It's an NBA thing. We don't understand
A confusing and infuriating regular-season is approaching a merciful end. The playoffs will be better.
Once you’ve mastered string theory, and once you’ve figured out the impact of the trade war with Lesotho, maybe you can help us with something even more incomprehensible. Like the NBA.
Late on the evening of Feb. 1 the Dallas Mavericks traded their 25-year-old, four-time first-team All-NBA local hero, Luka Doncic. They gave him to the Los Angeles Lakers, who happily gave up Anthony Davis in return. Doncic, who turned 26 on Feb. 28, made his return to Dallas Wednesday night and was greeted like George Strait. Reduced to tears by a salute on the Mavericks’ video board, Doncic poured 45 points on his alma mater and the Lakers won. The crowd cheered Doncic and chanted “Fire Nico,” with general manager Nico Harrison standing in the wings.
That would be the weirdest development in almost any other NBA season. But then the Golden State Warriors, bleeding and bruised, wound up with Jimmy Butler, who had talked himself out of Miami. They did have to give up Andrew Wiggins, but could Butler slide into the quick rhythm of the Warriors’ offense? Apparently. They’re 22-7 since he showed up and, like the Lakers, have become The Team You Don’t Want To See in the playoffs, although you could make that same case for any team, except maybe Utah or Phoenix.
Then the league got really newsy, or kooky. Remember when Taylor Jenkins was the model for all young NBA coaches? Memphis was 44-29 when general manager Zack Kleiman announced Jenkins was now a model for all young NBA ex-coaches. Saying the decision was “mine and mine alone,” Kleiman fired Jenkins with nine regular-season games remaining. Memphis has responded by going 3-4 since.
For one of the few times this season, Memphis was able to play Jaren Jackson, Ja Morant and Desmond Bane together against Minnesota Thursday night. It gave up 141 points and lost by 16, at home. The Grizzlies ran off most of Jenkins’ staff last year and told Jenkins to ditch the basic offense in which Morant had often been spectacular, and go to more of a motion look. Memphis was still winning even though Morant missed 32 games, but they weren’t beating good teams anymore. That has not changed, and now the Grizzlies are in slight danger of being dumped into Play-in Week. The new offense certainly hasn’t helped Luke Kennard, who has led the NBA in 3-point percentage before and is clicking at 43.2 percent, but was a DNP-coach’s decision on Thursday and has generally moved down the bench since the trade. So maybe this is A Team You Actually Do Want To Play.
NBA folks had just finished dissecting this situation when a news item arrived from Denver. The Nuggets had fired coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth. What, is it April 1? No, it was April 8. Malone and the Nuggets had won the NBA championship only 22 months ago, and even though they were playing inconsistently they were safely in the upper tier of the playoffs. Their main problem was health. Jamal Murray, their barometer, had a hamstring problem and, like last year, the Nuggets weren’t deep enough to compensate.
Still, there were only three games left. On Wednesday Denver won at Sacramento, as interim coach David Adelman won in the same city where his dad Rick had successfully coached. There would be no massive makeover, and NBA players are notoriously unsentimental about coaching shifts. But there was this feeling that the axis that held the league together was weakening significantly. Perhaps you’ve had the same feeling about other recent events.
The post-mortem is that Malone, who can run hot at times, and Booth were sniping at each other. Malone was committed to Russell Westbrook because he trusts veterans, even older and less consistent ones, and Booth wanted Malone to play younger guys who hadn’t really earned those minutes. Booth had helped Denver win that 2023 championship by signing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and management let him get away to Orlando. Team president Josh Kroenke (who, at Missouri, played for current Atlanta coach Quin Snyder) was presented with a him-or-me situation and went with none-of-the-above. Malone will be coaching some NBA team next season, as will Jenkins in all probability, and Denver will find someone eager to be associated with Nikola Jokic. It doesn’t change the fact that Game of Thrones is not really a cohesive management plan.
Player attendance remains a problem. Recently Dallas played Philadelphia, and Davis, Kyrie Irving, Paul George, Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid were hors de combat. They and other absentees were making a combined total of $281 million this year, believed to be a single-game record for DNP money.
If you’re wondering why the Detroit Pistons are suddenly viable, well, they’ve lost fewer man-games than any other team. If you’re wondering why the Oklahoma City Thunder has become a prototype franchise, they’ve lost the fourth-most man games and are still 66-14 with a 12.6-point differential per game.
(Those who bemoan the dominance of big-market clubs must explain why the best teams in basketball and hockey in this regular season are Oklahoma City and Winnipeg.)
Some players are slower to heal than others, but anyone who has seen the Clippers surge during Kawhi Leonard’s guest appearances in the lineup knows how critical this is. It’s the game that’s causing the wreckage, not necessarily a reluctance to play. Basketball-Reference.com measures pace in terms of estimated possessions per game, and the Grizzlies lead the league with 103.3 per game, but 14 NBA clubs average 99 or more. Ten years ago, Golden State was the league leader with 98.3. Twenty years ago Phoenix led with 95.9, and only 17 NBA teams topped 90.
As Steve Kerr has articulated, and as most other coaches tacitly indicate by all the load management they do, this is not the game that was meant for an 82-game schedule. Older teams used to dominate the playoffs, and they may do so again this year, but Oklahoma City entered the season as the youngest team in the league (average age of 24.148) and Portland, which has played itself out of a prime lottery spot but has shown as much juice as anyone, is second.
Fewer games would provide more practice time, might allow the fans to actually see the players that they envisioned seeing when they bought tickets, and would remove the need for the ridiculous NBA Cup. Yes, it would distort the record books. Hasn’t the 3-point shot done that already?
Meanwhile, Phoenix seems on the verge of firing coach Mike Budenholzer, who directed the Bucks to the 2021 championship but has become the next in a long procession who ran afoul of Kevin Durant. Budenholzer signed a five-year contract this season. His predecessor, Monty Williams, had three years left on his deal when owner Matt Ishbia fired him.
If owners can afford to subsidize idleness like that, why are they playing hardball with the “second apron,” the highest team salary threshold that not only brings financial penalty but restricts personnel decisions? That, we’re told, is why Phoenix is such a bottom-feeder, because after the Suns paid Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal, they were handcuffed.
Some of us remember a simpler salary-cap situation, when teams could spend over the cap to retain their own players, but everything else had to be within the allotted space. A raft of salary-cap exceptions has changed all that but has mystified fans who want player movement. Yet Doncic, Butler, Davis, Zach LaVine, De’Aaron Fox and De’Andre Hunter have all been dealt this season.
Most of all, the NBA needs to empty the tank. It needs to encourage teams to quit stripping their roster and losing on purpose to improve their draft position. There are far, far too many NBA games that match franchises that try against franchises that don’t. Are the Washington Wizards any more legitimate than the Washington Generals were? Either include more teams in the lottery, or go to a blind draw in the draft, in which all 30 teams have an equal chance. If the Celtics or Thunder get the first pick, so be it. Let them sort it out. At least they wouldn’t have earned a prize by losing.
With all that said, the league is competitive enough to have six different clubs win the past six championships, and if you happen to reach harmonic convergence and attend an NBA game in which the starters are actually starting, you will see at least one play that you’ll turn into wallpaper for your phone. And we will someday look back at Doncic, Jokic, LeBron James, Steph Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and wonder what happened to the good old days. Wonder is always preferable to mystery.