’ll be viewed as an empty stats gunner.

    The Bulls will undoubtedly be an improved team, and there is a pathway, however slim, to the postseason in a vulnerable East. It wouldn’t entirely shock me, but like Orlando last year, they’ll need pristine health, and a number of guys will have to outperform their priors.

    OK, enough about what might happen. What do I think will happen? Here are my predictions for the East standings, in order of finish:

    1. Philadelphia 76ers
    2. Milwaukee Bucks
    3. Boston Celtics
    4. Brooklyn Nets
    5. Miami Heat
    6. Indiana Pacers
    7. Toronto Raptors
    8. Atlanta Hawks
    9. Orlando Magic
    10. Chicago Bulls
    11. Detroit Pistons
    12. New York Knicks
    13. Washington Wizards
    14. Cleveland Cavaliers
    15. Charlotte Hornets

    Let’s get this thing started! But first, I need a sandwich.

  • Requiem For A Dream Team

    Requiem For A Dream Team

    Much like a father reprimanding a foolish teenager would say: I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed.

    Back-to-back losses to France and Serbia (the latter of whom the US pummeled by 30 in the Gold Medal Game back in the halcyon days of 2016) have relegated the world’s no. 1 ranked team to no better than a seventh-place finish at this year’s FIBA World Cup. To anyone paying attention — I know there are a few of you out there — this result shouldn’t be shocking, or even surprising, really. But it is definitely disappointing.

    The poor showing will draw more attention than would have a narrow victory, so there may be a silver lining here in that the US got its big humiliation out of the way when the stakes were lower (for us, anyway — don’t tell that to the other teams still competing for the World Cup) and can now regroup before the Olympics next year. But to do that, USA Basketball will need to engage in some serious reflection and try to answer a number of big questions. First, what just happened, and why? Second, how much do we care? And last, what now? Let’s start unpacking.

    How did the Americans lose to France and Serbia? Handling skilled bigs was a huge bugaboo for this edition of USA Basketball, and no single player was more problematic for them than Rudy Gobert. The Stifle Tower was a game-changer for France at both ends of the floor in their 89-79 quarterfinal win on Wednesday. He finished with 21 points, 16 rebounds, and 3 blocks, a stat line which still undersells his impact. We know what he is defensively (the NBA’s two-time reigning Defensive Player of the Year), and he had several key blocks/alterations down the stretch when the struggling US offense did manage to get near the rim. His imprint on the offense may have been even more important in this one, however. As most international squads do against Team USA, France dissected the defense with a steady diet of high pick-and-rolls. But most teams don’t have a roll man with the sort of gravity Gobert brings to bear. The Americans were terrified of Gobert rolling to the rim, and their continued hesitation to play a hedge-and-tag coverage allowed Gobert’s most frequent PnR dance partner, Evan Fournier, to come off nearly every screen unfettered. The Orlando guard finished with 22 points, and erstwhile Spur Nando de Colo also chipped in 18 out of many of the same actions. Myles Turner, who had an excellent tournament overall, was completely out of his depth, getting roasted repeatedly in the screen game until Pop mercifully benched him to go with small lineups featuring either Harrison Barnes or Jaylen Brown at center. [Brook Lopez offered no answers, either. His spacing could have been a major factor in the tournament, but he was ice-cold throughout, shooting a cover-your-eyes-awful 2-of-16 from three over the first seven games.] The small ball approach led to the Americans’ only dominant stretch of the game in the third quarter, which they won 27-18 behind a flurry of buckets from Donovan Mitchell (29 points), who was Team USA’s undisputed best player in the game. But the overall lack of shot-making on the roster reared its ugly head down the stretch, as the Americans missed six critical free throws in the fourth quarter and couldn’t buy a bucket in the half court. Kemba Walker had his worst game of the tournament at the worst possible time, going an especially egregious 1-for-7 from the field in the fourth. France outscored the US 26-13 in the final frame, Gobert was everywhere, and the French absolutely deserved to win the game. And yes, it’s super-weird to type those words.

    Size again proved to be an issue against Serbia, and Team USA’s struggles to defend the interior allowed the Serbs to go wild from the perimeter as well. Nikola Jokic was relatively quiet, playing only 21 minutes due to foul trouble, but the pressure he and Spurs’ draft-and-stash big man Nikola Milutinov put on the defense, along with Serbia’s crisp ball movement, opened up opportunities behind the arc for Sacramento Kings swingman Bogdan “Double Bogey” Bogdanovic, who torched the US for 28 points, including 4 threes in the first quarter. The Americans were embarrassed to the tune of 32-7 in the first, roared back in the second to trail by only four at the break, but could never get over the hump in the second half. Some of the edge was taken off the loss because the US was already eliminated from medal contention, but the blitzkrieg put on by the Serbs to start the game was shocking and humiliating nonetheless.

    In the aggregate, the numbers for Team USA end up looking rather ordinary. They outscored opponents by an average of 13.1 points per game (compared to the 33.0 scoring margin of the 2014 World Cup team), and if we discount the JV game against Japan, that margin drops all the way to 6.5 points per game. The team shot merely 33.3% from deep, and Kemba Walker and Joe Harris were the only Americans to shoot better than NBA league average, despite the shorter international three-point line. They attempted only one more free throw than did their opponents, an unforgivable lack of aggressiveness for a team with such an advantage in athleticism. The defensive effort was commendable throughout, but the US simply had no answer for basic screen-and-roll actions, and couldn’t score enough to make up the difference (more on that later). It’s facile to say the roster just wasn’t very good, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…

    This roster was less talented, but the fix isn’t as simple as it may seem. The thousand-foot takeaway from this tournament is going to be the US sent its C team, which is no longer enough against more cohesive international opponents featuring more elite talent than in previous years. Players like Gobert, Jokic, Double Bogey (I’ll never give up), Patty Mills, and Ersan Ilyasova absolutely ate our lunch during this run, and most of them will still be around next year to try to do it again. Does the US have better players than those guys at their respective positions? Generally speaking, yes. Even with the massive uptick in top foreign-born players, Team USA still has access to the vast majority of the world’s front line talent. Does it though? When we start to consider who the best of the best are and where they fall in the cycle of their respective careers, the path to an overwhelming 2020 roster becomes a bit murkier. A large cohort of the A-list Americans (LeBron, Durant, Curry, Westbrook, Harden) are on the wrong side of 30 and have done multiple tours of duty for USA Basketball. There are various legitimate reasons why these legends may not want to sacrifice their summers to accomplish something they’ve already accomplished.

    Along with key 2019 team members Donovan Mitchell, Myles Turner, Jayson Tatum, and Jaylen Brown, there is also a huge crop of up-and-coming, under-25 talent in the American pipeline: Trae Young, Jaren Jackson, Jr., Zion Williamson, Ja Morant, Marvin Bagley III, De’Aaron Fox, Jonathan Isaac, John Collins, Bam Adebayo, D’Angelo Russell, Devin Booker, Kyle Kuzma, Wendell Carter, Jr., Darius Garland, and a number of others. These guys represent the next generation of USA Basketball, but as we saw in China, putting too much of a burden on them in the near term can lead to disaster without some apex predators around to pick up the slack when the relative inexperience bubbles to the surface.

    The key is to build around 24- to 29-year-olds, the dudes who have reached their physical peak, still have the energy and motivation to put into Team USA, and won’t blink when the pressure mounts in a single elimination game against a well-coordinated opponent who won’t seem to miss a shot. There is a stable of these guys on whom Jerry Colangelo can call. Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard, Jimmy Butler, Paul George, Bradley Beal, Dame Lillard, Kyrie Irving, Victor Oladipo, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green all fit the bill. But will Team USA get all (or even some) of them to commit? If Davis endures a long playoff run (no guarantee, as you may recall) and says “thanks but no thanks” next summer, what is our answer for bigs like Gobert and Jokic? Myles Turner (still only 23 somehow) sure wasn’t it, and the ranks of elite, in-their-prime big men get awfully thin after AD. If Team USA can recruit enough overwhelming talent on the wing (a glaring deficiency in this year’s team when viewed through the lens of previous rosters, especially after Tatum’s ankle injury) then it should be able to overcome the dearth of world-class interior players. Even with the embarrassment of 2019, however, the top-end guys may not be clamoring to throw their hats in the ring for Redeem Team II (working title) in 2020. Is the upside worth the risk for them? We can say the solution is to throw talent at the problem until we’re red, white, and blue in the face, but the talent has a say in the matter as well.

    Questions about roster construction are heavily tied to the other big question with which Team USA is going to have to grapple: how much do we, as a basketball culture, actually care about international success? The conventional wisdom is there is a cyclical nature to our commitment to the FIBA game, and the disastrous loss is the necessary immolation, the cleansing fire which begins the next cycle anew. If China 2019 is the next “Seoul ’88” or “Athens ’04” and it leads to another decade-plus of international domination, then so be it. But this narrative overlooks the degree to which the cycles may be correlated as much to the generations of talent as they are to our overall level of interest. Sure, no one was going to compete with those first two Dream Teams, but mercy, look at those rosters. The post-Athens rejuvenation also coincided with the primes of LeBron, Wade, Melo, Kobe, and Durant, only five of the greatest scorers the game has ever seen. Those guys were then reinforced with the arrivals of Curry, Harden, Westbrook, Davis, and others. Seriously, this was the roster of the 2012 Olympic team:

    Then-28-year-old Andre Iguodala, coming off an All-Star season, was basically an afterthought on this squad, averaging 4.3 PPG in 12.1 minutes a game. Not to put too fine a point on it, but a now-35-year-old Iggy, who was just unceremoniously jettisoned by Golden State for cap space, would have averaged more minutes than that on this year’s World Cup team.

    Just look at that roster again. Given the amount of young, all-world talent in their rotation (plus a pre-Achilles tear Kobe), it’s honestly amazing Spain gave them a real game in the Final, with the U.S. prevailing by only seven. There should not be any level of cohesiveness, craft, ball movement, and shooting which can compete with such overwhelming ability, and the international teams have only improved in the interim. Point is, forget about this year’s lackluster roster for a moment. Even if next summer rolls around and we have every single hand on deck, and every major player says he wants to play — the “caring” slider is turned all the way up to 100 — could we possibly construct a roster as good as the one in 2012? This isn’t to say there’s a lack of US-born talent at the moment; there is probably even more now than there was seven years ago. But it’s reductive to accept this argument about the cyclical nature of our teams and conclude it only comes down to how much effort we put into it and whether or not the best players decide to suit up.

    The US always has the superior talent in the aggregate, but how it is concentrated and to what degree is not static. There’s a reasonable chance our own “golden generation” has already peaked and is now receding, with another cycle of all-time talent rising to prominence at some TBD point in the future. And with the rest of the world becoming both more talented and more sophisticated in how they approach the game, it’s not crazy to think we could STILL lose next year even with our A-team. Whatever value judgment you decide to place on it, this year’s World Cup demonstrated in no uncertain terms we do have to send our very best in order to win international competitions. As USA Basketball is currently constructed, it’s the baseline requirement, and as soon as next summer, it could even prove to be necessary but not sufficient.

    When it comes to competing against countries with infinitely more chemistry and continuity, the Americans’ glut of talent is a blessing and a curse. Stacking stars plays to both extremes, but as we saw this summer, counting on lesser talents to more readily accept roles and develop chemistry isn’t a better path forward, at least in the short-term. Without a fundamental reorganization of how Team USA runs its program and constructs rosters — much like what happened after the debacle in ’04, but even more dramatic — we will never be able to deploy the sort of cohesive units the Serbias and Frances and Australias of the world can. At times during Thursday’s USA-Serbia “May God Help Them” Bowl, Serbia looked like the 2014 Spurs out there. The ball and player movement were so pristine and instinctive. Someone was getting an open shot; it’s just a question of whether or not it fell. It takes years of continuity to build that sort of ecosystem, and that time is the one resource the American program may never possess. The only recourse is to run out athletic superfreaks who have a chance to disrupt their opponents’ surgical precision with blunt force transition trauma and unstoppable shot-making. It may not entirely jibe with Coach Pop’s preferred basketball aesthetic, but as I said before the tournament started, you go to war with the army you have. US players may never figure out how to properly defend an international pick-and-roll (no matter how many times I scream “Hedge!” at my TV screen), but if they can also score at will, it doesn’t much matter.

    [The numbers support this. Team USA’s defense is fairly consistent over time; their own scoring average is the big variable. Over the previous five major international competitions (2008-2016), Team USA averaged 104 PPG. In 2019? 86.4 PPG. In the 2016 Olympics in Rio, the US played both Serbia and France in the opening round. They beat Serbia 94-91 and France 100-97, pretty close to their 100.9 overall scoring average for the tournament. Jokic and Gobert may both have been younger and greener three years ago, but it’s pretty clear the USA’s offense is the big difference between then and now. Go watch the Americans put up only five points over the final seven minutes on Wednesday if you need further proof.] It was awesome to see Donovan Mitchell break out for 29 points against France. Only problem is the rest of the roster scored a combined fifty. Gobert is a menace defensively (according to some, right Myles?), but come on.

    So what type of roster could put up enough points to take home the gold next year? If I had my druthers (by the way, has anyone actually ever had his druthers, or are they merely something one could theoretically possess?), my realistic twelve-man roster would look something like this:

    Guards: Steph Curry, Dame Lillard, Donovan Mitchell, Trae Young

    Wings: Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Jayson Tatum, Bradley Beal, Victor Oladipo

    Bigs: Anthony Davis, Myles Turner, Zion Williamson

    The World Cup may have gone poorly, but it’s a good idea not to throw the baby out with the bath water. The international experience was valuable for the most talented members of the squad (Mitchell, Tatum, Turner), and it may be wise to create some continuity with those guys and give them the opportunity to exact revenge for this summer’s failure. Curry and Lillard have yet to play for an Olympic team, so they may be motivated to serve as the veteran leaders on the next edition. Who knows what Kawhi’s motivations are — he may not even have a “caring” slider, and if he does, it sure doesn’t get anywhere near 100 — but he is obviously the best prime-age wing we could realistically have, assuming LeBron and Durant choose to sit this one out. George, Beal, and Oladipo all bring the scoring, shooting, and two-way impact the ’19 team lacked on the wing. We already discussed Davis, and he’s the linchpin to the whole roster. Affording limited roles to Zion and Trae would begin to bridge the gap to the next generation of stars without weakening the current team, and Zion’s involvement provides the potential for the next indelible “Vince Carter jumping over Fred Weis” moment. [Knicks’ legend Weis wouldn’t even crack France’s roster nowadays, but that’s a different story.]

    Given the roster limitations, there was always a good chance this summer would end in disappointing fashion. And if the indifference of the A-list stars towards Team USA participation becomes this generation’s new normal, we could be looking at the start of a fallow period similar to the early aughts. I’d rather look at the glass as half-full and view this humiliation as the kick in the pants Team USA and the American stars needed to begin the next cycle of international dominance. I look forward to having this talk again in another fifteen years.

    Top Photo: AP Photos

  • America Under Fire: Early Takeaways From The FIBA World Cup

    America Under Fire: Early Takeaways From The FIBA World Cup

    Things are already getting too close for comfort for Team USA at the FIBA World Cup in Shanghai. After cruising past an inferior Czech Republic team on Sunday, 88-67, the Yanks faced a much stiffer test on Tuesday, narrowly escaping with a 93-92 OT win over Turkey which required the Turks to pull a Nick Anderson-esque choke job at the free throw line down the stretch. They missed four consecutive freebies — two by Cedi Osman of the Cleveland Cavaliers — at the tail end of overtime to keep the Americans’ hopes alive, followed by Khris Middleton calmly nailing two free throws of his own to retake the lead and seal the win. The wild finish punctuated an up-and-down performance by Team USA, and after the first two full games of the tournament, some patterns are beginning to emerge.

    Kemba Walker is the team’s leader, but Jayson Tatum may be its most important player. First, the news-y part: Tatum sprained his left ankle in the final moments of the game on Tuesday, and team doctors say he will be re-evaluated in five days, meaning he’ll miss at least the next two games (Thursday against Japan and Saturday in a second-round game, opponent TBD). So long as he can come back soon thereafter, the temporary loss shouldn’t hurt the Americans too badly, but they will absolutely need what he brings when the elimination games begin.

    For a team lacking the elite, top-line talent of previous iterations of Team USA, Tatum is critical because he acts as a “ceiling raiser” for this squad. Coming into the tournament, critics pointed to his lack of aggressiveness off the bounce and his deficiencies as a playmaker, but Tatum has shown flashes of real improvement in those areas in the early stages. He still has a tendency to float through sections of games, but on a roster thin on guys willing to drive to the cup — note how Turkey eviscerated them in paint points on Tuesday — the bouts of off-the-dribble dynamism Tatum has exhibited have been tremendously effective.

    His knack for finding open teammates seems to have improved as well. He made several nice reads to get the ball to shooters against Czech Republic, as well as the on-a-full-sprint perfect bounce pass to Khris Middleton which led to the game-winning free throws against Turkey. [And his ankle injury, unfortunately.] And then there’s this wraparound beauty to Myles Turner in the first clip here:

    He’s been equally aggressive defensively, and his propensity for timely blocks and steals ignited some of the rare transition opportunities they had vs. Turkey, affording them easy points they couldn’t seem to generate otherwise. [The steal/layup sequence in OT, as well as the rebound/push/dish play at the very end, were game-savers which would echo a little more loudly down through history if the stakes of the game were a bit higher and, you know, anyone was actually watching. More on that later.]

    Team USA is just more complete and less predictable when Tatum is on the floor. He’s the only big wing they have who can shoot, drive, defend, rebound, and make plays for others at a high level, and he doesn’t seem to be walking on eggshells like some of his teammates. He has no qualms about asserting himself and going to get the damn ball. Hopefully he’ll remain as aggressive when/if he’s able to come back next week because the team will need those game-changing types of plays when it’s time to face the real contenders, like Serbia. [Especially Serbia. They look like literal world-beaters out there so far. They shot 75% for an entire game!]

    The performance of the other wings has been solid but inconsistent. Khris Middleton, the only other reigning All-Star on the roster besides Kemba, has begun to find his footing of late after struggling with his shot in the exhibition games. [Reports out of Team USA camp were he was having difficulty with the different ball used in the FIBA game, which seems both kinda dumb and totally understandable at the same time.] He hit two threes against Turkey, along with the aforementioned game-winning free throws and a key putback on an offensive rebound. His defense, as always, is unspectacular but generally mistake-free. As with his NBA career, there is never any indication of when he is about to catch fire from the perimeter, but he will at some point, and it will probably turn a game. I wish he were more aggressive going to the hoop, but he just doesn’t seem to have it in him.

    Jaylen Brown is having a tough time carving out a role, and he only got six minutes of burn against Turkey. Perhaps Tatum’s injury will open the door for him, but he seems to have been passed in the rotation by Joe Harris. Brooklyn’s sharpshooter has impacted the game in ways beyond his sweet stroke, playing better defense than I thought him capable of, grabbing tough rebounds in traffic, and leveraging his own gravity to draw defenders and kick to open teammates. Coach Pop appears to trust him to be a mature player and not make costly errors, and so far Harris has repaid that trust.

    Much like Tatum, the other guy who determines how high this team can fly — sometimes literally — is Donovan Mitchell. He was too much for the Czech Republic to handle, but he was not locked in against Turkey. Spida made several critical mistakes, including one errant pass after getting caught in the air, and grabbing the rim unnecessarily for an offensive interference violation on what would have been a key tip-in by Myles Turner late in OT. [Yes, I know he also got the crucial offensive board at the end of regulation which led to the bail-out foul on Tatum’s three, one of a half-dozen miraculous things which had to happen for the US to survive the no. 17 team in the world. Ugh.] Coach Pop has talked at length about wanting Mitchell, despite his tender age, to be one of the leaders of this team, but Donovan still seems to be feeling out where he fits within the hierarchy. He needs to figure it out soon because it’s about to get late early in this tournament.

    The lack of continuity shows. Talent can cover for a lot of flaws, but there are certain areas of the game where the only solution to a problem is the collective pattern recognition which our cobbled-together roster lacks. On defense, the overall effort has been excellent, and Myles Turner has proven to be a tremendous deterrent at the rim. Where they’ve gotten into trouble, as has been the case with past teams, is in containing guards in the high pick-and-roll. Defending screens (both on- and off-ball) requires a mind meld between the players directly involved, the weakside help, and the coaching staff. International opponents — many of whom have played together for a decade or more — are happy to exploit the Americans’ lack of experience and cohesion at the point of attack.

    Again, Turner’s effort has been phenomenal, and he’s doing yeoman’s work for a roster lacking other realistic options at the 4 and 5, but he is having a difficult time containing ball handlers as they come off the screen. It’s unclear if the strategy is to have him read and react in terms of how he plays his coverage, but there doesn’t seem to be a consistent framework in place, at least not one he’s executing, anyway. Sometimes he drops back into the paint, other times he stays at the level of the screen, and still others he hedges and recovers. The last of the three options has seemed the most effective, at least in that it scuttles the initial penetration into the lane and forces the opposition to ping the ball around to get an open look. Turner and Mason Plumlee both have the foot speed to make it work — Brook Lopez, not so much — so perhaps it will inform Pop’s rotational and strategic decisions going forward, because they can’t just keep giving opponents’ guards a clear runway to the hoop like they have in the Australia exhibitions and the first two tournament games.

    Overall, the defense has been solid. Talent and effort should mostly be able to keep them afloat on that end. The offense is a thornier issue. It’s nearly impossible to microwave an offensive ecosystem, and the other teams know it. If players don’t have established roles and responsibilities, shot selection, aggressiveness, and efficiency can all suffer. When it’s sphincter-clenching time, even teams with endless experience and repetitions tend to devolve into iso-ball and “I got this” mode, and it’s even more pronounced when the players haven’t gone through it together. Kemba is the obvious “I got this” guy, and he can create space with his step back jumper nearly any time he wants. I’m not going to wade into the whole debate about the efficacy of the midrange shot, but by frequently pulling up from 18 feet against a set defense, Walker is taking the exact shot these defenses want him to take, regardless of the result. Both Turkey and Australia seemed to realize they were overmatched on defense, and instead of beating their heads against the wall trying not to concede open shots, they set their minds to taking away the easy stuff and allowing the “right” sorts of open shots. They took care of the ball on offense to prevent transition opportunities, and corralled Walker and Mitchell into the middle of the floor, rather than give up threes, layups, and dunks. And when all else failed, they would hack the hell out of our guys on drives and count on the occasionally inconsistent FIBA officiating (OK, I’m being generous — I don’t know what the hell constitutes a foul) to bail them out.

    Turkey did it with a simple zone, and it flummoxed the US for most of the second half. NBA teams don’t run much zone (except as a change of pace) because, by and large, they are easier for elite athletes and shooters to beat than man-to-man schemes. I suspect the Americans will find their way against other teams trying to employ zones, but they can’t allow the opposition to turn them into a half court, jump shooting team and negate their athleticism advantage with such a simple gimmick.

    Making the games available only on ESPN+ is some nonsense. I don’t want to harp on this too much, but it just feels greedy and short-sighted. FIBA, the NBA, and ESPN should all have a vested interest in making this exact sort of tournament more accessible to fans outside of hardcore basketball circles, and instead they’ve done the exact opposite by putting it behind a paywall. Perhaps it’s a guinea pig for them, or a sneaky way to get a bunch of people to sign up for the streaming service and then forget to cancel it, but either way, it smacks of opportunism when magnanimity would have been more appropriate. Also, the announcers are mostly lousy. If we’re going to pay ESPN above and beyond what we already do every month, couldn’t we at least get some Doris Burke for our trouble?

    Things are only going to get tougher for Team USA. They should cruise past Japan, and they’ll have some margin for error once the second round begins. But if it wasn’t already clear before the Turkey game, it should be crystal now: this is not going to be a cakewalk, and not only do the other countries not fear the Americans, many of them actively think they are better. The chemistry will continue to grow as the tournament progresses, and it will need to in order to overcome the weaknesses discussed above. The absence of Tatum will stress-test the rest of the roster. They just got manhandled by Ersan Ilyasova to the tune of 23 points and 14 rebounds, and stronger, more skilled big men await. There are potential games on the horizon (against Serbia with Nikola Jokic and Greece with Giannis Antetokounmpo, specifically) where the US definitively will not have the best player on the floor, a situation which hasn’t unfolded since before most of the current team members were born. Experienced outfits like Spain, France, Argentina, and Lithuania also loom as threats. The US justifiably remains the favorite to bring home another gold, and perhaps the close call against Turkey will be a galvanizing moment. But the smart money is probably on “the field” at this point, and as we saw this past NBA season, isn’t it a bit more fun when there’s a chance the superpower doesn’t win, even if the underdog hails from another country?

    Of course I still hope the US pulls it out; I am a patriot after all, at least in this strange, myopic way. And even if casual fans aren’t paying attention (with ESPN doing all they can to make sure of it), this could end up being the most meaningful title for Team USA during the era of pro players, not because those who came before didn’t work hard for it, but rather because this team would be the first to do it on a court not heavily tilted in its favor. Your mileage may vary, but I suppose that possibility is worth the extra $4.99 it costs to find out. The capitalists always win in the end.

    Top Photo Credit: usab.com

  • What If The Lakers Miss The Playoffs Again?

    What If The Lakers Miss The Playoffs Again?

    I PROMISE THIS COLUMN IS NOT about Dwight Howard. But here are three facts which paint an interesting picture when taken together:

    • It took 48 wins to reach the postseason in the West last year, and the conference is widely expected to be even more competitive this season.
    • The Westgate in Las Vegas has the 2019-20 Lakers’ over/under pegged at 50.5 wins.
    • In eight of the last nine seasons, the under has hit for the team employing Dwight Howard. [The lone exception was the 2014-15 Rockets, a season in which Dwight played only 41 games.]

    We have plenty of circumstantial evidence at this point to conclude the #Dwightmare is a real phenomenon, but it’s not the point. In announcing his signing, the Lakers were clear about what the extent of his role will be and the degree to which they will not tolerate his well-chronicled tendencies toward distraction and nonsense. [For real. The contract is structured such that he can be cut at any time, for any reason, with no additional money owed to him.] This is the first time an organization has truly had leverage over Dwight during his career, so much like Carmelo Anthony in Houston last year, it’s reasonable to expect the Lakers to kick D12 to the curb sooner rather than later if there are any signs of discontent with his presence. [Yes, I am aware I’m giving L.A.’s slap-dick front office far more credit than it probably deserves, but it’s a new season and Magic Johnson isn’t around anymore to goon things up, so we’ll grant them a mulligan to start the round. Sure, they’ll almost certainly burn it right off the first tee, which will only serve to further justify the clowning they receive down the line if they yet again prove they do not warrant the benefit of the doubt. Anyhoo.]

    Point is, even under ideal conditions, the Lakers would have topped out as first round cannon fodder last year. [At the time LeBron was injured, L.A. was on pace for approximately 48 wins which, again, turned out to be the playoff cut line.] Obviously, conditions were not ideal. Regardless of what the messaging was going into the season, the reality is the Lakers wasted what was ostensibly one of LeBron’s last prime seasons. And despite all the melodrama, the Lakers again benefited from the giant horseshoe crammed up their collective ass, lucking into the fourth overall pick in the 2019 draft, which allowed them to secure generational big man Anthony Davis by shipping out every asset not nailed down, including the pick. And yet, with two of the league’s top ten players in the fold, the margin for error remains razor-thin in a Western Conference which is about to look like the fight scene from Anchorman. [If we’re extending the analogy, JaVale McGee is clearly Brick Tamland, though based off his 58.8% career free throw percentage, I don’t have a ton of confidence the trident would find its mark.] It’s amid this backdrop they consciously decided to expose themselves to Dwight’s disease, even if they are taking steps to ensure this strain is relatively mild.

    The AD trade was the “Look out, the Lakers are back!” moment for a franchise which has been an abomination for most of the decade. But with everything we know, it’s at least worth asking:

    Are we sure?

    Dwight Howard | via Marca

    THE CASE FOR THE LAKERS becoming a 54+ win contender is pretty straightforward: they have LeBron and AD, and everyone else doesn’t. They have useful complementary pieces in Kyle Kuzma and Danny Green. The front line talent, plus just enough theoretical floor spacing, should make L.A. a top-tier offensive outfit. No argument there.

    Here’s the rub: constructing a darkest timeline isn’t much more difficult. As good as they are likely to be on offense, the defense could be the inverse. Davis and Green are both high-end defensive players, and Howard, for all the, ahem, difficulties he presents, remains an effective rim protector as well (much more so than Boogie Cousins, whom Dwight will replace in the rotation, would have been). Beyond them, however, is there anyone in L.A.’s rotation we should expect to consistently get stops? Avery Bradley was a plus defensive guard during the earlier portion of his career, but his offense has been so execrable over the past two years, he may prove unplayable. Jared Dudley is solid, but does he have enough left in the tank to give them anything beyond spot minutes? LeBron still rates as a net-positive defensively, as per usual, but there is no more well-worn narrative in the league at this point than the King’s tendency to float through stretches of games and seasons on the defensive end.

    The counterargument to LeBron’s lack of effort is sure to be, “Yeah, but this is the first time all decade he didn’t play into mid-June. He’ll be rested and ready to go all-out this season.” Will he though? First, James will be 35 in December. We know his commitment to physical maintenance is legendary, but at a certain point, the energy level simply isn’t what it used to be. Second, yes, he did play a lot less basketball last season, but you know what he spent his summer doing? FILMING A MOVIE. Have you ever heard an actor/producer/director promoting a film say, “You know what was super restful? Working twenty hours a day on this feature-length movie. I sure did feel great physically when that was over.” No, because by all accounts, making a movie is fucking grueling. Do we really have reason to suspect LeBron, the star and executive producer of Space Jam 2, is going to stroll into camp fresh as a daisy? Color me skeptical. [Davis — along with every other Klutch client known to man, apparently — will also reportedly appear in the film.]

    Under the best of circumstances, this is likely to be a middle-of-the-road defense. If Davis and/or Green should miss any time — let alone LeBron — they could easily crater on that end.

    So if we’re looking at a team with an elite offense and a sub-par defense led by a late-prime LeBron and a second star in the neighborhood of his apex, what does that mean? Fortunately, we have a useful analogue for this: the 2016-17 Cavaliers. For Lakers fans, using Bron’s penultimate season in Cleveland as a guidepost offers some good news and some bad news. The good news: that team won 51 games (checks out) and finished second in the East. For the season, the Cavs had the no. 3 offense and the no. 21 defense. [For anyone who doubts the impact of defense in the NBA, the ’15-’16 Cavs, with largely the same cast of characters, were also 3rd on offense but 10th on defense. They won 57 games, and as you may recall, the championship.]

    Cleveland stormed its way through the playoffs, going 12-1 in the first three rounds before falling 4-1 in the Finals to an even-better-than-we-remember Warriors team in its first season with Kevin Durant. History will recall those Finals as a blowout, but in reality, they were not. If KD misses the dagger three in LeBron’s mug in Game Three, there’s a reasonable chance the series goes back to Oakland for Game 5 tied 2-2. Sure, an absolutely loaded Golden State squad probably still pulls it out in a long series, but we end up thinking much differently about the way it went down. Cleveland gave the Dubs all they could handle in Games Three through Five, and their 137-116 Game 4 win to secure the gentleman’s sweep was one of the most gob-smacking offensive performances I’ve ever seen. [I’ve said this before, but seriously, go back and watch the game sometime. The Cavs just don’t fucking miss.]

    So the ’16-’17 Cavs won 50+ games, steamrolled through the playoffs, and went toe-to-toe with one of history’s greatest teams. You’re probably wondering why I think this portends ominous things for this year’s Lakers. Well, here’s the bad news. First, the obvious one: the Cavs play in the East, and in the ’16-’17 season the conference was, to put it charitably, wretched. The top-seeded Celtics won only 53 games — this was the “Isaiah Thomas goes nuts with dribble hand-offs all year, then torches the Wizards in Round 2 with a bum hip while mourning his sister’s untimely death” season — and by Simple Rating System (which accounts for both margin of victory and strength of schedule), there were a full five teams in the West better than anyone in the East. The Cavs finished with the seventh-easiest schedule in the league, and all of the teams they throttled in the playoffs (the Pacers, Raptors, and Celtics) had even easier slates than did Cleveland. Based on point differential, those Cavs had an Expected W-L record of 49-33, which already puts us in “Uh-oh” territory in the West. Their SRS of 2.87 would have landed them in 7th in the West in the ’18-’19 season, sandwiched between the 49-win Thunder and 48-win Spurs. [Again, checks out, and perhaps slightly more encouraging.]

    Here’s where it gets hard to replicate, however. Those Cavs enjoyed relatively healthy seasons from both of their stars, getting 74 and 72 games from LeBron and Kyrie Irving, respectively. They had a third All-Star in Kevin Love, albeit one who only played 60 games. [The Cavs were 40-20 in games where Love played and only 11-11 in games he missed.] LeBron is now three years older and coming off the first “real” injury of his career, and Anthony Davis has been known to miss stretches of games nearly every year. [On average, he’s played about 67 games per season.] Are we confident the two of them will combine for 145+ games played this year, especially given the way teams now manage rest even compared to just three years ago? Can a 24-year-old Kyle Kuzma approximate the impact of a then-28-year-old Kevin Love, who was busy making his fourth All-Star team and shooting 37% from deep? The answers to these questions aren’t a definitive “no,” but it takes a little bit of mental gymnastics to get to a “yes.” [Fortunately, most Lakers fans might as well be Simone Biles doing the floor exercise in this regard.]

    The depth of the ’17 Cavs was not enviable, but it may still be preferable to what the Lakers will be working with this year. In addition to Love as the third option, they got a healthy, productive season out of Tristan Thompson, along with the last real embers of NBA viability from veterans Richard Jefferson, Kyle Korver, and Channing Frye. The three graybeards shot a combined 41% from three on 721 attempts during the season. Can the Lakers’ non-primary guys match this sort of efficiency against tougher opposition and in a potentially more cramped offensive environment? Quinn Cook, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Alex Caruso are all likely to be important cogs in the machine, which only feels like a mild improvement over the island of misfit toys they had populating their bench last season.

    Depth matters in the regular season because it’s a function of arithmetic. A team has to fill 19,680 minutes of available court time, not counting any potential overtimes. Even assuming good health, the Lakers will probably only get 10,000 or so of those minutes from the top four of LeBron, Davis, Kuzma, and Green. Those other 9,000+ minutes have to come from somewhere, and the options are not particularly inspiring, even with the most generous estimation of what Dwight might offer. Top-heavy rosters continually have to make up for the drag from the lower half of the rotation. Just ask Anthony Davis, who only has two playoff appearances to his name, in large part because of the similarly flawed rosters former Pelicans’ GM Dell Demps put around him.

    Getting positive contributions from players five through ten goes a long way to padding win totals, and I struggle to see where those contributions are going to consistently come from with this supporting cast. Teams like the Raptors, Bucks, and Nuggets were filling every one of those 9,000-ish minutes with legit, above average NBA players last season, so they weren’t doomed to take an L any time one of the stars was injured, or having an off night, or being load managed. For a team with a bottom-half defense and lackluster depth, the road to 50+ wins is littered with landmines, no matter how glitzy the star power at the top. And if one of those top guys should have to miss significant time, there’s no one to fill the production void. Kaboom.

    Beyond the depth of talent itself, there are questions about how this mish-mash of players is going to fit together on the floor. The basic outline of the offense isn’t hard to surmise: LeBron/AD pick-and-rolls flanked by shooting. Do virtually nothing else, and it’s a top-10 unit. But how much will they deploy this configuration, and do they have enough competent floor spacers to make it work? Green and Cook should prove to be snug fits, but Kuzma’s outside stroke has been mostly theoretical to this point (30.3% last season on 6 attempts per game). Once new coach (for now) Frank Vogel gets down into the Rajon Rondo/Alex Caruso/Jared Dudley/KCP/Avery Bradley section of the roster, there’s no telling if he’ll get consistent shooting, and even if so, whether it’ll be offset by other deficiencies.

    To go one step further, on the assumption this look represents the most efficient version of the Lakers — and I suspect it will — it is dependent on AD playing heavy, high-leverage minutes at center, a prospect at which he has repeatedly expressed his displeasure. As soon as JaVale McGee or Dwight Howard checks into the game alongside Davis, the spacing and geometry of the offense change. Perhaps they can overcome this structural shift by just being freaking huge — so hot right now — and using the lineup in the right doses and against the right opponents, but it’s going to be an adjustment as the season progresses. And oftentimes, when a team is busy tinkering with lineups and establishing an identity on the fly during a season, you know what happens? They lose winnable games to teams with less talent but more continuity. And in the West, if they stack enough of those one-off, woulda-shoulda-coulda losses on each other, they miss the playoffs.

    [On a related note, I’m not here to pile on Davis after how his entire saga went down, but his whole “I don’t want to play the 5” talking point is some utter bullshit. I get he’s a hyper-skilled, multifaceted big man. It’s a large part of what makes him so great. But in the end, he is what he is: a near-seven foot, 250-pound athletic freak with “Go-Go Gadget” arms who excels at finishing, rebounding, and defending the rim. In other words, A CENTER. The best, most versatile bigs in today’s game can capably man either the 4 or the 5, as Davis clearly can. While it creates some of the challenges mentioned above, it’s a problem most teams would kill to have because of the lineup versatility it engenders. It’s not as though AD isn’t going to spend a bunch of time in the middle, but a player angling to limit how the coach uses him both kneecaps the team strategically and comes off as more than a little weak. You’re Anthony Freaking Davis. You’re really worried about the beating these other centers are going to put on you? Instead, how about you just go be the generational unicorn you are and dominate their big, slow, unskilled asses right out of the league? I do not begrudge the power and agency the league’s stars have earned to chart their own professional courses, but all of the money they make and the off-court opportunities they are afforded ultimately exist because when they step between the lines, it is their JOB to do whatever it takes to help their team win. When it’s nut-crunching time for these Lakers, I can pretty well guarantee the best chance for them to win will be with AD at center. If he refuses to embrace that role, tacitly or otherwise, it will be a dereliction of duty on his part. End rant.]

    Let’s say the worst-case scenario comes to pass. Injuries expose the lack of depth, the defense is lousy, the shooting never materializes, Dwight offers them nothing but metaphorical gluteal soreness yet again, and L.A. misses the playoffs with 43-45 wins. What then? For all it took to land Davis, he becomes an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2020 and could begin to second-guess whether strong-arming his way to L.A. was a prudent move.

    After eight straight Finals trips, LeBron would have flushed away two whole seasons without so much as a playoff berth to show for it. He remains under contract for 2020-21 (with a player option for ’21-’22), but it’s not as though he has ever had any qualms about applying pressure to owners or front offices he perceives as under-performing. With no future assets to trade and very little financial flexibility to work with, LeBron’s only true leverage over the team would be to request a trade. I don’t see it happening, but I also don’t have much confidence in the Lakers’ brass to maximize this window, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility. I doubt LeBron wants his legacy to be as the guy who repeatedly bailed on franchises when it suited his interests — if this hypothetical becomes reality, he’ll have jumped ship four times in a ten-year span, counting Cleveland twice — but history tends to dull the edges on these things over time. And perhaps it would be a poetic bookend to the player empowerment decade, a final reminder that no matter what transpires, LeBron remains the queen on the chessboard.

    All of this is wild speculation, of course. Maybe LBJ comes back rejuvenated, he and AD click on the court and off, the supporting cast is fine, Dwight turns out not to be a pox on the locker room, and the Lakers roll to 55+ wins and a top-4 seed in the West. It’s not impossible. But if the wheels come off, the Lakers find themselves on the outside looking in for the seventh straight year, and heads start rolling? Don’t say you weren’t warned.