Okay, so first of all, I screwed up the timing here—this was supposed to be about the regular season, but then I had deadlines and left town for a wedding and all of a sudden the playoffs are well underway. Oh well, let’s roll with it.
I was going to toss this in a digest post, but I think at least 25 percent of y’all enjoy these digressions, so here we go. This post is all about NBA basketball—my last full-on sports obsession as hobby and leisure time has been severely curtailed by having two small children. If this is not your bag, you should probably skip this one; I’ll have more standard fare coming in the next few days.
With the playoffs underway, all my scattered thoughts on the season that was (and a bit on the postseason so far…)
The season’s vibe
I’m going to keep harping on this, but the season had a sour taste because of Joel Embiid’s injury. He lorded over the game every time he stepped on the floor through the first half of this season, like a moody Old Testament deity. Not since Kareem has a player combined this level of total physical dominance and exquisite touch. It was the story of the year.
Now he’s back! And he made it back in time for the end of the regular season, sooner than we had any reason to hope. But sadly he doesn’t look like quite the same guy, still shaking off rust and not as explosive, even if he still can still stuff the stat box when he’s on. He galvanized a desperately needed hot streak for Philly and dragged them to the playoffs. His mere presence on the court has a major impact on the defensive end, even if he’s kind of playing on one leg. But now he’s gone down 3-1 to the Knicks and looks pretty depleted and not altogether in shape. He’s gaming his way through — though his effort is waxing and waning more than normal. I badly wanted to see whether his regular-season magnificence this year could finally translate to the postseason, but—the 50-point game notwithstanding—he is nowhere close to full strength.
On a happier note, it’s been a relatively fun season, with the distinctive feel of historical transition: the emergence of the Oklahoma City Thunder as a potential dynasty, the clear claims to top-ten superstardom from Shae Gilgeous-Alexander and Tyrese Halliburton, the first chapter of the Viktor Wembanyama experience, the loaded Western Conference, the nostalgia tours for Steph Curry and Lebron James. Unfortunately, I thought the Giannis/Dame combo would be amazing to watch, but it’s been kind of a bummer. The 28-game losing streak by the Pistons was wonderful drama. I admit I found their ineptitude weirdly riveting. Around the same time, the Spurs had an 18-game winning streak; the Wizards later lost 16 in a row and the Raptors recently broke a 15-gamer. Utah took the torch of shame with 13 straight losses down the stretch, as they tried to position themselves to keep a protected pick. The bad teams this year were bad. Meantime, at the top of the standings, the Celtics looked like clearly the best team all year, but the Nuggets remained the scariest playoff team—about what we would have guessed before the year started.
I couldn’t tell if anyone actually cared about this, but lots of media people were offering takes around the All Star break about whether there is now too much offense and not enough defense in the NBA. Apparently the league itself had been looking into it, and seemed to make significant tweaks to officiating after the break. Scoring noticeably dropped back down after that. And now the refs are really swallowing their whistles in the playoffs and scoring seems down even more.
So the hubbub seems moot for now. What’s the sweet spot between the high-flying scores of December and the grind-it-out drip after the Break, accentuated even more in the playoffs? I don’t have strong feelings about the question in the abstract. I care about quality of play on both ends of the floor. Overall, I think quality of play is quite high, but the regular season is too long and there are too many situations in which players are not incentivized to give their all. To some extent that probably leads to worse defense—offense is more fun and still more correlated with players getting rewarded with big salaries, so if players are only giving 75 percent, it’s more likely the defensive end where they won’t be going all out.
Still, there is no shortage of great defensive players and teams—one of the biggest success stories this year was the defensive-focused Minnesota Timberwolves, anchored by Rudy Gobert, a generationally dominant interior defender. Even in the regular season, if you caught two good teams both going for the win, you’d typically see elite defense.
John Hollinger argues that, points aside, the natural flow of the game is best when teams score about half the time; if you get too far away from that, it starts to feel wonky. I buy that. But usually when this stuff comes up, people refer to raw points, and there the issue is clearly the increase in three-pointers (and the space that opens up for easy buckets at the rim).
It’s really funny how long it took for smart, dedicated people who have devoted their lives to basketball to figure out the full ramifications of one shot being worth fifty percent more than other shots, including shots just a little bit closer to the hoop, inside the three-point arc. A study in groupthink. But here we are: If you shoot 40 percent from the three-point line, that is equivalent to shooting 60 percent from two. The math rewards teams that take a lot of 3s and make them at a decent clip.
I do think there are genuine downsides to this, even if the threat of the 3 has opened up more space for drivers, a good thing. The problem with the catch-and-shoot three, aesthetically, is that there’s a massive difference between a 30 percent shooter from 3 and a 40 percent shooter, but when you’re watching a game, it’s kind of hard to tell the difference.
And catching and making a corner 3 is something that even a mediocre player at the Y can do. Of course, they can’t do it with the consistency under pressure and duress that an NBA player can. But it’s kind of like watching a strike in bowling. The stuff that really wows us is when players do something that is outside of the realm of possibility for us mortals. Doing something that anyone can do (even a mediocre basketball player could make a corner 3 with enough attempts, just as even a first-time bowler might pick up a strike or two) just has less pizazz, even if the pros can do it a lot more consistently than we can.
My opinion on this, probably shared by no one, is that three points are just worth too much more than twos. This was the original sin for basketball rules, just an accident of whole numbers. The game would be better if 3 pointers were worth 2.5. That would be worth 25% more than a shot inside the arc, which makes a lot more sense when thinking about the degree of difficulty involved. In that scenario, shooting 40 percent from behind the arc would be worth the same as 50 percent within the arc. That lines up the incentives toward a better game, in my opinion. But again, no one is going to go for fractions in scoring!
For me, this is all a minor point. The problem with the NBA season is that there are too many games, too many back-to-backs, and too many misaligned incentives that skew things away from players giving their all. This conclusion goes against my instincts—I like the long season, and stuff that goes on absurdly long in general. I like the way that the regular season encourages niche interest from more hardcore fans, and the rhythms and narratives of the long stretch of games. But it’s not worth it: There are too many injuries and too many situations in which players aren’t giving 100 percent.
The quality of play would take a major leap if we went down to a 58-game schedule, with each team playing every other team twice. You could have designated game nights during the week, and I think more scarcity would lead to more excitement and more buzz for regular season games. No more back to backs—every game, players would have at least playoff-level of rest, if not more. This will probably never happen. A 72-game season would be a major improvement and might be more realistic. I think there are ways you could do this and wind up keeping revenue flows the same, but fear of change and complicated local TV deals make this pie in the sky for now. In any event, some of the games that got played down the stretch in the regular season, with about half the league seriously depleted by injury, were hot garbage. Thank God for the playoffs.
Skills
Some of my favorite watches this year during the regular season (will save playoff review for another day):
Herb Jones playing one-on-one defense.
Chet Holmgren blocking shots.
Old man Lebron James playing help defense on the occasions where he was fully locked in and trying.
Anthony Davis puppetmastering the defensive end, forcing opponents into bad places and bad choices.
Ausar Thompson rebounding like a wild animal.
Victor Wembanyama confusing the game’s geometry.
For a precious few games after he came back from that silly suspension and before he got hurt—Ja Morant blowing past his man one-on-one with no screen.
During the Clippers’ hot streak, slightly overweight James Harden slowing it down to chessmaster toward advantageous matchups and spots. Honorable mention to Mike Conley.
Alperen Sengun, Trae Young, and Luka Doncic passing (non-Jokic division).
Tyrese Halliburton shooting off the dribble.1 And on the fast break. Really any time he had the ball before the All-Star break.
Joel Embiid shooting elbow jumpers and apparently not missing all season until he got hurt.
Kyrie’s show-off handle. I am skeptical this contributes to winning overall but I do love watching dribbling wizardry and he’s an all-timer.2
Every joyful minute on the defensive end that Jonathan Isaac is on the court. Alex Caruso, too.
Sadface emoji
As mentioned above, I found myself unreasonably distraught about Embiid’s injury.3 This must be something that comes with age: Increasingly, I notice that I am much sadder about injuries than about losses from the team I’m rooting for. Especially for Embiid, his regular season was so magisterial and magnetic, and it kind of feels like this year’s playoffs aren’t quite what they could be with him clearly hampered. I was so upset when I heard the news that I had to forego listening to NBA podcasts for a week. Heal up Kawhi and KAT4, hurry back Zion and Giannis, see you next year Jimmy and Randle.
Predictions are always wrong
Before the season, I thought there were four main contenders for the title, with a few interesting darkhorses. Here was my guesstimate for championship odds pre-season: Denver 21%, Boston 21%, Milwaukee 21%, Phoenix 20%, Golden State 6%, Los Angeles Lakers 6%, Philadelphia 2 %, L.A. Clippers 2%, the field 1%.
This was before I knew Beal would be out of the lineup so much for the Suns. They were mostly very good when Beal, Booker, and Durant shared the floor, but they just weren’t consistent enough to fully take seriously. I was too optimistic preseason; by the time the playoffs rolled around, I had totally lost faith, though thought they would still be scary in the first round. But the Wolves dismissed them with total ease. The Bucks hung on, barely, as plausible contenders down the stretch, but they likewise seemed to lack consistency and identity. Then Giannis went down, and now they’re toast. Boston, meanwhile, looks even stronger than they did preseason; Denver, despite some recent hiccups, still looks like the class of the West. As for the star-powered darkhorses, despite both finally getting hot down the stretch, it was too little and too late for the Lakers, gone after fighting tough against the defending champs in the first round and the Warriors, who had a pathetic exit in the playin. Finally, before the season, I gave some credence to Philly and L.A. in part given their capacity to improve via a big trade. That’s more or less what happened when they made a deal with each other. If Embiid had been healthy, I think I would have viewed them as the second strongest team in the East. Meantime, I thought Clippers for a large stretch of the season that the Clippers were the second strongest team in the West, but Kawhi’s injury may well put a hard ceiling on their chances at this point.
So. Here were the new title odds I came up with (*before the playoffs started*):
Boston 40% / Denver 35% / Oklahoma City 7% / L.A. Clippers 6% / Milwaukee 6% / Minnesota 2% / Dallas 2%/ Philadelphia 1% / The field 1%
My guess for the conference finals, before the playoffs started: Boston and whoever was healthiest between the Knicks, Sixers, and Bucks (so the Knicks, I guess). And then Denver and OKC. Would stick with those.
Before the playoffs, I thought the Wolves were dangerously low on firepower without Townes, but he’s looking better and Anthony Edwards is transforming into a top ten player. Their size and defense already had them in the mix of lower-tier contenders; now I’d move them up. I was already pretty pessimistic about the Embiid injury; at this point, they’d certainly register as less than 1%. At full strength, I like them better than the healthy Bucks, but this just doesn’t seem like the year. Meantime, Giannis’s injury, even if he manages a comeback, seems to have torpedoed their season. Before the playoffs stated, I would have said the Suns, Pels, Knicks, Cavs, and Lakers were good enough to make a run with some luck, but had them all with less than a 1% chance before the playoffs. Maybe I should reconsider on the Knicks. I’d have taken either Boston or Denver over the field in either conference, and that hasn’t changed. I wrongly thought we’d see a first round upset or two, though the Magic and 5-seed Mavs are still in the mix. I’ll give another try on championship odds once we know the second round matchups—with a bump up for OKC and Minnesota for sure, and a puncher’s chance for the Knicks.
Little Pink Backpacks
I’ve always wanted to do a blog or podcast about NBA rookies. There is something about the raw oddity of untapped potential that I dig as much as excellence. When Alan Iverson was in high school, they called him Bubba Chuck. He would remain wild, but this was something wilder still: People that saw him back then said that his style, unformed and untempered, was something altogether new—as if he was playing a different sport entirely. Rookies make lots of mistakes, but sometimes their doofus instincts, not yet coached up or disciplined or shoved neatly into the scheme, can suggest fresh new angles on the possible. There is something delightful about their rough-edged effort and their ongoing sense of discovery. Basketball coaches hate it, understandably. But I love it. As the poet says, “I dwell in Possibility—”
Some of my favorite rookies this year: Chet Holmgren and his spaghetti-limbed natural instincts (if not his commercials); Brandon Miller getting cozier pulling up with his smooth J; Amen and Ausar Thompson, twins who play with more energy than just about anyone in the league and are loaded with athleticism, but shoot worse than me; Cason Wallace just immediately being a solid no-frills vet; Dereck Lively inspiring beautiful alley-oop passes from Luka; Jordan Hawkins bombing away; Jamie Jacquez being such a Heat player and Brandin Podziemski becoming such a Warrior; battering ram Cam Whitmore trying to dunk on everyone; and a dozen others who brought me joy this year. And Victor! In a category all his own, what is there to even say.
Swept away: My beloved New Orleans Pelicans are an enticing enigma
This is (okay, was) a fun team, perhaps the most purely entertaining New Orleans squad since the heady days of CP3 as a young MVP candidate. They were incredibly deep. Zion showed flashes, increasing as the year went on, of the once-in-generation dominance that made him a hype machine when he came into the league. It all peaked in the play-in game against L.A., when he dropped 40, against a tough matchup with Lebron covering him. He completely imposed his will on the game and led a comeback, putting the Pels in position to win in the final minutes—then, suddenly, he got hurt, once again.
Jose Alvarado is the most lovable pest in the NBA. Trey Murphy is a perfect role player. Herb Jones is a game-changing defender who has worked himself into being at least adequate on offense. CJ McCollum is in an imperfect player and getting older but he remade his game to fit better with Zion this year and it worked, the best statistical season he’s had in some time.
But. They seemed to struggle most of the time against elite teams who were fully loaded. They have too many offensive standouts that aren’t great on defense or defensive standouts that aren’t great on offense. And they haven’t done a very good job building a team that fits around Zion. In my Pels text chain, I used to be a lonely voice arguing that the squad would be better off trading Brandon Ingram. Now I think most agree. But I’m not sure what his trade value is at this point.
It was a fun season and we had some bad luck, so maybe this is an unfair summary of the year, but it’s what happened, in the end: My guys were the #8 seed and got swept. Maybe next year.
Top Ten Players in the NBA
This is already out of date: I think it’s fun to do a ranking at the end of the season (that’s what this is) and then revisit after the playoffs. So this was my list I made on the last day of the regular season.
My criteria here is something like this: In ranking the top players, regular season and playoffs count but I care more about the latter; I am assuming relative good health to start a full season + playoffs, so for example wouldn’t dock a currently injured player for being out right now but ability to stay on the floor matters (so it matters that Embiid is more injury prone than Jokic, for example); for this thought exercise, I imagine that the player is his current age over a full season. I’m not trying to project improvement or decline in the future—this is meant to be a snapshot of the league right now, temporary injury absences excluded.
Jokic—while I still think there are matchups that could give him trouble in the playoffs, he’s clearly got the crown until someone takes it from him.
Giannis—he dominates every aspect of the game and when healthy he’s at least in shouting distance of Jokic as the player I’d most want in a playoff series. But he’s a clear step down as a halfcourt offensive player compared with the others in the top five, and his free throw shooting remains an issue. The weird season with Dame this year hasn’t helped his case. If he carried them back to the Finals, he could have made a claim for #1. But instead, another injury bummer. Will he move down? Assuming no nagging impacts from the injury, I’m not sure we can take much away from his absent playoffs; for all the frustrations this season, he had a fantastic year, once again.
Embiid—Ugh. Was having an all-time great regular season, one of the most dominating ever—and I think at full strength, his two-man game with Maxey would translate to the playoffs better than we’ve seen in past disappointments. I still hold out hope for that and don’t dock him much for a somewhat inconsistent performance, by his standards, in the playoff games so far. But probably will fall soon because the injury risk now seems markedly worse.
Durant—He was so dominant in the playoffs so recently and had an outstanding regular season even if the team often sucked. And when he wants to, he can dial it up on defense and be a difference maker on that end when it counts. The outlier that mades me worry he wasn’t not quite the same was the way Jayson Tarum shut him down two years ago. This year’s playoffs? He was really great! But the team’s desultory performance has some stink that attaches to him at least a little. He’ll be moving down, I’d say.
Steph—This was higher than most people would have had him. Now I think I was just wrong and I’ll be moving him down. The evidence was already there: He’s been in a slump by his standards, is back to being bad on defense, and doesn’t have the same zip getting to the hoop. But I found it hard to quit on him as a top five guy: he shifts the geometry so dramatically and remains absolutely one of a kind in his combination of devastating on-ball wizardry and all-timer off-ball movement—simply his presence on the court is terrifying. (And I hate the Warriors!) One game shouldn’t change the analysis, but there was something vivid about his limitations after the Warriors wilted in the play-in game. He’ll have big games from time to time I’m sure, but we may have seen the end of his ability to consistently dominate as a #1 option on a contender.
Luka—Felt a little low, honestly. But I still worry about whether there’s a ceiling to this style of play and lack of effort on defense. Very curious to see how the rest of the Mavs-Clips series plays out.
Tatum—Starts getting hard here. I think he’s the least reliable of this group in terms of a #1 offensive option against an elite defense in the playoffs, but his two-way game is terrific and he’s perhaps the most durable and consistent star on both ends on this list, with only Giannis (and Kawhi at his very best) really having a similar two-way claim.
SGA—I thought he could move up or down based on what he shows in the year’s playoffs. So far? Moving up! A worthy MVP candidate after the Embiid injury, and it looks like he’s an unschemably dominant offensive player in the playoffs, as well as a defensive playmaker better on that end than most of the other guys on this list.
Kawhi—we’ll see if he can get healthy. Kind of seems like the end-of-year injuries will just keep happening, but his peaks this year and in the previous few years have a legit argument for best playoff player in the league, especially now that he’s returned to dominance on the defensive end. When healthy, I think more like top 5. If he has a long run of peak Kawhi in the playoffs this year, he shoots up the list—but I’m pessimistic his health will allow it. And hard to rank him higher when it’s now been a few years since he managed to finish a season.
Lebron James—I would have said, prior to the All-Star break, that you had to rank Tyrese Halliburton higher, but Halliburton fell off in a big way, hopefully just a result of a hamstring injury that will heal up. But even then—if I wanted to win one playoff game—I’m taking Lebron. Probably also if I have to win one playoff series. Could he bring it through a full run? I don’t know. He was awesome in the play-in and playoffs but the surrounding talent outside of Anthony Davis just isn’t there, and now the Lakers are done. And he has to get some demerits that the Lakers just weren’t all that good this year, even if that’s mostly a result of mismanagement.
Also in consideration: Anthony Edwards just didn’t yet have a statistical case based on his regular season, but if you’ve been watching the playoffs…yeah, he’ll be moving up. Anthony Davis is in the mix. Tyrese Halliburton was clearly a top ten regular season player before the All Star break and might even have been the second best offensive player in the league after Jokic (though Luka and a few others would like a word). But he just kind of sucked after the break and his playoffs has been somewhat underwhelming. We’ll see if he can return to form next year. Paul George is still in shouting distance. Devin Booker almost gets there but he’ll be moving down. I’d say Jalen Brunson and Donovan Mitchell are just outside of true top ten contention, but they’ve got some games coming in the postseason to change my mind. Jimmy Butler had a very, very high peak over the last few years, arguably at times with a ceiling on pace with just about anyone as a playoff performer the last three or four years. But this year, sadly, probably marks the end of that. Looking at who’s moving up or down the list, there’s a changing of the guard. Time for the younger stars to shine.
The playoffs!
Man, I love the playoffs. I wish we were getting more close games, but the second-round matchups in the West should be incredible. Anthony Edwards rules all, Jokic is a genius, OKC is wise beyond their years, and the Celtics are way better than everyone else but always seem to get in their own way. Let’s go!
Before his hamstring injury—his shot has been very off ever since he came back.
And he’s evolved—he was always a great offball player but has upped his movement and been zippier at moving without the ball or pushing transition opportunities; he’s also much more willing to make a quick pass to keep the ball moving even when there’s no immediate assist to grab. He’ll break out the virtuoso exhibitions more as periodic treats, a little lagniappe after executing the simple play. He can be so tiresome off the court that I had almost forgotten how much joy and precision there is to his craft.
Townes getting hurt was a bummer when it happened, too, given Minnesota’s emergence as a top-tier contender, but he’s arguably the third-best player on his own team, so it’s not a heartbreaking letdown in quite the same way.
And he’s looking pretty good! Helps to have Anthony Edwards doing the heavy lifting.