Can you believe we’re already a month into the NBA season? Before you know it, Thanksgiving will be behind us, and we’ll be talking about the Christmas Day games.
I want to take some time to catch all of you up with what’s been going on around the league over the past 30 days since the 2018/2019 campaign got underway.
The college football and NFL seasons are in full bloom, and I understand that not everyone has had time to keep complete tabs on the National Basketball Association.
That’s why I’m here: simply to fill you in. I might offer my perspective here and there, but I want to focus on providing substantial information.
Are there any rookies taking the league by storm? Is there any team that could contend for a title that we didn’t see coming?
I’ll get to all that and answer those questions. But let’s first start with some big news that fans in the City of Brotherly Love are pretty amped up about.
Well, Jimmy Butler finally got his wish.
The 29-year-old swingman had made it clear since before the season ever started that he had no desire to continue playing in Minnesota. It was thought that reuniting Jimmy with Tom Thibodeau, his former coach in Chicago, would be a good fit for both sides.
But for whatever reason, Jimmy just gave up on his teammates.
He’ll tell you that the Timberwolves players didn’t match his unwavering desire to win basketball games, and maybe there is some truth to that.
Either way, it wasn’t working in Minnesota, and the T-Wolves owner knew he had to make a move.
That’s why Glen Taylor made the calls and struck a deal with Philly.
The 76ers were beginning to realize that they didn’t have enough to contend with the likes of Toronto or Boston, and even the upstart Milwaukee Bucks had passed them by.
So despite agreeing to pay Robert Covington $62 million over four years at this time last season, the Sixers answered the phone and got busy.
Covington was sent to Minnesota, along with Dario Saric, the promising 24-year-old Croatian forward who has a pretty advanced skill set. In return, Philly gets their hands on a guy who has averaged 21.8 points and nearly two steals per game over the past four seasons.
Adding arguably the second-best two-way player (Kawhi Leonard being the first) in the Eastern Conference to a lineup that includes the likes of Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons is a big, big deal.
Embiid is becoming one of the truly elite players in this league, and Simmons can distribute the ball with the best of them. If Brett Brown can maximize what Jimmy can bring to the table, then Philly has a chance to be more than a formidable opponent down the stretch.
They could actually end up emerging from the suddenly loaded East and be playing well into the month of June.
The answer to this question depends on how deep you want to look into this.
The verbal altercation between Draymond Green and Kevin Durant that ensued on the bench at the end of regulation during the November 12th loss at Staples Center wasn’t pretty. But let’s not act like it’s going to stop the Warriors from steamrolling their way through the West.
Right now, they are just head and shoulders above any other team in the conference.
But don’t think for a second that an episode as damaging as this won’t implicate Kevin’s decision-making process when choosing whether or not to return to Golden State after this year.
According to credible source Stephen A. Smith, Durant was already planning on bolting the Bay Area this coming summer anyway – even before Draymond acted out of line and called out his contract situation.
To summarize, Stephen A. goes on to say the following: “I’m hearing KD is out. KD is gone.”
Some are even saying they could read Durant’s lips while he was walking away from the dispute saying something along the lines of “This is why I’m outta here.”
The bottom line is this.
KD is a professional and is one of the two or three most talented basketball players on the planet. He knows what winning championships means to his legacy, so I expect to him to take the high road here and just ball out for the next 66 games of the regular season.
Because that’s just who Kevin Durant is.
But if I was putting his chances of being in a Warriors uniform next year at around 50/50 before this incident occurred, I’ll say it’s now greater than a 90% chance that Durant plays elsewhere in 2019/2020. Maybe greater than 95%.
So back to the original question.
Grown men don’t like being put on blast publicly, so, yeah. The beef really does matter.
I don’t want to toot my own horn and tell all of you I saw this coming.
But I saw this coming.
Literally from a mile away.
I had been adamant in saying that if I was a general manager in the NBA, I wouldn’t touch Carmelo Anthony with a ten-foot pole. I felt that at this point in his career, he just doesn’t add any value whatsoever to an NBA team.
Sure, maybe he can help sell a few tickets in arenas that need the help. But I had a hard time understanding what Daryl Morey thought he was getting when he signed Carmelo during the offseason.
Melo is a ball-dominant scorer who hasn’t taken pride in playing defense since…well, since ever.
The problem is that Houston already has Chris Paul and James Harden, two guys that seriously need the ball in their hands to be effective. Asking Anthony to come off the bench and accept a role as a bench player was nice in theory.
But come on.
Carmelo’s ego is way too big to accept the fact that he’s no longer a legitimate starting small forward in this league.
Appearing in ten games in Space City, Melo was averaging career lows in minutes per game (29.4), points per game (13.4), field goals made (4.9), and field goals attempted (12.1).
I could actually keep going and allude to the fact that Anthony’s pathetic 68.2% clip from the charity stripe and his appalling 0.5 assists per game were also career lows for the 16-year pro.
On top of all that, Houston was 6-7 and outside the top eight in the West.
It’s time to wake up and smell what’s brewing.
And what do you know?
Just hours after announcing that the Rockets and Carmelo were parting ways, Houston blew out the Warriors. Albeit Golden State was without Steph Curry, but the Rockets’ ball movement was clearly more fluid, and their defense was the best it has been by a long shot.
The Warriors hadn’t scored less than 110 points in a game since scoring 98 in a loss at Denver on October 21st. Without Melo holding them back, the Rockets held the defending champs to just 86 points.
I’m not sure where Carmelo will land next, but this should be a glaring sign to all potential suitors to proceed with heavy, heavy caution.
I think they could, yes. Now, if you would have asked me this question before the season started, I would have told you they were at least one to two years away from making any real noise. And that still could very well be the case.
But let’s stop for a second and glance at what is actually happening on the hardwood.
The Bucks are averaging a whopping 121 points per game through their first 14 games, more than any other team in the league.
More importantly, and the true sign of a great team, is their point differential. Milwaukee is outscoring their opposition by 10.9 points per game, a figure that also tops all 30 organizations in the National Basketball Association.
The Greek Freak has been percolating these last couple years, on the brink of becoming a superstar in the NBA.
Well, Giannis Antetokounmpo is no longer “on the brink,” because he has arrived.
The dude is averaging 1.4 blocks and 1.4 steals per game to go along with 25.8 points and 5.6 assists every time he takes the court. And after averaging 10 rebounds per game a season ago, Giannis is up to 12.7 boards per game and climbing the ranks.
I’ll still say that LeBron James is the most dominant player in the league, and Kawhi Leonard’s defensive prowess makes him pretty special. But aside from those two, there isn’t a player in the NBA I’d rather have on my team for the current season.
And it’s not all about the Greek Freak in the Cream City.
Khris Middleton has evolved into a beast, so much so that Milwaukee laughed at Minnesota earlier in the year when the T-Wolves offered Jimmy Butler for Middleton straight up.
Eric Bledsoe and Malcolm Brogdon provide shooting on the perimeter, and Brook Lopez looks to have found a solid situation where he can add value on a consistent basis.
But the biggest reason why the Bucks are currently atop the Central Division is because of their head coach, Mike Budenholzer.
The 49-year-old former apprentice of Gregg Popovich is in his first year at the helm of the Milwaukee franchise after a five-year stint in Atlanta.
Some may tell him he is doing a great job and really building something for the future, but let this be known.
Mike Budenholzer has no plans to wait a year or two to make a run at the finals. He firmly believes he can get there this season.
The way his group is meshing on the court, we might be silly to doubt him.
There are a few rookies in the NBA who are having solid first seasons, but I see one guy who is really standing out.
And it’s Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks.
Through 14 games, Luka is leading all rookies with 19.1 points per game, but it’s his playmaking ability that is really catching the league by storm. The 19-year-old Slovenian guard is chipping in with 4.2 assists per game, not to mention grabbing 6.4 rebounds a night.
Shooting a shade under 40% from 3-point land with his deadly step-back game, Luka is on his way to running away with the ROY award. And he won’t stop there.
You’ll be hearing Doncic’s name floating around as one of the top-ten players in the league next season.
He’s that dynamic and that unique.
As far as any other rookies really playing good basketball right now, the number-one overall pick in Phoenix has been brilliant. Deandre Ayton is shooting 62.3% from the field and giving the Suns 16 points and 10.6 rebounds per game.
The problem is that the Suns are currently the worst team in the West, so Ayton isn’t getting as much love or notoriety as perhaps he should.
The fact that the Hawks are just 3-12 and the bottom dwellers of the Southeast Division isn’t helping Trae Young’s cause, either.
The former Oklahoma Sooner point guard is putting up big-time numbers for a rook – 16.7 points and 8.0 assists per game – but his percentages are way down. Trae is knocking down just 25.6% of his 3s and shooting just 40% from the field overall, so I’m not even close to putting him in the same category as Doncic.
Here are some other rookies that deserve an honorable mention.
I’m really interested to see if whoever comes out of the East can seriously challenge the Golden State Warriors.
Once Steph Curry is back on the court, and Boogie Cousins is added to the mix, it’s going to be awfully tough for anybody in the West to get in their way of reaching a fifth straight NBA Finals.
But Boston and Toronto are really good basketball teams. The Bucks are playing lights-out, and the Sixers just added Jimmy Butler to the fray.
The East is no longer the laughing stock of the NBA. The Conference is loaded.
Buckle up, because it’s going to be a fun next six months watching this thing play out.
With so much going on, I didn’t even get to mention that LeBron James is slowly bringing the Lakers back to relevancy and has them currently inside the top eight out West.
It’s anyone’s guess what will happen by the time we get to April and May, but I sure as heck will be following the action to find out!
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