Category: Basketball

Only one more Off-Season Report left! Don’t tell us about this being a quiet off-season! It hasn’t been easy finding a lot to write home about! There was big news like Mikel Brown Jr.‘s debut and Egor Demin’s growth. The arrival of Julius Randle is intriguing. He does have a habit of exploding when joining a new team after all. Sean Marks & co. also made some moves like re-signing Day’Ron Sharpe and Josh Minott to more than reasonable deals.

But for the most part it was stay-the-course, show resolve, call for patience, build for that “sustainable” future. You know: the tank may be over but the rebuild continues. They added another first rounder in another salary dump. They still have 13 firsts in the next seven drafts, most in the league. The 18-man roster continues to be development-centric with nine players 22 or younger and 14 under 25, retaining their position as the NBA’s youngest team in a generation. Winning may be the goal now but hoping to contend for anything other than a play-in spot seems like folly … despite what Michael Porter Jr. has said.

And ICYMI, the Knicks threw themselves a parade that attracted two million people! So there’s that.

All that said, we’ll know more over the next two weeks or so about the internal view of the team. We’ll get state-of-the-team assessments from Sean Marks and Jordi Fernandez a week from Monday at Media Day. Players will be available too of course. No word yet on how much of it will be televised on YES and the Nets website. Then, from September 29 through October 5, there will be daily practices at the facility as well the Nets Fan Fest — apparently the Practice-in-the-Park replacement — in Crown Heights on October 4. Fernandez will be available to the media (including ND) at the end of each practice to provide updates. The preseason opener is October 6 in Charlotte. Two days later, the Nets will be at home vs. the 76ers for their only home game this preseason.

A positive at least for now: we know of no injuries or health issues … although the Nets have a history of not publicizing them till the last minute. We learned about Demin’s plantar fascia issue (which had put him in a wheelchair!) at last year’s Media Day, months after it had been diagnosed and treated. Similarly Nolan Traore’s ankle scope was only revealed the day before the Nets flew out to Sacramento for Summer League. Same with Grant Nelson’s patella tendinitis.

The only contract situation outstanding remains MPJ’s extension. Nothing new that we know of there. Just a lot of speculation. Porter seems quite happy with the organization otherwise, promoting the improvements made by the young players and offering his enthusiasm and optimistic assessment of how he and Randle can work together.

A different kind of preview

In the meantime, we’ll be “treated” to preseason previews that no doubt will be continue to be mostly negative. It remains the narrative with just a little relief. If you’re looking for one preview that we thought captured things without being overly pollyannish or gloomy was the No Ceilings preview which is the most recent, having been published Saturday.

No Ceilings’ Tyler Rucker and Tyler Metcalf say Nets fans should be excited about team, particularly its future, while admitting the team has a “long way to go” before they contend. Sounds fair.

Metcalf starts off the preview with a comment that reflects what a lot of fans think: “I don’t even know where to start with this team (pause.) They are so weird.”

“I love Mikel Brown Jr. I love that they swung on him in the first round,” he continued. “I think they got a couple of really intriguing forwards in the draft in Joshua Jefferson and Tyler Bilodeau. I think Egor Demin is in for a massive second year. I loved the style they played last year with the quick decision-making, ball movement, player movement … and then there’s Julius Randle. When he’s good, he’s really good. Then there’s the other part.”

Rucker generally agrees.

“I’m sort of intrigued with …” he started off, with his own pause, his face just a tad contorted. “The team is weird enough that I like sort of like it. You know what I’m trying to say. I’m like, they’re sort of finding the path.”

Much of the positive elements of the preview are based on their excitement about the two 20-year-olds and their belief that Randle and Porter Jr., while flawed are “bucket-getters.”

“It starts with Mikel and Egor. I think Nets fans should be optimistically excited with this team. They’ve got two young pieces that they can build around,” said Rucker before defending Randle and Porter Jr. to Metcalf. “Say what you want Randle and Michael Porter Jr. They’re going to produce. You know they’re going to have games.”

Metcalf grudgingly agrees re Randle, saying “you know he’s going to get his on that Brooklyn team. He’s getting his numbers” and Rucker arguing that maybe the two players will love it in Brooklyn. (Both have certainly said so publicly.)

Metcalf also talked about the possibilities of Demin, Brown Jr. and Porter Jr. working together.

“I think Egor is going to be in for a big year. I love, theoretically, just what the trio and the floor spacing and the decision-making and scoring versatility of what he, Mikel and Michael Porter Jr. could look like together. I think those three on the court with their shooting, with their decision-making, and with their off-ball movement could be really, really fun ” he added.

He is not so sure how Randle fits. While conceding the veteran’s skills, Metcalf also wondered about the 6’9” forward’s offensive game.

“We talked about the Nets last year played such a fun style and really moved the ball. That’s not what Julius Randle really does. He’s a good passer, really skilled for his position, but it’s grab, pound, pound, pound, throw your body into someone, throw your body into someone, then make a decision. There’s very little quick decision-making. So I’m curious to see how works.“

Rucker, however, offered the other side of Randle’s game: he knows how to score.

“Randle’s going to be toughness. and he’s almost been what, nearly 20 points a game since 2019! That’s amazing.” (Editor’s note: The actual number is 21.7 points a game since 2018-19: 11,965 points in 551 games over eight seasons.)

Rucker addresses one big criticism of the last two years, that other than Demin, the 2025 Draft class aka the Flatbush 5, has underperformed, including during this year’s Summer League. Still he thinks that some of the criticism is unwarranted or premature.

“If Egor is awesome, I feel like we’re gonna to ignore the rest of the picks,” he argued. “almost. almost.”

Metcalf takes a similar tack.

“If you get one of those guys to hit at a super high level, especially the first one who’s a top 10 pick, then the rest is gravy … ‘We got one!’… and realistically, how many picks in the twenties actually hit?” said Metcalf of the Nets other picks taken at Nos. 19, 22, 26 and 27. “Typically, you’re either taking a seasoned upper classman to fill a very specific need or you’re taking a big homerun swing and they swung.”

Rucker thinks that it’s too early to give up on what else they got.

“Ben Saraf, I think, is going to be a good backup. Nolan Traore, we didn’t see at Summer League, but we saw him walking and I turned to you and said, ‘Traore looks like he gained two inches of height.’ He looked gigantic. So we’ll wait and see, but I’m with you.

“I like (Noah) Clowney, (Day’Ron) Sharpe and you get Joshua Jefferson and what are you going to get from Danny Wolf this year? I don’t know, but I really like Tyler Bilodeau in the second round. I thought that was a really sneaky add for them. He looked good in Summer League.”

Rucker summed up his thoughts this way:

“Am I saying the Nets are going to make the playoffs? NO! Am I saying this could be a year step forward? Sure for the Nets development? Absolutely!”

Rucker also left Nets fans with a wondrous best case scenario.

“This could be one of those funny teams that … there’s always one team that starts red hot, that’s we’re like ‘where did this come from?!?’ They’re 8-2 to start the year and all of sudden, we’re like, Oh! Okay! There it is!”

To which Metcalf adds, “they’re already done that.” Indeed, this is the 25th anniversary of Jason Kidd joining the Nets. Despite Kidd’s record of achievement prior to his arrival in New Jersey, virtually no one picked the Nets to even make the playoffs. They started 7-2 in 2001-02 and look where they wound up.

Tyler Bilodeau’s unlikely round trip

It was interesting to hear Rucker praise the Nets for taking Tyler Bilodeau at No. 43 in the second round. The 6’9” UCLA sharpshooter was not high on any draftnik’s big board until last June when ESPN pegged him in at No. 60 in their last two mock drafts.

We’ve written about Bilodeau’s possibilities, but also admitted that when he was selected, all of us who followed the draft reacted with one variation or another of “who dat??” when Mark Tatum called his name midway through the second round. Metcalf was correct in that he played well (enough) in the Summer League. And he had the highest 3-point percentage —46.0% — of any player in the Draft.

But what interested us this weekend when doing some research on the Nets draft history was the route he — or should we say the pick used to take him — traveled. It’s an example of how picks, particularly second rounders, wander… in this case four times in eight years.

The story starts in June 2018 when the Nets and Hawks were talking about a trade — a salary dump to be specific. Brooklyn sent Jeremy Lin; a Nets second rounder in 2025; the right to swap second rounders with the Hawks in 2023 in return for the draft rights to injured 21-year-old French guard Isaia Cordiner and Portland’s second rounder in 2020, which is protected top 55. The deal freed up $12.5 million in cap space which when added to the $10.5 million the Nets already had, giving Marks enough to make other moves in the third year of his first rebuild. Move No. 1.

This was the trade that Joe Tsai mentioned in his interview for David M. Rubenstein’s for his book, “In the Owners Box.” the one the Nets owner feared would cause millions if not tens of millions of basketball fans in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. to “hate me forever.”

Then, in January 2022, the Hawks made a deal with the Knicks centered on Kevin Knox for Cam Reddish. Talk about a trade that no one won! Atlanta traded Reddish, Solomon Hill and the Nets’ 2025 second round pick for Knox and draft pick — a first round pick protected top 18 in 2022, top 16 in 2023, top 14 in 2024 or if not transferred, seconds in 2026 and 2027. Move No. 2.

The Knicks held on to it until June 2024 and the Mikal Bridges trade. Sean Marks took advantage of Leon Rose’s desire to add Mikel Bridges by asking not just for the five first rounders — four Knicks and one Bucks — but also his 2025 second rounder back. Done deal. Move No. 3

A year later, the Nets still controlled the pick and four firsts. Then, the day before the 2025 Draft, Brooklyn became part of a three-team deal — for them a salary dump — with the Hawks and Boston Celtics who needed help to complete a deal centered on Kristaps Porzingis and Georges Niang. In return for that help, the Nets acquired Atlanta’s first rounder, at No. 22, which became Drake Powell, and Terance Mann. Did the Nets want to develop five firsts AND a second? Nope.

So they shopped their wayward second, sending it to the Phoenix Suns and winding up with a 2026 second from the Los Angeles Clippers and a 2030 second from the Celtics in return. Move No. 4. That 2026 Clipper pick became Bilodeau. (What happened to the Nets 2025 pick? The Suns traded it to the Lakers and it became Adou Thiero.)

Other than a nerdy trip through eight years of draft boards, what is the value of this exercise? For one thing, it shows that second round picks have worth and the Nets lead the league in seconds with 19. Also, it shows that Bilodeau should be counted as part of the Nets haul for Bridges, not that it means much after that parade.

So let’s hope that Rucker was right in calling Bilodeau a steal. It’s taken enough time for him to get here.

Final Note

Another sign that the off-season is ending is what you just read. As we noted, not much out there. We are still waiting for the final Exhibit 10’s to get done. We’d expect that’ll happen this week.

But rather than dwelling on that, we’d like to point to something that Joe Tsai told David Rubenstein for his book on billionaires buying sports teams. Not what he said about his concerns over the 2018 Jeremy Lin trade nor how he set up a Twitter account to have direct access to fans now how Supreme Court Justice Brett Cavanaugh had a “decent game” when the two played pick-up with Yale Law students. Nope. it was what he said about his priority in running the Nets.

“We need to win a championship,” Tsai told Rubenstein. “We need to prove ourselves.”

You’re on the clock, Joe.

The Lakers season is around the corner and Luka Dončić is returning to Los Angeles. 

Dončić, who led the league in scoring last season (33.5 points) and was third in assists (8.3) is expected to leave Europe for Los Angeles on Sunday ahead of Media Day on September 28, according to Sportklub. 

On Sunday, the Lakers superstar took to Instagram with a heartbreaking post. He posted images of his two daughters (Gabriela, who was born November 2023, and Olivia, who was born last December) in Slovenia spending time with him, while recognizing he had to leave them at home for the time being while he returns to America.

Dončić finished fourth in MVP voting last season and helped the Lakers finish fourth in the Western Conference with a record of 53-29. He had a stunning March in which he averaged 37.5 points, 8 rebounds and 7.4 assists, carrying the Lakers to a 15-2 record over that period, before he suffered a strained hamstring on April 2 that sidelined him for the entire postseason.

Dončić, who said doctors told him he’d have to miss eight weeks with the injury, is expected to be healthy when training camp opens September 29. 

Dončić had input on the Lakers’ roster moves this offseason, including re-signing Austin Reaves (four years, $180 million) and adding center Walker Kessler (four years, $130 million). 

The Lakers completely overhauled their roster, including adding Collin Sexton, Quentin Grimes, Sandro Mamukelashvili, Kevon Looney, Matisse Thybulle, Ziaire Williams and Cameron Carr. 

For the first time in his career, Dončić hosted a minicamp in Slovenia last month to help build team chemistry. He paid for the team to come out to his home country for four days, where the Lakers played basketball, golf and did sightseeing activities. 

Since the Mavericks stunningly traded Dončić  to the Lakers in February 2025, they were eliminated by the Timberwolves in the first round of the 2025 playoffs, followed by being swept by the Thunder last season. 

Dončić, who has never won a championship over his eight-season career, will try to lead the Lakers to their first title since 2020.

Los Angeles Lakers superstar guard Luka Dončić is heading back to America after spending much of the offseason in his home country of Slovenia.

This means that Dončić has to leave his two daughters (Gabriela, who was born November 2023, and Olivia, who was born last December) in Slovenia, with his ex-fiancée, Anamarie Goltes.

View this post on Instagram

Dončić is clearly upset about parting ways with his two daughters, which he revealed with a heartbreaking Instagram post on Sunday.

The post showed several photos of the Lakers star interacting with his two daughters. It was captioned (in translated English), “G+O, no matter where in the world your daddy is. No day passes when you wouldn’t be in my heart. Wherever I go, you are always with me. I love you! ”.

Dončić has had a tumultuous past year or so regarding his family. Goltes was seeking child support from the Lakers superstar for the couple’s two kids earlier this year, after news broke that the two had broken up.

Goltes submitted a request to dismiss her petition for child support back in August. But she still lives in Slovenia and shares custody, which is clearly hitting Dončić hard.

Perhaps the Lakers star can use this as motivation once Los Angeles’ regular season begins.

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Every day, we’ll take a closer look at another member of the 2026-27 Phoenix Suns, examining what they bring to the roster and what their role could mean for the season ahead as we count down to training camp and the preseason.

Jordan Goodwin

Guard/Forward, 6’3”, 215 pounds, 28, 6th season

The 2025-2026 Phoenix Suns season was defined by surprises. Few expected them to make the playoffs, not many saw Dillon Brooks averaging a career high in points per game, and after getting an invite to training camp, few were prognosticating Jordan Goodwin would become a reliable rotation for Jordan Ott and his staff. His second stint on the Suns, the three-year $19 million deal he inked this summer puts him in Phoenix for the foreseeable future.

Averaging career-highs in nearly every statistical category, the coaching staff trusted Goodwin to start in Game 1 of the playoffs and when the team clinched their playoff birth against the Golden State Warriors, he had 17 points, four threes and nine boards.

Building on the best season of his career and locked into a longterm deal, he’s set help anchor the team’s defensive rotations, recreate the gritty identity many teams viewed the Suns as from a season ago and play wherever he’s needed on a given night.

Last Season

It was not a guarantee Goodwin would make the team’s roster last season. Signed in late August, he beat out Jared Butler for one of the team’s final roster spots.

Mostly playing a reserve role for the Suns last season, Goodwin was a key part of the team’s rotation. With his improved shooting and ability to guard multiple positions despite being undersized, the coaching staff trusted him late in games to make big plays, which was best on display in the team’s miraculous comeback against the Minnesota Timberwolves when the team rallied from eight down in the final 50 seconds to win.

While he missed a brief stretch in late February and early March after suffering a calf strain in the team’s double overtime thriller against the Orlando Magic, Goodwin remained mostly healthy throughout the regular season, playing in 70 games. At the end of the season, he started a few games after Collin Gillespie started to struggle and the team was struggling. He started in both play-in games and in Game 1 of the playoffs against the Oklahoma City Thunder but was sidelined the rest of the series after going down early in the contest with calf soreness.

His best game of the year? His career-high 26-point contest against the Thunder back in January when the Suns rallied from down double digits to defeat the defending champs.

Contract and Roster Context

Goodwin inked a three-year $19 million deal with a player option for the final season to return to Phoenix in June. The contract increases in value by year and starts at 3.55% of the cap up to 3.72%, an important metric to be paying attention to in the second apron era of the NBA salary cap. The deal is the largest and longest of the veteran’s six-year career.

He can’t be traded until January 15th, 2027.

What He Brings

Toughness.

Jordan Goodwin is the Suns version of the Thunder’s Alex Caruso or the New York Knicks’ Josh Hart. No task is too small for him, and he’s comfortable playing any position from shooting guard to power forward. He helps keep Devin Booker and Jalen Green fresh on offense by taking on the other team’s best perimeter scorers and is able to battle inside to secure offensive rebounds at an elite rate for players his size. He ranked 42nd in the entire NBA in total offensive boards. Amen Thompson and Dyson Daniels were the only guards ahead of him.

Another reason Goodwin has become so valuable to the team? He’s finally hitting threes consistently. Knocking down more than 37% of his triples on nearly 4.5 attempts per game. When he shot 5.6 triples per game in February, the most attempts per game he shot in any month of the season, he hit the deep ball at a 40% clip. His ability to space the floor is what makes him more valuable to the team than he was in his first stint on the Suns when he hit just 29% of his threes.

What Needs to Improve

It would be in the Suns’ best interest if Goodwin could become a consistent ball handler and playmaker. With Grayson Allen now in Charlotte, the team lacks any strong ball handlers off the bench outside of Collin Gillespie. After bringing in sharpshooter Luke Kennard this offseason, the main objective of the team’s second unit should be to get as many threes up as possible.

Goodwin started his career playing point guard, and he’s listed as one on Basketball-Reference, but in most lineups he played in last season, he was not the team’s primary ball handler. When he was with the Washington Wizards and in his first stint with the Suns, he had point guard responsibilities, but his second stint in Phoenix has had him playing mostly the two-four spots. It’s definitely something he is capable of.

Prediction

I expect a similar year from Goodwin a season ago, but with increased volume. Last year, he averaged 22:27 minutes per game; I expect that number to jump up to closer to 25-27 minutes per game. The team knows what they have in him, and their trust in him clearly increased as the season went on.

Look for a small statistical increase and a larger impact on both ends.

Stat Prediction: 74 Games, 9.4 PPG, 5.2 RPG, 1.3 APG, 43/39/71 shooting

Final Word

Jordan Goodwin is an important part of the brand of basketball that the Phoenix Suns are trying to build. He’s someone a lot of the league had doubted (even the Suns did) and proved people wrong. Now there’s no proving people wrong; he’s gotten paid. The team clearly believes in him. With higher expectations and a contract after a career year, it’s time for his impact to increase.

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Been moving back to Mexico since I departed from Spain on Wednesday morning. Yeah, that’s more than half a week, but that’s also what happens when you arrive and your place isn’t ready to live in, you have to split time between there and a shared AirBnB place, you have to spend a night in each of the four rooms it has, and finally, on Sunday morning, you move into your original place, only to find out the refrigerator has some issues and you can’t put food in it. Let’s go!

• Josh Hart says the Knicks have officially moved on from celebrating last season’s championship and are fully focused on defending it.

“This year was amazing. But I think all of us, the thing that makes us special is right now we’re looking forward. I think all of us are kind of tired of hearing the congratulations, and we’re ready to get to work. We’re ready to put the work in, grow, build and see where we are at the end of the year.”

• Jalen Brunson had a hilarious reaction after seeing Josh Hart receive his own Yankees bobblehead. “Oh f–k no,” Brunson joked.
• The Knicks have officially turned their final roster spot into a training camp competition. After signing John Konchar and Drew Eubanks, New York also added Bruce Brown, Ochai Agbaji and James Wiseman on non-guaranteed Exhibit 9 contracts.
• The Knicks have paused single-game ticket sales after discovering an internal pricing mistake that led to unexpectedly expensive face-value tickets, including more than $1,000 for Opening Night.
• Former Knicks lottery pick Mike Sweetney has died at age 43. Sweetney was selected ninth overall in the 2003 NBA Draft out of Georgetown and appeared in 119 games for the Knicks.
• Mitchell Robinson revealed he missed his introductory press conference with the Celtics because his younger brother had been hit by a car earlier that morning. Robinson later asked fans to pray for his brother, saying, “Yesterday, around 6 a.m., he was hit by a car.”
• The Athletic included Jalen Brunson among the active players it considers absolute locks to have their jersey retired.

“The Knicks won a championship, and Brunson was their best player. Case closed.”

• SB Nation projects the Celtics to finish first in the Eastern Conference regular season but still considers the Knicks the team to beat when the playoffs begin.
• Jayson Tatum addressed the offseason trade that sent longtime teammate Jaylen Brown to Philadelphia, saying there is no bad blood between them.

The season starts in a month! And with that in mind, we’re slowly going to turn our NBA brains back on and write more things. To get us started, I asked the staff what one thing they’re looking forward to about the season. And it doesn’t have to be centered on the Mavericks.

David: I am ecstatic to see what Cooper Flagg does this season. We all remember the jump Luka Doncic took in year two, and I think we expect a similar leap from Flagg. He may not get to the 28+ points night Doncic did, but his impact in other areas could make it feel like we are watching the same level of player. I want him playmaking, leaning in to his downhill physicality, defending the other team’s best player, and taking every shot the defense gives him without hesitation. There are a lot of questions around Dallas’ roster, but the only thing I care about is Flagg.

Tyler: After the somewhat outside-the-box hire of Dusty May, I’m really looking forward to seeing how different this team operates this season. I think my expectations are for a much more aesthetically pleasing brand of basketball. Whether or not that actually translates to wins, I have no earthly idea. But I will be awfully disappointed if they are a slog to watch like last season.

Michael: This season might be the first since the early 2000’s where I’m looking forward to being surprised by the team and the prospect of what it may become. Even in the Luka Doncic era, it felt a little different – perhaps because he crossed over with Dirk Nowitzki for a moment. Here we have an entirely new coaching staff, a front office of basketball professionals (per se) for the first time in two-and-a-half decades, and a core of young players waiting to show what they will become.

So for me, I’m looking forward to a truly new era in Mavs’ basketball taking shape right in front of us, and I’m excited to see what these players will bring and how they will develop beyond just this season.

Brent: The Mavs have made it clear by hiring Gina Miller that they care about communication and tacitly appear to acknowledge the massive failings of the previous era on that front. When you are needlessly adversarial with the media, as Harrison and Kidd often were, you come across as brutish or petulant or above being questioned.

And yet it is the media’s job to question you constantly it’s going to happen before and after every game. The Uriji/Schmitz/May media interaction-while admittedly still in its honeymoon phase-doesn’t have even a width of that old stink.

And setting aside writing about the Mavericks for just a moment, my appetite as a fan to consume those interviews goes way up when the tone is not downright

Joe: What I’m looking forward to Mavs-wise is if this team and franchise truly pick a direction and to see how they manage that with limited assets? Will they commit to the Cooper Flagg era and try and reload their utility belt of assets to start building around coop or are they trying to maximize this roster because of their lack of assets and limitations in roster building?

Non-Mavs-wise, I am looking forward to the season-long crap shoot that will be the 76ers. I already have tickets to the Presidents’ Day game here in Dallas. I’m so curious to see what this looks like. It’s like you’re taking the KD Nets and multiplying it by 10. The true super team with a floor lower than maybe any super team ever.

Sudarshan: I’m looking forward to a relatively drama-less season. Our past few offseasons have been so chaotic because we were run by toddlers high on a sugar rush. It’ll be nice to have a simple, yet unsuccessful season with adults at the helm now.

The 26-27 season is about clearing all major deadwood and setting the platform once more that we can build around Flagg, Morez, Larry, and even possibly Lively.

In broad league terms, I’m looking forward to seeing how the revised lottery rules change the way teams approach tanking, the play-in and contention. If it blows up in Adam Silver’s face, then all the better.

Matt M.: What fresh Hell awaits this team? As long as I get to watch Cooper Flagg take what I think will be a massive leap in Year 2, I can compartmentalize mostly anything, I think.

I don’t know if I’m as high on Morez Johnson and Sergio de Larrea as some on staff are, but I’m confident that Flagg and whatever incremental improvement in the roster has taken place will net Mavericks fans a watchable product, maybe even at times a team you could call “plucky” or heaven forbid “fun.” Remember fun?

For some reason I want to think Marcus Sasser could be something. If nothing else, he’ll definitely get a chance in Dallas to prove it.

League-wide I’m anxious to see if the basement dwellers are forced to become somewhat watchable as well. I’m eager to see if the changes to the lottery system will make more games watchable.

Bryan: I am pumped for Kyrie/Flagg hoops! With the moves made between the season’s end and the initial free agency surge, it’s clear that the Mavericks are banking on heavy (if staggered) doses of Kyrie and Cooper handling primary on-ball duties for the team.

There is still a trade or two just beyond the horizon with Gafford almost assuredly living out of a suitcase for the next 5 months in anticipation of his next NBA destination, but the team as constructed is weird. Fun weird. Oh, how I’ve missed fun weird. I openly embrace fun weird and welcome all its head-scratching quirks and eccentricities as opposed to the mud-tracking, joy-extinguishing swamp that was the last season and a half of Mavericks basketball.

Give me tall ball with shooting. Give me Kyrie/Sasser/Larry three-guard lineups. Give me Morez on the wing for a couple of plays.

Let’s get weird. 

Philadelphia may have just had the most star-studded offseason since Miami welcomed their big three 16 years ago. The common thread there is LeBron James, who is somehow still doing it nearly two decades after making his first decision. The 76ers, who have an extremely talented young backcourt, added two NBA Finals MVPs to their former regular-season MVP to create the most formidable lineup they have had in this decade. 

When you make moves like those, it is championship or bust. There is no margin for error, and there are no excuses to be made. With as much star power in the starting lineup as the 76ers have, there is pressure to win every night. Even before they signed LeBron James, it would have already been an immensely important year in Philly. But the self-proclaimed best player of all time comes with a set of expectations that no other player in history has. This is the most consequential year in franchise history.

Philadelphia 76ers: Over/Under 50.5 wins (-110/-120)

Last Season: 45-37, lost E. Conf Semis

Key Additions: LeBron James, Jaylen Brown, Anfernee Simons, Labaron Philon, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope

Key Losses: Paul George, Quentin Grimes, Andre Drummond

The 76ers have not made the conference finals since 2001. It is safe to say that if that trend continues this season, it will be a massive failure. They have to win, and win a lot. The books certainly think they will, as they are tied with Boston for the second-highest win total in the Eastern Conference (behind New York, 51.5). My first instinct is that this team will suffer from Joel Embiid and LeBron James’ health and the overwhelming nature with which the crowd agreed that they won the Brown trade. But even if Embiid and James play 50 or so games, Brown just won 56 last year with a lesser roster on his old team. I want to fade the public and take the under on this team’s win total badly, but the talent of Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecomb mixed with the experience of their frontcourt, coach, and bench makes it impossible to say they will win fewer than 51 games. 

Prediction: Over 50.5 wins (-110)

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Welcome to Inside the Suns, a deep-down analysis of the current Phoenix Suns team, in which the Fantable — a roundtable of Bright Siders — give their takes on the Suns’ latest issues and news.

Fantable Questions of the Week

Q1: With Williams out injured, who do you give the Suns’ starting center job to?

zenzino: From many comments I’ve seen here, I think that Maluach is a little overestimated and Oso is a little underestimated. Currently, Oso is a better player. Period. Man Man might get the edge on rim protection, but Oso is overall a much better defender with better passing and basketball IQ. Currently.

That being said, I would love it if the coaching staff deemed Man Man ready to start at the beginning of the season. He absolutely has a higher ceiling at the 5 than Oso. I will trust Ott to figure that out and won’t be unhappy if the season begins with Oso as the starter. I’ll just assume Man Man needs a little more time.

I prefer Oso off the bench, and not because I don’t think he’s good enough to start. I like Oso off the bench because I think Oso and CG are really, really good together, and them being part of the 2nd unit makes sense. Stephen at PHNX Suns did a great game tape breakdown video about the tandem, and it is definitely worth watching.

Ashton: I have maintained my stance multiple times that Oso was the firm backup center. Now, he is the Suns’ starting center. Yes, I know, many posters here want their shiny new toy in Khaman Muluch to start. But I am not one of those who believe in KM being the “Second Coming of Center Position” for the Suns. He just plain has to prove it first.

In order of depth chart:

• Oso Igadaro
• KM – The center, the savior
• Small Ball Forwards – of which there are many to utilize in a small ball C offensive scheme. This is where Sheer steps in.
• Koa Peat – Okay, I threw that last one in just to mess with you all. But no issues here if he gathers rebounds, draws fouls, and kicks to the outside shooter. But Koa is not a small-ball center. I just like to give him a shoutout when I can.

OldAz: This is an interesting question, as I could make the case for either one. Maluach provides more size and a more traditional center on defense, as well as more shooting on offense. But who is passing him the ball? On the other hand, his ability to step outside on offense provides more room for Green to get to the rim or Book to work to the mid-range. Oso also worked well last season with Gillespie in the second unit.

Despite all this and my repeated disparaging comments about Oso in the past, I think Oso may be the better fit in the starting lineup. He may be smaller and not provide much offense, but he serves as a connector/passer (point center) that could make for a more effective starting 5 overall. KM would also get to develop with more minutes against the other teams’ backups and would benefit from playing more with Gillespie.

My hope is that Ott uses the preseason and training camp to experiment and see which of these options actually works better, but I suspect he trusts Oso more and that he gives him every opportunity to win the job.

Rod: Going into the preseason games, I’d give the starting job to Oso, but give Khaman roughly equal minutes. If Khaman plays well, I’d flip the script after a few games and give him the starting job. If I were Ott, I’d make it perfectly clear to both of them that the starting spot for the regular season is up for grabs and whoever performs the best during the preseason games wins the job.

My main worry is Khaman possibly getting into early foul trouble. Finding the correct balance of aggressiveness and caution on defense can be difficult for younger players, so this is something I’m going to be watching for during the preseason games. If he shows any tendency to get into foul trouble in the preseason, you know that the foul baiters will be hunting him on a regular basis once the regular season games begin.

Q: What do you think of the Duop Reath signing?

zenzino: The fact that this is a ‘training camp competition’ contract makes all the difference and makes it a ‘why not?’ move. We can speculate whether this is a Mark Williams move, a question about Highsmith’s health, or a little of both. I guess we’ll find out in training camp, which is almost here.

Regarding Duop Reath. He’s been around, playing all over the world, and even won a Bronze medal with the Australian team before landing in Portland.

The good: He plays much bigger than he is, which is good because 6’9” is definitely undersized for a center in today’s NBA. He can get hot from outside and could be a floor-spreading big. He has a very workmanlike mentality, which works well with the Suns’ culture they’re working to solidify.

The not so good: He’s not known for his defense, especially in space and team schemes. He’s not a strong rebounder, which is something the Suns definitely need from their bigs. He was quickly pushed to the end of the bench when the Blazers added Clingan and Hansen.

This is a small-margin move to compete for a spot. It all comes down to where the Suns think they need depth. Most assume Jamaree Bouyea will be the odd man out because of how many guards are on the roster. But every one of those guards was needed last season, and that is, in fact, how Bouyea won our hearts.

While not ideal for Reath, he could also be offered a two-way. This late in free agency, it doesn’t look like teams are beating down his door. I just wonder how much runway Kobe Brea and CJ Huntley are going to be given.

I guess we’ll find out soon enough. Can you believe preseason is just over two weeks away?

Ashton: Every time I hear his name, I hear songs from big bands in the 1920’s. Duop Duop…Duop! Do not think this was lie. When I was 16, I was saddled with a crap Sunday radio shift that included a four-hour vinyl rendition of the big band hour. All I had to do was flip the record. I was asleep more often than not.

I am actually impressed that the Sun’s front office moved this quickly to address a need at the backup center position. Keep in mind that all NBA teams were scrambling to fill backup center positions in a trade market with more demand than available talent. Heck, look at the Lakers’ overpay for Walker Kessler as a starting center because “Thiccic” demanded it.

When Reath played Summer League with the Suns in 2022, there was quite a bit of commentary on the board to sign him to a two-way. Then he had a mini-encore breakout with Portland in 2023, who actually did sign the journeyman (and at 30 years old, his airline miles stacked up, making him a true Journey Man). But the next year, he suffered the dreaded injury that no one wants to hear from the center position. A foot fracture. Will Reath be healthy for 2026-27? The jury is out with me. Also, can he knock off the rust from not playing NBA basketball while he was recovering from surgery?

Duop Reath was buried among a strong frontcourt at Portland. Add in that Rose City’s new owner, “El Cheapo,” sucks and can write a book about how to create a toxic environment while increasing franchise evaluation, and this could be the perfect change-of-scenery scenario for Duop. Okay, he was traded to Atlanta but never played a game and was waived quickly.

So, while I appreciate the depth addition, it really does not move the needle for me on the signing.

OldAz: I always loved him with Portland and what he brought to the game, and despite his age, I love the signing. I knew they needed a third center with Williams going down, but my only hope is that he is truly used as a third center for garbage time and to make sure Maluach and Oso do not get overworked. Maluach needs minutes and every opportunity to fail, learn, and grow. Having an effective third stringer has the potential to eat into Maluach’s minutes when he struggles, and what might be better is to let him struggle and work his way through it. While I love the signing, I really hope Ott navigates this well, with the primary focus being the long-term development of Maluach.

Rod: Reath is an interesting choice and not a move that I saw coming. I really wasn’t expecting the front office to do anything this quickly, but it wasn’t the first time Brian Gregory’s surprised me.

If Reath actually makes the team, I don’t really see him getting many rotation minutes unless there’s an injury or Oso or Khaman gets into foul trouble, so I’m not expecting a lot from him. He does have a respectable three-point shot, though, which means that opponents can’t ignore him.

I’ve heard some fans propose using Fleming as the emergency/third-string center. While that would probably work, I’d rather have him concentrate on learning to play as a power forward in his second year instead of splitting his time between two different positions.

Overall, I like this addition, especially on a non-guaranteed contract. Can’t wait to see how it all works out in the preseason games.

Q3: How badly do you think the Williams injury will hurt the Suns overall?

zenzino: It doesn’t help. Mark’s absence for the last couple of months last season was a significant reason for the Suns’ unremarkable ending.

We haven’t seen him in a minute, so it’s easy to forget how much he added to the team. He ran the floor really well and he got a lot of offensive rebounds and put-backs in a way that Man Man and Oso don’t. Even though Man Man gives us a 7-footer for rim protection, MW is a better overall defender and was much better at moving his feet. Even with a breakout Summer League, Man Man often found himself lost and out of place on defense.

That’s where more experience comes in. The upside is that, whether he starts or backs up Oso, there will definitely be a lot more playing time for Man Man.

I said it last Fantable, and there were objections: get ready for small ball. Especially being down to a two-center rotation, the Suns will be playing lineups with Bridges and even Sheer at the 5, and load up on guards.

Ashton: Did you take the over on the Suns’ season projections on early odds with betting sites? You are going to sweat that bet a little bit more. I just double-checked, and the Suns actually went up a game to 40.5 in total overall wins (DraftKings). I think the loss of Mark Williams is going to be bigger than expected, but apparently, the gambling sites do not think so. I recently predicted on the Fantable that 40 wins sounded about right in the topsy-turvey West, so start considering the under.

I think the impact of losing Mark Williams will be bigger than expected, leaving two centers that could use more time off the bench, who are now thrust into starting roles. Teams will exploit this, and I think Sun fans are going to be seeing more small-ball than they ever have seen before. That is not good.

Look, Williams was hardly the savior in the post, but he was consistent and was certainly missed in the 2025 playoffs. His absence does not make the regular season win total dire, but it will lead to Coach Ott having to come up with some creative line-up solutions. Basically, I expect a different style of play from the “center butterfly effect”.

OldAz: I don’t think it makes a huge impact on their ceiling or their floor. Maybe a couple of games when it is all said and done, and that could be a lot in the tight Western conference, but I don’t think it drops them out of the playoffs entirely. I really like Williams when he is healthy because of his hustle and defensive presence. When paired with another decent forward last season (like when Brooks was healthy), he did well in anchoring the defense. I was hoping for more improvement there with the increased size across the front line.

Now the Suns will be reliant on KM to fill those shoes. Long term, that may be a blessing, but it could be a bumpy ride as he develops. However, with Oso, KM, and now Reath on board, the drop-off in center play is certainly not enough to make that big a difference in their record by the time he comes back and gets back into playing shape.

Rod: I honestly think that depends on how quickly Khaman Maluach adapts to playing meaningful minutes with the big boys. Whether he starts or comes off the bench, his play will determine how much the absence of Williams will hurt the team. We already know about Oso, and I expect him to be a solid contributor, but Maluach is the wild card in the center rotation. If he adapts quickly, they may not miss Williams at all. If not, the Suns could get off to a slow start.

And now the Suns have added another wild card into the mix by signing Reath to a make-good, training camp contract. He may not even make it past preseason, but he could be a solid contributor in certain situations because he adds a credible three-point threat to the center rotation.

Williams will be missed, but I don’t think his absence will have a huge impact on team success unless Khaman can’t handle playing a bigger role.

As always, many thanks to our Fantable members for all their extra effort this week!

Suns Trivia/History

On September 20, 2000, the Suns were involved in the third-largest trade in NBA history, a twelve-player, 4-team deal between the New York Knicks, Seattle SuperSonics, L.A. Lakers, and Phoenix Suns.

In the trade, New York got Glen Rice, Travis Knight, and a first-round pick from LA; Vladimir Stepania, Lazaro Borrell, Vernon Maxwell, a first-round pick, and two second-round picks from Seattle; and Luc Longley from Phoenix. Seattle got Patrick Ewing from New York. LA got Horace Grant, Chuck Person, Greg Foster, and Emanuel Davis from Seattle. Phoenix got Chris Dudley and a first-round pick from New York.

There were a lot of moving parts in that trade, but essentially the Suns got Chris Dudley and a 1st round draft pick for… Luc Longley. Longley’s career stats for his 2 years as a Sun were 7.1 points, 4.9 rebounds, 1.1 assists, and 0.6 blocks per game.

On September 22, 2017, the Suns signed former number 1 draft pick (2013) Anthony Bennett to a 1-year non-guaranteed contract. Bennett, one of the biggest number 1 pick busts in NBA history, lasted only 19 days with the Suns before being waived on Oct. 11.

On this day, they also traded a 2018 second-round draft pick to the Memphis Grizzlies for Troy Daniels and a 2018 second-round draft pick (which did not convey). Daniels played 2 seasons for the Suns, averaging 39.4% from three, playing mostly off the bench. Troy’s best game for the Suns was on December 13, 2017, when he led the team in scoring, putting up 32 points (off the bench) in a losing effort (115-109) against the Toronto Raptors.

On September 23, 1994, after signing Danny Manning and Wayman Tisdale, the Phoenix Suns traded SF Cedric Ceballos to the LA Lakers for a 1995 first-round draft pick (Michael Finley). Ceballos led the NBA in FG% at 57.6% in 1992-93 and had career highs in scoring and rebounding with 19.1 ppg and 6.5 rpg in 1993-94.

Important Future Dates

Sept. 28 – Media Day
Sept. 29 – Training Camp opens
Oct. 5 – Suns @ Pistons (preseason) 4:00 PM
Oct. 7 – Suns @ Bulls (preseason) 5:00 PM
Oct. 10 – Suns vs. Spurs (preseason) 7:00 PM (ESPN2)
Oct. 14 – Suns @ Spurs (preseason) 5:00 PM
Oct. 16 – Suns vs. Jazz (preseason) 7:00 PM
Oct. 20 – 2026-27 NBA Season Begins
Dec. 15 – Most players signed to new contracts can be traded
Jan. 5 – 10-day contracts may now be signed
Jan. 10 – All NBA contracts are guaranteed for the remainder of the season
Jan. 15 – All players signed to new contracts can be traded
Feb. 11 – Trade Deadline
Feb. 19-21 – NBA All-Star 2027

I recently started reading Bill Simmons’ The Book of Basketball, 17 years after it was published and several days after my partner asked why a book about basketball needed to be roughly the length of the Old Testament.

Growing up in Maine and loving all four major Boston sports teams (apologies, New England Revolution fans), I of course grew up reading Simmons. There’s something particularly fun about reading him now, when his NBA arguments from 2009 have had nearly two decades to either age gracefully or get run over by history.

It’s a beast of a book, but most of it is basically Simmons trying to sort NBA history into something that makes sense: who mattered, what championships meant, how careers should be remembered and where everyone belongs.

Naturally, that got me doing the same thing with the Celtics, which led me to Joe Mazzulla.

I have absolutely no idea what bucket to put Joe Mazzulla in.

Four seasons into his head coaching career, Mazzulla has already been an emergency replacement, a guy Celtics fans weren’t sure could coach, the coach of one of the most dominant teams in league history and, most recently, the coach of a team that blew a 3-1 lead for the first time in franchise history.

This would probably be easier to sort through if Mazzulla himself were slightly easier to decipher.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, this is Joe Mazzulla we’re talking about.

A brief history of trying to figure out Joe

The strange part about evaluating Mazzulla is that we’ve done this dance before. Or at least, I have.

I wrote about him in April⁠, mostly because the circumstances that made him Boston’s head coach already felt like ancient history. To recap that piece, Mazzulla was 34 when the Ime Udoka situation exploded days before training camp in 2022, inheriting a Finals team and approximately zero grace period to figure out what he was doing.

Boston kept winning, but the question lingered: how much of that success actually belonged to Joe?

Then came the 2023 playoffs.

One talking point you likely remember from that run: the timeouts. Or, more accurately, the non-timeouts. Mazzulla had developed a habit of letting his players work through opposing runs rather than immediately stopping play, which is a perfectly reasonable coaching philosophy until you’re watching a 12-2 run become a 19-4 run and oh god we’re down by 15 now and he still hasn’t called a timeout.

There were questions about adjustments, late-game offense and the strange position Mazzulla found himself in: learning how to coach a championship contender while being judged like someone who should already know exactly how to do it. The Celtics fell behind Miami 3-0, nearly pulled off the first 3-0 comeback in NBA history and then got blown out at home in Game 7.

By the end of the series, the criticism had gone well beyond timeout discourse. The Boston Globe ran a column titled “The Celtics need to move on from Joe Mazzulla,” arguing that Boston’s decision to hand him the job had backfired.

Maybe Boston had asked too much, too soon of a 34-year-old coach learning one of the hardest jobs in basketball on the fly.

Except next year, the Celtics went 64-18 and won the NBA championship.

Suddenly, the guy who seems like he might sit next to you on a flight, ask how deeply you sleep and then offer to “take first watch” had proven he wasn’t merely babysitting an immensely talented roster.

Mazzulla’s whole “give the game what it needs” philosophy stopped sounding like something you’d find printed above the dumbbells at a CrossFit gym (mental note: contact local CrossFit gym about “Give the gains what they need” licensing opportunity) and started looking like a pretty amazing way to play basketball.

By the time I wrote about Mazzulla earlier this year, that was essentially my conclusion: Boston hadn’t planned for him, but he’d come to define the team anyway.

Five months later, I’m considerably less sure I know what the definition is.

Boston has now followed its championship with a second-round exit versus the Knicks (*slams head against keyboard*) and a first-round exit versus the Sixers (*slams head against remnants of said keyboard but a little harder*).

Both losses require context. Tatum tore his Achilles against New York, albeit with the series already tilting toward the Knicks. Against Philly, Embiid unlocked every available power while Paul George found whatever remained of the fountain of youth Brad Stevens buried beneath TD Garden after Al Horford took his final sip.

None of that erases the championship, just like the championship doesn’t erase what came after it. Mazzulla’s results have been extreme enough that you can make him look like almost anything depending on where you decide to start the story.

Start in 2022 and he’s one of the great emergency hires in recent sports history.

Start with the 2023 playoffs and you see a young coach struggling to keep up with Erik Spoelstra as Miami kept pulling the right strings.

Start on June 17, 2024 and he’s a championship coach who oversaw one of the best teams in Celtics history.

Start with the last two postseasons and suddenly we’re talking about two agonizing exits that felt an awful lot like coming up short of expectations.

At some point, evaluating NBA coaches starts to resemble evaluating peekaboo with a toddler. Joe’s gone. Joe’s back! Joe’s gone again. Nope, there he is!

So, is Joe Mazzulla actually a good coach?

Yes.

Probably.

Well, I think so.

The championship counts. So does the team’s identity, the way he handled being thrown into the job and the way his players talk about him. Neemias Queta said this summer that Mazzulla “makes that extra step, extra effort, just to make sure you feel comfortable,” adding: “He worries about people, and that’s why I’m running through a wall for him.”

The playoff failures count, too. The problem is deciding how much weight to give any of it when every piece of evidence feels so extreme.

NBA coaches occupy a strange place in the way we talk about basketball because so much of their work is invisible. A player’s points are in the box score. Shooting efficiency can be measured down to the decimal. There is no box score for “Joe noticed something on film at 1:17 a.m. immediately after Googling whether sharks know when they’re being followed.”

So we fall back on results. Win, and the coach pushed the right buttons. Lose, and why the hell didn’t he push the other ones?

That shortcut is especially dangerous with Mazzulla. He inherited a Finals team, coached the Porzingis-Holiday version into a basketball death machine, lost Tatum to an Achilles tear and now has Brown in Philadelphia and half a new rotation.

He’s also an exceptionally unhelpful narrator of his own career.

Ask Mazzulla about recognition and there’s a decent chance the conversation ends with the inevitability of death. 

Maybe Mike Conley can help. Asked this week for his early impressions of Mazzulla, the 19-year NBA veteran started with, “I thought he was crazy before,” before laughing and clarifying that Joe is, in fact, not crazy. More importantly, Conley said working with him has made him feel like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. “There’s so much for me to learn about the game,” he said. “The way he sees the game is a different lens.”

So we know quite a bit about Mazzulla. We still don’t know exactly what kind of coach he’ll become.

Which is why the next chapter might finally make the previous ones easier to read.

Give this team what it needs

For most of Mazzulla’s tenure, there has been one enormous complication in evaluating him: the Celtics have been incredibly talented.

Coaching great players is still coaching. As Isiah Thomas told Simmons in The Book of Basketball, the “secret” of basketball is that it isn’t really about basketball. Talent only gets you so far if five extremely rich adults would prefer not to spend another minute together.

The 2024 Celtics didn’t have that problem. They were almost absurdly well suited to Mazzulla’s vision: shooting everywhere, multiple ballhandlers, versatile defenders, Tatum and Brown in their primes, Holiday and White locking down the backcourt, Porzingis spacing the floor and Al Horford being Al Horford.

There weren’t many problems that roster couldn’t solve.

This year is different. Brown is in Philadelphia, George is 36, Tatum is returning from his Achilles tear and several younger Celtics will be asked to contribute considerably more.

Asked this week how he envisions the identity of this year’s team, Mazzulla talked about the difference between what a team looks like on the court and what it becomes over the course of a season.

“I think there’s an on-court identity and then an identity that the season creates based on the challenges that are presented to you,” he said.

A Mazzulla answer if I’ve ever heard one, but it’s also essentially the question we’re asking about him. “Give the game what it needs” is a lot easier when the game gives you Tatum, Brown, White, Holiday, Porzingis and Horford.

What happens when it gives you something else?

There’s a version of this season where Boston wins fewer games than it did last year and I come away more impressed with Mazzulla. If he can figure out what this group does well rather than trying to recreate what worked two years ago, that tells me more than another gaudy win total. On the flip side, another great regular season followed by the same playoff problems would make those last two exits a lot harder to explain away.

We already know Mazzulla can coach an excellent regular-season team. We know he can coach a championship team, too.

Asked this week what he took from blowing a 3-1 lead to Philadelphia, Mazzulla started with himself: “How do I have to get better?” But he resisted treating those three losses as a singular referendum, saying he’s still pulling lessons from wins and losses dating back to his first season.

Now he has to apply all of it to something new.

So what do we do with Joe?

My answer? Nothing. Yet.

Slightly unsatisfying answer, sure, but Mazzulla has spent four years making definitive conclusions look stupid approximately six months after we make them.

His first season ended one game from the Finals. His second ended with a championship. The two since have ended too early. Depending on when you checked in, he’s been treated like a novice, a lunatic or a genius, sometimes within the same playoff series.

Maybe this season finally makes the résumé easier to read.

Or maybe Joe wins 54 games, unveils a lineup featuring three centers and no point guard in March, starts making the team study competitive freediving to improve late-game composure, and explains the whole thing afterward by saying he saw a seagull outside the Auerbach Center that morning and “liked its mentality.”

Maybe the mistake was assuming Joe Mazzulla would ever fit into a tidy evaluation in the first place.

In the conversation about great NBA big men, Bill Walton sort of gets an asterisk. Everyone acknowledges his brilliance, but his fragile body, especially his feet, kept him from playing consistently.

Out of 1,148 possible games, Walton played in just 468, meaning that he missed 59.23 percent of those contests.

But when he was healthy, Walton was an astonishing basketball player.

He wasn’t an immense scorer. His best season scoring wise was 18.9 ppg. He was a very good rebounder, averaging 10.5 for his career. He was an excellent passer, too.

But mostly what made Walton great was his understanding that the team’s success was the most important thing, and he was passionate about winning. And it was never more evident than in his third season with the Portland Trail Blazers, when, in 1977, he won his first championship.

As you’ll see in this video, Walton was immensely dominant. He was quick and agile, and he blocked a lot of shots. In one play, you’ll see him do a spin move to bank in a shot well away from the basket.

The most dazzling aspect of his game, though, was his ability to rebound and fire off an outlet pass immediately. You’ll see a bunch of those here. Along with Bill Russell, Wes Unseld, and Kevin Love, Walton was one of the absolute masters of the outlet pass. He made them immediately, fearlessly, and with immense confidence.

And you should note this, too: aside from Maurice Lucas, the other starters were Dave Twardzik, Lionel Hollins, and Bob Gross. Most of you will never have heard of any of those guys.

With Walton as the driving force, that group coalesced into a superb unit. Philadelphia had tremendous talent, but Portland was far more cohesive.

That team was extraordinary and Walton was its driving force. Watch this and you’ll realize why people have to include him in conversations about the best centers of all time.

No other center has ever had a better combination of skills than Walton, and in the 1977 playoffs, we saw just how great he was.

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LeBron James’ wife, Savannah, isn’t done with California sports quite yet.

Despite LeBron no longer being a member of the Lakers, Savannah James officially became an investor with the LOVB volleyball league’s new Los Angeles team.

This isn’t the first time that the James family has been associated with LOVB. LeBron and Savannah’s daughter, Zhuri (who is an avid volleyball fan) kicked off the LOVB Championship in Long Beach in April by delivering a ceremonial first serve ahead.

There’s no doubt that Zhuri was a factor in Savannah’s investment decision. And the two seemed to celebrate this news by dancing on Saturday.

Savannah posted two videos of her and Zhuri dancing to her Instagram Story. They were wearing matching black outfits, and the first video’s caption read, “As long as she’s asking, I’ll be doing all the ticky toks ”.

Savannah James recently celebrated her 40th birthday with family and friends. While LeBron took his talents to Philadelphia to play with the 76ers, Savannah has plenty of reasons to stay rooted to California.

There’s this new volleyball team that she is now an investor for, Zhuri (who is 11 years old) seems likely to stay in California through high school and Bronny is still on the Lakers.

No one expects the Warriors to be NBA champions next season. 

So, will it be a wasted season?

Far from it. 

Not everything can be judged by whether the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy is hoisted in June. 

The Warriors are playing for so much more than a champagne bath. They’re playing for each other. 
Steve Kerr chose to return as coach because he wanted to finish what he started with Steph Curry and Draymond Green, who won four championships in eight years from 2015-2022, becoming the league’s modern-day dynasty. 

They’ve had each other’s backs for 12 years. They’ve been through wars. They’re brothers. 

Next season is about two players and a coach who have shown a loyalty to one another that’s uncharacteristic in a league where players jump ship at any signs of distress and coaches are cycled through faster than ephemeral social media trends. 

In a world of change, the Warriors stand out. 

And they’re still fun as heck. 

Curry is still the greatest shooter of all time. He became the oldest point guard last season to be named an All-Star starter.

Green remains a thrilling and fiery force on the defensive end, the embodiment of a player who transformed himself from being overlooked into a Hall of Famer through sheer heart and grit.

Kerr is still one of the sharpest minds in the sport, as well as a fearless leader on and off the court. 

Are they the edge-of-your-seat show they once were? No. But are they still fascinating? Yes. 

There are a lot of questions. 

Can they make a move before the trade deadline to become competitive? Can Curry remain the most jaw-dropping player in the league as he turns 39? Can Jimmy Butler return from injury and provide the kind of jolt he did back in February 2025, when the Warriors finished the season with a 23-8 record after trading for him?

The Warriors still have their spark, even though they haven’t gotten past the second round of the playoffs since winning their last championship in 2022. 

We were reminded of that last season. 

Facing elimination in a play-in game against the Clippers in April, Curry and Green tapped into their greatness, channelling what made them the best in the world at their jobs for nearly a decade. 

Curry had 35 points, scoring 27 of them in a dizzying second-half scoring spree. Green held Kawhi Leonard to two points in the fourth quarter. It was a vintage performance. It was magical. 

Those guys still have that inside of them. 

After that game, Kerr was beaming. His joy was palpable. His words were shiver-inducing. 

“For one night, we’re us,” Kerr said. “We’re champions again.”

The Warriors are searching for that feeling again.

It might not lead to a first-place finish, not in a league with teams with young legs and deep rosters chomping at the bit.

But they’ll still have those small moments. 

You know, the times when Curry goes unconscious from the court, leaving Green genuinely smiling and Kerr trying to find the right adjectives to describe the beauty he just witnessed in his postgame news conference.

Or when Green makes a defensive stop and roars, the type of scene that has happened so many times and led to him being called the unequivocal soul of the team. 

Or when Kerr knows exactly what Curry or Green needs to be told in a specific moment, showcasing his rare and piercing ability to connect with people that has turned him into one of the greatest coaches in NBA history. 

Kerr, Curry and Green are playing for something different now. Their success isn’t going to be measured by wins and losses. 

It will be measured by the magnitude of playing for something greater than themselves. By the camaraderie generated over 12 seasons of fighting alongside one another. By the genuine joy that comes from seeing each other shine. By unparalleled loyalty. By the dignity of standing together as their dynasty fades. 

The Warriors may not be one of the elite teams in the league. 

But they’re still one of the greatest shows out there. 

Even though now it’s for different reasons.