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Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Zion Williamson, LaMelo Ball and a few more interesting factors on the NBA's 5 worst teams
With less than a month left in the 2024-25 regular season, most of the NBA-watching world's attention is focused on the top of the standings: on the Cleveland Cavaliers and Oklahoma City Thunder finishing off their historic regular seasons, on the state of the MVP chase, on the race to secure home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs, and on which stars can lift their squads clear of the play-in tournament. While those outcomes will likely remain up in the air until the season's dying days, though, we do have a pretty clear picture of what's going on at the bottom of the standings — the teams that have, for months now, been playing for ping-pong balls rather than postseason seeding. [Yahoo Fantasy Bracket Mayhem is back: Enter for a shot to win up to $50K] The Utah Jazz, Washington Wizards, Charlotte Hornets, New Orleans Pelicans and Brooklyn Nets own the NBA's five worst records and net ratings. They are responsible for 10 of this season's 14 longest losing streaks, led by a truly dismal Wizards team that has produced two separate 16-game skids en route to posting one of the worst point differentials in NBA history. All five of these teams will likely have better than 40% odds of landing a top-four selection in the 2025 NBA Draft, and at least a 1-in-10 chance of picking first overall. That's important, because there's an awfully shiny pot of gold at the end of that particular rainbow — a 6-foot-9, 205-pound pterodactyl named Cooper Flagg. While we wait for the draft lottery, though, the balance of the regular season can still have some value for this horrid handful of teams; even bad teams playing out the string feature some things worth keeping an eye on. Let's consider a few of them, running through the most interesting things — to me! — about the NBA's five worst teams, starting with a big bounce-back in The Big Easy (all statistics as of Wednesday morning): Any hopes of New Orleans building on last season's 49 wins and top-six net rating were scuttled about two weeks into the new campaign. That's when Zion reinjured the left hamstring that he'd strained during a play-in tournament loss to the Lakers last April, landing the former No. 1 overall pick back on the injured list alongside Dejounte Murray, C.J. McCollum, Herb Jones and Trey Murphy III. Before you knew it, Brandon Ingram and Jose Alvarado had gotten hurt, too, and a team that had briefly looked like a contender a couple of times over the past few seasons was 20 games under .500 — dead in the water before Christmas. Only seven teams have lost more player games due to injury than the Pelicans, according to Spotrac; only the 76ers, who've lost Joel Embiid and Paul George for the season, have missed a heftier chunk of their team payroll. Around the dark cloud of the last few months of Pelicans basketball, though, there's been one bright silver lining. Under cover of obscurity on a going-nowhere squad, Zion has looked … pretty friggin' awesome? Looking slimmer and more explosive than he did for most of last season, Zion remains one of the sport's most unbelievable physical forces. Since his return in early January, Williamson's averaging 24.9 points, 7.1 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 1.3 steals per game, shooting 59% from the field and earning 7.5 free throws in just 27.9 minutes a night. In that span, only Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Cade Cunningham are scoring more points per game on drives to the basket. Only SGA and Giannis Antetokounmpo are drawing more fouls per minute, and nobody is scoring more points in the paint. With erstwhile running buddy Ingram now gone to Toronto and so many other players out of the lineup, Williamson's taken on an even larger role in the Pelicans' offense, averaging more than 85 touches per 36 minutes, by far a career high. He's continued to evolve as a playmaker, looking more comfortable manipulating coverages whether facing up or playing with his back to the basket. He's posting a 1.83-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio and creating 14.2 points per game via assist — both of which would be career highs — with the first two triple-doubles of his career both coming since the All-Star break. He's also begun developing more of an in-between game, more frequently and comfortably stopping and popping shy of the rim, taking 38% of his shots from floater range and making 53% of them — which, again, would be career highs. The impressive individual numbers are backed up by overall on-court results. A Pelicans team that owns the NBA's second-worst net rating this season has been outscored by a comparatively respectable 1.8 points per 100 possessions in Williamson's minutes over the past two-plus months. Even with all of its other injuries, the 15-win Pels have the point differential of a 37-win team with Zion on the floor, according to Cleaning the Glass; quiet as it's kept, impact metrics like estimated plus-minus and DARKO peg the version of Zion we've been getting as perhaps the best one we've ever seen. "Do you feel like this is the best all around basketball you've played of your career?"Zion Williamson: "I don't know if that is up to me to decide. I will say, this is the best I've felt." 🗣️ — ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) March 12, 2025 The $197 million question, as ever, is whether we'll get to keep seeing it. Williamson's perennial soft-tissue and lower-extremity injuries have played a significant role in submarining nearly every season since his arrival in New Orleans, leaving the Pelicans on perpetually unsteady ground. (And, potentially, forced to consider their options on the trade market.) The optimist, though, can see a future in which a two-man partnership between Williamson and Murphy bears real fruit. (The ascendant wing sniper averaged 23 points and four assists per game on .609 true shooting over a half-season stretch before suffering a season-ending shoulder injury.) It's a future in which lineups pairing them with a healthy Jones, Alvarado and rising big man Yves Missi return to the kind of swarming defensive play on which the last few competitive New Orleans teams were built — one in which this dire season is redeemed by the arrival of another touted prospect (perhaps another all-court monster out of Duke?) capable of putting the Pelicans back on the path toward contention. You might have to squint pretty hard to see that glass-half-full vision. When Zion's looking like this, though, it's enough to make you keep doing it. I was watching Wizards-Pistons last week, because I have a rich and interesting social life, when something struck me: Washington just kept getting good shots down the stretch. This seemed odd, considering the Wiz own comfortably the worst offense in the NBA and were, at the time, neck-and-neck with the crunch-time-deficient Bucks and Heat for the ignominious honor of being the most punchless team in the league when the score's within five points in the final five minutes. And yet, there they were — against a resurgent Pistons team that sits ninth in defensive efficiency this season — repeatedly getting whatever they wanted with the game in the balance. One reason why? They put the ball in Middleton's hands and let him make the decisions. Which, as it turns out, is a pretty good decision: None of that is jaw-dropping, Luka-whipping-a-blind-pass-over-his-shoulder stuff. It's just good read after good read, on-time feed after on-time feed. Generally unflashy, uniformly beneficial, part-of-your-balanced-breakfast basketball. That, 13 years into his career, is Middleton's brand — one that's led him to three All-Star appearances, an Olympic gold medal and an NBA championship. And it's one that seems to be agreeing with the terrible young Wizards. Middleton's individual numbers in D.C. won't blow you away: 11.3 points, 4.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists in 22.8 minutes per game across 11 starts, shooting 44.4% from the field and just 24.3% from 3-point range. But consider: The Wizards are 15-52 this season. They are 6-5 when Middleton plays, with wins over the playoff-bound Pistons and Nuggets. (The losses include Monday's defeat at the hands of the Trail Blazers, in which Middleton and Jordan Poole played 10.5 first-half minutes and never saw the floor again for, um, reasons.) The Wizards have been outscored by 790 points on the season. They are plus-15 in Middleton's 251 minutes. The Wizards have a net rating of minus-11.5 for the season — worst in the league, and on pace to be the lowest of any team since the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats. They've got a net rating of plus-1.7 with Middleton on the floor. Which, through one lens, means Middleton has basically been the difference between the Wizards being the Lakers … and being the worst team in NBA history. That, obviously, is an overstatement, delivered partly to make sure you haven't fallen asleep midway through reading a blurb about the Wizards in the middle of March. (Congratulations on staying awake!) Directionally, though? It seems about right. 'He's a closer, has been for a very long time in this league,' Wizards head coach Brian Keefe recently said. 'And we are going to take advantage of having him on our roster.' Washington's offense has gone from bottom-of-the-league to merely bottom-10 in Middleton's minutes, turning the ball over less and getting to the foul line more with superior organization. Small-sample-size caveats abound, but the Wiz have scored at a top-10 clip in the half-court with Middleton on the floor. Their defense has improved dramatically — tied for 13th since the All-Star break! — thanks to an uptick in forcing turnovers and limiting 3-point attempts, especially from the corners. They've been better at both with Middleton, who's averaging 2.2 steals and four deflections per 36 minutes as a Wizard. For a team as bad as Washington — one still in 'the deconstruction phase,' one force-feeding minutes to the litany of 19- and 20-year-olds populating the NBA's youngest roster — the journey to sustainable success begins with learning how to not suck. How to create not just a shot, but a good shot, and how to take not just any shot, but your shot. (Here's where we note that Washington's recent lottery picks — Alex Sarr, Bilal Coulibaly, midrange monster Bub Carrington, Kyshawn George — have all seen their shot quality improve playing alongside Middleton.) How to not just study film or drill game-plans, but actually translate them in practice. Where to be on defense, when you need to be there, and how that might change based on personnel. It might sound hokey or trite, but those basics are the building blocks of winning basketball. For Keefe and his staff, laying that kind of foundation gets a little bit easier when you've got a foreman like Middleton who can supervise on the job site. The fate of the next competitive iteration of the Wizards likely depends on bright young things like Sarr, Carrington, George, Coulibaly and their upcoming lottery picks developing into consistently positive two-way players. Giving them a no-nonsense veteran craftsman to teach them how to use their tools … well, that seems like a pretty good decision. This is LaMelo Ball: This is also LaMelo Ball: The gift and the curse. 'LaMelo, in my opinion, he's kind of a broadcaster's dream,' famously excitable Hornets play-by-play man Eric Collins said earlier this season. 'He's kind of a broadcaster's nightmare sometimes. But he's a dream for me because I love unpredictability. You don't know what you are going to see and when it's going to happen.' It's why so many fans love LaMelo so much: the caffeinated command in transition, the naked ambition of those logo bombs, the jolt of electricity that runs down your spine with every half-court lob and 'how did he see that?' dime out of the pick-and-roll. The vision of a postmodern lead ball-handler: size, vision and feel; a threat to pull from anywhere; a fireworks show perpetually poised to pop. It's also why so many coaches and media members have a hard time fully giving themselves over to his charms: the lethargic hook pass when the defender's got it scouted, the drives into triple coverage seemingly devoid of a Plan B, the obstinate insistence that this time he can split the double, the unerring belief that a contested runner from 18 or a four-dribble stepback from 30 with 11 on the shot clock is the best look you can get. The dreams of a hyperefficient, hyperspeed future, curdled. Ball has 15 games with 30 or more points this season — 19th-most in the NBA. He also has 24 games of shooting 40% or worse from the floor on 10 or more attempts — tied for seventh-most. Five years into his career, LaMelo isn't just playing the same maximalist tune; he's cranking it up to skull-rattling volumes, guaranteeing you feel something while watching him, and leaving aside the question of whether you can make any sense of it. (LaMelo Ball: Lynchian?) Had Ball played enough minutes to qualify for the league leaderboards this season, he'd rank 11th in points per game (25.4), ninth in assists per game (7.2) … and fifth in turnovers per game (3.5). He's ninth in touches per game, tied for seventh in average time of possession and No. 1 with a bullet in usage rate, finishing 35.9% of Hornets possessions with a shot attempt, foul drawn or turnover. Only 11 players in league history (minimum 1,000 minutes played) have ever finished a season with a higher usage rate. Most of them have MVP awards in their trophy cases. The only player taking more shots per game this season than LaMelo (21.5)? SGA (21.6), who might soon have one in his. Whether that seems like the right kind of company for LaMelo to be keeping can vary from game to game — or even play to play. Watch LaMelo, and you might find yourself stunned by the audacity of the plays he tries to make and the shots he attempts. He plays almost like he's trying to get away with something. Maybe he is: According to Synergy Sports' tracking, among the 26 players launching at least five 'low shot quality' looks a night, LaMelo ranks 25th in points scored per possession. Keep watching, though, and you might also find yourself asking the question once posed by the legend Jordan Crawford: 'Who else gon' shoot?' Sure, there's Miles Bridges and Mark Williams. But they're already combining for about 28 shots a night (and LaMelo's assisted on about 20% of their baskets this season as it is). Brandon Miller's out for the season. Grant Williams is, too. Tre Mann hasn't played since early November. Seth Curry can still shoot it, but he's a deep-rotation player a few months shy of 35; Josh Green runs the floor hard and can hit spot-up 3s, but you don't exactly want to hand him the keys to your offense. Charlotte's rotation in Tuesday's matchup with the Hawks, which Ball missed with a sore right wrist, featured a slew of young dudes who play hard — Damion Baugh, DaQuan Jeffries, Marcus Garrett, Nick Smith Jr., Wendell Moore Jr. — but who haven't exactly established themselves as bankable NBA-level scorers or creators. In a related story, the Hornets got drilled by 32 points, running their record without LaMelo this season to 2-22; they've been outscored by 3.6 points per 100 possessions in his minutes and by an obscene 12.2 points-per-100 when he's not on the court. It's all left the Hornets in an odd, uncomfortable state: The sad they are with him is less than the sad they are without him. (It's kind of a reverse Wambsgans situation.) And in the absence of a better alternative, or any reason to believe one's about to waltz through the door … well, might as well just let LaMelo cook and see what happens. At least you won't be able to take your eyes off of it. Nearly three years after trading Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell, Danny Ainge and Co. are still looking for Utah's next centerpiece. (An illuminating passage from a recent piece by Sarah Todd at The Deseret News: 'The Jazz do not view the 2024-25 season as the third year of a rebuild. Instead, they see it as part of the teardown. In their eyes, the rebuild hasn't started.') That incentivizes them to tank, which they've done with aplomb — too well for the league office's liking, in fact — and which sucks for myriad reasons. But as much as all parties involved would probably prefer to just hit 'sim to end' on this season and proceed to the draft, though, you do still have to play the games. Sometimes, head coach Will Hardy wishes his young charges were a bit more ready to do so. 'The frustrating part is that there's so much opportunity on our team right now,' Hardy recently told reporters. 'And all of these young players are getting an opportunity to show us who they are, what they are, and that opportunity needs to be met with the desperation that it deserves.' Credit, then, to Collier — the No. 1 prospect in the 2023 high school recruiting class, who fell to 29th in last June's draft after an up-and-down year at USC — for making the most of his opportunity to show us who he is: a fast, physical, boulder-rolling-downhill point guard with an ahead-of-his-years understanding of how to read and move around the chessboard. After a rough start scrounging for minutes behind Keyonte George, Collin Sexton and Jordan Clarkson, and that saw him struggle mightily to put the ball in the basket when he did get some tick — 30% from the field, just 14% from 3-point range through 20 games — Collier got a trial run as a starter when George went down with a left heel injury in early January. When George underwhelmed upon his return, Hardy turned back to Collier, perhaps as a means of giving George 'a bit of a wake-up call … about what it takes to earn minutes in the NBA.' Whatever the genesis of the opportunity, Collier has grabbed it with both hands, earning Western Conference Rookie of the Month honors in February for his work as a facilitator. He's averaging 8.1 assists in 30.3 minutes per game since fully taking over the starting job, sixth-most in the NBA in that span, creating points via dime at roughly the same clip as Luka Dončić and Devin Booker. Collier has posted 24 games of eight or more assists this season, tied with SGA for 10th most in the NBA, and 11 games with double-digit helpers — the same number as Dončić, Booker, Russell Westbrook and Josh Giddey. 'I think he's playing the game with a chip on his shoulder,' teammate and fellow rookie Cody Williams recently told Tony Jones of The Athletic. 'I think he knows that there weren't 28 players better than him in the draft, and he came into this season wanting to prove that.' His primary pathway to doing so: a straight line, aimed directly at the basket. Collier is top 30 in the league in drives per game since entering the starting lineup, adept at using his 6-foot-3, 210-pound frame to gain an advantage on a defender, hit the gas to extend it, get two feet in the lane and collapse the coverage. Once there, he'll use his vision to find a waiting pair of hands — a shooter in the corner, someone stationed in the slot ready to catch-and-go, a cutter flashing into open space — and an impressively deft touch to deliver the ball to them. Cross-court lasers with either hand, cotton-soft dump-offs to dunker-spot lurkers, perfectly weighted pocket passes on the roll: you name it, and Collier's got it in the bag. He's also flashed an attractive combination of patience coming off a pick and impatience when he senses an opportunity to push the pace in transition, and an understanding of how to break coverages. (My favorite dime in that clip might be when Collier looks at how the Suns are set up, calls Walker Kessler up for a ball screen and sends George over to set a pindown for Lauri Markkanen, knowing Phoenix will try to top-lock Markkanen … which opens up the back cut for an easy lob dunk.) It's an impressive level of craft for a 20-year-old — the kind of table-setting you can imagine eventually being part of an actual NBA offense. Provided, of course, Collier can make strides in the other non-negotiable areas for a modern guard. 'I know what I have to work on this summer,' he recently said. 'It's definitely not a secret.' It starts with the shot. Collier has faced questions about his jumper going back to his prep days, and shot 33.8% from 3 and 67.3% from the free-throw line at USC. Those have persisted into the pros, where he's shooting just 41.2% from the field, 23.5% from 3-point range and 28.4% on jumpers overall for the season. The good news: Those numbers have risen since Collier's move into the starting lineup, headlined by a sharp uptick in finishing inside the restricted area (from 55.7% before his promotion to 70.8% since) and at the charity stripe (from 60.5% before to 70.1% since). Maintaining those improvements while nudging up from midrange and beyond the arc will be vital for Collier to become a consistently positive player. Pairing that with analogous growth as an on-ball defender will be vital for not turning the 37-year-old Hardy's brown hair prematurely gray. ('I want Isaiah to work on being solid and staying in front of his guy,' the coach recently said. 'That would help our defense a lot.') Markkanen is a bona fide core piece: someone who has proven he can produce at an All-Star level as a big-wing scorer and floor-spacing shooter. Kessler has established himself as the kind of high-end paint protector and rim-running lob threat who fits on any good team. The jury's still out on pretty much everyone else on the Jazz roster … but with every good read, every slick delivery, and every open mouth fed, Collier increases his chances of joining that club. When you're 23-46, you're probably not going to get much play in the Coach of the Year conversation. You could argue, though, that what Fernández has accomplished in his first year on the Nets bench ranks among the league's more notable coaching accomplishments. 'I'm so impressed with Jordi,' Warriors coach Steve Kerr recently told reporters. 'I think he's crushing the job with a difficult hand to play.' Fernández took over a team coming off a 32-50 campaign and just beginning the process of building something from the ashes of the Kevin Durant/Kyrie Irving/James Harden experiment. He was handed a mix-and-match roster — contending-regime holdovers, blockbuster-trade leftovers, second-draft do-overs — and asked to stitch something together that could pass the time while Sean Marks and Co. began steering the franchise into the skid. A quarter of the way through the season, Fernández had that roster a game under .500, in play-in position, with a top-10 offense. Which, you know, just wouldn't do. 'We're going to have to be systematic with some of the decisions we make,' Marks told Brian Lewis of the New York Post earlier this season. 'And they may not always be in line with winning the next game or putting the most talent out there.' Thanks to a combination of injuries and subtractions — Cam Thomas suffering a hamstring injury, trades shipping out Dennis Schröder and Dorian-Finney Smith, etc. — Brooklyn's hot start quickly faded, and Fernández set about cycling through his allotment of 10-days and two-ways in pursuit of something like stability. Before you knew it: seven wins in nine games straddling the All-Star break, a sudden surge to top-10-defense status and a return to within a half-game of the play-in spots. That, too, proved fleeting. Brooklyn's lost 11 of 13, sinking back toward the cellar and jousting with a 76ers team led by a suddenly rampaging Quentin Grimes for bottom-five status and the improved lottery odds that come with it. And yet, with rare exceptions, the losses tend to share a similar character: coming down to a possession or two late, with five players fighting for their next NBA opportunity — guys like Keon Johnson, Trendon Watford, Ziaire Williams, Jalen Wilson, Tosan Evbuomwan, Maxwell Lewis and Tyrese Martin — playing with their hair on fire, like they don't know they're supposed to roll over. 'Watching him prepare for these games — not knowing who's going to play, not knowing who's going to start, or who can finish, who can't play, minute restrictions, etc.,' Nets guard D'Angelo Russell said last month. 'For him to still find a way to get straight wins and keep everybody's energy and spirit high, I think the future's bright here.' The road to that future begins with Fernández developing a template for how his teams will play. They'll get up a ton of 3-pointers: 41.8% of Brooklyn's shot attempts have come from beyond the arc, the sixth-highest share in the league, according to Cleaning the Glass. They'll prioritize ball and player movement: The Nets are fifth in the NBA in passes per game, fifth in average distance covered on offense and ninth in assist rate. They'll try to scrounge up every last extra possession they can; they send waves of bodies to the glass, ranking 11th in offensive rebounding rate. On defense, they'll fly around like banshees — fourth-fastest average speed on defense, fifth in opponent turnover rate, fifth in charges drawn — and play with what former Nets bench boss and current Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson called 'extreme physicality.' 'I think they're fouling a lot, which is fine,' Atkinson told reporters. 'They made a commitment. They have an identity.' Atkinson knows all too well how difficult it can be to do what Fernández is doing: securing a commitment and establishing an identity on a first-draft squad, with players who know they probably won't be part of whatever version of the roster is eventually deemed fit to print. He did it himself in Brooklyn, nearly a decade ago, dragging the Nets out of the depths of the post-Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce era, installing a style of play and creating a culture that could turn a roster of misfit toys into a playoff team. Eventually, that led Brooklyn to grasp for a higher class of winning. It didn't work out. If, in a few years' time, the Nets are once again ready to try to jump up a weight class, it'll probably be because Fernández has succeeded as Atkinson did: by turning the unglamorous work of development into the sort of consistent success that can lure a brighter brand of star into Barclays Center. For now, though, it means redefining winning — turning every rep, every session, every choice into a step toward becoming something more. 'Seeing these guys getting better, seeing these guys fighting all the way until the end — those are wins for us,' Fernández told reporters in January. 'Winning starts now. We're not waiting to win. It's just that what winning means for you is different … we feel like we're winning a lot of things right now.'
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
The NBA title favorites, an epic MVP race, and the top storylines to watch down the stretch
With All-Star Weekend in the Bay now behind us, the NBA-watching world's attention now turns to the league's annual sprint to the finish line. While the break technically ended on Wednesday, with the Hornets upsetting the Lakers in a game rescheduled due to last month's Los Angeles wildfires, Thursday represents the full-fledged resumption of pleasantries, with more than half of the league taking its first steps on the stretch run to springtime. We're just over seven weeks away from the end of the 2024-25 NBA regular season, and there's still plenty to figure out. Let's start figuring it out together, highlighting some of the most important things to keep an eye on between now and mid-April, starting with the most important question there is: It did — although the fact that L.A. is now 1-2 since adding Dončić to the lineup, with dispiriting losses to the cellar-dwelling Jazz and Hornets and with Luka missing nearly two-thirds of his shots as he shakes off the rust that accumulated while recovering from a calf strain, helps make his arrival seem less like the stuff of mind-boggling, reality-rending science fiction and more like … y'know … a midseason trade that everybody's going to need some time to get used to. Yes, it's basically the loudest and most seismic possible version of that pretty normal thing. But the tectonic activity emanating from it might not actually shake up the title picture in the present tense, which — for now, at least — is actually the most important question there is: According to multiple projection systems, that'd be the Oklahoma City Thunder, who hit the stretch run at 44-10, with an eight-game cushion atop the Western Conference — and a chance to go down as one of the most dominant regular-season teams we've ever seen. Led by the league-topping scoring stylings of superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, do-it-all second All-Star Jalen Williams, and a meat-grinder defense that has essentially lapped the field in points allowed per possession — the gap in defensive efficiency between them and the second-place Clippers is the same as the gap between L.A. and the 10th-place Miami Heat — the Thunder exploded off the starting line, winning 30 of their first 35 games. They have just three double-digit losses all season: one to the Warriors, when they lost rising star big man Chet Holmgren to a fractured hip in the first quarter; one to the Timberwolves in the get-away game before the All-Star break; and one to the Bucks in the NBA Cup championship game (which, for the purposes of evaluating the regular season, the league office has decided does not count, because of, um, reasons?). Oklahoma City has outscored opponents by a monstrous 14.1 points per 100 non-garbage-time possessions, according to Cleaning the Glass — not only the best net rating in the NBA this season, but on pace for comfortably the highest single-season differential in CtG's database, which stretches back to 2003. It's on pace for the highest average margin of victory and Simple Rating System score (which accounts for a team's point differential and strength of schedule) ever. The Thunder do have issues; they're not a great rebounding team, they foul too much, and outside of SGA's relentless driving, nobody else pressures the rim very much. (It bears mentioning, though, that those issues have basically evaporated in the still-too-small-a-sample-to-judge minutes that Holmgren and fellow 7-footer Isaiah Hartenstein have played together.) But don't let those minor flaws distract you from what looks like an exceedingly rare diamond: According to Jared Dubin's adjusted efficiency metrics, which measure how much better or worse a team is the league's average unit in a given season, this year's Thunder profile as the strongest team the NBA has seen since the 1996 Bulls. They're the team to beat. Well, for starters: How about the NBA's other 44-10 team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, who also profile as one of the best regular-season teams in NBA history, who lead the East by 5.5 games, who own one of the best offenses of the last 50 years, who split their season series with Oklahoma City last month, and who have added De'Andre Hunter and Javonte Green to beef up their depth on the wing in anticipation of facing championship-level challenges on the perimeter? Or, for that matter, a team that could pose those championship-level challenges to Cleveland before the Finals. The defending champion Celtics weathered a weeks-long shooting slump to win 10 of 13 heading into the All-Star break. They still have arguably the NBA's premier top seven, led by perennial All-NBA First Teamer Jayson Tatum and four-time All-Star Jaylen Brown. They're the only team besides Oklahoma City in the top five in both offensive and defensive efficiency, and they're 11-5 against opponents with top-10 point differentials — including a 2-1 mark against Cleveland. The Cavs have a better record and net rating, but the oddsmakers still see Boston as the favorite to represent the East in the Finals. OKC, Cleveland and Boston have been the top three pretty much all season long. If you're interested in some dark-horse discussion, though, Tom Haberstroh and I talked through the championship chances of some of the longer shots on this week's episode of The Big Number: It's not exactly revelatory to say that teams don't function as well without their best talent, and typically need all hands on deck to win the title. But something doesn't need to be surprising to be true; which team survives the next seven weeks unscathed will likely go a long way toward determining which of them can survive the postseason gauntlet, too. I mentioned it earlier, but because of Hartenstein's season-opening fractured hand and Holmgren's early-season hip fracture, head coach Mark Daigneault has only been able to experiment with the Thunder's two-big look for 49 minutes across three games thus far. Keeping those two healthy and enabling them to develop a rhythm together over the next seven weeks is Oklahoma City's best path to being able to unlock the best version of itself come the postseason. Boston's biggest concerns lie in the effectiveness of a pair of aging champions: 38-year-old Al Horford and 34-year-old Jrue Holiday, both of whom have seen their shooting efficiency and overall offensive output decline precipitously since last season's title run, and both of whom the C's will need as close to full strength as possible to mount their title defense. In Cleveland, on the other hand, the most significant health question might center on a lower-wattage name. The Cavaliers are 21-5 with Dean Wade in the starting lineup, and 30-5 overall when he plays, compared to a (still very good) 14-5 without him; the 6-foot-9 combo forward is one of the league's most underrated perimeter defenders, and could be a hugely important piece in postseason matchups against opponents with elite big wings (like, say, Boston). He's been out for nearly a month with a bone bruise in his right knee; the Cavs will hope to get him fully operational by mid-April to join Hunter, Green, Max Strus and Isaac Okoro in their revamped wing corps. Elsewhere in the East, for the Knicks — in third place at 36-18, fifth in the NBA in net rating — the hope, as ever, remains that Tom Thibodeau's hardest-charging dudes will remain fully operational despite their comparatively heavy workload. Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson rank first, second and sixth in total minutes played this season, respectively; OG Anunoby ranks 11th in minutes per game. The starting lineup of those four and All-Star big man Karl-Anthony Towns has played nearly 300 more minutes than any other five-man unit in the NBA — a trend that has continued even in garbage time, as my podcast partner Tom Haberstroh noted last month. Anunoby missed the last five games before the All-Star break with a foot sprain; Hart's out for the first game back from the break with a right knee issue; center Mitchell Robinson, who still hasn't played this season recovering from ankle surgery, has only just been cleared for full 5-on-5 practice. The Knicks took massive swings this offseason in hopes that talent upgrades would help them break through to the conference finals for the first time in a quarter-century. Any chance of getting there begins with getting to the postseason in one piece. How seriously to take the Bucks — 29-24, fifth in the East, 12th in net rating — as a postseason threat depends almost entirely on whether Giannis Antetokounmpo gets there in one piece. We've seen Giannis do the heaviest lifting in carrying the Bucks to a championship; his 25.61 career playoff Player Efficiency Rating is the eighth-highest of all time, just behind Hakeem Olajuwon. We've seen him be arguably the best player in the East this season — second in the NBA in scoring and fifth in rebounding, on pace for his second consecutive season of averaging at least 30-10-5 on 60% shooting, which nobody else in NBA history has ever done — and say what you will about the NBA Cup, but we saw him dominate a winner-take-all competition all of two months ago. What we haven't seen, though: Giannis turning in a full healthy playoff run at any point in the last three years … which makes the left calf strain that's cost him most of this month (including the All-Star Game) worth monitoring. After an up-and-down first season in Milwaukee, Damian Lillard's been exactly the All-Star running buddy the Bucks bargained for this season, averaging 25.8 points and 7.5 assists per game on .623 true shooting (which factors in 2-point, 3-point and free-throw accuracy). Even so, though, the Bucks have only outpaced opponents by a good-but-not-great 4.7 points-per-100 in Giannis/Dame minutes, and it remains to be seen whether the trade-deadline acquisition of Kyle Kuzma will dramatically improve that margin. Add in the fact that Bobby Portis has reportedly been suspended 25 games for violating the NBA's anti-drug policy, and the Bucks' chances of making postseason noise depend on Giannis reminding us exactly what kind of war rig he's historically been in the postseason. It's tough to do that, though, if you've got a flat tire. In the West, yet again, we find ourselves glancing warily at Kawhi Leonard's knees. After missing the Clippers' first 34 games of the season, the two-time Finals MVP returned last month, and while he's still ramping up to a full workload and knocking the rust off of his shot, his per-minute production is approaching his customary superstar level, L.A. has scored like a top-10 offense with him on the floor, and the new-look starting five — Leonard flanked by Ivica Zubac and Derrick Jones Jr. up front, James Harden and Norman Powell in the backcourt — has annihilated opponents by 90 points in just 163 minutes. Say it with me, gang, and think good thoughts: If Kawhi can just stay healthy, the Clippers could be dangerous. Ditto for the Nuggets, so long as they keep getting this Jamal Murray. And the Grizzlies, if Ja Morant — who's missed 22 games with knee, back and shoulder issues — can stay on the ball. And maybe the Mavericks, if a spate of injuries that a more cynical sort might identify as something of a karmic plague abates in time for Round 1. On that note: Well, for one thing, it ensured Dallas wouldn't get Dončić back, and with Anthony Davis, Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II all likely to miss significant time, it could put the Mavericks — 30-26, eighth in the West, two games out of a top-six spot and three clear of falling out of the play-in entirely — in danger of not factoring into said race at all. (If the Mavs do get their bigs back before mid-April, though, color me optimistic on their chances of being a miserable team to deal with.) That mega-trade also, y'know, landed Luka alongside LeBron James. The jury is very much still out on how the Lakers — 32-21, fifth in the West, just a game out of fourth and home-court advantage in Round 1 — can mount a credible defense down the stretch, and whether they'll be able to get enough stops to solidify their postseason positioning. Once they get there, though, they'll be able to toss the keys to two of the most devastating and productive postseason playmakers of the modern era, a pair of 16-game problem solvers par excellence — a move that figures to make their best shot all the more formidable. The biggest question on the board might be just how much the addition of Jimmy Butler III moves the needle in Golden State. The Warriors — 28-27, 10th in the West — entered the break with three wins in four tries after swinging a trade for the six-time All-Star; critically, they outscored their opponents by nine points in the 43 minutes when Butler ran the show while Stephen Curry sat, thanks in large part to Jimmy racking up 20 free-throw attempts in those 43 minutes. If Butler can add new snarl to the starting lineup and help keep the offense afloat in non-Steph minutes, the Dubs' chances of making it out of the play-in tournament and making some noise increase exponentially. Draymond Green, for his part, seems awfully confident in what they're bringing to the table down the stretch: "We are going to win the championship" 👀- Draymond Green — NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) February 17, 2025 In the East, the Cavs are hoping that the addition of the 27-year-old Hunter — averaging just under 19 points and four rebounds per game on 46/40/86 shooting splits in a career year — provides enough of an injection of size, strength, shooting and versatility on the wing to withstand the toughest matchups they'll face. The rest of the contending hopefuls, though, mostly stood pat. With apologies to Antetokounmpo, who has already missed a dozen games and is in danger of not cracking the 65-game threshold for postseason award eligibility, we're likely looking at a two-horse race between Gilgeous-Alexander, who is leading the league in scoring at 32.5 points per game, is tied for second in steals and top-30 in deflections for that elite Thunder defense, and has been the best player on the best team in the NBA … … and Nikola Jokić, who is averaging 29.8 points, 12.7 rebounds and 10.2 assists per game for the 36-19 Nuggets, putting him on pace to join Westbrook and Oscar Robertson as the only players in NBA history to average a triple-double for a full season, while also effectively breaking a slew of advanced stats in what looks an awful lot like the best statistical individual season ever: Outside of those two and Antetokounmpo, there's also Tatum, the constant guarantor of the Celtics' elite floor, averaging nearly 27 points, nine rebounds and six assists per game for a championship favorite. Down-ballot options include the Cavaliers' trio of Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland and Evan Mobley, the Knicks' duo of Brunson and Towns, Grizzlies big man Jaren Jackson Jr., and possibly fellow All-Stars Anthony Edwards and (if only for the eye-popping stats) Victor Wembanyama. The tiers out West. Just a half-game separates the Grizzlies and Nuggets in the race for second place. Only 2.5 games separate the Rockets, Lakers and Clippers in the hunt for fourth — and, with it, home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Just 3.5 games separate five teams — the Clippers, Wolves, Mavericks, Kings and Warriors — vying for the sixth spot (which would allow them to avoid the play-in tournament) and looking to stay out of 10th (which would require them to go on the road and win two single-elimination games just to make the postseason. And only 1.5 games separate the Kings, Warriors and 11th-place Suns, still raging against the dying of the light even after striking out at the trade deadline and inadvertently kicking off a fresh round of Kevin Durant trade rumors in the process. OKC has already run away with the top spot, but that's still an awfully gnarled thicket of teams trying to untangle themselves, break free of the pack and climb the standings in a hurry, without much time to do so. There's a similar stratification in the East, but the pitch appears less fevered. Cleveland's all but locked into first place, 5.5 ahead of the pack. The Knicks are technically still alive for second place, 2.5 games back of Boston, but are overwhelmingly likely to land third. Just two games separate Indiana, Milwaukee and Detroit in fourth through sixth — honestly, the prospect of the now-Portis-less Bucks falling behind the Pistons is kind of blowing my mind at the moment — and a mere half-game separates the Magic, Hawks and Heat in the top three play-in positions. I'm not sure that you can call whatever is transpiring between the Bulls (who just traded away their best player), Nets (who have parted ways with three opening night starters), 76ers (who appear to have built their season, and perhaps their franchise, on an accursed burial ground) and Raptors (who added Brandon Ingram, because it's fun to zag on 'em) down around 10th place a 'race.' But it is happening, and don't you dare look away. We must all bear witness.
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
NBA All-Star 2025: Will the new format work? Breaking down the weekend's big questions
With the frenzy of the 2025 NBA trade deadline now behind us, the attention of the NBA-watching world now shifts to the Bay Area for the high-octane basketball exhibition/convention/trade show that is 2025 All-Star Weekend. Here are a few things to keep an eye on as the league's best and brightest strut their stuff across three days of basketball-adjacent endeavors, social media brand activation opportunities and fresh-coat-of-painted tournament-style play: After the 2024 All-Star Game ended with the Eastern Conference scoring a record 211 points in a blowout victory that featured more from-the-logo launches than gestures in the direction of defense, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver sounded decidedly un-psyched about what he'd just witnessed: Lol Adam Silver:"To the Eastern Conference All-Stars: You scored the most points. Well... congratulations." — Oh No He Didn't (@ohnohedidnt24) February 19, 2024 Silver was far from the only observer who saw in last year's spectacle a continuation of a bummerific recent trend: a Sunday showcase that's supposed to represent the crown jewel of a wall-to-wall weekend celebrating the very best the NBA has to offer instead devolving into little more than a 3-point-line-to-3-point-line jog-through. This led the commissioner — who's never met a traditional conceit he couldn't endeavor to disrupt! — to consider a shake-up to the established structure of the All-Star Game that went beyond a televised player draft or a 'USA vs. the World'-style shift. Silver evidently found his sought-after shuffle when Stephen Curry, of all people, shuffled into his office. 'I wanted to take the opportunity of Steph stopping by to say, 'What's the format that you would like to see that you think other All-Star players would like to see to create more of an entertaining and competitive game for the fans?'' Silver recently told Tim Kawakami of the San Francisco Standard. 'And he said from his standpoint that maybe breaking up the game a bit, shorter games, multiple games, he thought was certainly of interest to him and he thought would be of interest to other players as well.' From that conversation spawned the tournament-style structure we'll see Sunday, featuring rosters drafted by TNT's 'Inside the NBA' crew. Four teams, three games, two rounds, one winner. There are no quarters, and no game clock; in each game, the first team to 40 wins, which, if nothing else, will prevent an unseemly final score like 211-186. (The NBA is putting 50 minutes between the alleged tipoff of each game; it'll be interesting to see how closely they can stick to that, or if we'll wind up with the kind of bloat that leads to the finale not starting until like 10:30 on the East Coast.) In the first game, Kenny Smith's 'Young Stars' (Anthony Edwards, Jalen Brunson, Jaren Jackson Jr., Jalen Williams, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley, Cade Cunningham and Tyler Herro) will take on Charles Barkley's 'Global Stars' (Nikola Jokić, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Victor Wembanyama, Pascal Siakam, Alperen Şengün, Karl-Anthony Towns, Donovan Mitchell, Trae Young). In the second, Shaquille O'Neal's 'OGs' (LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Jayson Tatum, Kevin Durant, Damian Lillard, James Harden, Jaylen Brown, Kyrie Irving) will play whichever team wins Friday's Rising Stars Challenge, as helmed by Candace Parker. The winner of Kenny vs. Chuck meets the winner of Shaq vs. Candace; the winner of that, I suppose, wins the All-Star Game — and, with it, $125,000 apiece. (Players on the second-place team get $50,000 a head; third- and fourth-place finishers get $25,000 each.) Will shorter, quicker games with smaller rosters result in a more spirited level of play? Curry, at least, sounded an optimistic note. 'My advice [to Silver] was it's not a bad thing to change it up entirely and try something new, knowing you can always come back to the traditional format if whatever you decide doesn't work,' Curry recently told Kawakami. 'And then, spitballing a bunch of different ideas to try and shorten the game a little bit, create a different kind of scenario where you can try and inspire some competition. Obviously it comes down to the players, whether you play or not, but I like where it's at.' And if there's not enough juice to the games? Well, Kevin Hart's going to be there, serving as the 'first-ever on-court emcee' of the annual midseason exhibition and charged with adding 'a layer of comedic disruption into the live game.' So I think we're in pretty good hands, Getting Everybody to Take the All-Star Game More Seriously-wise. 🌟 The 2025 #RufflesCelebGame rosters! 🌟📅 Friday, 2/14 at 7:00pm/et on ESPN — NBA (@NBA) February 4, 2025 You're not going to believe this, but the answer is … 13 of 22! More than half! A robust shooting percentage of 59.1% — the same percentage that Warriors legend Andris Biedriņš shot during the 2009-10 season! An upset of titanic proportions! As you surely remember, the 2024 Celebrity Game featured an MVP-winning performance by extremely strong Dallas Cowboys edge rusher Micah Parsons: And who can forget WNBA star Kelsey Plum reading basketball YouTuber Tristan Jass for filth? One can only assume that similar fireworks are in store for this year's edition, featuring rosters coached by Bay Area icons Barry Bonds (with lead assistant 2 Chainz, who actually hooped at Alabama State) and Jerry Rice (aided by TikTok comedian Khaby Lame, who did not record 'I'm Different,' which puts him at a competitive disadvantage). As for the game itself, I think the likelihood of Druski and Kai Cenat teaming up for some kind of epic bit is pretty high. I'm holding out hope that WWE superstar Bayley and actor Pablo Schreiber strike up a meaningful friendship based on Schreiber's respect for Bayley's work post-Damage CTRL and Bayley's love of Season 2 of 'The Wire' (and also, secretly, 'Den of Thieves'). I'd bet that Terrell Owens will go harder than you'd expect a 51-year-old to, and WNBA stars Kayla Thornton and Allisha Gray will outclass the rest of the competitors by a factor of 10, and that after the buzzer sounds, I am able to remember a 14th name from this list. Castrol Rising Stars: 9 p.m. ET Friday (TNT) For the fourth straight year, the rebooted rookie-sophomore challenge will feature four seven-player teams competing in a three-game Friday night mini-tournament. In keeping with the weekend's overall 'Bay Area legends' theme, three of the four teams will be coached by Warriors greats Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin — better known by fans who … well, let's say 'Fans Who Might Recognize at Most 59% of the Celebrity Game Rosters,' as Run-TMC. The fourth — a collection of G Leaguers (and, um, Houston's Reed Sheppard and Golden State's Pat Spencer, who have played a combined five games in the G League this season and a combined 61 games with their NBA clubs) — will be coached by Jeremy Lin, who hits the trifecta as a then-called-the-D-League success story, a California native and a multi-time former Warrior. Team C (Mullin's squad) plays Team T (Hardaway's); Team M (Richmond's) plays Team G League; the two winners square off for the title. In each of the first two games, the first team to 40 points wins. In the championship game, though, it's first to 25, because, y'know, let's keep this thing moving. Team M got the first pick in the Rising Stars draft, and Richmond selected spring-heeled athletic marvel Amen Thompson. As someone who recently did a whole episode of The Big Number with Tom Haberstroh on how dope Amen is … … I'm into that decision. (I also like that Amen's twin brother, Pistons wing Ausar Thompson, is on Team M. Let's see some twin powers activate!) Injuries to the likes of Jared McCain, Brandon Miller, Dereck Lively II, Scoot Henderson and Cason Wallace have taken some of the more exciting prospects in the pool off the board. On top of that, the removal of second-year thunderbolt Victor Wembanyama from consideration now that he's a full-fledged All-Star excises the biggest literal and figurative difference-maker from the proceedings. There's still some fun talent to check out, though. In addition to the Thompson twins, Team M has Trail Blazers hustle menace Toumani Camara, Pelicans shot-swatter Yves Missi, Nuggets long-range bomber Julian Strawther, and Bilal Coulibaly and Bub Carrington, a.k.a. the best reasons to watch the Wizards. Team C features Memphis tandem Zach Edey and Jaylen Wells — the only starters on a playoff team to feature in the proceedings — as well as super-athletic guards Stephon Castle and Keyonte George, plus Dalton Knecht, who's been having a hell of a week and who, as of press time, is still a Laker. Team T feels a little light on sizzle — unless Gradey Dick decides to bust out the sequins again, that is — but maybe French countrymen and top-two draft picks Zaccharie Risacher and Alex Sarr play well enough together that we start salivating over the prospect of seeing them alongside Wemby in L.A. in 2028. And maybe some of Lin's G Leaguers — headlined by Spencer, who hung 51 for Santa Cruz earlier this season, and Sheppard, who put up 49 for Rio Grande Valley last month — offer proof that they're ready to step up in weight class. And with the winning team getting a chance to do just that in Sunday's main event, you'd figure there'll be plenty of motivation to seize the showcase in hopes of using it as a stepping stone to bigger, brighter and better things ahead. The Skills Challenge has undergone a slight tweak, too — from three teams of three players each to four two-player squads — but it's still, at base, about finding out who is the best at throwing passes through big hoops, dribbling around obstacles, and making uncontested shots while lots of people stare at you. Which means it's still pretty weird! This year, we've got the hometown Team Warriors (Draymond Green and Moses Moody) against Team Cavs (proper All-Stars Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley), Team Spurs (Wembanyama and Chris Paul) and Team Rooks (the aforementioned French connection of Risacher and Sarr). Both members of each team will have to complete three bounce passes through a moving target, dribble down the court, make a chest pass through a moving target, make a straight-on 3-pointer, an elbow J and a corner 3, and then run to midcourt and try to throw a long outlet pass through, you guessed it, a moving target. The teams with the two fastest times advance to the final round; the team with the fastest time in that round wins. Handicapping something like this feels like a cry for help, but I will say that if we're talking about a competition that includes making an elbow jumper, I like Chris Paul's team's chances. (Also, I wouldn't put it past him to sabotage the other teams. 'Dirtiest players in the game' don't change their spots.) The most important thing? That we don't find ourselves in a situation that requires 'instant replay [to] be utilized for clarification of rules compliance' at 'the referee's discretion.' The last thing we need during the Skills Challenge is a friggin' trip to Secaucus. Yeah, probably. Alas! Maybe! That song friggin' knocks. In what has, in recent years, become the most star-driven event of the weekend, five 2025 All-Stars (Jalen Brunson, Cade Cunningham, Darius Garland, Tyler Herro, Damian Lillard), one should-have-been 2025 All-Star in my book (Norman Powell), one former 3-Point Contest winner (Buddy Hield) and one Cam Johnson (Cam Johnson) will take — and, ideally, make — as many triples as they can in 70 seconds. Unchecked offensive inflation has come to the 3-Point Contest: first, through the addition of a money ball worth two points to each rack; then, through the addition of a rack comprised entirely of money balls; and last season, with the introduction of two 'Starry' balls, placed on pedestals approximately 30 feet from the rim, that are worth three points apiece. How will fans of the future be able to contextualize the differing scores across generations? Has the analytics movement gone too far? How will I explain this to my children? The answers to these and many other questions remain elusive. The biggest question, though, is whether Lillard — Oakland's own, a (say it with me) Bay Area legend, in the midst of his best 3-point shooting season (38.2% on 9.1 attempts per game) in five years — can replicate the success he found in the tournament in 2023 … … and 2024 … … thus joining Larry Bird and Craig Hodges as the third player in the competition's 39-year history to win three in a row. He'll face some stiff competition. Herro and Garland both rank in the top 10 in 3-pointers made. Garland, Powell and Johnson are all shooting well above 40% from deep, while Brunson's just below at 39.7%. While Hield's having a down year from deep at just 36.7%, we know he can get scorching hot in a hurry. And Cade … well, Cade's having an awesome season, and it's cool that he's here! Will Dame etch his name into 3-Point Contest history? Has he worked out a deal with Pat Riley to be able to use the copyrighted term for three consecutive wins without paying through the nose for it (a term I am not using because I have brokered no such deal)? Will Stephen Curry perform a surprise run-in like Stone Cold Steve Austin, hit Buddy over the head with a steel chair, steal his spot and shoot for glory as the Chase Center crowd goes ballistic? We'll all find out the answers soon enough. While I do firmly believe that dunk contests can really only ever be kind of bad, because dunking, like pizza, is at worst always at least pretty good … it's difficult to look at a field featuring four players with whom few casual fans are likely to be even glancingly familiar and think, 'People are going to get as amped over this as they did for some of the iconic contests of yesteryear.' That's not exactly fair to someone like Mac McClung, whose gravest sin is not being quite good enough as an all-around player to make the leap from the G League to the big show, and who has won the last two Dunk Contests by performing some truly insane and complex aerial artistry: Nor is it fair to the three youngsters trying to take McClung's crown: lottery picks Stephon Castle of the San Antonio Spurs and Matas Buzelis of the Chicago Bulls, and sophomore defensive troublemaker Andre Jackson Jr. All three are hella athletic (Bay term), with more than enough hops to make jaws drop: But the concept of fairness is fighting an uphill battle against the staggering weight of memories like MJ vs. 'Nique or Vince in 2000, and against the mind's-eye dreamcasting of Yeah, But What If [INSERT FAMOUS AWESOME DUNKER HERE] Did it? — a cottage industry that might not have started with LeBron James, but certainly reached its highest ebb and loudest volume with him — in an era in which the risk/reward calculus prompts eye-popping dunkers and real-deal All-Stars like Zion Williamson, Ja Morant and Anthony Edwards to consistently decline invitations to compete. (Which, honestly, is why I kind of thought Jaylen Brown would wind up winning last year's judging, even if someone else had objectively better dunks, in hopes of reversing the 'abandonment' of the event.) What we're actually seeing can rarely hold a candle to the version we've imagined for ourselves, no matter how impressive it is. Rarely, but not never. There hadn't been a Dunk Contest in three years before Vince became immortal in 2000. From there, a handful of fallow years … and then pint-sized Nate Robinson, planet-sized Dwight Howard and central-casting star Blake Griffin revitalized it. Another half-decade or so of low ebb before All-Star Weekend 2015 in Brooklyn introduced the entire world to a lanky 19-year-old miracle named Zach LaVine; one year later, LaVine and a similarly not-all-that-well-known forward named Aaron Gordon authored a performance — and, more importantly, a competition — for the ages. It's like my man Anton Ego said: Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. I don't know if McClung can top himself — he's already said that this will be his last competition because "you know, you run out of dunks' — and I don't know if Castle, Buzelis or Jackson has magic running between their minds and high-tops. But in dunk contests, as in difficult times, hope dies last. As long as they keep having them, we'll keep showing up, hoping that the next takeoff is the one that returns us to the joys of competitions past. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, 'The 7-foot-4 guy everyone calls a friggin' alien.' In the project of trying to pull off something ludicrous in the All-Star Game, Victor Wembanyama has an ace up his sleeve. You guys: It turns out that — c'mere, bring it in, huddle up, be cool, keep this under your hat — this guy is actually planning to … try. 'If it turns out like every other recent game, slow and just playing around, I hope I can bring that contrast of a single guy who goes crazy, dives on the ball, hustles every play,' Wembanyama recently told reporters. 'I'm definitely going to try to bring that energy.' What a concept! He's the greatest player in the world, but Nikola Jokić turned a breakaway dunk into a finger roll and tried to call a travel on himself last year. Let's just say that I don't think he's going to be bending over backward to give us death-defying feats of derring-do. It was abundantly clear well before the NBA announced the official names of the teams that Chuck, Shaq and Kenny 'spontaneously' 'drafted' that there'd been a specific calculation made as to how to structure this new tournament. Pit the old guard that has carried the league for the past two decades against the approaching-their-prime collective trying to supplant them and the tidal wave of overseas talent that has increasingly broadened the parameters of the sport's superstar class over the past decade. Attempt to reintroduce some measure of caring into the proceedings by presenting the possibility that someone you perceive as encroaching on your territory — an aging galaxy who won't cede the sky unless extinguished; a bunch of kids who haven't really won squat yet in this league; um, guys literally from somewhere else — might gain bragging rights over you and embarrass you. All while Kevin Hart makes jokes about it, in the course of promoting one of the six projects he's currently got in development. Whether that's enough to motivate any of the participants to actually kick things into high gear remains to be seen. The general conceit, though, offers some intrigue: We spent the summer watching LeBron, Steph and KD prove that they could still lord it over the world's best with Team USA, but they needed the help of younger stars like Edwards and Devin Booker to do it, and close shaves against Jokić's Serbia and Wembanyama's France revealed just how much the gap has narrowed. Divide 'em all up, throw a few hundred racks in the middle, and see what develops. Maybe we enter the stretch run once again awestruck by what the old heads can do, all the more excited to watch LeBron and Steph chase the postseason on their newly bolstered squads (and all the more curious about what the future might hold for Durant). Maybe we come away feeling like we'd just seen an unofficial passing of the torch. And maybe the proceedings are spicy enough to move us one step closer to another star-suggested format change. 'It just makes me think if there was a game of the World vs. USA, that would be interesting,' Wembanyama recently told reporters. 'That would be even better.'
