Category: Basketball

NBA Christmas Day games are right around the corner, which means the value in the futures market will start correcting itself more and more as we inch closer to the halfway mark of the 2025-26 season. The Oklahoma City Thunder have been the talk of the West with a 24-2 start reminiscent of the 2015-16 Warriors and 1995-96 Bulls, while the Detroit Pistons have surged to the top of the East with a surprising 21-5 record.

The Thunder lead the way in odds for NBA Champion and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the frontrunner to win MVP, but the West is loaded. Can Oklahoma City repeat as champions? Can SGA repeat and win back-to-back MVPs? Let's talk about it.

Be sure to check out DraftKings for all the latest game odds & team props for every matchup this week on the NBA schedule!

NBA Finals Winner: Thunder (+110) | Nuggets (+650) | Rockets (+1100) | Lakers (+1300) | Knicks (+1300) | Pistons (+2000) | Cavaliers (+2500) | Spurs (+2500)

The Thunder are off to a historic 24-2 start and most experts and the public, including myself believe this team is capable of breaking the Warriors win record, if not coming a few games short. The current state of the NBA is down right now with so many teams tanking short-term with load management and in tough travel spots or long-term with sitting players for stretches to enhance their chances in the draft lottery.

Incidentally enough, Oklahoma City was built on a little bit of that with draft capital acquired during back-to-back finishes of 22-50 and 24-58 in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons. In 2025-26, Denver is the biggest competition to Oklahoma City with the Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets following. I question whether Houston has the depth to beat Oklahoma City and if the Lakers have the defense. Denver's success will be dependent on the health of role players or how much Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray can handle.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say no team in the East can withstand a seven-game series with Oklahoma City. I know the Pacers pushed the Thunder to seven games last season and Indiana had a chance to win, but that was also the first NBA Finals experience for both teams. Now, the Thunder have that experience under their belt and know the feeling.

Jokic and the Nuggets won the Finals back in 2022-23 and LeBron James won with the Lakers during the 2019-20 season. Then there's Kevin Durant who went to the Finals with the Thunder and the Warriors, so I 100-percent understand how challenging the path in the Western Conference is. These teams will beat up on each other and whoever earns the No. 1 and 2 seeds shouldn't have issues with the 7 or 8's, unless it's the Spurs or Timberwolves.

The price of the Thunder has dropped slowly from +160 to +110 over the last two months, and in a lot of people's minds, the NBA season starts on Christmas. Odds will drop to -105 or longer sooner than later, so I am jumping on the ship. The Thunder are simply too deep, have the experience now, and the best scoring guard in a guard-driven league.

Pick: Thunder to win the NBA Finals (2 units)

NBA MVP Winner: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (+125) | Nikola Jokic (+170) | Luka Doncic (+320) | Cade Cunningham (+5500) | Victor Wembanyama (+8000)

I cover the NBA MVP race weekly here at NBC and for seven of the nine weeks, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has owned my top spot. Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic both had a spot for a short time and I believe it will be a three-man race for most, if not all of the season.

Victor Wembanyama can only miss five more games to be eligible for MVP or Defensive Player of the Year, so his price at +8000 to win MVP and +450 to win DPOY is really reliant on his health. Cade Cunningham and Detroit own the top spot in the East amid a career year, but he's not doing anything that Doncic or Gilgeous-Alexander are doing as a guard.

The biggest threat to Gilgeous-Alexander not repeating is Jokic. The Nuggets star is averaging a 29.8-point triple-double and leads the league in rebounds and assists. Without Aaron Gordon and Christian Braun, Jokic has been asked to do more and delivered. Denver has the third-best record in the league, and all that he does could be negated if the Thunder win 70-plus games. In both years, Michael Jordan won the MVP in 1995-96 for the 72-10 Bulls and Steph Curry won in 2015-16 for the 73-9 Warriors.

In three months of action, SGA has been top 10 in usage rate with percentages of 38.5, 31.4, and 31%. The knock on SGA has been the lack of fourth quarters played, but he’s only missed one game so far. He's shooting an incredible 56% from the floor, 43.7% from three, and 88.4% from the free-throw line to go along with 32.4 points and 6.4 assists per game in 33.2 minutes. He's playing like an MVP and if the Thunder can win 70-plus games, then SGA will win back-to-back MVPs.

Pick:Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to win MVP (2 units)

Season Record: 31-26 +5.05 units | 7.98 ROI%

Follow my plays for the season on X @VmoneySports, Instagram @VmoneySports_ and Action App @vaughndalzell.

Be sure to check out DraftKings for all the latest game odds & team props for every matchup this week on the NBA schedule!

How to Watch the NBA on NBC and Peacock

Peacock NBA Monday will stream up to three Monday night games each week throughout the regular season. Coast 2 Coast Tuesday presents doubleheaders on Tuesday nights throughout the regular season on NBC and Peacock. On most Tuesdays, an 8 p.m. ET game will be on NBC stations in the Eastern and Central time zones, and an 8 p.m. PT game on NBC stations in the Pacific and often Mountain time zones. Check local listings each week. Both games will stream live nationwide on Peacock. NBC Sports will launch Sunday Night Basketball across NBC and Peacock on Feb. 1, 2026. For a full schedule of the NBA on NBC and Peacock, click here.

How to sign up for Peacock:

Sign up here to watch all of our LIVE sports, sports shows, documentaries, classic matches, and more. You’ll also get tons of hit movies and TV shows, Originals, news, 24/7 channels, and current NBC & Bravo hits—Peacock is here for whatever you’re in the mood for.

NBA on NBC 2025-26 Schedule

Click here to see the full list of NBA games that will air on NBC and Peacock this season.

What devices does Peacock support?

You can enjoy Peacock on a variety of devices. View the full list of supported devices here.

Before the NBA Cup finals tipped off Tuesday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was honest about the future of the event in Las Vegas during an appearance on the NBA on Prime pregame show.

"We're talking with Amazon Prime about whether it makes sense to maybe go to some unique locations for the final game. They have suggested, for example, some like storied college arenas. We're just looking at other ways we could do this."

Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium is "among strong options" under consideration to host next year's event, ESPN’s Shams Charania reports.

The league's contract with T-Mobile Arena to host the Cup Finals is year-to-year, so there is no hurdle to moving the game.

However, one key challenge in moving the event to Durham and the Cameron Indoor — or to Allen Fieldhouse in Kansas, or Michigan State's Breslin Center in Lansing, or any other college setting — is that the NBA Cup title game lands just as the students that make those venues special are headed home for the holidays (or, the game falls during finals week for the students). Also, some of these arenas are much smaller than the average NBA arena; for example, Cameron Indoor Stadium has a capacity of just 9,314.

The topic of the lack of buzz in Las Vegas around the NBA Cup and the lack of energy in the building has been ongoing for a couple of years, and Amazon Prime has a big stake in making the Cup work — a large part of its massive NBA broadcast package was based around the rights to Cup games. The NBA had already announced that next year the semifinals would move to home-market arenas (for example, this year the Thunder would have hosted the Spurs and the Magic would have hosted the Knicks). While there was good energy at T-Mobile Arena for this year's Cup Finals — Knicks fans will travel, and there are Victor Wembanyama fans everywhere — Prime and the NBA are looking for something more.

In addition to college settings, there had also been speculation about moving the NBA Cup Finals to other non-NBA markets, such as Seattle, Louisville, or Columbus. But just dropping one NBA game in those cities will not necessarily bring the energy the NBA and Prime are seeking.

The NBA Cup has been a success on many fronts. The hard-core NBA fan base has embraced it. It has given more meaning to some early-season games and gotten some more casual fans talking about the NBA before Christmas. The games have motivated players (the $530,000 per player on the winning team will do that). It's worked, but Amazon and the NBA think it can be much more.

Will playing games on a college campus further that goal?

Welcome to the Fantasy Basketball Minutes Report. Every week, I will review each team's updated minutes per game to see which players are seeing the court more or less than in previous weeks. With this information in hand, I'll try to discuss any relevant fantasy risers or fallers; players who we should be adding off waivers or removing from our teams.

The charts below are also great for exploring on your own. You can track the minutes over the last three, five, and ten games, and for the entire season, to see which trends stand out to you.

All of this data was made accessible by Kyle Bland, who is incredibly talented and also incredibly generous, so make sure to give him a follow to check out all of his baseball data as well.

2025-26 Fantasy Basketball Top 200 Rankings: Paul George continues his ascent

While Joel Embiid’s return has been huge for fantasy basketball, so has Paul George’s.

• Raphielle Johnson,

Atlanta Hawks

Trae Young could return as early as Thursday, but we also got a report that Kristaps Porzingis would be out for at least two weeks as he battles an illness. I covered all of that in a video this week.

Boston Celtics

The Celtics' rotation has been pretty set for much of the year. The minutes really only shift around for some of the fringe guys, like what happened after Sam Hauser left Monday's game with an ankle injury and didn't return. If Hauser misses time, guys like Anfernee Simons could play a bit more, but not much will change in Boston.

Brooklyn Nets

Cam Thomas has been cleared for on-court work and could return to the lineup next week. That could shake things up, but, in the meantime, Michael Porter Jr. and Nic Claxton are carrying much of the load for the Nets. As we mentioned last week, Brooklyn has incorporated three rookies into the rotation regularly: Danny Wolf, Ben Saraf, and Egor Dëmin. Wolf has been the best of late and has also played the most.

Charlotte Hornets

LaMelo Ball is dealing with an ankle injury, and Collin Sexton is fighting a quad injury, so that has led to more minutes and usage for Kon Knueppel and Brandon Miller. There is some thought that the Hornets may try to move Ball in a trade and turn the team over to Miller and Knueppel, so that's something to monitor in the weeks ahead.

Chicago Bulls

Kevin Huerter and Zach Collins both returned from injuries, which has shifted around some of the playing time for the players on the fringes of the rotation. Additionally, Ayo Dosunmu has been battling a thumb injury, so we've seen consistent minutes for Tre Jones and Isaac Okoro, even with new players joining the rotation. Guys like Mataza Buzeliez and Jalen Smith have seen the biggest hit in minutes.

Cleveland Cavaliers

This Cavaliers team is in dire straits. They just lost to the Bulls on Wednesday night and will be without starting center Evan Mobley for the next 2-4 weeks as he recovers from a calf strain.I covered who could see the biggest bumps in playing time here, but we also saw Jaylon Tyson move into the starting lineup with De'Andre Hunter moving to the bench on Wednesday. Tyson has been really good when given the shot, so that could stick; however, the Cavs also lost that game, so it remains to be seen how long they keep that lineup.

Dallas Mavericks

Last week, we discussed that Dereck Lively II will be out for the remainder of the season after undergoing foot surgery. Daniel Gafford is still working his way back from an injury, so his minutes are a bit limited right now, but we’re seeing Cooper Flagg emerge as a legit star in the NBA. The Mavericks also have seemed to settle on Ryan Nembhard as their starting point guard, but D'Angelo Russell is also battling an illness, which has limited his minutes.

Denver Nuggets

The Nuggets were already without Aaron Gordon and Christian Braun, but Peyton Watson is now dealing with an oblique injury as well. That has led to more minutes for Cameron Johnson and Tim Hadaway Jr., and some time in the rotation for Jalen Pickett when the Nuggets are forced to go smaller. Regardless, this team still runs through Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray fairly exclusively and will remain that way until Gordon comes back.

Detroit Pistons

Things have remained pretty status quo for the Pistons over the last two weeks since they've gotten back to full strength. You could maybe argue that their rotation is too deep, but I don't see that changing unless there's an injury or a trade.

Golden State Warriors

The Warriors got back both Steph Curry and Draymond Green this week, which shifted some things around. Then, on Tuesday, head coach Steve Kerr announced a change in the starting lineup that he claimed he would commit to exploring over the next couple of weeks. We'll need to see how that plays out and how long this lineup sticks before we truly know who sees any uptick in value.

Houston Rockets

Steven Adams is back but has been fighting an ankle issue, which is why his minutes are down a bit. The rest of the lineup has remained relatively consistent, but Jabari Smith Jr. has seen an uptick in playing time as a result of strong performance. He's been a top-75 fantasy player over the last two weeks, which has fueled some of that added time. Reed Sheppard has seen his usage and his playing time decrease over the last few weeks.

Indiana Pacers

This Pacers rotation is deep, but the production is really concentrated around four players. All of Andrew Nembhard, Pascal Siakam, Bennedict Mathurin, and Jay Huff have been top 100 players in fantasy basketball over the last two weeks, but nobody else is inside the top 200. We know this is a bit of a rebuilding year for the Pacers, so the fringes of the rotation may change throughout the year.

Fantasy Basketball Week 2 Injury Report: Luka Dončić, Anthony Edwards headline the list of sidelined stars

The Pacers, Lakers and Thunder are among the teams with lengthy injury reports at the halfway point of Week 2.

• Raphielle Johnson,

Los Angeles Clippers

Bogdan Bogdanović has now been back for over a week and has settled into a full-time role in the rotation, but this remains a three-man team with the top three guys on this list. There's not much excitement coming from the Clippers this season.

Los Angeles Lakers

DeAndre Ayton is battling an elbow injury, but the Lakers have been relativelty healthy and kept a consistent rotation over the last few weeks. Marcus Smart is the one big change, with him moving into a larger role, which makes some sense since he's far and away the best on-ball defender on the team. Smart has been a top 100 player in fantasy leagues over the last two weeks, so he's certainly somebody that we can consider while his role remains increased.

Memphis Grizzlies

The big news is that Zach Edey is injured again, which my colleague Noah Rubin discussed earlier this week. Ja Morant was also on crutches at the shootaround the other day, so he may still be battling that ankle injury and could miss a few more games. On the other hand, the Grizzlies got Brandon Clarke back on Wednesday for the first game of the season. He should see an uptick in minutes as he gets his timing and rhythm back. Meanwhile, Jaren Jackson Jr. has been on fire lately, which I discussed in a video this week.

Miami Heat

Tyler Herro is battling a toe injury but isn't expected to be out long. Nikola Jokic is week-to-week with an elbow injury, but we've seen Kel'el Ware's minutes decrease a bit with Bam Adebayo back and the rest of the frontcourt pretty healthy. With Herro missing three of the last four games, Jaime Jaquez Jr. has stepped back into a larger role and been a top 100 player over the last two weeks. He's a name to watch whenever a Miami player misses time.

Milwaukee Bucks

With Giannis Antetokounmpo out, this has kind of become Kevin Porter Jr's offense, and he's been the 9th-ranked player in fantasy over the last two weeks. He should be 100% rostered. Ryan Rollins has also continued to produce with Giannis out, and Myles Turner has re-taken his minutes from Bobby Portis Jr.

Minnesota Timberwolves

Anthony Edwards has now missed three straight games with a foot injury, so we'll need to see how long his absence lasts. Bones Hyland has seen an uptick in minutes, but the impact has mostly been that Naz Reid has seen more usage and been a top-80 player in fantasy leagues. The rest of the usage has been picked up by the usual suspects like Jaden McDaniels, Donte DiVincenzo, and Julius Randle.

New Orleans Pelicans

Zion Williamson, Jordan Poole, and Herbert Jones are both back, which has changed around the minutes a little bit. Zion has only played in one game and played 27 minutes, so we'll need to see how that usage and minutes share grow as he gets back onto the court more. Perhaps New Orleans will be more cautious with him, given his extensive injury history. Saddiq Bey has also seen his usage take a big hit, which makes him no longer relevant in fantasy leagues.

New York Knicks

The Knicks have moved Josh Hart back into the starting lineup, and Miles McBride has been out with an ankle injury, which has shifted around some of the bench minutes and led to an uptick in usage for Tyler Kolek. OG Anunoby has been tremendous for the Knicks this year, which Noah covered this week.

Oklahoma City Thunder

Isaiah Hartenstein came back from his calf injury this week, so we actually saw the full Thunder roster for the first time all season. It remains to be seen how Hartenstein's minutes increase after he plays a few more games. It's been just one game so far and Hartenstein is out for the next game as the team manages his calf injury, so it may take a couple of weeks before we truly see how the minutes are split up.

Orlando Magic

Franz Wagner got hurt last week, and then Jalen Suggs may not be set to miss an extended period of time with a hip injury.I covered that all in a video this week, with Anthony Black seeing the biggest bump in usage and minutes.

Philadelphia 76ers

The 76ers have been relatively healthy for the couple of weeks, and are getting both Paul George and Joel Embiid in the lineup more regularly. That has led to far less work for Jared McCain and a usage dip for VJ Edgecombe, who is not producing at near the levels he did at the start of the season. Still, Edgecombe, George, Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, and Quentin Grimes have all been top 100 players for the last two weeks.

Phoenix Suns

Devin Booker returned, which led to a dip in minutes for Dillon Brooks, Ryan Dunn, and Jordan Goodwin. Booker has only been back for one game, so we'll need a bit of a bigger sample size before we can react for sure.

Portland Trail Blazers

Jrue Holiday remains out, and Scoot Henderson will be out til the end of December, so we are seeing how the Portland rotation settles without them. Robert Williams III had entered the rotation, but he's playing a smaller allotment of minutes and seems to be sharing time with Donovan Clingan. Deni Avdija remains a legit star and a should-be All-Star, and Jerami Grant has been a top-50 player over the last two weeks. They and Shaedon Sharpe are carrying this team from a production level.

Sacramento Kings

Dennis Schröder returned from injury, and now Zach LaVine will miss at least a week with an ankle injury. It's been nice to see Keon Ellis get an uptick in playing time, and you'd like to think that would continue. Expect Schröder to take most of LaVine's minutes, with the rest of the rotation remaining pretty static.

San Antonio Spurs

For the first time this season, we saw the Spurs fully healthy with all three guards and Victor Wembanyama back in the lineup. Wemby has been on a bit of a minutes restriction, so we've yet to see them truly at full strength, but we'd imagine there will be less time for Julian Champagnie and less usage for players like Devin Vassell. I covered the Spurs rotation in a video last week.

Toronto Raptors

Brandon Ingram has been on a heater of late, which I covered in a video last weekwhere I also discussed the impact of RJ Barrett's knee injury and the increase in playing time for guys like Jamal Shead. The fringe rotation guys here aren't really doing enough in their minutes to warrant much fantasy attention.

Utah Jazz

The Jazz seem to be resting Jusuf Nurkić after he came back from his rib injury, and Lauri Markkanen missed some time with "groin injury management," which has led to a few more minutes for Kyle Filipowski. This is a team that is clearly tanking, so those guys will be impactful when they play, and Keyonte George has been one of the biggest surprises of the early season. Apart from that, there's not much exciting happening here.

Washington Wizards

Bilal Coulibaly is out until January with an oblique injury, Alex Sarr has been battling a thigh injury, and Khris Middleton continues to deal with a knee issue, so this team is really banged up. That has led to lots of minutes for other players, and Bub Carrington has really stepped up of late. The 2024 first-round pick is a top-90 player in fantasy leagues over the last two weeks, and his emergence would be a nice development for this team.

Kevin Garnett is a legend of the game, enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, with his No. 5 jersey hanging in the rafters in Boston.

Yet, so deep was his feud with former Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor that Garnett — the greatest player in franchise history —was never around the team, and his number is not retired there. Now, with Taylor out and the new Mark Lore/Alex Rodriguez group in charge, all that is about to change.

A franchise icon, Garnett has reconciled with the Timberwolves and will have a "new, all-encompassing role involving business, community efforts and content development," role with the franchise and the WNBA's Lynx, a story broken by Shams Charania of ESPN and confirmed by the team itself.

It also means we can expect the long-overdue Garnett jersey retirement in Minnesota to come together sooner rather than later.

Garnett played 14 seasons with the Timberwolves, at the beginning and end of his career, was named MVP in 2004, was a nine-time All-Star and seven-time All-NBA player while with the club, and remains the franchise leader in points, rebounds, blocked shots, assists, and steals. He also took the Timberwolves to the Western Conference Finals for the first time.

Despite his icon status among Timberwolves fans, Garnett had a long-running feud with former owner Glen Taylor that dated back to his 2007 trade to Boston (KG went on to win a ring in Boston in 2008). Former Timberwolves coach and president Flip Saunders worked to mend fences between Taylor and Garnett, and there was an announcement about a reconciliation a decade ago, but that fell apart again pretty quickly after Saunders ' death. Since then, Garnett has not been around the franchise where he played his best years.

When Lore and Rodriguez purchased the team, they set out to repair the relationship between Garnett and the franchise, ultimately resulting in this announcement. What all of this will ultimately look like remains to be seen, but what matters is that Garnett is back in the Timberwolves family. As it should be.

LAS VEGAS — The last time we saw the Oklahoma City Thunder, it was in a dramatic NBA Cup loss to Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs.

That dropped the Thunder to 24-2 on the season, "only" a record 76-win pace. They are off to the second-fastest start in NBA history, trailing only the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors, who were 25-1 and went on to set an NBA record 73 wins that season.

Does eclipsing that regular-season win record matter?

"Absolutely," Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. "Winning matters, and no matter what form it looks like to me. So absolutely."

They absolutely can do it, too. The first part of chasing a record like that is the "want" factor — do they want to chase it? Talking to some Thunder players in Las Vegas, the answer was yes, but it has to come in the flow of them improving throughout the season and staying healthy. Beyond the desire to do it, the Thunder have the talent — a defense that is the best in the league by a country mile, the fifth-ranked offense, and a net rating of +16.4 that would set a league record.

There are a lot of similarities between the 2015-16 Warriors, who set the league record with 73 wins, and these Thunder. Both were teams coming off their first titles and looking to make a mark as a dynasty, both are led by superstars coming off their first MVP (Stephen Curry and Gilgeous-Alexander), and both teams have deep talent pools around those stars, talented guys who want to win.

Also, both those 2016 Warriors and these Thunder are willing to talk openly about chasing that record. However, those Thunder also remember that the 73-win Warriors blew a 3-1 lead in the Finals and blamed that, in part, on being tired from the record chase.

"Yes, because we're competitive, you know what I mean," Jalen Williams said when asked if they were going to go after the record. "You could say that we're chasing it, but it's also one of those things that we are not going out there to lose, either. So if it happens organically, then it does.

"Obviously, down the road, whenever that gets there, it's like, all right, do we sacrifice health when we're already solidified at the No. 1 or whatever the spot is? You get into those questions, we can answer those down the road.

"But a lot of it is just seeing how good we can be every game and if it results in a win and we get there, then that's cool. But once you get to the playoffs, everybody, your season really doesn't matter. So that's kind of how we look at it."

The loss to the Spurs in a big national game wasn't seen as a setback so much as a learning experience in the Thunder locker room.

"What are we, 24-2?" Williams said. "I mean, we can go home and just hang our hat on that, or we can look at it as a way to get better and understand that we played against a playoff team that beat us and gave us a two [second loss] on our thing. So that's how we'll look at it from a competitive standpoint."

The other competitive standpoint: The Thunder get two more shots at the Spurs next week. The two will face off on Tuesday night on Coast 2 Coast on NBC and Peacock, then they will play again in a prime slot on Christmas Day.

Take those two games from an outstanding Spurs team, and the Thunder's threat to surpass the Warriors' 73-win record will be in even more jeopardy.

With two minutes and 29 seconds left in the NBA Cup Finals between the Knicks and the Spurs, Jalen Brunson turned the ball over while being guarded full court by Dylan Harper. Knicks head coach Mike Brown turned to the bench and yelled for backup point guard Tyler Kolek to re-enter the game for Jordan Clarkson. It may have seemed like a small substitution in a game full of them, but that moment was another step in what has been a monumental shift in the Knicks' offensive philosophy in the 2025-26 season.

Last season, this Knicks offense aggressively leaned on Jalen Brunson. Not in the way that he was an All-Star point guard with an uncanny ability to get to the rim, but in the way “Castaway” leaned on Tom Hanks. At times, it felt like the offense had no direction if Brunson wasn’t bringing the ball up and trying to break his man down off the dribble.

Last year, Brunson had a 17.3% isolation rate and held the ball for 8.6 seconds per possession. Both of those marks were top 15 in the league for players who appeared in more than 20 games. Additionally, the Knicks used Brunson as a pick-and-roll ball handler 39.4% of the time, which was 9th among players who appeared in over 30 games. He rarely ever got spot-up jump shot opportunities (10.1% of all his shots) and had just under two catch-and-shoot opportunities per game.

Almost everything he did on offense began with the ball in his hands, and new Knicks head coach Mike Brown had a different vision that he believed would help the team make a deep run in the playoffs. Not only did he push to install an offense that would play faster and with more passing, but he wanted an offense that featured Brunson at point guard less often.

While that may seem counterintuitive, it’s something the veteran head coach learned while he was coaching Stephen Curry as an assistant for the Golden State Warriors for six years.

"I've talked to a couple of point guards around the league throughout the course of years, who I have a lot of respect for, especially the ball-dominant ones,” said Brown before a November game against the Magic. “Being around [Steph] for six years, you learn a lot. Nobody can be like Steph. He's an amazing player, amazing person too. But what makes him so unique is his ability to play on the ball and off the ball, so in a seven-game playoff series, teams have a hard time adjusting to him because it's hard to take away everything. I always felt, if I ever had a team, I don't care what my point guard's like, I'm going to try to get him off the ball so that he's comfortable with it during the regular season and then, come playoff time, teams can't sit on 'Okay, he's dominating the ball, so let's blitz him. Let's get the ball out of his hands.' Now you've got to try to defend him in a lot of different ways.”

That’s exactly what we saw happen to the Knicks in the playoffs last year. Opponents would blitz Brunson as soon as he crossed half-court to try and either trap him or force him to give him up the ball. Even if Brunson was able to get a pass off, it almost always led to a disjointed series for the Knicks. By moving Brunson off the ball, Coach Brown has allowed his All-Star to not have to work so hard for stretches and also freed him up to get cleaner looks through off-ball screens and cuts.

Last year, Brunson had a 28.9% usage rate, and his usage rate this year is up to 30.6%, so it's not just about how much he's touching the ball but about how. Two of the bigger changes are in how often Brunson is operating in isolation and how long he tends to hold the ball on each possession.This season, Brunson’s time with the ball in his hands dropped from 8.6 seconds per possession to 7.8, and his isolation rate dipped from 17.3% to 13.8%.

Brunson isn't dominating the ball as much and is operating within the flow of the offense at large. Last year, hemade 58.1 passes per game and received 72.2 passes per game. This year, he makes 63.8 passes per game and receives 76.3 passes per game. He’s being used less often in the pick and roll and is also playing at a faster pace, up to 4.99 mph on average from 4.65 last year.

Those numbers may not seem drastically different to you, but they're a clear indication that the way Brunson is getting his looks and his points is shifting.

Last season, he had just a 10.1% spot-up rate, but that’s up to 15.4% this season. Last year, he had just 1.9 catch-and-shoot opportunities per game, all on three-pointers. This year, he’s up to 3.2 catch-and-shoot field goals per game, almost all three-pointers as well, with a 67.6% effective field goal rate. He's also driving slightly less often, down from 17.8 drives per game to 16 drives per game, and he’s getting 1.5 corner threes per game, up from 0.9 last year, and shooting those at a 50% clip.

Essentially, Brunson being off the ball more often means that he’s getting better looks through off-ball movement and taking higher efficiency shots more often per game. All of that is great for the Knicks, and is also part of the reason that Brunson is averaging a career-high 28.8 points per game.

“Not only that,” added Coach Brown, “but it's going to be hard to just get up and deny him and bully him because you're just knowing that he's going back to get the ball every time. If the defense wants to play this way, go to the corner. The ball will find you if we're moving in space in the right way… that's what I'm trying to do with Jalen."

That’s also the exact idea that Jalen himself expressed after an early-season game when he was asked about playing off the ball more this year: "It was kind of the same, a little bit different. At the end of the day, we're going to get into actions no matter who has it, and then we're going to be aggressive. So it's all about finding the right thing to do at the right time, so regardless of who's bringing it up, everyone's still a threat to be aggressive."

That’s what the Tyler Kolek substitution was all about. Not only was Kolek playing really well in extended minutes, but he's a steady ball handler and a reliable passer in a way that Jordan Clarkson is not. His being in the game allowed the Knicks to put Brunson off the ball, which forced the Spurs' defense to be less focused on the point of attack and more focused on denying passes to Brunson and Karl Anthony Towns on off-ball actions. As a result, on the first play after Kolek came into the game, he was able to get past his man and drive into the paint, where he drew help defenders and whipped a pass along the baseline to OG Anunoby for a wide-open three-pointer.

All of that may feel minor. The statistical differences in Brunson’s usage between last season and this season may feel minimal, but the results are of crucial importance for the Knicks. Not only are they making things easier for the best player, but they are giving their offense another dimension. As we saw during the NBA Cup, that versatility will make them tougher to defend against the best teams in the league. In those crucial win-or-go-home situations, every additional coaching wrinkle is another potential path to victory. So, in taking the ball from their point guard, they may be creating an avenue to hand him a trophy instead.