The Raptors were up against it just a few days ago, looking overmatched in a Game 2 beatdown on Friday in Milwaukee to go down 2-0 in the Eastern Conference Finals. Since then, they have stormed back with two wins in Toronto to even the series at two game apiece, including a convincing 120-102 pantsing of the Bucks in Game 4 on Tuesday. The East now comes down to a three-game series, and though Milwaukee has the home court edge, Toronto seems to have acclimated to the Bucks’ futuristic style and found ways to slow down likely MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo.
With the series now shifting back onto U.S. soil for Game 5 (Thursday, 8:30 PM ET, TNT), what adjustments can Mike Budenholzer and the Bucks make to stanch the bleeding and retake control? It’s a tricky question because generally speaking, the Bucks are like the Houston Rockets in that their strategy is to play the way they play and force the opponent to adjust to them. This works well in the regular season because they aren’t playing the same team night after night. However, over four games with Toronto, they haven’t looked particularly great for most of three of them. They’ve shot poorly overall — 42/ 30/ 73 as a team — which of course begs the “chicken or the egg” question of whether they just aren’t making shots or Toronto’s defense is forcing them into difficult looks. The “it’s a make or miss league” trope is boring and well-worn at this point, though, so let’s look at some other things Milwaukee can do to mix it up and make life easier on themselves heading into a pivotal Game Five. [As sportswriters, we are legally obligated to refer to all Game 5’s as “pivotal.” I don’t make the rules.]
Improved shot selection. I don’t know if the tendency to take piss-poor shots at inopportune moments is a necessary byproduct of Coach Bud’s #LetItFly culture and the confidence it breeds, but boy, it stuck out like a sore thumb in Games 3 and 4. Down two with 11 seconds left in regulation in Game 3, Khris Middleton pulled up for three in transition while triple-covered. I was literally shouting “What are you doing?” at the TV as it was happening, and naturally, the shot wasn’t even close. [The Bucks only forced OT after getting bailed out by two missed FTs by Pascal Siakam and then having Middleton’s own blocked shot fall right into his lap for a putback layup to tie the game. I suppose one could argue his poor shot selection worked out for the best there, but the good result doesn’t justify the poor process.]
Not to be deterred, on his very first shot of Game 4 — at the 11:22 mark of the first quarter — Middleton pulled up for another terrible, contested three with time left on the shot clock. To Middleton’s credit, he was the best player on the floor for Milwaukee in Game 4, scoring 30 and carrying the offense for several stretches in the second and third quarters as Toronto was trying to pull away, but both of the aforementioned shots are symptoms of the same disease. It is undoubtedly freeing to be able to let loose from anywhere at anytime, but against an opponent as smart and technically proficient as Toronto, discretion has to be the better part of valor. Oftentimes, that freedom starts to look more like settling, particularly for Middleton and Eric Bledsoe, two guys who are both more-than-capable of creating a good shot if they work for it. [Yes, Bledsoe has been mostly horrific in the series to this point. We’ll get to him.]
The Bucks play best at a fast pace, and they have owned Toronto in transition. I have zero problems with jacking a shot early in the clock if it comes out of an advantageous position. But they have to figure out how to play fast within the halfcourt as well by keeping the ball popping and not being stagnant and predictable. More ball and player movement will get them better looks, which should help the percentages improve and limit the tendencies of guys to hunt for their own shot, regardless of quality. Their normal, five-out offense is devastating, but it becomes less so as the opponent gets more reps against it, begins to anticipate the patterns, and realizes what they can give up and what they can’t. All of which leads into the next point…
Change up how and where Giannis initiates the action. As anticipated, Toronto has employed the “form a fucking wall” defensive strategy against the Greek Freak, essentially playing a 1-2-2 zone and pinching in the wing defenders whenever Giannis tries to drive from the top of the key. Lest we forget, Antetokounmpo is a damn alien, so he has still created a fairly steady diet of decent looks for himself and his teammates, despite smashing into a brick wall of three Raptors’ defenders on most possessions. But it has not been easy sledding, and as the percentages indicate, his colleagues are not exactly holding up their end of the bargain in the shooting department.
Much like the rest of human history, the answer is rarely to continue smashing against the wall; the way to limit a wall’s efficacy is to go where it isn’t. So long as Giannis continues to attack the defense from the top of the key, the point man in the “zone” (whether it’s Kawhi, Siakam, or Serge Ibaka) will keep pressing up to limit his runway, and the other two defenders will keep pinching in to prevent him from getting near the hoop. The answer is to either get the Freak the ball in other spots on the floor, or find different ways to get him going downhill so the extra defenders have less of a chance of stopping him. The Bucks have run some post-ups for Giannis, with mixed results. Toronto almost always sends a hard double team at him as soon as he catches, and his decision-making in passing out of the trap has been a bit spotty. That said, there is hay to be made if he can resist the urge to try to do too much and the other guys around him can keep the ball pinging and, you know, make open shots.
Milwaukee could try using Giannis more in the pick-and-roll, especially as the screener for either Middleton or Malcolm Brogdon, their two best ballhandlers who don’t allow the defense to go under the screen. They could run him off some dribble hand-offs to get him the ball on the move, while also forcing a compromised defense to react (rather than allowing a set defense to key on him from the top of the arc). None of this stuff is really in their basketball DNA because the overwhelming gravity of Giannis normally makes the math work even in a relatively simplified scheme. This is the first time another team has truly forced them out of their offensive comfort zone this year, so they’ll either adapt or die.
Only play Brook Lopez when Marc Gasol is on the floor. This qualifies as somewhat of a minor tweak, but when there are only a maximum of 144 minutes left in your season if you don’t get it right, every possession counts. Lopez, who spent much of the season unlocking the best version of this Bucks’ team, has morphed into something of a liability in the playoffs, his Game 1 outburst notwithstanding. He is a stout interior defender, but much like Boston did, Toronto has essentially ceded the paint to Milwaukee. Rather, both teams have effectively played Lopez off the floor by running him through repeated pick-and-rolls, where his lack of lateral agility and tendency to drop back into the lane can be exploited. Lopez has been decent enough from the outside (9/25 for 36%) to mostly offset this weakness, but to create any positive delta from his play, they need him to be matched up against Gasol, another hulking stretch-5, on virtually every possession. They can go smaller in those non-Gasol minutes without losing anything meaningful in terms of defense, rebounding, and spacing. [Yes, Ibaka gave them trouble on the offensive glass in Game 4, but that looked to be more a problem of effort than scheme.] Coach Bud tends to be a creature of habit when it comes to substitution patterns, but this is low-hanging fruit. Get the matchups right on every possession possible.
Either dance with Bledsoe and Mirotic or don’t. Nikola Mirotic simply hasn’t gotten it done so far in this series. He’s 6-for-28 from deep (21 percent), is tied for second on the team in turnovers, and the Bucks are getting absolutely roasted when he’s on the floor (-20 in just over 100 minutes). Even good shooters go through slumps and break out of them eventually, but there isn’t much “eventually” left. If he’s going to provide value in this series, he needs to have at least one monster shooting game, and his chances are dwindling. In the meantime, he’s been a liability on defense, in part because he just isn’t that great a defender, and in part because there is no one on Toronto for him to guard. He primarily gets matched up with either Danny Green or Norman Powell, and Mirotic lacks the foot speed and awareness to stick with those smaller, faster players, either in transition or chasing them through thickets of screens. [To his credit, Powell has done a great job canning open shots, but why do you think he’s so open all the time?]
Mirotic has averaged over 25 minutes through Game Four, which may be untenable going forward. Budenholzer has used the depth at his disposal to great effect in managing the minutes of his primary players all season, but if he isn’t going to take advantage of that freshness with the season on the line, then what was the point? They’ve been trying to bring Malcolm Brogdon along slowly after returning from his foot injury, but it’s time to take the kid gloves off. It would make more sense to start Brogdon over Mirotic and give him at least 36-38 minutes. Brogdon shot poorly in Game 4, but on the whole, he gives them better spacing, playmaking, and defense, and he matches up better with the lineups Toronto is using. It’s tough to throttle down a guy as talented as Mirotic, but this isn’t the series for him, and as I’ve tried to make clear, every one of the 240 available minutes of court time in these last 2-3 games is crucial.
It’s less clear-cut what to do with Bledsoe. He is still giving tremendous effort and defending like hell (he was just named First Team All-Defense yesterday, and it was no fluke), but he’s become such a net-negative on the offensive end he is borderline unplayable. The Raptors are not guarding him at all, and it’s clogging up all the other driving and passing lanes the Bucks rely on to survive. Bledsoe has zero confidence in his jump shot, and he’s been benched for George Hill (that is to say, clearly pulled from the game due to his play rather than as a normal rotational decision) at least three times in the last two games alone. He played only 20 minutes in Game 4, and even that might be too much if Milwaukee is going to have to play 4-on-5 on offense whenever he’s on the floor. It’s a difficult needle to thread because they don’t want to completely shatter the confidence of a notoriously prickly player to whom they just committed a 4-year, $70 million extension, but when you’re six wins from a title, the long game kinda goes out the window. Life comes at you fast; this may be Milwaukee’s shot. Bledsoe was a borderline All-Star this season, and they can’t completely go away from him, even if they do bump up Hill’s minutes. Again, Coach Bud tends to favor a “dance with what brung ya” philosophy, but he has to be thinking long and hard about how to best deploy a foundational player who also appears to be utterly shook by the moment.
Make shots when no one is around. The “make or miss” aspect of the open threes the offense is still creating is part of this, but lost in the discussion about the sub-par shooting from the field is how lousy their free throw shooting has also been. Milwaukee has gotten to the line significantly more than Toronto (121 attempts vs. 98), which is not a major surprise considering the bulldozing style of Giannis. However, Milwaukee has only netted seven additional points from the line because they are shooting a full ten percentage points worse than the Raptors (72.7% vs. 82.7%). Giannis conspicuously airballed two separate freebies in Toronto, which makes it fair to question if it will be a mental issue for him going forward. The Bucks created a big delta in the regular season by getting to the stripe far more often than their opponents — they shot 229 more free throws than the opposition — and the trend is continuing against Toronto. However, they converted those chances at a 77.3% rate during the regular year, so the advantage evaporates pretty quickly if the shots don’t fall.
Some will ascribe the drop-off to the relative playoff inexperience of the roster vis-a-vis the Raptors, but that’s a lazy narrative. The Bucks were tested after Game 1 against Boston, and they responded with a new level of focus and intensity. They are facing an even more stern test against Toronto. Do they possess that next level of focus — that championship level — or not? I can’t wait to find out over the next few days.
Just time for some super-quick hits following a wild night of ping-pong ball action in Chicago. [Wait, what?] Here goes:
New Orleans getting Zion is like a TV show with a cliffhanger ending. I have no particular issue with the Pels landing the top pick — after all, I did just argue yesterday it might be the only way to save basketball in New Orleans — but it’s weirdly unsatisfying because it doesn’t answer ANY questions. In fact, it just raises a whole bunch of new ones. Will Anthony Davis still want to be traded? If so, will new GM David Griffin succumb to his demands or try to keep it together, at least through February? Is Zion upset about this outcome? Will he want to be traded? What would a Zion trade even look like? Is an AD/Zion/Jrue core good enough to be a top-4 seed in the West?
I don’t know any of these answers, but I know it’s about to be a spicy summer down on the Bayou. Buckle up.
The Lakers have luck tattooed to their asses. When the LA logo didn’t appear in its prescribed envelope last night, every non-Lakers fan, myself included, was apoplectic. How on Earth does this glitzy but incompetent franchise, so wholly undeserving of any sort of good fortune, keep getting blessed with it? Thankfully, they “only” moved up to no. 4 overall, but even still, the way in which possessing such an asset improves their positioning in trades and free agency feels entirely unfair. Does having the pick get them back in the AD sweepstakes, bad blood aside? It’s not as though LeBron has a track record of wanting to play with rookies, so it’s hard to imagine they’ll keep the pick. There’s just no damn justice in the world.
Where does Memphis go from here? Moving up to no. 2 (and thus rolling over the pick they owe to Boston until next year; more on that later) presents a number of interesting choices for the Grizz. First, do they take Ja Morant or RJ Barrett? Most draftniks consider Morant to be the superior prospect, and he could be anointed as the heir apparent to franchise point guard Mike Conley, even if it would result in some redundancy in the short term. Barrett is perhaps the better fit, and there remains quite a bit of disagreement among fans and folks in the league about his actual ceiling. [My quick take: he’s probably better than what he showed at Duke. It has to be tough for an 18-year-old kid who was considered the best player in the country to step onto campus and instantly be outshone by his teammate and best friend. He’s also a classic slash-and-kick wing who, despite the buttloads of talent Duke possessed, really had no shooters to whom he could reliably kick. He’s athletic, his shot mechanics look fine, and the increased spacing in the NBA will suit him well. He’ll need a low-pressure, nurturing environment where he can play through his mistakes (read: NOT the Knicks), but we shouldn’t be writing him off just yet. That said, I would still take Morant over him if it were my team to run.]
Their good fortune also raises the stakes on how to proceed into the future, most notably what to do with Mike Conley. If they were ready to green-light a full-on rebuild, it would make sense to move on from the franchise icon. Conley still has two years remaining on his massive contract — the second year is an Early Termination option, though one suspects he won’t exercise it — but the dollar figure is now a lot less of a turn-off than it once was. Even at 31, he could still have quite a bit of trade value for a team needing one more key piece. [The Jazz, Sixers, and Lakers all make some sense.] There’s a cost/benefit to trading away Conley. It would most likely make the team worse in the short term, which would increase the odds they luck (or suck) their way into rolling over the Boston pick again next season. [It is top-6 protected next year, though as last night’s lottery clearly demonstrated, no amount of tanking guarantees anything in this brave new world.] By the time the pick becomes unprotected in 2021, the team may have amassed enough talent and experience to devalue it to some extent. It’s a dangerous game, but they’re basically playing with house money now, and a bad plan is usually better than no plan at all.
Atlanta got screwed. The evening went about as poorly as possible for the Hawks, in spite of the good karma they banked from rolling out a fun, young, competitive team at season’s end. [Unlike the Lakers and Pelicans, who both effectively shut down their stars over the last month of the season and were rewarded for their chicanery. Again, no damn justice.] Their misfortune was two-fold. First, they didn’t get Zion, despite some hard-to-miss evidence he would have welcomed going to Atlanta:
Second, the Mavs’ pick, which is owed to Atlanta from the Trae Young/Luka Doncic swap last year, fell all the way to 10th (in addition to their own pick falling to 8th). So, we now have the hindsight to be able to say Atlanta traded Luka Doncic for Trae Young and the 10th overall pick. Not great, Bob.
They’ll add to their war chest of assets in any case, and if, by some miracle, there turns out to be a trade sweepstakes for Zion’s services, signs point to the Hawks being a part of it. More likely, they’ll end up ruing what could have been.
Last night was a sneaky win for the Celtics. It may feel a little disappointing to Boston fans that they left last night with only the 14th pick (in addition to nos. 20 and 22, into which they were already locked), especially considering how valuable the Sacramento pick seemed only a year ago. Barring the unlikely event of the pick jumping into the top-4, however, the Kings’ pick was a sunk cost (sunk asset?). The real action for them was in what happened with Memphis, and the pick rolling over to next year was the best possible outcome for the Celtics.
Actually drafting a player with the 9th pick wouldn’t have held a ton of value for Boston. They would be committing a roster spot (and ostensibly, minutes) to a young guy not ready to contribute for a team looking to win big next season. And as I’ve discussed previously, if they wanted to trade the pick — perhaps as part of an AD package — it’s a delicate dance. They can’t trade for Davis until July 1st, but the draft is on June 20th, so they would be stuck drafting who they think New Orleans might want (assuming no shenanigans) and hoping for the best. By contrast, a less-protected future pick from a team increasingly likely to rebuild is a FAR more valuable asset. A pick is worth more in the abstract than it is once an actual human is attached to it, especially when it has the potential to be an even higher pick at some TBD moment in the future. Danny Ainge has to be thrilled with his under-the-radar good fortune. Short of the Sacramento pick magically moving into the top-4, things couldn’t have worked out better for him.
Did the new format dissuade tanking? Not really, though it certainly made for a more exciting television spectacle. Seeing the Lakers, Grizzlies, and Pelicans all jump up (while Chicago, Phoenix, and Cleveland all fell hard) probably won’t change the behavior of the teams at the very bottom in and of itself, though the unintended consequence may be to change the inflection point at which tanking occurs, and in what form. Flattening the odds across the board makes it less desirable to be one of the very worst teams — and it played out that way last night, with all small sample size caveats being applied — but realistically, most of those teams were going to be lousy anyway, and the new format will have only marginal effects on the in-season behavior of those franchises. However, for bad-though-not-atrocious teams who realize around mid-March they aren’t going to make the playoffs, there are huge potential rewards in throwing away that last month of the year, a period of the season which already suffers from quite enough terrible basketball without additional motivation. Overall, I guess I’m for the changes, but it’s in large part because last night was a captivating thirty minutes of entertainment, not because the rule change ushered in some new, golden era of fairness and competition. Wholesale changes in how the league disperses talent would be needed to fully disincentivize tanking, but that is an entirely separate conversation.
We are down to the Final Four of the playoffs after two legendary Game 7’s on Sunday. Before we dive into those two heavyweight clashes, a quick palate cleanser might be nice, so let’s have some fun today.
My family and I recently attended a wedding in Richmond, Virginia, and along the way, we passed a town called Zion Crossroads. I found it appropriate because, much like myself, the NBA is approaching its own Zion Crossroads, in the form of the NBA Draft Lottery (Tuesday, 8:30 PM ET, ESPN). The league’s next generational superstar is set to find out where he is likely to spend the first seven-to-nine years of his career, so the stakes couldn’t be higher for all the lottery teams. [Now is a good time to note that neither of the participants in the Eastern Conference Finals have a single lottery pick in their respective rotations, so it’s possible I’m overstating things a bit. But I digress.] The goal today is to rank the most fun and compelling destinations for Zion Williamson, in terms of basketball fit and potency, entertainment value, the ancillary ripple effects, and the drama/unintentional comedy which would ensue. I’ll give a brief rationale for each choice, but remember this is all in good fun, and it expires promptly at 9 PM tonight, so let’s not read too much into it.
Without further ado…
[Odds of landing the no. 1 pick in parentheses.]
1.DALLAS MAVERICKS (6.0%):There is no basketball fit which could remotely match this one, so I have to give it top billing. Combining Zion with presumptive Rookie of the Year Luka Doncic and the presumably-healthy-and-not-incarcerated Kristaps Porzingis would amount to throwing the next great NBA team into an incubator and watching it slowly grow into an unstoppable menace. Rick Carlisle is the perfect coach to leverage the full breadth of different lineup and tactical permutations this three-headed monster would enable. From a big picture/historical perspective, we would likely look back at it as the crown jewel in one of the greatest twelve-month spans of talent acquisition ever. The Mavs owe their first rounder to the Hawks (as part of the Doncic/Trae Young swap), but it is top-5 protected, and with all due respect to Trae and the good people of Atlanta, it would be another fly in the ointment for the Hawks and their fans, and could end up being the genesis of a new NBA rivalry. It would also bump up the timeline on the “Boy, that Jalen Brunson sure is an underrated role player” takes by at least 2-3 years, and I’m here for all of it. Speaking of the Hawks…
2.ATLANTA HAWKS (10.5%): I harbor no ill will toward the Hawks or their fans. Not simply snagging Luka when they had the chance probably isn’t going to end up looking great, but overall, they’ve tanked gracefully and made thoughtful personnel decisions. Their budding core of Young/John Collins/Kevin Huerter is promising, and adding Zion would propel it into proto-Warriors territory. The shooting/playmaking/athleticism combination of that group would make for a dangerous, dynamic offense. Factor in what would be a sieve-like defense and you have a recipe for League Pass darlings from Day One. Zion and Collins catching lobs from Trae at the league’s fastest pace? Sign me up.
3.PHILADELPHIA 76ERS (1.0%, VIA SACRAMENTO/BOSTON): There is only a 1.0 percent chance of this coming to pass, but if by some miracle it did, the resulting NBA Twitter meltdown would be like nothing we’ve ever seen. It would only be fitting if this pick conveyed in the most insane, disastrous manner possible. Philly originally acquired it from Sacramento as part of a shortsighted salary dump by the Kings back in 2015. [Seriously, look at this trade. The fact they ended up burning the cap space it created on Rajon Rondo, who in no way improved their team, makes it even more of a calamity for Sacramento. Just a dumpster fire of a trade.] Philly then traded the pick to Boston in the equally disastrous decision to move up to no. 1 overall in 2017 to draft Markelle Fultz. The only potential saving grace is they put top-1 protection on the pick, so while Sacramento is already resigned to the pick being lit on fire from their end, many (but not me of course) would delight in the schadenfreude of seeing Boston go from a 99% chance of a free lottery pick to absolutely nothing in the blink of an eye. [The drama of it would be intensified because everyone would know the pick was top-4 as soon as the first envelope was opened, so not seeing their logo in the 2-4 envelopes would be an all-time stomach punch for Celtics’ fans.] Zion would be yet another talented but ill-fitting piece on an already talented but ill-fitting Sixers’ roster, and would make GM Elton Brand’s decision-making process (note the lower case) this summer both more flexible and more fraught at once. Zion’s presence is going to be league-altering no matter what, but the reverberations of this unlikely outcome would shake the Association to its core.
4.NEW ORLEANS PELICANS (6.0%): Another outcome which would have wide-ranging effects. It is perhaps cruel to plop another generational talent into the organizational dysfunction in New Orleans, but could the promise of Zion — or whatever massive trade haul they could get for his rights — change the calculus surrounding Anthony Davis’ presumed exit? The two could make an interesting basketball marriage, but even if AD is still intent on an exodus from the Bayou, a core of Zion plus Jrue Holiday plus whatever they get for Davis instantly turns a rebuild into a reboot, and perhaps even saves basketball in New Orleans entirely. There’s nothing weird about leaving the fate of an entire franchise and fan base to the random caroms of a bunch of ping-pong balls. Nope, nothing at all.
5.WASHINGTON WIZARDS (9.0%): Seems high, I know, but hear me out. Finally free of the crippling regime of former GM Ernie Grunfeld, but still saddled with the millstone contract of John Wall for the foreseeable future, the Wiz offer a low-stakes incubator for Zion’s talents for the next few years, in an underrated basketball town, and with the ability to develop alongside All-Star Bradley Beal. No team needs an infusion of frontcourt talent more than Washington, and the Beal-Zion one-two punch could be surprisingly competitive in a diluted East, so long as the new front office can approach something like basic competence in building out the roster. It might be grasping at straws, but Wizards’ fans are pretty beaten down right now and could use something to give them hope for the future.
6.NEW YORK KNICKS (14.0%): I kinda wanted to put the Knicks lower on the list, but the drama surrounding how this would play out is just too juicy to ignore. They don’t particularly deserve to be rewarded for decades of gross organizational malpractice with one of the best prospects the league has ever seen, but their return to relevance and the ways in which Zion could potentially tip the balance of free agency power this summer would certainly create reams of content for folks like myself. If KD-to-NY is a fait accompli (as league people in the know seem to think it is), the addition of Zion — or whatever they would get for the pick, assuming the front office could competently execute such a transaction — instantly transforms the Knicks from “raging dumpster fire” to “one of the most interesting teams in the league.” The conspiracy theories would grow exhausting — paging Dr. Ewing — but they might be fun for a little while.
7.MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES (6.0%): Memphis tried really hard at the end of the season to actually win ball games, primarily so they would convey their top-8 protected pick to Boston this year, rather than it gradually becoming less-protected in future seasons. Lucking into the top pick would be karmic justice for non-tanking — even if the motivations were not exactly pure — in addition to an intriguing basketball fit with young center Jaren Jackson, Jr. A full-on youth movement would probably also compel them to finally move on from Mike Conley, and perhaps he could go to a franchise where the back end of his prime wouldn’t be wasted on a rebuild. A young superstar would also go a long way towards revitalizing a moribund franchise still searching for an identity in a post-Grit ‘n’ Grind world. It’s a win for everyone, is what I’m saying.
8.MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES (3.0%): Another team which probably doesn’t deserve any more lottery luck, this choice basically comes down to how devastating a frontcourt pairing of Karl-Anthony Towns and Zion could be. Not much else to add here; it would just be a helluva lot of fun to watch those two play together.
9.LOS ANGELES LAKERS (2.0%): Ugh. I mean, they’re totally going to get this pick because we can’t have nice things, right?
10.CHICAGO BULLS (12.5%): This is something of a schadenfreude/dysfunction pick because it would be hilarious to watch the comically inept GarPax duo attempt to navigate how to balance a young frontcourt of Zion, Lauri Markkanen, and Wendell Carter, Jr., and/or try to extract commensurate value in a trade for one of them when every other GM in the league smells the blood in the water. I wouldn’t wish such a fate on a player as talented as Zion, but it sure would be amusing.
11.PHOENIX SUNS (14.0%): The fit with Devin Booker is intriguing (with DeAndre Ayton, perhaps less so), but it feels super-wrong to reward this goat-shit organization with the no. 1 pick two years in a row. I really don’t want owner Robert Sarver’s penny-pinching and inability to hire the right people to waste the first decade of Zion’s career. No thanks.
12. CHARLOTTE HORNETS (1.0%): I guess there’s a semi-interesting “hometown kid” narrative here (Zion went to high school in Spartanburg, SC, which is about 75 miles from Charlotte), and his presence might have an impact on Kemba Walker’s free agency thinking. But overall, pretty ‘meh.’
13.MIAMI HEAT (1.0%): The case for the Heat rests on the idea that their roster is made up of a bunch of competent role players simply lacking an organizing principle, so maybe Zion would bring the whole thing together. Also, from a purely aesthetic perspective, he would look killer in their uniforms. It’s tough to muster much enthusiasm for them beating the odds, however, since it’s not like they’ve exactly been a hard-luck franchise over the last couple decades. [Side note: I will never begrudge Pat Riley and the Heat for bringing the Big Three together, as it was all done above-board. I will forever judge them for the tacky, classless welcome party (“…not five, not six, not seven…”) and for inexcusably choking away the 2011 title.]
14.CLEVELAND CAVALIERS (14.0%): No, no, a thousand times, no. I don’t want to see billionaire dipshit Dan Gilbert get any more undeserved luck. I don’t want to see his annoying son briefly turn into a minor celebrity again. I really don’t want to listen to announcers turn every Cavs’ game into a rhetorical quest to compare Zion to LeBron. And most of all, I don’t want to see Cleveland fans experience heartbreak deja vu when the organization fails to surround him with the necessary talent and he leaves for greener pastures in free agency or demands a trade. The Cavs got their title; let them toil in relative anonymity for a few years while the city pins its hopes on the emerging Browns.
Life comes at you fast; just ask the Boston Celtics. A mere eleven days ago, they were flying high, having molly-whomped the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference Semifinal series, 112-90. The demolishing prompted ESPN Analyst/Boston homer/Patron Saint of Awful Takes Paul Pierce to declare the series “over,” an utterance which has, to say the least, not aged well. Since then, the Celtics lost the next four games by a combined 65 points, and it wasn’t really even that close. After a humbling Game 1, likely MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo unsurprisingly ran roughshod over Boston. Even including his poor first game, he averaged 28.4/ 11.0/ 5.2 on 52/ 41 (!!)/ 69 shooting for the series, all while still only playing 34 minutes a game. The Bucks undoubtedly made some tactical and rotational adjustments following Game 1, but the biggest difference was how, after more or less floating through the first five games of the postseason, they brought a renewed focus and intensity which Boston was either unable or unwilling to match.
Remember, this Boston team was only a few possessions from reaching the Finals last year, and returned two All-Stars to the lineup this season. They were supposed to be world-beaters. With their tumultuous campaign now mercifully laid to rest, it’s time to ask a couple important questions: how did we all get it so wrong? And what happens now?
For all the ways analytics have changed modern basketball and helped it evolve, the one thing the stat nerds have a tough time accounting for is chemistry. A forward-thinking front office can make all the right moves on paper — like GM Danny Ainge has done for the last several years — and sometimes it just doesn’t work on the court. The ’18-’19 Celtics were like a bad relationship. On the rare occasions when everything clicks, we’re all like, “Whoa, this is amazing! This could really work!” The rest of the time, we desperately attempt to jam the square peg into the round hole, constantly crafting excuses and justifications for why things aren’t the way we imagined them. When adversity strikes, good teams, like good couples, endure by drawing strength from their common purpose and experience; bad ones fold up shop. And the second half of Game 4 looked like a team resigned to the impending break-up. The fans in attendance in Boston weren’t booing the lack of execution. They were booing the lack of fight. Game 5 was a mere formality.
It’s not hard to draft a laundry list of excuses for this Celtics squad’s chronic underachieving. Kyrie is too inconsistent (as both a superstar and a leader) to be the alpha dog on a championship team, and he may have one foot out the door. Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum are still pups, and understandably regressed when relegated to smaller roles. Gordon Hayward was a shell of himself for most of the season. Al Horford was hampered by injury for long stretches. Marcus Smart’s injury sapped the team’s spirit and toughness. Brad Stevens had never before coached a team with big egos and real expectations. And on and on and on.
The lion’s share of the blame will understandably fall on Kyrie Irving. He sought out this team and this role. He repeatedly stumped about how the playoffs were all that mattered, and they were his time, and the switch would be flipped, and then failed to deliver on those promises in spectacular fashion. Teams often take on the persona of their best player, and the C’s are a good example. Undeniably talented and occasionally scintillating, but erratic, inconsistent, and often baffling as well. They defend at an elite level in spurts, but then when it matters, they make boneheaded mistakes, leave open driving lanes, and point fingers. We also shouldn’t lose sight of how, had they taken the regular season a bit more seriously, they could have gotten a higher seed and avoided being in the path of this Milwaukee buzz-saw in Round Two (and perhaps even in the ECF, depending how things played out in this alternate universe). That’s not entirely Kyrie’s fault, but he has to bear some responsibility for more or less speaking it into existence.
To some extent, it’s on the collective NBA hive-mind for not tempering our expectations about Hayward’s return. We have ample evidence an injury as devastating as what he suffered is a two-year proposition — one year to recover physically, and another to recover mentally and regain your confidence. He may never quite rediscover the form he showed in his final season in Utah, but chances are good we’re going to see a very different player next year once the injury and its psychological remnants are fully behind him. [Side note: I’m not here for the “Gordon Hayward was always overrated” takes which are now surfacing. It’s pure revisionist history. He was legit in ’16-’17, and that prime version of him would have been a perfect complementary star for Boston over the last two years, had it existed. Just stop it.]
Coach Brad Stevens is likewise taking heat for the team’s failure, with the emerging narrative of him being anointed as one of the league’s great tactical minds too quickly and without any real accomplishments. It’s fair to criticize him, but it’s also fair to ask: could any coach have solved this problem? What could he have done differently to bring equilibrium to a roster which, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see was fundamentally imbalanced? In retrospect, the decision to keep spoon-feeding minutes to Hayward — often at the expense of Jaylen Brown, who has been terrific over the last few months after struggling out of the gate — in the hopes of having him ramped up by playoff time didn’t pan out, but it’s hard to fault the reasoning. They simply needed a version of Hayward they were never going to get this season. Mothballing him might have been a useful regular season Band-Aid, but it wasn’t going to solve the underlying issue.
Marcus Morris looked like a borderline All-Star when Stevens inserted him into the starting lineup at midseason (along with Marcus Smart), but then regressed to his “inefficient gunner/defensive liability” mean as the postseason approached. It wasn’t ideal to have that guy averaging 28 minutes a game in the playoffs, but Hayward wasn’t giving them anything, and going big with Aron Baynes would only have served to hand Milwaukee the exact matchups they wanted on a silver platter, so what were his options? Stevens’ X’s-and-O’s brilliance is beyond question, but managing personalities and roles is a huge part of an NBA head coach’s job, and in this regard, he failed. [Stevens admitted as much.] This doesn’t make him overrated or some kind of flash in the pan. It makes him a young coach who still has skills to develop if he is to become the all-time great coach we all projected him to be.
Another mistake we all made was assuming a linear developmental path for Jayson Tatum after his incredibly promising rookie year. We should have seen some regression coming with him, particularly considering how the returns of Hayward and (especially) Kyrie were likely to change his role in the offense. This doesn’t excuse some of the bad habits he has picked up along the way — floating through games and settling for contested 20-footers instead of attacking the rim, most notably — but expecting him to blossom into a full-on superstar at age 21 was overly optimistic from the get-go. He may still get there, but it’s going to take time, and possibly a different uniform, depending how this summer plays out.
An awful lot had to break right for the Celtics to enjoy the success they did last season. The mistake was in perceiving ’17-’18 as a baseline for expectations going forward, rather than as the outlier it turned out to be. If it also turns out to be the high-water mark for this competitive cycle which started out with such promise, it would be a colossally disappointing outcome.
Which brings us to the second question: what happens now? Shorter contracts mean a great deal of roster turnover for most teams in most years, but holy hell does Danny Ainge have A LOT of balls in the air right now. There are scenarios where the roster looks largely the same going into training camp — unlikely though that may be given the bad taste left in everyone’s mouth after this season — and others where it is barely recognizable.
Naturally, Kyrie is the first and most important domino to fall. Irving will undoubtedly opt out of the final year of his contract on June 29th and become an unrestricted free agent at midnight on July 1st. His decision to stay or go will of course be a touchstone moment for the trajectory of the franchise, but things will get complicated well before he announces his intentions. The 2019 NBA Draft takes place on June 20th, and to put it mildly, the Celtics will have quite a bit of a say in how it shakes out. Boston could have as many as four first-round picks, depending on where the Sacramento and Memphis picks they are owed end up falling. [The Kings’ pick goes to Boston, unless it falls at no. 1 overall, in which case it goes to Philly. The Memphis pick is top-8 protected, and the Grizz have the 8th-best lottery odds, so they’ll end up keeping the pick unless someone below them in the order jumps into the top-4, in which case it would convey to Boston. The C’s also have their own pick, as well as a lottery-protected pick which will convey from the Clippers. You know it’s coming — thanks, Jeff Green!]
I bring this up because all that draft capital could be extremely valuable as part of a trade package, perhaps for a disgruntled big man with questionable personal grooming habits. However, because of byzantine CBA contractual rules, Boston cannot trade for AD until at least July 1st, and even if they could, they wouldn’t want to until they know what Kyrie is going to do. Unless they have some sort of contingent, “wink-wink, nod-nod” agreement in place with New Orleans prior to the draft — which is, you know, extremely against league rules — the timing of the draft and free agency kind of bites them in the ass. Draft picks are worth more in the abstract; they lose value as soon as an actual human is selected. If they are not in fact just straight-up selecting players for New Orleans, then the whole process becomes pretty fraught, and their trade package could suddenly look less attractive than it did before the draft. And that’s not even taking into account the effect it could have on Kyrie’s notoriously inscrutable decision-making process. It’s going to be an incredibly difficult needle to thread, and if any single link in the chain of events doesn’t go according to plan, the whole thing could end up looking like a disaster.
Beyond the cataclysmic draft/Kyrie/AD saga, there are a number of other important team-building questions to answer this summer as well. Franchise keystone Al Horford has a $30.1 million player option, and it is not at all clear what he will do. It might seem crazy to turn down a number that large for a single season, but at age-32, Horford may look to leverage his strong playoff showing into one more long-term deal, albeit at a lesser annual figure. The Celtics would almost certainly be amenable to such an arrangement, as would any number of other teams with cap space to burn. [There will be a lot of them this year.] Horford seems to enjoy playing in Boston, but after the way this season went, it’s hard to know if the Celtics enjoy any sort of incumbency advantage with any of their guys. Big Al is still an excellent player, but he can probably sense his basketball mortality. He wants to win a title, and opting out may be the safe choice because it gives him options in case Kyrie bolts. Losing Kyrie and Horford would obviously be catastrophic, and would likely cost them a shot at Davis as well, since Ainge would rightfully be hesitant to throw the rest of their assets at a one-year rental of AD without any other stars with which to pair him. This darkest timeline would open up a bunch of cap space, but there are no guarantees anyone worthwhile would be willing to take their money.
There will also be roster turnover further down the depth chart. Terry Rozier will be a restricted free agent, and he has made no bones about his displeasure with his reduced role this past season. Some team will overpay for him, and Boston will face a tough choice of whether or not to match the offer. [Yet again, what happens with Kyrie factors into this decision as well.] Marcus Morris will be an unrestricted free agent and is unlikely to end up back with the team. Aron Baynes has a $5.4 million player option one suspects he will pick up. Marcus Smart has an eminently movable contract and will draw interest from teams, including probably New Orleans. It’s anyone’s guess what happens with Brown and Tatum. The only guy on their roster we can be fairly certain will still be in kelly green come Opening Night is Gordon Hayward, who comes with his own set of complications, as discussed earlier. It’s going to be a wild summer in Boston, folks.
Even with all the roster uncertainty and the manner in which this season went completely to shit, the Celtics remain in a somewhat enviable position going forward. They still have a treasure trove of draft capital. [Note: if the Memphis pick does not convey this year, it becomes top-6 protected next year and unprotected in 2021 — a potentially lucrative asset.] They have the hope of Hayward moving past his gruesome injury once and for all and returning to All-Star form in a bigger role. And most of all, they have two young stars in Brown and Tatum, whether they continue to allow them to develop in Boston or cash them in for a bigger name. Over the next few months, the Celtics are at the mercy of the basketball gods (and the unknowable whims of Kyrie), but luck favors the prepared, and Danny Ainge has prepared for this. He just didn’t think he’d be staring down the barrel of it quite so soon.
With a full round-plus of playoffs under our collective belt, now is a good time to take stock of which players have been the most outstanding over the initial stretch of games. Today’s exercise is to construct three All-NBA teams, much like in the regular season, only these teams will be determined solely on playoff performance to this point. The only ground rule for this is the player must be playing in the second round and/or have played at least six total games, so Utah, OKC, Indiana, Brooklyn, Orlando, and Detroit will not be represented.
Without further ado, let’s get to it:
FIRST TEAM:
C: Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets
F: Kevin Durant, Golden State Warriors
F: Kawhi Leonard, Toronto Raptors
G: Damian Lillard, Portland Trail Blazers
G: James Harden, Houston Rockets
This group is pretty airtight. The first four guys all have solid cases for being the Playoff MVP at the moment, and while Harden hasn’t shot particularly well, he is still carrying the Rockets and giving them a chance to win every game. Jokic is answering every question about whether he could hold up under the brighter lights and heavier minutes — pun very much intended — posting a bonkers line of 24.9/ 11.8/ 8.8 on 50/ 37/ 91 shooting splits in 38 minutes per game, including star-making performances in Game 6 against San Antonio and Game 1 against Portland. If Denver should survive the Portland series, he’ll likely meet a swift end in the Conference Finals against either Golden State or Houston, but it sure has been fun to watch his legend grow, and we’ll be seeing him battle in the postseason for many years to come.
Dame obviously has The Shot of the playoffs thus far, and it’s going to be tough to top. Beyond that one iconic moment and the sea of memes it spawned, he so thoroughly sonned Russell Westbrook — a former MVP, you may recall — in the first round, it has forced the collective NBA hive-mind to re-evaluate the position of both guys within the hierarchy of the league, both currently and historically.
From a pure performance standpoint, though, the top two players thus far have been Durant and Kawhi, and I wouldn’t argue with whatever order someone wanted to put them. I posted this to Twitter on Monday, but here is the updated version following Toronto’s loss Monday night to Philly, in which Leonard was “held” to a mere 35/ 7/ 6:
Basketball-Reference.com
Yeah, yeah, different eras, blah blah blah. I know. Putting that aside, along with the sacrilege of even daring to offer up such a comparison, the similarities are pretty striking. Kawhi is slightly larger, but he cuts a similar physical profile to MJ, and the technical precision with which he moves and the ease with which he gets to his spots are eerily reminiscent. The stats merely affirm what the eye test is suggesting, and the lockdown defense is just icing on the cake. I’m not here to proclaim Kawhi is suddenly the best player of all time, but he sure is playing a lot like the GOAT did at the same age, and that’s not nothing.
The stats paint Kawhi as the superior playoff performer to this point, but Kevin Durant is on some shit right now. His shotmaking has ascended to a plane few in the history of the game could even dream of, and in the process he has done the seemingly impossible by wresting control of the Warriors from Steph Curry, and however briefly, making them ‘his’ team. Whether this is a winning formula remains to be seen (it has been so far against Houston), but for all the ways it’s easy to hate on KD, one thing is clear: we are witnessing one of the most uniquely skilled basketball players of all time at the absolute zenith of his powers, so we probably shouldn’t take it for granted.
SECOND TEAM:
C: Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers
F: Al Horford, Boston Celtics
F: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
G: Kyrie Irving, Boston Celtics
G: Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors
Yeah, I’m fudging things position-wise, but Horford did start alongside Aron Baynes for the entire Indiana series, so even if he is destined to play almost exclusively at the 5 against Milwaukee, I’m not being overly disingenuous by slotting him in as a forward here. Besides, he deserves it. Stats aside, almost no player is having a bigger impact on the postseason than Big Al. His shooting and defensive versatility completely flummoxed Giannis and the Bucks in Game One. Milwaukee adjusted in Game 2, switching defensively far more often to shut off the flow of wide open Horford threes out of the pick-and-pop with Kyrie, but Brad Stevens will undoubtedly counter-punch, and Horford remains the key to the series as it shifts to Boston. [The Ringer’s Jonathan Tjarks has a nice breakdown of the strategic considerations Milwaukee is facing, some of which they employed to great effect in Game 2, here.] Should the Celtics advance, there is no reason to think he won’t cause the same sorts of tactical dilemmas for either Philly or Toronto as well.
Giannis stock took a temporary hit after his humbling Game 1 performance, but let’s not miss the forest for the trees. He bounced back in Game 2, imposing his will on Boston’s defense in the paint and bulling his way to 18 free throw attempts en route to a 29/ 10/ 4 line in only 31 minutes. After basically floating through the first five games of the postseason, the Bucks appeared to triangulate on the requisite level of focus and intensity they need to bring to this series, and I suspect we’ll see more of the same pace and aggressiveness out of Giannis going forward. There’s a monster 42/ 17/ 8-type line lurking just around the corner somewhere, and if The Freak uncorks it over the next few days in Beantown, the tenor of this series could change in a hurry.
Embiid has been limited by various afflictions and Coach Brett Brown has been forced to work around Joel’s inability to play heavy minutes, but on a per-minute basis, he remains a monster. Whether or not he can take on a bigger load (hehehe) without breaking down is perhaps the key to the outcome of the series with Toronto.
Irving and Curry have both been quietly effective, even as their respective teammates, Horford and Durant, have garnered most of the plaudits. Given the track records of the two star guards, this could change at any time.
THIRD TEAM:
C: Marc Gasol, Toronto Raptors
F: Pascal Siakam, Toronto Raptors
F: LaMarcus Aldridge, San Antonio Spurs
G: Lou Williams, Los Angeles Clippers
G: Ben Simmons, Philadelphia 76ers
Now we get into the tough choices and snubs. We’ll throw two spots to those who were valiant in defeat, Williams and Aldridge. Sweet Lou was a legit PROBLEM for the Warriors’ defense, and his herky-jerky pick-and-roll game (in conjunction with honorable mention Montrezl Harrell) carved up Golden State for long stretches. He finished up the series averaging 21.7/ 2.8/ 7.7 in only 29.3 minutes, and he will now go into the offseason ready to reprise his role next year amid a probably different cast, or function as a wildly valuable trade chit for a franchise ready to make a leap. Aldridge was his usual steady self, keeping the Spurs in the mix all the way until the final moments of Game 7 with Denver, when he inexplicably played a major role in the uncharacteristic, team-wide brain fart which may have cost them their season. DeMar DeRozan is an equally credible choice for 3rd Team as well, and the fact the Spurs’ top two players both max out at “maybe the 15th-best player in the playoffs” tells you just about all you need to know regarding where San Antonio resides in the current competitive landscape. [Apologies to Khris Middleton, who will almost certainly usurp Aldridge’s spot if he continues to scorch the nets and act as Celtics Kryptonite like he did in Game 2 on Tuesday night.]
Gasol and Siakam are relatively easy choices — Siakam because he has been a beast at both ends — Game 2 semi-dud against Philly notwithstanding — and is quickly earning “you need to game plan for this dude” status, and Gasol for being something of a “Horford-lite” in a postseason where hulking centers are becoming increasingly marginalized. Big Spain’s numbers are far from impressive, but he is providing useful floor spacing (47.6% from deep on three attempts per game), and his crafty defensive game has mostly nullified All-Star pivots Nikola Vucevic and Joel Embiid. He has also developed a heady pick-and-roll/pop chemistry with Kyle Lowry in the scenarios when “give Kawhi the ball and let him go full MJ” doesn’t pan out. The matchup with Embiid is the exact reason Toronto went out and got Gasol, and so far he has been just as-advertised.
It’s dealer’s choice on the final guard spot, and I’ll go with Simmons. There is a case for any one of DeRozan, Jamal Murray, CJ McCollum, or Jimmy Butler (who’s been a killer in the Toronto series thus far after being mostly invisible against Brooklyn), but the Swiss army knife value of Simmons on both ends is enough for me to give him the nod. His overall numbers are down a bit from the regular season, but he absolutely dominated the game against Brooklyn when Embiid was out, a performance which kept that series from becoming far more interesting than it had any right to be. He gives them defensive options against Toronto’s diverse attack, from trying to slow down Kawhi (he at least made Leonard work in Game 2, despite the continued crooked numbers) to limiting Siakam’s hustle game to guarding Lowry at the point of attack, if need be. Even without the threat of a jumper, his top-tier athleticism puts constant pressure on the rim, and if Embiid remains hampered, Simmons will have to shoulder more of the load on both ends.
At long last, the wait is nearly over. The pretenders are gradually falling by the wayside, and the heavyweight matchups fans have been envisioning all season are beginning to take shape. The first one to officially materialize is the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks (Game 1: Sunday, 1 PM ET, ABC), and it promises to be a slugfest. Styles make fights, and the contrasts between these two squads should make for a fascinating series. After perfunctory squashings of their respective injured and overmatched foes in the East Prelims — let’s call them what they are — today we’ll take a look at the various factors and matchups which will decide who will be left standing and advance to the Conference Finals. As with any prize fight, it’s important to start with…
THE TALE OF THE TAPE
Regular readers know how I feel about this Milwaukee team, but I don’t want this analysis to come off as if I’m caping for them. When I refer to them as ‘mighty,’ it’s only because the record, stats, and game film all point to it. The only thing seemingly keeping them from the exalted status they rightfully deserve is the narrative surrounding them from fans and media, many of whom still regard this team with a healthy dose of skepticism. Playoff experience (or relative lack thereof) isn’t something we should dismiss, but at a certain point, it makes more sense to believe what your eyes are showing you than what the prevailing narratives keep telling you.
And these eyes see a juggernaut. Milwaukee does nearly everything well on a basketball court. Beyond the league’s best record — yes, achieved against a historically easy schedule, I’ll grant — the Bucks enjoyed the league’s highest point differential, the no. 4 offense, and the no. 1 defense. They scored the most points in the league, were 2nd in pace, 2nd in 3-point attempts, 2nd in Effective FG%, 1st in FG% Against and Effective FG% Against, 1st in rebounding, 1st in 2P%, 1st in 2P% Against, and 1st in Free Throw Rate Allowed. In other words, they play fast, space the floor, dominate the paint on both ends, defend without fouling, and clean the glass. And oh yeah, they are led by 24-year-old MVP frontrunner Giannis Antetokounmpo, who just finished slapping up an unprecedented 27.7/ 12.5/ 5.9 on 58% shooting and a 30.9 PER in a load-managed 32.8 minutes per game. Unless you expect them to rip tickets and sell concessions during the game, there isn’t much left to be desired from this team. [In all seriousness, they do have a couple potentially exploitable weaknesses, which I’ll get to shortly.]
In contrast to Milwaukee’s steady dominance, Boston’s season has been defined by inconsistency and the seeming inability to live up to lofty preseason expectations. [Yes, I was guilty on this count as well.] Through all the up-and-down stretches of play and Kyrie-induced drama, however, the statistics still paint this Celtics’ squad as borderline elite, and we’ve begun to see more of that potential become kinetic over the last few weeks. For the season, Boston had the no. 10 offense, the no. 7 defense, and the no. 6 point differential — that of a 52-win team vs. the 49 wins they actually emerged with — but it’s all a bit illusory. Coach Brad Stevens seems to have finally found the optimal rotation and minutes distribution at the exact right moment, in part due to factors beyond his control. Marcus Smart is an undeniably useful role player and irritant, but his untimely injury appears to have slotted all the other rotation pieces into their proper roles and responsibilities for the first time all year. Al Horford — trust me, there’s more to say about him — finally looks healthy after being hampered for most of the campaign, and after almost two full seasons, Gordon Hayward seems to have regained confidence in his body and is playing with some semblance of the aggressiveness which defined his tenure in Utah. Their versatile defense put the clamps on an Indiana team which already struggled to generate good looks sans Victor Oladipo, but they’ll need to make some serious adjustments to compete with a Bucks’ team which employs more advanced basketball strategies, such as “running plays” and “having players capable of putting the ball in the hoop.” [Pacers’ coach Nate McMillan took some heat for having no counters to what Boston’s defense was doing to them, but realistically, he had no good options available to him. It simply wasn’t a fair fight.]
Historically, regular season head-to-head matchups don’t tend to be terribly predictive of postseason outcomes — rotations ebb and flow too much over the course of the long season — but there may be some nuggets of wisdom we can glean from the previous tilts. Milwaukee won two of three games, with the lone loss coming all the way back on November 1st. In that game, Boston shot a gob-smacking 24-of-55 from three (including 4-of-11 from Horford) and racked up 30 assists in a 117-113 win. The Celtics would combine to shoot 24-of-74 from deep in the two losses later in the season. [There is a lot more to say about three-point shooting in this series, so hold that thought.] Horford was a DNP in the second matchup, a 120-107 Bucks’ win in December in which Milwaukee shot 51% from the field and held a 55-to-36 rebounding edge.
The final matchup was the first game following the All-Star Break, and it had a distinctly playoff-like feel to it. Milwaukee won 98-97 at home, but the game offered some glimmers of hope for Boston in terms of slowing down the Bucks’ machine. Giannis put up his customary 30/ 13/ 6 on 11-of-19 shooting, but the other starters mostly struggled, particularly Eric Bledsoe and Khris Middleton. Milwaukee shot 14-of-39 from deep, right in line with their season averages, but an uncharacteristic 47% from inside the arc (vs. 56.5% for the season, tops in the league, as previously mentioned). On a probably related note, Horford played 37 minutes and was a +12 in the loss, putting up a monstrous 21/ 17/ 5, along with 2 steals and 3 blocks.
Again, we shouldn’t extrapolate too much from a three-game regular season sample, but on Boston’s side of the ledger, two things became clear: 1) It took a Herculean, high-variance performance from deep to beat the Bucks in their one win; and 2) Al Horford’s presence and performance are absolutely critical if they hope to pull the series upset, which is a perfect segue into…
THE MATCHUPS
Giannis is the NBA’s skeleton key, unlocking every possible lineup combination imaginable. He forms such an imposing frontcourt tandem with Brook Lopez because each player covers up the primary weakness of the other — shooting in Giannis’ case, defensive agility in Brook’s — while allowing them to stay super-big against most opposing units and protect the rim at a high level. But Horford is the kryptonite to this strategy. He possesses a rare combination of skills for a big man: the strength and length to defend the interior, along with the agility to guard on the perimeter, whether switching onto guards or closing out to shooters, combined with the offensive ability to pick-and-pop beyond the arc and knock down shots. He can capably serve as the lone big man in smaller lineups or alongside a “true” center. In the case of this matchup, Horford’s versatility could have the effect of devaluing Lopez when Horford plays the 5, presumably with the wing troika of Gordon Hayward, Jayson Tatum, and Jaylen Brown on the floor. In that configuration, there is nowhere to hide Lopez defensively, as he will struggle to close out to Horford or other shooters in the screen game as well as to switch onto guards or wings in the pick-and-roll. Lopez has been a phenomenal interior defender this year, but this strength is mitigated to a degree by the fact the Celtics attack the basket less than most other teams.
Brad Stevens opted to start Horford with Aron Baynes in all four games against Indiana, but the Pacers did not have the offensive personnel to make Boston pay for this choice or force them to adjust, whereas against Milwaukee, deploying a heavy dose of the Baynes/Horford pairing would be gifting the Bucks with the exact matchups they would prefer. Baynes is an underrated player — and often acts as something of a bellwether for this C’s team — but this is not going to be the series for him. The Celtics will need to go small with Horford at the 5 to force Coach Bud to make a decision on how much he can afford to play Lopez. [The numbers from the head-to-head matchups bear this out; the Celtics outscored the Bucks by 28 points in the 44 minutes Horford and Lopez shared the floor this season.]
If Lopez is effectively neutralized, the Bucks will have to either match Boston’s small lineup, putting Giannis on Horford (taking away some of his ability to terrorize the opposition as a “free safety”), or funnel more minutes to second-year man DJ Wilson, who provides somewhat more defensive mobility than Lopez without losing too much in terms of floor spacing. Perhaps the latter strategy gets a bit too cute, going with an unproven player over a veteran who has been integral to the team’s success throughout the season, which makes me suspect we’ll see a lot of point-center Giannis in this series. In this alignment, Milwaukee can switch more readily to take away Horford’s pick-and-pop game without compromising at the point of attack, since they would be switching Giannis — the league’s most versatile and lethal defender — onto the ballhandler (ostensibly Kyrie or Rozier). Whether this adjustment is worth sacrificing Lopez’s gravity at the offensive end could prove to be the key to the series.
Despite the bevy of wing/guard talent on Boston’s roster, there aren’t any other matchups which should cause Milwaukee too much defensive discomfort. Bledsoe will obviously be looking to exorcise his demons from last year’s hellish first-round series, and he’ll need to avoid letting Rozier get into his head when they are facing off. On paper though, there’s really no better matchup for Kyrie, and Bled has shown a renewed offensive aggressiveness this year which should force Irving to expend energy on the defensive end as well. The Bucks have lengthy, rugged wings in Middleton, Sterling Brown, and George Hill (along with Giannis in certain configurations) who will coax tough shots from Boston’s perimeter guys, so it is going to be a slog for them to put up points. In addition, there is one other perimeter guy who’s been on the shelf for a bit, but could prove pivotal if he’s able to return to action…
O BROGDON, WHERE ART THOU?
All signs point to guard Malcolm Brogdon, who has been out since mid-March with a minor plantar fascia tear, returning to the Bucks’ lineup sometime during this series. It is unclear how much he may be able to play or how effective he could be in those minutes, but one thing is clear: Milwaukee could sure use what he brings to the table against this Boston team.
Brogdon has been perhaps the league’s most elite role player this season, and even this description probably undersells his impact. In 64 games, the former Rookie of the Year averaged 15.6/ 4.5/ 3.2 on ludicrous 51/ 43/ 93 shooting splits in 28.6 minutes per game. In so doing, Brogdon became only the eighth member of the vaunted 50-40-90 Club, joining Larry Bird, Mark Price, Reggie Miller, Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Durant, and Steph Curry, AKA a who’s who of the best shooters in NBA history. In addition to his uncanny ability to knock down open looks created by Giannis’ galactic gravitational pull, he attacks closeouts well, keeps the ball moving without turning it over, and is an active, attentive, switchable defender. He fits his complementary role so perfectly and manages his responsibilities with such technical proficiency, it can be easy to miss how critical his contributions are.
The Bucks have been able to paper over his absence during the stretch run of the season and the dismantling of the undermanned Pistons with a combination of Brown, Hill, and Pat Connaughton, all of whom, to their credit, used the additional opportunity to find a rhythm heading into the postseason. Brown in particular will certainly have a role to play in this series, but even so, a return by Brogdon would be a huge boon for Milwaukee in slotting everyone into an ideal spot in the rotation to best counteract Boston’s strengths. Milwaukee’s depth gives them answers to nearly any opposing lineup, but there probably isn’t much of a place in this series for semi-redundant stretch-4’s Ersan Ilyasova and Nikola Mirotic, both of whom struggle to defend in space just as much as Lopez. [Mirotic looked like the steal of the trade deadline, but has alternated between injured and ineffective since coming over from New Orleans. I suppose there’s a world where he returns to health and is unleashed in this series, but I struggle to see it. The trade was still the right move at the time, and if the Bucks advance, he could yet prove useful in later rounds.]
Getting even twenty minutes a game (and some semblance of the shooting prowess he displayed during the regular season) out of Brogdon would allow Coach Bud to optimize both his starting lineup and his bench unit, roll with another guy he clearly trusts on both ends, and open up additional spacing for the Greek Freak’s assaults on the rim. Amid Milwaukee’s continued steamrolling, it’s been easy to overlook Brogdon’s absence, but his presence and effectiveness — or lack thereof — could be deciding factors now that the stakes have been raised.
[Update: The Bucks have officially ruled out Brogdon for Games 1 and 2 of the series, and he will be re-evaluated thereafter.]
THREE IS MORE THAN TWO — UNTIL IT ISN’T
It’s worth diving a bit deeper on the gap between the perception and the reality of this Bucks’ team because it’s going to come into stark relief in this series. Most everyone knows at this point Giannis is the straw that stirs the drink for Milwaukee’s offense, and even with his well-documented struggles from the outside, the perception remains the Bucks are reliant (or perhaps overly reliant) on the three-ball for their success. Paradoxically, this is both true and not true at once. The Bucks did attempt the second-most triples in the league — behind only the Moreyball Rockets, naturally — but they were also not particularly accurate shooting from deep, posting a middle-of-the-pack 15th in 3-point percentage. The trade-off for this relative lack of efficiency is the space this willingness to bomb away creates in the paint, and it is the counterintutive secret sauce to Milwaukee’s dominance. When watching their offense, oftentimes there is no player anywhere near the paint for much of the possession, as Giannis initiates from the perimeter or the pinch post and the other four guys space to (and sometimes well beyond) the arc around him.
The threat of the outside shooters, as much as the reality, creates the chasm in the middle of the floor for cutters and the alien freakishness of Giannis’ rim attacks. The need for the defense to close off these lanes in turn creates actual open looks for the shooters themselves, often without doing anything more complicated than a Giannis iso or a simple off-ball screen to generate a paint touch for a teammate. It all snowballs, and it’s what makes their offense so difficult to slow down, even if the shooting percentages from deep aren’t particularly noteworthy. Their biggest strategic quirk is to clear out the paint in order to dominate it. Obviously the whole thing falls apart without a superhuman point-center doing the heavy lifting, but in the three-happy modern NBA, it’s fascinating to watch a team breathe new life into the age-old mantra that the surest path to offensive success is by controlling the area around the rim.
The Celtics, by contrast, actually are what would be considered a “jump shooting team,” whether by design or necessity. They showed an encouraging level of aggressiveness in getting to the rim against Indiana — particularly Hayward and Tatum, two of the main culprits prone to settling for jumpers — but it remains to be seen if they can sustain this newfound attacking mentality, or if, when faced with the interior dominance of the Bucks, they revert to their season-long habits. They do space the floor well, in terms of both volume and efficiency (7th in both 3PA and 3P%), but this proficiency from deep is about the only offensive area where they excel. Boston is middle-of-the-pack in pace and shooting inside the arc, and near the bottom of the league in getting to the line and offensive rebounding. If they aren’t hitting from deep, generating points can be a real challenge for this offense.
This sets up as a fascinating game-within-the-game against Milwaukee’s top-ranked defense. The Bucks walled off the paint better than anyone in the league, but the trade-off was allowing the most three-point attempts, even as they did a good job in funneling those shots to the opposition’s least effective shooters. This strategy, however, could play into Boston’s hands to a degree, since the C’s will likely eschew the paint to a large extent because of the clear disadvantage they face there, and shunt more of the usage to their shooters, among whom there isn’t much of a weak link for Milwaukee’s defense to exploit. Even if Milwaukee deftly forces the ball into the hands of the least threatening offensive player on the floor, whoever that “pressure release valve” is will still be adept at canning open looks. While it feels like it happened eons ago, the first head-to-head matchup between the teams back in November could serve as a blueprint for Boston’s attack. Remember, they attempted an absurd 55 triples, making 24 of them. It’s a super-high variance strategy, and it will probably go bust at least a couple times during the series, but it may be the only chance they have to hang with Milwaukee’s relentless ability to keep the scoreboard turning.
Three is more than two, but the genius of the Bucks’ attack is they manage to make the math work for them both ways. They will certainly not be hesitant to fire from deep as well, and so long as they hit something like their usual percentages, they’ll have enough of a buffer to let their dominance in transition, on the interior, and at the line take them home. Milwaukee’s offense is so devastating because there is no single adjustment to turn off the spigot of points; they attack the defense at every level and just grind it into dust over the course of the game. Whereas a team like Golden State is akin to a venomous cobra, lying in wait and feeling things out for much of the game before putting the opponent away with a quick strike, the Bucks are more like a boa constrictor, slowly, relentlessly applying pressure throughout the game, taking advantage of each small weakness until you look up and it’s a 15-point lead in the fourth quarter. And if the Celtics can’t shoot their way out of the constriction, Milwaukee will gradually squeeze the life out of them, too.
WHO ARE THE X-FACTORS?
The obvious answer here is Gordon Hayward, who as mentioned earlier, has begun to look like himself again over the last two months. His versatility as a secondary playmaker, rim attacker, and spot-up shooter could be critical in forcing Milwaukee’s defense to rotate and account for additional threats, rather than just staying home on the shooters. Any amount of pressure he (along with Tatum and Kyrie) can put on the Bucks’ stout interior defense will create slivers of space for their other deep threats, and at least chip away at some of the massive advantage Milwaukee will enjoy in the paint on the other end.
I already discussed Brogdon, and if he can’t go or contribute with any consistency, Sterling Brown becomes a major factor. The Bucks will need his size and physicality on the wing to counter that of Boston, and as the least proven option in their rotation, the Celtics defense will likely force him to hit open shots and attack closeouts at a high level. If he falters, the defense will sag off of him, which will in turn sap some small percentage of the effectiveness of Antetokounmpo’s interior game. Coach Bud could instead turn to Connaughton on the wing to goose the floor spacing, but he is not as rugged a defender as Brown. These seem like small compromises, but they will add up over the length of the series if Brogdon is hampered.
For Milwaukee, the tactical solution to all of these rotational conundrums may turn out to be a simple one: just play Giannis more. It is perhaps the single biggest adjustment available to any contender in these playoffs, and there is no downside. As previously discussed, Giannis played only 32.8 minutes a game this season, though he did average 35.4 in the three meetings with the Celtics. Crank that number up into the 38-40 range and the phrase “video game numbers” may not even do justice to the type of stat lines The Freak will churn out. There is no reason to think averages of 33/ 16/ 9/ 2/ 2 on 60% shooting for the series are out of the question at all. Playing time being a zero-sum game, those extra minutes come with the added bonus of siphoning court time away from a lesser player, mitigating some of the aforementioned strategic vulnerabilities. The scary thing is how the Bucks have been able to essentially slow play Giannis this entire season, and it hasn’t cost them anything. If he’s fully unleashed, there may just be no answer for it. [And believe me, it is taking every ounce of my willpower not to insert a Milton Berle joke here.]
The way the Celtics walled off Ben Simmons in the playoffs last season provided the proof of concept for defending a player somewhat similar to Giannis, and they will likely run back that strategy in some form, but Giannis and the Bucks are a different animal, individually and collectively. Milwaukee’s shooters and secondary playmakers offer a set of counters that Philly team did not possess, and the length and physicality of Giannis are such that even Horford’s wizardry and a concerted, team-wide effort to deter him from the rim may not be enough. The Celtics have done well to finally exhibit some of the form we all thought we would see back in the preseason, and they have the elements to turn this into an all-out war, but I just can’t get there in thinking it will be sufficient to take down a player and team as formidable as Giannis and the Bucks.
Golden State Warriors at Los Angeles Clippers, Game 3, Thursday, 10:30 PM ET, TNT
The Playoffs are upon us, and things are developing fast. Blink — or fall asleep, as the case may be for us East Coasters — and the reality on the ground could look very different by the next morning. To that end, your humble columnist will be activating Playoff Mode, at times eschewing some of the usual long-form deep dives in favor of quicker topical hits to keep things fresh.
The playoffs are designed to answer the questions we’ve been asking all season, but along the way, they tend to raise new ones we hadn’t even considered, or that run contrary to the conventional wisdom. And after what transpired Monday night at Oracle Arena, oh boy, do the two-time defending champs have some questions swirling around them. Look, the Warriors ultimately aren’t going to lose a first-round series to the 8th-seed Clippers, and we’ll get to some of the more focused questions about this team as we go. But after blowing a 31-point lead in lackadaisical fashion at home to a team with no superstars, the big picture question has to be asked: do the Warriors feel any urgency to keep this dynasty alive? Or deep down, in ways they would never in a million years admit to, do they just want it to be over?
This is a tricky topic to discuss without coming off as nothing more than a contrarian or a hot take artist, which is not my aim here. The conventional wisdom asserts a team with four superstars in their primes has a permanently propped open window of contention and can go on winning indefinitely. The thinking goes, when the chips are down, their talent and experience levels will inevitably carry them through the adversity and we’ll all feel foolish for doubting a team so great. After all, it’s just one first round game against an inferior opponent, and when the real teams come calling, Golden State will flip the switch and crank up the intensity, right? Right?
This line of thinking can be very tempting because there is no way to refute it in the moment, but it’s only true until it isn’t. Winning can be a very powerful cologne, masking a lot of stinky things happening beneath the surface. Even with another no. 1 seed under their belt and the no. 1 rated offense in the league, there are warning signs the Warriors’ ship is taking on water, and Golden State’s collapse in Game 2 is as good a catalyst as any to examine them a bit further and see if they portend anything for the rest of the playoffs and beyond.
Naturally, it all starts with Kevin Durant. Set to make his second league-altering free agency decision this summer (you may recall the first one was met with some, let’s say, consternation), the NBA has probably never had a more contradictory superstar. Prickly and inscrutable, KD seeks to cultivate an image of the basketball cyborg who only cares about improving his game and winning, yet he bristles at every minor slight he perceives from fans and media. His entire career has been an exercise in getting out from under the immense shadow of LeBron James, yet he has followed the King’s blueprint for success, both on-court and off, at nearly every turn. He understands all too well how little loyalty is worth in this business, then joins Steph Curry’s team and spends three years being disappointed no one is embracing him in the way they do Steph.
Durant is well within his rights to sign one-year deals and maintain maximum professional flexibility, but it should come as no surprise when the conscious decision to perpetually look out for Number One causes tension in a team setting. It’s been a running theme this season, from the shouting match with Draymond Green on the bench back in November, to his reading reporters the riot act in an attempt to throw them off the scent of his courtship of the Knicks, to the surreptitious “two max slots” conversation he had with Kyrie Irving at All-Star Weekend. The rumors he has one foot out the door persist because the evidence keeps pointing to it, and once the playoffs roll around, it becomes nigh impossible not to correlate any slippage in performance to the prevailing narrative. [Speaking of the inescapability of LeBron, should Golden State flame out in Round Two versus Houston, it will be a matter of nanoseconds before the comparisons to the 2010 Cavs begin.]
If KD does indeed have his sights set on taking his prodigious talents elsewhere this summer, he faces a conundrum over the next two months. No reigning Finals MVP has ever changed teams. It’s literally never happened. [Yes, I know Steph or Klay could conceivably end up the MVP if the Warriors win again, but the overall perception of the move would not demonstrably change.] How can a guy who is supposedly all about winning claim three straight titles, then immediately be like, “OK peace, I’m gonna go play for this organizational trash fire over here in New York”? It simply doesn’t compute. On the flip side, if Golden State falls short this year and he bolts, while he’ll still get dragged for the perception he runs from his failures — in the eyes of many, no matter what he does, he’ll never escape from the original sin of 2016 — in a weird way his image comes out cleaner on the other side. [It’s counterintuitive, but many people would be so happy for the toppling of the Warriors’ dynasty they’d give KD a pass — if not outright credit — for his role in it.] Would you count on a guy with these potentially competing motivations — even one as historically great and proven under pressure as Durant — to exhibit laser-like focus in the crucible of a key playoff moment?
Beyond Durant’s wandering eye, there are other signs Golden State’s edifice of invincibility is beginning to crack. The Warriors got a combined 29 additional games this season from the Big Four of Durant, Curry, Thompson, and Green relative to last season, yet their win total dropped from 58 to 57. [Not terribly surprising, but their win total has decreased each year since the all-time high water mark of 73 in 2015-16.] While their offense remains on another planet, the defense quietly dropped all the way to 13th this season, the lowest rating they’ve had during the dynastic run. Draymond remains an elite defender when properly engaged, even as his offensive impact and overall dynamism as a player have waned. Team defense is a function of talent and effort, of course, but also of connectedness, and this season is the first time we’ve seen the connective tissue of this group begin to weaken. Perhaps the embarrassing Game 2 collapse and the loss of Boogie Cousins will galvanize the team and put a chip on its collective shoulder, but having to spin these negatives into positives for a team with so much talent and pedigree isn’t exactly a great sign.
[Quick aside: there is an argument to be made losing Boogie amounts to addition by subtraction. I don’t entirely subscribe to it, but it has some merit. Golden State took a one-year flier on an All-Star recovering from a torn Achilles’, and realistically, anything they got out of him was going to be gravy. But even a fully healthy version of Boogie — which we never got to see this season and obviously never will now — was still going to have some diminishing returns in conjunction with the rest of this roster. The things he does well are mostly things they already have covered or simply don’t need, and the areas where he has historically struggled line up neatly with the areas where the Warriors needed bolstering. It was always going to be an odd fit. Why would Steve Kerr redirect any part of the their offensive game plan towards Boogie’s bully-ball post-ups and face-ups when the existing scheme works better anyway? A big who can create space by setting hard screens and diving to the rim has as much or more positive impact on the offensive ecosystem as the more “skilled” Boogie, and without giving as much back on defense. Nothing else matters if they don’t get past Houston, and that was never going to be the series for Cousins anyway. He would have gotten pick-and-rolled and iso’d right off the floor, so it may be a happy side effect for Kerr to shift those minutes to Kevon Looney and Andrew Bogut (or the Hamptons Five, ugh) right off the bat and skip all the sloppy foreplay. It’s strange to think “more Kevon Looney” could be the actual solution to any basketball-related problem, but here we are. The flip side is, while the cost may be low against Houston, depth is already an area where this year’s Warriors struggle. Despite how this dynasty has occasionally made it look, winning championships is hard, and most title teams end up needing all their weapons at some point along the way. We’d never be able to prove the negative, but should the Dubs fall short, the absence of Cousins could end up as a big “what if.” And look, none of this is meant as a slight to Boogie. All indications are, despite the reputation which precedes him, he has done a great job trying to fit in with this team, and everyone around the organization seems to like and support him. Everything that’s transpired over the last two seasons has been devastating for him, both competitively and financially. I feel for the guy. For Warriors’ fans, the hope would be his loss acts as both a rallying cry and a shortcut to unlocking the most potent lineup combinations in the later rounds. In any case, tough break, big fella.]
Source: Jeff Chiu/Associated Press
With or without Cousins, the road to the threepeat was never going to be easy. Even if they should emerge victorious in the war to come with Houston — sorry, Jazz fans, but it’s time to face facts — and dispatch whichever squad comes out of the JV side of the West bracket in the Conference Finals, there’s a good chance Golden State will end up staring down what is essentially a doppelganger of their 2014-15 championship team: the Milwaukee Bucks.
Stay with me. The 2013-14 Warriors were a slightly better version of the 2017-18 Bucks. They won seven more regular season games and advanced one round further in the playoffs, but overall, they were nobody’s idea of a serious contender. After the season, Golden State replaced their head coach, a former point guard, with a Gregg Popovich acolyte who installed a modernized scheme and optimized the rotation, while the front office made some shrewd personnel moves around the fringes of the roster to bolster the existing core. The results were stunning: sixteen additional regular season wins in ’14-’15, the no. 1 seed in the conference, top-five ratings on both sides of the ball, a barrage of three-pointers, a first-time MVP winner, and an NBA title almost no one saw coming until a few months before it happened.
Remind you of anyone?
It would be poetic for this Milwaukee team to be the one to dethrone the Warriors. While many people would perceive the “upset” as shocking in the moment, a few years down the road we would likely just see it as the natural progression of each team’s competitive cycle. Another Golden State victory parade may seem inevitable now, but I assure you it is not. As fans, we tend to assume windows of contention will remain open forever, even as virtually every piece of evidence from modern NBA history contradicts this view. Everything ends badly, otherwise it wouldn’t end. If things end badly for KD and the Warriors this spring, don’t say nobody could have seen it coming.
Top Photo Credit: Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group
We made it. The long slog of the regular season is finally at its end, and the real season is nearly upon us. But before we start looking forward, let’s take a look back at who mattered this regular season. Here are my picks for all the major end-of-season honors, with some select commentary on my rationale.
[Note: I do not have an official vote — maybe someday — so please remember this is all in good fun. The order in which I have the runners-up listed is how I would construct my imaginary ballot.]
ALL-NBA TEAM
FIRST TEAM:
G: James Harden, Houston Rockets
G: Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors
F: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
F: Paul George, Oklahoma City Thunder
C: Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets
SECOND TEAM:
G: Damian Lillard, Portland Trailblazers
G: Kyrie Irving, Boston Celtics
F: Kevin Durant, Golden State Warriors
F: Kawhi Leonard, Toronto Raptors
C: Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers
THIRD TEAM:
G: Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City Thunder
G: Kemba Walker, Charlotte Hornets
F: LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers
F: Blake Griffin, Detroit Pistons
C: Rudy Gobert, Utah Jazz
Always a fun place to start. I think I have the right fifteen names here, though it’s certainly fair to question the arrangement of the teams. Harden, Curry, and Giannis are lead-pipe locks for First Team, but it becomes eye of the beholder pretty quickly after that. On the First Team, there are two qualified candidates for the second forward spot. I chose PG over Durant, but it’s effectively a coin flip. George has been a significantly more valuable outside shooter (weird to say when comparing him to KD, but it’s true) and an elite defender, so he gets the nod. Same deal at center: take your pick of Jokic or Embiid and you won’t be wrong. Embiid is the superior defender and scorer, but Jokic is the lone All-Star on the no. 2 seed in the West.
There is an argument for Karl-Anthony Towns making Third Team over Rudy Gobert, but I’m sticking with the Stifle Tower. KAT has the shinier stats, but I’ll start to take those more seriously once he manages to win something without Jimmy Butler around to drag the team across the finish line. I covered Rudy in my piece on Utah a few weeks back, and there’s not much new to add. He remains a defense unto himself and an underratedly excellent offensive player, and he deserves to be recognized as one of the league’s best players.
Picking the final guard spot is brutal. I pored over resumes for eight different guys before settling on Kemba. For most voters, the choice probably comes down to either Walker or Bradley Beal. Both put up gaudy stats with little help for lousy teams, so I’ll give Kemba the benefit of willing Charlotte to a few more wins than Washington. The choice is also about more than posterity; a TON of cash and the possible future of a franchise are on the line. If Kemba is selected, he becomes eligible for a supermax contract with Charlotte this summer, which would be around $220 million for five years. If not, he would be capped at $189 million. While no one would exactly weep for him, the delta could weigh on Kemba’s free agency decision. In either case, if he decides to leave the Hornets, he maxes out at four years/$140 million. An extra $80 million in guaranteed cash may be extremely hard to leave on the table for an undersized point guard on the wrong side of the aging curve, regardless of whether he’d be locking himself into perpetual mediocrity. It would be a fascinating test case for the efficacy of the supermax. If a star willingly forgoes that much cheddar to bolt for greener competitive pastures, the league will have no choice but to go back to the drawing board in its efforts to balance out player movement. Don’t get me wrong: Kemba is a deserving candidate, and he’s earned the right to do whatever the hell makes him happy in his career. But from a self-serving perspective, I also really want to see if the extra $31 million tips the scales or not.
ALL-DEFENSIVE TEAM
FIRST TEAM:
G: Eric Bledsoe, Milwaukee Bucks
G: Marcus Smart, Boston Celtics
F: Paul George, Oklahoma City Thunder
F: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
C: Rudy Gobert, Utah Jazz
SECOND TEAM:
G: Ben Simmons, Philadelphia 76ers
G: Jrue Holiday, New Orleans Pelicans
F: Pascal Siakam, Toronto Raptors
F: Myles Turner, Indiana Pacers
C: Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers
It’s frustrating these teams have to be chosen with positional designations in mind, because there are a ton of deserving forwards and centers, whereas things dry up at the guard spots pretty quickly. In any case, the First Team is relatively straightforward. The cases for George, Antetokounmpo, and Gobert are unassailable. Despite Boston’s strange season, Smart’s defensive performance has matched his reputation. Perhaps Bledsoe benefits from the ecosystem in which he plays, but even so, he has unquestionably returned to the form he displayed back with the Clippers as a point of attack bulldog. I bent over backwards trying to find a more deserving guard and could not.
It gets a little dicier and more subjective on the Second Team. I’m fudging things positionally a bit to get Simmons on as a guard and Turner as a forward, but it’s my fake ballot, so piss off if you don’t like it. There’s an argument for San Antonio’s Derrick White to get one of the guard spots, but Holiday played way more minutes and was a stabilizing defensive force even as a tire fire raged around him in New Orleans, so he gets the nod. Don’t cry for White; I suspect he’ll earn a few of these accolades before he’s through. I considered Andre Drummond for the second center spot, but Embiid’s on/off splits are just too damn impressive. The Sixers are a train wreck on both ends without him, and his questionable health could be a major factor heading into a less-than-ideal playoff matchup with Brooklyn.
ALL-ROOKIE TEAM
FIRST TEAM:
Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks
Trae Young, Atlanta Hawks
DeAndre Ayton, Phoenix Suns
Jaren Jackson, Jr., Memphis Grizzlies
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Los Angeles Clippers
SECOND TEAM:
Marvin Bagley III, Sacramento Kings
Collin Sexton, Cleveland Cavaliers
Josh Okogie, Minnesota Timberwolves
Mitchell Robinson, New York Knicks
Landry Shamet, Los Angeles Clippers
[Note: Unlike All-NBA and All-Defense, the All-Rookie Teams do not have to account for positions.]
There are a few distinct tiers of rookies this year who merit consideration. The top tier — Doncic, Young, and Ayton — I’ll discuss more below, but they all obviously deserve to be on the First Team. The next four guys (Triple J, SGA, Bagley, and Sexton) will end up competing for the last two First Team spots. Despite missing the latter portion of the season with an injury, Jackson looks like he’s going to be a stud on both ends, and SGA is already playing a major role for a playoff team, so I went with them. Bagley seemed to get better by the week before being felled by injury, and looks to be a walking 20-and-10 for the next decade or so. Sexton righted the ship in the second half of the year after starting out the season as one of the absolute worst high-volume players in the league and getting called out by his veteran teammates. Despite the rocky start, his scoring ability is legit.
After the second tier, there’s a jumble of guys who either played well in a limited role, or got a bigger opportunity and alternated between showing flashes and making typical rookie mistakes. I chose Okogie (already an elite on-ball defender and athletic marvel in transition), Robinson (the next DeAndre Jordan, for better and worse), and Shamet (an absolute sniper who Philly inexplicably gave away in the Tobias Harris deal). If you wanted to substitute any of those three with some combination of Kevin Huerter, Kevin Knox, Mikal Bridges, Jalen Brunson, or Rodions Kurucs, I wouldn’t argue too vehemently. A well-rounded rookie class overall.
COACH OF THE YEAR: Mike Budenholzer, Milwaukee Bucks
Runners-up: Doc Rivers, Mike Malone, Nate McMillan, Steve Clifford, Terry Stotts
Mercifully relieved of his personnel duties for the Clippers, Rivers has reminded everyone this year how he’s still a pretty damn good coach. The Clips have overachieved with a transitional roster — unlike their Staples Center co-tenants — and Doc has to get a lot of the credit for coaxing a coherent rotation out of spare parts and having confidence in Gilgeous-Alexander to develop through rookie mistakes. The set of challenges facing him could look very different next season, but for this season at least, he deserves kudos for crafting a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
Malone was my choice for the award at midseason, but the Nuggets have given back some of the gains they made defensively and look vulnerable heading into the playoffs. [The basketball gods were asleep at the wheel when they allowed Denver to manipulate the standings to get all three of Golden State, Houston, and Utah onto the other side of the playoff bracket, but I suspect they will yet exact their revenge.] He would still be a fine pick, but perhaps not the best one. McMillan, Stotts, and Clifford have made the best out of somewhat bad situations (injuries, regrouping after a playoff embarrassment, and coaching the Magic, respectively), but with all due respect, this is an easy choice.
I wrote in preseason that outside of Kawhi Leonard, Coach Bud was likely to be the biggest personnel upgrade in the East, and nothing has transpired to disprove my hypothesis. Adding Brook Lopez as the perfect complementary big man to the Greek Freak’s marauding rim runs has obviously helped, but from Day One, Budenholzer has pushed all the right buttons, both scheme- and rotation-wise, and it’s resulted in the best record and point differential in the league by a wide margin. Basic competence would have represented a massive improvement over his predecessors — are you listening, Lakers? — but Coach Bud has gone far beyond that benchmark, engineering the perfect ecosystem to maximize the gifts of his transcendent superstar and unlock a title contender. Let’s not overthink this one.
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Rudy Gobert, Utah Jazz
Runners-up: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Paul George, Myles Turner
Paul George was my midseason pick for this award, and had the back half of the schedule played out similarly to the front half, he probably still would be. Alas, fair or not, his semi-mysterious shoulder injury caused him (and OKC as a whole) to return to the pack to a degree, and it’s tough to give the award to a wing if his case is anything short of overwhelming.
Giannis has been garnering some late buzz for DPOY, and deservedly so. Antetokounmpo has put himself in position to be the first player since Hakeem Olajuwon (in ’93-’94) to win both MVP and DPOY in the same year. [Michael Jordan — in ’87-’88 — is the only other player in league history to pull off the feat, so we’re talking heady stuff here.] Giannis is a matchup-proof nightmare coming from the weakside, as he showed last week in sending back four separate Joel Embiid shots in Milwaukee’s come-from-behind win over the Sixers. The presence of Brook Lopez at the rim and Eric Bledsoe at the point of attack allows him to roam the back line like a free safety and snuff out threats anywhere on the court with his never-ending length and seeming ability to warp time and space. Opponents basically void their bowels whenever he’s in the area of one of their shots (Opponent FG% is 6.6% lower when Giannis is defending, tied for the 4th-biggest differential in the league). He leads the league in individual Defensive Rating, is third in Defensive Win Shares, and is tied for first (with Gobert) in Defensive BPM. You get the idea — he’s an absolute terror. I’d better move on before I change my own mind.
No, I’ll stick with my pick of Gobert to claim the honor for the second straight year. On a per-play basis, Rudy was slightly more impactful last season, but he also only played in 56 games (vs. 79 this year). He’s second in the league in total blocks, fourth in rebounding average, first in Defensive Win Shares, third in Defensive Rating, and tied for first in Defensive BPM. Opponents shoot 4.2% worse when he’s defending (not as big a difference as Giannis, but still elite). As with Giannis, Gobert also has another fearsome rim protector on his team (Derrick Favors, quietly having a monster defensive season himself), though the two bigs have shared the floor less this season than in the past. In any case, Gobert remains the linchpin to Utah’s defensive dominance (2nd in Defensive Rating behind Milwaukee, but against a significantly more difficult schedule) and the league’s most feared defensive anchor. He can be schemed away from the hoop and into unfavorable switches against certain opponents (cough, Golden State, cough), but the juice is always worth the squeeze. The Stifle Tower gets the nod.
SIXTH MAN OF THE YEAR: Lou Williams, Los Angeles Clippers
Runners-up: Domantas Sabonis, Montrezl Harrell, Monte Morris, Spencer Dinwiddie
I’ve written quite a bit about this award already, so I’ll keep it brief. Sabonis has maintained his consistently excellent per-minute production throughout the entire season, and in most years, he’d be a virtual lock for the award. If there’s any justice, Domas won’t be eligible in future seasons because he absolutely should be a starting center, whether in Indy or elsewhere. All apologies, but this award simply has to go to Sweet Lou. Williams coasted to the award last season, and on a per-minute basis, he’s been nearly the exact same player this year, if not better, and on an improved team. His herky-jerky pick-and-roll mastery (and the resulting chemistry with fellow super-sub Harrell, covered expertly as always by Zach Lowe here) is one of THE elite weapons in the NBA, regardless of role. There have been a ton of great bench guys this season, but in the absence of a better candidate, the trophy stays with Lou-Will.
MOST IMPROVED PLAYER: Pascal Siakam, Toronto Raptors
Runners-up: D’Angelo Russell, De’Aaron Fox, Nikola Vucevic
A strong set of candidates for this one as well. Vooch showed the most tangible improvement in one specific area, namely outside shooting. His newfound touch from deep (36.4% on almost three attempts per game) has helped create some modicum of breathing room for Orlando’s previously execrable offense, and morphed him from “above average player and perennial secret fantasy weapon” to “legitimate All-Star and best guy on a playoff team.” And yet he’d only be fourth on my ballot.
In an absolute sense, Fox probably improved the most of anyone in the league, and his future couldn’t be brighter for a suddenly-interesting Kings team. [No sooner had I written this sentence than it was announced GM Vlade Divac had inexplicably fired head coach Dave Joerger. Even when they seem to be on the right track, it’s always one step forward, two steps back for this franchise. #Kangz.] However, the weight of expectation factors into the nebulous criteria for this award, as it probably should, and Fox is a highly drafted player from a blue blood school in his second year. It’s great that he’s becoming the player he’s supposed to be after a disappointing rookie year, but through the lens of this particular award, it hurts his case. He’ll probably be back in the conversation next year when he pulls the “third year guy goes from good to great” routine, but for now, we have better options.
Speaking of highly-pedigreed, left-handed point guards who were early disappointments, it’s 2019 All-Star D’Angelo Russell, ladies and gentlemen! The difference is, whereas with Fox there are tangible improvements to his body and his game we can point to, with Russell, he essentially looks like the same player, but the conditions on the ground and the results have improved. Finally healthy and free of the toxic culture in LakerLand (not that he was blameless — far from it — but after recent events, it’s the sort of thing we have to start baking into our evaluations), DLo has taken full advantage of a bigger opportunity in an ecosystem more tailored to his talents. His shooting efficiency has improved, though only marginally, and he’s actually getting to the line at a lower rate than in previous seasons, but the most noticeable difference has been in his playmaking. It’s taken some time, but he’s beginning to learn to map the floor and anticipate defensive rotations at the NBA level. It’s resulted in career highs in Assist% (41.3, second in the league behind Westbrook), and Usage Rate (32.0, sixth in the league), combined with the lowest turnover rate of his young career. His on-court improvement is likely to correspond to a marked improvement in his financial situation as well. Russell will be a restricted free agent this summer, and seeing his potential translate to production (and wins) is going to get him P-A-I-D, whether by Brooklyn or another suitor. [Brooklyn will have the right to match any offer.] Good on him.
But this is another award where the obvious answer is also the correct one. Call it Siakam’s Razor. [I’ll let myself out.] The former 27th overall pick from New Mexico State has been nothing short of a revelation. Siakam is a true basketball success story: discovered by the Basketball Without Borders program in his native Cameroon, he didn’t start playing organized ball until age-18. Toronto took a flier on his raw athleticism in 2016, and Siakam displayed some potential as a useful but limited role player over his first two years with the team. This season, it all came together for Spicy P. His non-stop motor and blazing speed in transition have combined with a rapidly maturing skill set (37% from deep and a lethal spin move) to make him a legit weapon — and occasional primary offensive option — for a 58-win Toronto team which has seen stars Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry miss a combined 39 games. Siakam is averaging 17/ 7/ 3 with efficient 55/ 37/ 78 shooting splits in 32 minutes a night, and it feels like he is only scratching the surface of his potential. He defends like his hair is on fire across all five positions, spaces the floor, attacks closeouts, and is an absolute nightmare in the open floor. It’s impossible to forget he’s on the court; he just always seems to be impacting the action with his energy and athleticism.
The Raptors took a major gamble in trading for Kawhi’s expiring contract and occasionally wandering eye, but with the emergence of Siakam, Toronto has stumbled upon a reasonable contingency plan should Leonard leave them in the lurch. It remains to be seen if Siakam can thrive in the playoffs and beyond as teams begin to game plan specifically for him, but everything we’ve seen to this point suggests his breakout season is no fluke. Barring injury, he’ll end up on at least a couple All-Star teams, or I’ll eat my hat.
USA TODAY Sports
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks
Runners-up: Trae Young, DeAndre Ayton
This was the easiest call on the board at midseason, but credit to Trae Young for at least turning it into a conversation. Young looked overmatched early on, including a disastrous November in which he shot 35.5% from the field, 19.8% from three, and sported a -27 Net Rating. Getting springy second-year big man (and noted aviation enthusiast) John Collins back from injury certainly helped, but over the last 30+ games, Young has been an absolute stud. Since the All-Star Break, he’s posted averages of 24.8/ 4.7/ 9.1 on 45/ 36/ 88 shooting with a 30.8 Usage Rate for a surprisingly competitive and entertaining Hawks’ team. He’ll need to get stronger, improve on defense to at least “passably bad,” and become a more efficient scorer in the paint. [Until then, the Steph Curry comps will fall a little flat because for all his shooting exploits, a vastly underrated part of Steph’s dominance is his finishing ability on the interior.] Even so, his passing ability and deep shooting range are already elite weapons, and it’s increasingly looking like all the skeptics who gleefully wrote him off after his rough start will have to eat some crow.
Ayton has been mostly as-advertised, churning out solid stat lines while rarely revving his engine above third gear for a goat-shit Phoenix team. His defensive struggles have been a bit exaggerated. He’s improved month-over-month at the league’s hardest defensive position, and he garnered some short-lived publicity for slowing down Giannis in a baffling upset of the league-leading Bucks in early March. All things considered, he’s right on schedule for a young, hyper-athletic big man, but fair or not, his progress is inevitably going to be compared to the presumptive ROY winner.
Doncic has simply been the most consistently productive rookie from start to finish we’ve seen in quite a long time, so despite Young’s late heroics, this is still an easy choice. Statistically, Luka’s inaugural NBA season is a Gladwell-level outlier. His per-game averages for a rookie (21.2/ 7.8/ 6.0) have been matched or exceeded in NBA history by Oscar Robertson… and that’s it. In ’60-’61, the Big O — at 22 years old, mind you — averaged a scarcely believable 30.5/ 10.1/ 9.7 for Cincinnati, but he did so in an insane 42.7 minutes a game, and at an even more insane pace of 122.8 possessions per 48 minutes. [Suffice it to say, “load management” was not a thing in those days.] Setting aside the pace difference entirely, when you compare per-36 numbers, the plot thickens:
Once you account for the difference in pace, there can be no question Doncic is in some rare historical air. What’s even wilder is he’s doing it without really being in peak NBA shape. Luka is, as the young people say, “thicc.” With a few years of NBA training/diet/nutrition/biometrics under his belt, Doncic will likely add more strength, stamina, and agility to his preternatural skill set. Once that happens, LOOK. OUT. BELOW.
MOST VALUABLE PLAYER: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
Runners-up: James Harden, Nikola Jokic, Paul George, Joel Embiid, Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard
It’s a terrific year for worthy MVP candidates, but with all apologies, at the end of the day it comes down to Giannis and Harden. Professional poker players will tell you there’s no such thing as being pot-committed, but I backed Giannis in preseason and at midseason, so I’m not about to change course now. Look, there is no wrong answer here. James Harden is shouldering an unprecedented offensive burden in terms of his combination of usage and efficiency. His ability to hit step-back 3’s at a consistent percentage, for lack of a better term, breaks basketball. [The tactical absurdity of Milwaukee’s defense giving Harden a clear runway to the middle of the lane purely to limit the efficacy of this one move was a helpful visual reminder of this fact.] His only historical peers in per-game scoring average are MJ, Kobe, and Wilt, and the five-year statistical run he is on right now stacks up favorably with nearly every one of the game’s greatest legends. I do not subscribe to the persistent narratives that he’s a flopper or a travel artist. [As I’ve argued in the past, if the league considers changing the rules to slow a guy down, it’s an affirmation of his greatness, not a condemnation of it.] Harden is, quite simply, one of the most masterful offensive talents we’ve ever seen, a true virtuoso with the ball in his hands.
His defensive reputation continues to be the polar opposite, but that narrative doesn’t entirely line up with the facts either. He definitely conserves energy on defense — as do most high-usage stars, especially those with a significant number of miles on their odometers — and he still spaces out away from the ball more than he should. That said, he’s come a long way from his “Shaqtin’ a Fool”-worthy days of years past. Most of the advanced metrics rate him as a net positive on defense, even as the Rockets’ defense as a whole has slipped this year. Harden is near the top of the league in steals and deflections, and he and Mike D’Antoni have leveraged his stout post defense into a legitimate weapon. Every time he gets switched onto a big man and the opposition feeds it into the post, foolishly believing they have a mismatch, I’m like the guy sitting behind you at the horror movie, shouting “Don’t go in there!” at the screen. [What’s bizarre about this is how all the coaches and analytics staffers are aware of this phenomenon and preach it to their teams, yet Harden still seems to bait the opposition into it several times per game. It’s the defensive equivalent of Dwyane Wade’s pump fake: a Jedi mind trick that makes no sense but keeps working, so I guess we have to give Harden some credit despite how baffling it is.]
So no, I’m not here to disparage Harden or take anything away from his historic season. But a bonkers statistical season does not inherently equal an MVP, and all credit to The Beard, but The Freak is the choice here. As I’ve said before, “best player/best team” is an overly simple rubric for deciding the award, but Giannis’ case starts with the undeniable fact that he has been just that, from start to finish. His production, and the team’s performance as a whole, have been remarkably consistent all season, even as Milwaukee has battled a litany of injuries and punted some winnable games of late. His stats are an unprecedented blend of Prime Kareem and Prime Shaq, in addition to being a terrifyingly versatile defensive force, as previously discussed.
I found this hard to believe when I dug into the numbers, but it’s true: Antetokounmpo’s Effective Field Goal Percentage (which accounts for the added value of a three-pointer) is significantly higher than Harden’s (.599 vs. .541). So the average shot leaving the hands of Giannis is quite a bit more valuable than the average one emanating from the dude I just described three paragraphs ago as “breaking basketball.” The Freak’s ability to dominate the game by getting into the paint off the dribble and scoring at will is sui generis in the history of basketball. For all the ways the three-ball has become king in the modern game, the ascendance of Giannis serves as a reminder that controlling the area around the rim on both ends remains the surest path to success.
What makes Giannis’ statistical dominance all the more absurd is how he did it in only 32.8 minutes a game (vs. 36.8 for Harden). Not to say he deserves “extra” credit for minutes he didn’t play — largely because the Bucks handed out so many righteous beat downs, he didn’t need to — but when you start comparing per-36 minute numbers (as opposed to per-game), the statistical case starts to get really interesting:
I maintain the biggest tactical adjustment available to any playoff team is Mike Budenholzer’s ability to ramp Giannis up to 38+ minutes a night. Could we see him average a 33/ 16/ 9/ 2/ 2 over the next two months? What if he keeps hitting at least 33% of his 3’s (as he’s been doing — albeit on limited attempts — since the start of February)? Being named MVP may turn out to just be the initial step towards The Freak’s coronation as the world’s best player. It’s incredibly impressive that Harden appears to have reached his considerable ceiling. What’s even more impressive is, at only 24 years old, Giannis may not be particularly close to his yet.
As the saying goes, let your (Greek) freak flag fly. Giannis Antetokounmpo should be the 2019 NBA MVP. Now for the love of all that’s holy, let’s get on with the playoffs.
These are the three words (allegedly) uttered by Kyrie Irving to Kevin Durant during All-Star Weekend which briefly set NBA Twitter ablaze. With a bit of distance between then and now — and all the unnecessary time we have to kill until the playoffs start because the season is too damn long — it may be a good time to parse those three potentially league-shaking words out further to see if they actually mean what we thought they meant back in February.
First, a disclaimer. Virtually everything that follows is pure speculation. I do not know anything for a fact. I have no reliable sources. One thing I do know is, when it comes to NBA superstars, assumptions fans and media make and accept as gospel often do not come to fruition. The lived experiences of these men, as elite athletes and highly visible public figures, causes them to be purposely inscrutable in their motivations and decision-making processes. Due to the ubiquity of social media, television, and blog boys like myself, we feel like we know these players as people, but ultimately we do not, and that’s the way they like it. So take it all with a huge grain of salt, but hear me out.
When a camera surreptitiously captured Kyrie (ALLEGEDLY) saying those three words, it opened up a whole new narrative most of us hadn’t previously considered. [And trust me, what this says about modernity and the way we consume these narratives is not lost on me, but it’s a topic for another time.] There have been persistent rumors all year about Durant writing the next chapter of his career outside of Golden State (hold that thought), but up until the video surfaced, the idea of Kyrie leaving Boston in free agency generally — and teaming up with KD specifically — had not gained any real traction. When pressed on the subject, both guys piled on the media in a sort of incensed parallel, which only served to further stoke the flames of suspicion.
So let’s presuppose for a moment these two prickly, eccentric stars are determined to join forces next season. Given the mounting evidence and the way this entire decade has unfolded, it doesn’t sound like a crazy proposition. Their options to do so are rather limited, but they could, even if they haven’t stopped to consider whether they should. [H/t Jeff Goldblum.] Kyrie’s (A-L-L-E-G-E-D) utterance immediately drew everyone’s attention to the shiny object that is the New York Knicks, and rightfully so. The once-great franchise can easily open up enough cap space to accommodate both stars on max contracts, and Durant’s business partner, Rich Kleiman, is a New York native who has publicly expressed interest in being part of the Knicks’ organization going forward. It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to connect the dots. Occam’s Razor and all that jazz.
But here’s the thing: there is another franchise in a top-two media market with an eminently reasonable path to opening up two max cap slots. And by the way, this team is already on pace to win 50 games, and wouldn’t have to sacrifice any of its core pieces to add both Irving and Durant. It’s the Los Angeles Freaking Clippers.
Lawrence Frank, Doc Rivers, and Jerry West | Source: USA TODAY Sports
Ready to have your mind blown? Then come down the rabbit hole with me. Earlier in the season, I covered how the Clippers had done a masterful job rebooting on the fly, and that was before they aced the trade deadline, both in the short-term (18-6 record since) and in terms of added flexibility going forward, despite trading away what was ostensibly their best player in Tobias Harris. The Clips somehow added useful pieces JaMychal Green, Garrett Temple, Landry Shamet, and Ivica Zubac, while also clearing out long-term money AND snagging two additional first-round picks in the process (one of which is Miami’s unprotected 2021 pick, a potentially lucrative asset). If we zoom out to the thousand-foot view, LA finished 51-31 in 2016-17, good for 4th in the West. Since then, they have lost DeAndre Jordan for nothing in free agency and traded what is effectively their best player three separate times, and yet are on pace for nearly the exact same record as two years ago. The pivot from the Lob City era to whatever the next version of this team will be has been nothing short of remarkable.
The shambolic dysfunction of the Donald Sterling era — and more recently, Doc Rivers’ unfortunate tenure as the team’s basketball czar — has given way to the streamlined organizational efficiency fostered by owner Steve Ballmer and front office honchos Lawrence Frank and Jerry West. By contrast, the Knicks, under the “direction” of owner James Dolan, appear no closer to putting out the organizational dumpster fire which has been raging nearly non-stop since we were all freaking out over the Y2K bug. If you were a superstar (or two) in your prime, which franchise would you want to join?
Look, I understand there is some theoretical cachet to being the guy(s) who bring the Knicks back to their former glory and re-energize the Mecca of basketball. It’s a lovely, romantic idea. Know what else is lovely? Living in Los Angeles full-time, especially when you’re a movie star (Kyrie) and an executive producer (Durant). However much both guys push back with their (again, oddly synchronized) messaging about “just wanting to play ball” or whatever, all the available evidence suggests there is more to this decision than just basketball, and there is no better place for a player to build out his brand than L.A. [With LeBron blazing this trail yet again, for better or worse.]
Beyond the lifestyle choice, the basketball situations aren’t even remotely comparable, the 14% chance of the Knicks driving their tank brigade directly to the gates of Zion notwithstanding. The Clippers have only seven players under guaranteed contracts for next season: Danilo Gallinari, Lou Williams, Montrezl Harrell, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jerome Robinson, Landry Shamet, and Tyrone Wallace. Those guys are good! Add KD and Kyrie to that nucleus, and without doing anything else (plus the collateral damage LA would have inflicted on Golden State by poaching Durant), they already have a rotation which, on paper, can go toe-to-toe with anyone in the league. Time the transactions correctly and negotiate effectively — two things for which the front office has probably now earned the benefit of the doubt — and they could potentially re-sign some combination of Zubac, Green, Temple, and Beverley to team-friendly deals while still paying little-to-no luxury tax. In this scenario, losing their lottery-protected first-round pick to Boston — a source of hand-wringing and conspiracy theories throughout the season — turns out to be a blessing in disguise, as they will save the cap hold which would otherwise be associated with the salary slot for a lottery pick. For once, I can say it without a hint of sarcasm: thanks, Jeff Green!
Compare this bulletproof infrastructure to what they’d be looking at if they signed in New York. The largest guaranteed cap hit on the Knicks’ ledger next season currently belongs to the ghost of Joakim Noah, and I have no earthly idea what to do with this piece of information. In terms of actual humans one could reasonably expect to suit up for them next year, there’s a cadre of untested youngsters: Kevin Knox, Frank Ntilikina, Dennis Smith, Jr., and Mitchell Robinson, along with a couple non-guaranteed surprises they will probably bring back in Allonzo Trier and Damyean Dotson. Perhaps they re-sign DeAndre Jordan — he is one of Durant’s best friends — but his physical and schematic impacts are not what they once were, and chances are New York would botch the negotiations anyway and overpay him based on his reputation. [Speaking of brands, such a miscalculation of value would be just about the most on-brand thing possible for the Knicks.] Sure, this supporting cast offers the hazy silhouette of a competitive team somewhere down the line, but why would two superstars as established as Durant and Irving sign up for that? And if the argument is, “Don’t worry, the front office is going to trade the young guys for veterans anyway,” is there anything in the Knicks’ organizational DNA up to this point which would remotely suggest they are competent enough to thread such a needle? Obviously the calculus changes quite a bit if the ping-pong balls bounce their way next month, but if the 1-in-7 chance doesn’t bear fruit — of course the Knicks would bottom out the year the league flattens the lottery odds — coaxing KD and Kyrie into casting their lot with JD and the Straight Shot is going to be a much tougher sell.
Who knows? Maybe this is all a pipe dream. Maybe one or both guys do go to the Knicks. Maybe the Clips are left to “settle” for signing Kawhi Leonard (not a bad outcome in itself, load management aside), or maybe they don’t reel in any of the big fish and are stuck with a bunch of cap space no one wants to take and no draft pick. As long as they don’t blow it all on a bunch of mid-tier guys who don’t move the needle, at least they’re no worse off than they were beforehand. None of those potential outcomes should dissuade them from taking big swings this summer.
Speaking of which, there is one other highly available superstar with an apparent taste for the LA lifestyle about whom the Clips might want to make a few phone calls. LA’s “other” team has only been tangentially linked to the Anthony Davis sweepstakes, but if the Pelicans flat refuse to deal with the Lakers, and Kyrie bolts from Boston (regardless of destination, but preferably to the Clips), the calculus surrounding the entire ordeal shifts considerably. Perhaps a team with some shiny new free agents, good young players, and a couple extra future firsts they picked up along the way might be able to sneak into the bidding unnoticed. Matching salaries would be a tricky business (though the Clips do have Gallo’s $21M expiring contract on the books for next year as well as a couple fairly sizable trade exceptions), and some CBA gymnastics would be involved in getting all of the assets New Orleans would undoubtedly demand into the deal, but in the modern NBA, if you will it, it is no dream. Some form of deal centered around Gallo, SGA, Jerome Robinson, Landry Shamet, and the Philly and Miami picks would at least jump-start the conversation, particularly if Boston ends up taking itself out of the running (or taking Jayson Tatum off the table). And holy hell, would a core of Davis/Durant/Kyrie/Lou-Will/Harrell be fierce.
Throw in how such a coup would stick in the craw of Lakers’, Celtics’, and Warriors’ fans for the rest of eternity, and we’d be looking at a shift in the league’s power structure so seismic it would make the assembling of the Heatles back in 2010 feel like a minor tremor. Sure, this all sounds like a crazy idea. But is it any crazier than two of the ten best players alive saying, “Hey, I know: let’s go play for the shittiest owner in sports and join a roster with no players who will be ready to contribute to a Finals team for half a decade, in a market where the media – who we demonstrably hate — will rip us to shreds for any failures, and a conference that’s increasingly top-heavy”? If KD and Kyrie are going to collude, they should at least be smart about it. Cripple the Warriors’ dynasty, the twilight of LeBron’s career, and the Celtics’ grand plans for contention all in one fell swoop, avoid apex Giannis until the Finals every year, AND get to live in LA and build your brands all the while. What am I missing?
[Yeah, yeah, I know the answer is “Zion.” Let’s revisit this after May 14th, shall we?]
To say we are in the doldrums of the NBA regular season is an aggressive understatement. The players want it over, the fans want it over, the tanking and non-tanking teams alike want it over. It’s enough to make a person feel a bit nihilistic about the whole endeavor, so rather than take too deep a dive into anything, let’s hop around the league for some quick hits on topics I’m still finding interesting.
Speaking of the season dragging on, let’s start out with a grisly reminder…
The Jusuf Nurkic injury is further proof the regular season is too damn long. Look, I know I’m treading on well-worn ground here. The argument has been made and proven a thousand different ways by now about how shortening the regular season would optimize player performance and competitive balance while lowering injury risk, but comes with the intractable problem of revenue loss. It is known. These competing motivations make it no less frustrating when a team in the midst of clinching a playoff spot, already down one of its stars, loses another one to a gruesome broken leg in double overtime of Game No. 73, especially when we already know who the eight best teams in the West are. I get it — freak injuries happen. But was this all that freaky, or just devastatingly unnecessary?
The Bosnian Bear has missed only one game all year until now, but the team has done a good job “managing his load” (ugh), with Nurkic averaging a mere 27.4 minutes per game. I highly recommend you DO NOT watch the video of the injury, but if you do, you’ll notice it looks just like fifteen other plays you’ll see in any other NBA game throughout the year. The injury occurred in Nurkic’s 1,974th minute this season. Again, not an insane amount, but still a lot for a 7-foot, 270-pound behemoth of a human being, and in his 34th minute of playing time in a 2OT game. Does his giant leg still snap like a twig if the same play takes place during, say, his 1,400th minute of the year? Who knows. But one thing is clear: for Portland, the upside of having nine more games to improve their playoff seeding is orders of magnitude less than the downside of having the upcoming playoff run — as well as a great deal of next season, most likely — crippled by the loss of one of their key players. [On the plus side, perhaps Enes “Can’t Play” Kanter can be re-Christened as Enes “Have Absolutely No Choice Because of the NBA’s Stupid Fucking Scheduling But to Play” Kanter. It’s a working title. We’ll have four-ish playoff games to nail it down.]
The scourge of “load management” has become equal parts tired joke and source of frustration among fans (especially for Kawhi Leonard fantasy owners, as I can tell you from experience), but what are the teams supposed to do? It seems as though Kawhi is about the only star heading into the playoffs fresh and healthy, and it’s purely because the Raptors have purposefully kept him in (probably boring) street clothes for almost a third of the season. How much more evidence do we need?
The no. 5 seed in the West is now a thing. Staying with the Blazers for a moment, the Nurkic injury does serve to give some structure to the otherwise amorphous jumble of playoff teams out West. Just a week or so ago, there was a lot less certainty among the top half of the playoff race, and for teams hoping to make a deep playoff run, a definite appeal to staying out of the 4/5 side of the bracket and thus avoiding a likely Semifinals matchup with Golden State. The sands have shifted beneath our feet again. The Warriors are tied with Denver for the top seed, and no disrespect to the Nuggets — more on them to come — but anyone who says he wouldn’t rather face a young, untested Denver team over one of the NBA’s great dynasties (in either of the first two rounds) is lying. In addition, Portland has built a two-game cushion for the no. 4 seed, which despite their injury woes and how unfortunately Kanter-centric they are about to become, would be a tough lead to cough up over the last nine games of the year.
The Blazers immediately become a far more attractive first-round foe, and if the finally healthy Nuggets can overtake the occasionally indifferent Warriors, the path through that side of the bracket becomes a much smoother one. I’ve said it before, but there is no gaming the system in the brutal West. That said, teams will likely now be gunning for, and perhaps NOT managing loads with an eye towards, the no. 5 seed in ways they may not have been prior to Nurkic’s gnarly injury.
Of the four teams in the lower half of the playoff standings, Utah and San Antonio have the clear schedule advantage over the final stretch. The Spurs, winners of ten out of their last thirteen contests, somehow still have the easiest path, with only one game remaining against a .500 or better team (at Denver on April 3rd, a sneaky-important game). Utah has only two such games, but they are both legs of a back-to-back on the final two nights of the season, with a home game against Denver on April 9th, followed by a flight to L.A. and a potentially cataclysmic road game against the Clippers on April 10th. Despite the potential for a “schedule loss” in Game 82 — though they get the “benefit” of a late flight into town, meaning L.A. nightlife can’t possibly defeat them — Utah has been killing it of late. The Jazz have the no. 1 net rating in the league over the last fifteen games (albeit amid an easy stretch of schedule), so they are a prime candidate to overtake the Clippers for the no. 5 spot. Utah split the season series with Portland, though on average they outscored the Blazers by 4.7 points in those games. The presence of Nurkic provided them a workable matchup for Rudy Gobert, and his absence only exacerbates Utah’s advantage.
OKC’s brutal schedule — along with Paul George still fighting through a semi-mysterious shoulder injury — has taken a toll (7-11 since the All-Star Break), and it doesn’t get much easier over the final push, with tilts against Milwaukee, Houston, and Denver still remaining. The surprising Clippers, winners of 11 out of their last 12 and currently occupying the 5-spot, face a similarly difficult anchor leg, with games against Milwaukee, Golden State, Houston, and the aforementioned finale vs. Utah.
Much like last season, the West standings were always going to come down to the season’s final moments. But with the untimely felling of Nurkic, the urgency has been ratcheted up even further, despite how, as previously mentioned, everyone probably could have done without these games entirely.
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There is one big, fat reason not to trust Denver in the playoffs. I recently sat in the third row for the Nuggets’ surprisingly exciting 113-108 road win over the Washington Wizards, and well, I have thoughts. Mason Plumlee is a remarkably effortless leaper. Malik Beasley is bigger than you realize, and I suspect he’s going to swing a playoff game somewhere along the way. The Wizards’ season is a bust and Wall’s contract is a hellish nightmare, but they do have a couple nice pieces. This year’s first-round pick, Troy Brown, Jr., is finally getting real minutes and looks like he belongs at the NBA level. He has plus size and length on the wing, solid shooting mechanics, makes good decisions with the ball, and seems to know what the hell he’s doing. Point guard Tomas Satoransky, originally drafted to be the Robin to Jan Vesely’s Batman — yeah, let that one simmer for a moment — has developed into a high-end complementary player. His effort level and court vision stand out in-person. He delivers passes with timing and accuracy using both hands and from any angle. My hope is someday he ends up as an elite bench unit orchestrator for a contender. Kinda like Monte Morris, actually.
But naturally, the draw of a live game is the stars, so for me this one was about Nikola Jokic. It wasn’t a signature performance for His Groundness by any means, but he did show off all the aspects of his game which make him special. Jokic notched 11 assists, with an array of interior, cross-court, and outlet passes spurring Denver’s creative offense over the game-but-undermanned Wizards. One thing which stood out in person was his hands. He always seems to be moving at half speed, but somehow his hands just end up in the right spot, every time. He has an entire extra level of craft and anticipation the other players, no matter how much more athletic, simply do not possess. It’s the physical manifestation of what we mean when we use the term “basketball genius.”
The contest came down to the final moments, and I only mention it because it relates to the most important stat Jokic put up: 35 minutes. During timeouts in crunch time, Jokic was standing off to the side in the huddle, hunched over, hands on knees. He was utterly gassed. Coming off two full days of rest, it took everything in his tank to out-duel the esteemed duo of Thomas Bryant and Bobby Portis. When the playoffs roll around, the team is going to need him for 35+ minutes every other night. If the guy staring him down is Clint Capela, or Rudy Gobert, or LaMarcus Aldridge, or Steven Adams, or Draymond Green, is Jokic going to be able to summon up the energy to carry his team across the finish line? Obviously, he is never going to look like Karl Malone; we’ll probably never refer to him as “Yoke-ic,” except perhaps in jest. But for all his size, strength, skill, and craft, he will not reach his true ceiling as a player unless he transforms his body into something resembling real, professional basketball shape. And until such time, Denver’s corresponding ceiling as a contender will likewise be capped.
[FWIW, Jokic’s “Clutch” stats are excellent this year, but whether he can keep them up in the hothouse of the playoffs, under heavy minutes and against elite competition, is another matter. As much as playoff experience can act as a narrative crutch in these scenarios, it does have some predictive value because it provides proof of concept, or lack thereof.]
What would be the best landing spot for Ja Morant? I suppose we have to talk a little bit of March Madness/NBA Draft, right? Murray State sophomore guard Ja Morant shot up draft boards this year with his combination of speed, athleticism, scoring, and court vision. While draftniks have been keen to him all season, Morant no doubt opened some eyes among casual fans with his stat sheet-busting performances in a first-round “upset” of 5th-seeded Marquette and second-round defeat at the hands of ACC powerhouse Florida State. Over the two games, Ja played 77 out of a possible 80 minutes, averaging 22.5 pts, 8 reb, 10 ast, and 4.5 TOs while shooting 7-of-8 from three and 12-of-14 from the line.
Pro scouts had to be salivating, not just at the stats, but how he accumulated them. Morant did most of his damage as the ballhandler in the pick-and-roll, and he demonstrated an advanced feel for how to manipulate the screener’s man to create a path to the rim, as well the ability to finish through contact and find open shooters on-time/on-target once the defense collapsed on him. He already maps the floor at an NBA level. He struggled with turnovers against Marquette, and FSU’s pro-caliber length and athleticism was able to bother him a bit, but neither issue is anything additional seasoning and better teammates won’t fix.
A lithe 6’3″ with springy athleticism and an advanced feel, he cuts a similar profile to another young point guard I regard highly: De’Aaron Fox. Morant doesn’t have quite the flat-out speed of the Kings’ second-year man (this isn’t meant as a slight — Fox is almost certainly the fastest end-to-end player in the NBA), but he does appear to be ahead of where Fox was as a shooter at this stage of his development. Morant shot 36.3% from deep and 81.3% from the line this season, so there are reasons to be optimistic his stroke will both translate and improve. He hit a couple step-back threes in the aforementioned tourney games, and if he can make that shot a consistent part of his repertoire, his ceiling becomes the roof.
Morant probably wasn’t going to drop much in the draft anyway, but his performance in the tournament cemented his status as a top-3 pick at worst, and perhaps, the best prospect in the draft, non-Zion division. Which lottery team would be the ideal landing spot for his talents? Among the teams unlikely to jump high enough to land him, Boston (via Sacramento) is only a fit if Kyrie bolts (and/or they don’t trade the pick for AD), the Wizards are stuck with Wall for the foreseeable future, and the Lakers would almost certainly trade the pick rather than disastrously attempt to develop yet another young player under LeBron’s regime. Ja would form a nice duo with Karl-Anthony Towns in Minnesota, but the odds are long. He would also be a solid complement to (or replacement for) Jrue Holiday in New Orleans, though wish-casting another top player into the Pels’ current shitstorm just feels cruel and wasteful. Memphis appears content to stick it out with incumbent franchise tent-pole Mike Conley, though that could change. [Note: the Grizz owe their pick to Boston — thanks Jeff Green! — but keep it this season if it lands in the top-8.] Atlanta and Cleveland seem set with their own young, highly drafted point guards of the future, and would probably both prefer to add a wing in the draft. [Or Zion, obviously.]
We’re left with the Knicks, Bulls, Mavs, and Suns. It’s tough to know how any prospect fits with the Knicks because we have zero idea what their roster will look like after this summer, but at this point, they shouldn’t be turning up their noses at any infusion of talent. The Mavs (who owe their pick to Atlanta but it is top-5 protected) are intriguing, though they may be gun-shy after the struggles they experienced pairing an athletic, ball-dominant guard (Dennis Smith, Jr.) with Luka Doncic. The Bulls and Suns feel like the obvious candidates, as both have a glaring need at the point. In Chicago, Kris Dunn is already 25 years old, and it just doesn’t look like it’s ever going to happen for him. Drafting Morant would allow for a clean break, and he fits better long-term with their core of Lauri Markkanen, Wendell Carter, Jr., Zach LaVine, and Otto Porter. This lineup wouldn’t be able to stop anyone, but it has the potential to become an explosive, multifaceted offensive attack.
Phoenix has been searching for an answer at point guard ever since they broke up the talented but ill-fitting troika of Goran Dragic, Eric Bledsoe, and Isaiah Thomas, but they face similar concerns to those of Dallas. Nominal shooting guard Devin Booker has developed into an explosive on-ball threat, and the Suns’ de facto point guard in their most potent lineups. Booker is an elite catch-and-shoot option as well, but taking the ball out of his hands presents potential diminishing returns, and much like in Chicago, the backcourt pairing would be a sieve on defense. Even so, a Ja Morant/DeAndre Ayton pick-and-roll flanked by shooters in Booker, Mikal Bridges, and T.J. Warren (who quietly shot 43% from outside this season before going down with an ankle injury) has the chance to be devastating, so it might be wise not to overthink it.
It’s strange to say a guy with Morant’s talent represents a difficult fit, but such is life in the Golden Age of NBA Point Guards. Even a prospect with his pedigree has to be really good in order to break through and become a team’s floor general, no matter how lousy the team in question. That being said, Chicago feels like the snuggest fit for Morant, which inevitably means the Bulls will fall out of the top-4 in the lottery because we can’t have nice things.
Are the Bucks’ injury woes a blessing in disguise? Any regular reader knows I have something of a basketball boner for this Milwaukee team. I’m not even trying to tuck it up into my gym shorts or anything. It’s becoming comical how overlooked they continue to be, despite being the league’s best team with a bullet by nearly any statistical measure, and putting the clamps on James Harden and the Rockets on national TV Tuesday night. What might be more amazing is how they keep rolling right along, despite being beat the hell up by injuries at the moment. Things can only get so bad as long as the Giannis/Middleton/Bledsoe/Lopez quartet is in the lineup, but the fact remains, FIVE ostensible rotation players are currently on the shelf, and the Bucks don’t seem much worse for wear.
Malcolm Brogdon is the guy they will obviously need back to get out of the East, and his current timeline ideally has him returning to the lineup sometime during the second round of the playoffs. His absence, however, along with that of one-dimensional role player Tony Snell, has presented opportunities for the previously slumping Pat Connaughton and newly healthy Sterling Brown to get more burn and find their respective rhythms. Likewise, killer deadline acquisition Nikola Mirotic is set to miss the next 1-3 weeks with a broken left thumb. Not ideal, but the injury (along with that of mostly-washed Pau Gasol) paves the way for versatile second-year big man D.J. Wilson to get more reps in advance of the playoffs. With veterans George Hill and Ersan Ilyasova rounding out the rotation, Coach Bud (a shoo-in for Coach of the Year, by the way) has the luxury of allowing his key players to get fresh and healthy before returning while still being able to go toe-to-toe with anyone in the league in the interim. Perhaps there is a minutes crunch coming down the pike, but it’s a problem for another day, and one Bud is well-equipped to navigate. Every team faces injuries, but no team is as uniquely fortified to withstand them as this Bucks squad, with their depth, interchangeability, and the historic two-way versatility of Giannis. [As you may imagine, I’ll have more to say about him in the coming weeks.]
It feels like it’s going to take the sight of a drunken Giannis riding a duck boat, hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy over his head before most fans will properly appreciate just how good this Milwaukee team is, but I’ll keep pounding the table about it to anyone who will listen anyway. Golden State is not going to go gently into that good night, but if anyone can break up their dynasty, it’s a team with a transcendent superstar, waves of shooting, an elite coach, and a top-rated, versatile defense. Dismiss them as untested upstarts or some sort of fluky gimmick if you like. Just know you’re wrong.
24 Sloppy Seconds 