Category: Basketball

For the first time in a long time, according to Donna Ditota of Syracuse.com, the Orarge are slated to play a non-conference game in the month of February. Syracuse will take on Rutgers at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on February 6, 2027.

The last time Syracuse played a team that was not in either the Big East or ACC during the month of February came on February 23, 2003, according to our very own Sam Federman, when the Orange defeated Michigan State, 76-75.

Rutgers is now officially two years removed from losing Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey to the NBA. The Scarlet Knights struggled last season, finishing 14-20 overall while winning a mere six conference games.

This will officially be the third game finalized for next season that will take place inside an NBA arena. Syracuse previously announced that it will face Indiana at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, home of the Indiana Pacers, on November 9, 2026, before taking on Providence at TD Garden, home of the Boston Celtics, on December 21, 2026.

The matchup with Rutgers will also mark Syracuse’s return to New York City after a one-year absence. The Orange last played in the city two years ago, when they fell to Maryland in the Gotham Classic at Barclays Center. Given Syracuse’s long history of playing high-level games in New York City, the return will be sure to generate some excitement

There have also been rumors that the Orange could make another trip to NYC next season to take on St. John’s at Madison Square Garden. However, that matchup has not been confirmed as of yet.

One thing, however, is becoming more and more clear. Coach McNamara wants to bring Syracuse basketball back to relevance and re-engage the fan base that supported him during his time with the program, including when he helped lead the school to a National Championship.

He wants Syracuse playing in NBA arenas. He wants the Orange competing against Power Four programs in New York City. And, perhaps most importantly, he wants this team to turn the page on last season and completely flip the script.

---

But for now, another big game on the slate for the Orange. What are your takeaways on Syracuse taking on Rutgers in Brooklyn next season? Will you be attending?

He’s been part of our lives for decades and his passion for Houston sports runs deep.    Originally logging stats at the age of 15 at the Astrodome during Oilers and Astros games, Kevin Eschenfelder’s love for the “home team” has never wavered.   

On the majority of nights, he’s the welcoming voice that greets and navigates Pre & Post Game shows around contests on Space City Home Network.      The native Houstonian joins us today exclusively at The Crawfish Boxes to talk Astros as we get ready for the home stretch.    

Q: Would it surprise if only 83 or 84 victories won the A.L. West outright this year?

A: Honestly, I do think that would surprise me.   I get where everyone is in the standings right now, but I have a feeling that somebody is going to take off.    Between the Astros and Mariners and Rangers, somebody is going to get hot down the stretch and whoever does, is going to win this division.    I don’t think everyone is going to stay as they are right now.     One of those teams is going to have a really good September, we’ll just wait to see who it is.

Q:  Speaking of September, who is going to be that third bat to generate offense consistently for the Astros behind Yordan & Pena?   

A: Isaac Parades is so good.    I don’t think anybody realized how good he was when they traded for him.    He’s such a good hitter.     In order to lengthen that lineup, there are four choices.    You have to get Christian Walker and Jose Altuve going and then the X-factors are Taylor Trammell and Cam Smith.     Walker had the 11-game hitting streak, we all know what Altuve can do with multi-hit games when the lights are the brightest. Those are the guys to watch.

Q: How special will this weekend be with Alan Ashby and the late Phil Garner going into the Astros Hall of Fame?    

A: It’s wonderful that we had two guys who contributed in so many different ways, not just to the Astros organization but to our city.     Ash did it as a very good player and switch-hitting catcher and then was a broadcaster and coach.    He did a little bit of everything and has always been visible in the community.   

With Phil Garner, everyone loved him.    When he came over from the Pirates in the 80’s, he locked down that second base position and helped those teams learn how to win.     Then of course in 2005 as Manager, he was so special.    Phil was also one of the great storytellers.    I was always so thankful to be in his presence, and I knew many of his stories like the back of my hand, but I enjoyed hearing them and having them told to the fans.

Q: When was the last time you were with Phil?

A: We did a symposium together at Fan Fest and he told his stories which everyone loved.    I’m so happy that Carol and the kids on Saturday will be there to receive that honor and recognition. He was special.

Q: I’m a radio guy at heart and like so many, I marvel at your versatility.    How different is the preparation when you’re calling a game from the booth, as opposed what you do in the Space City studios?

A: There’s not a lot of comparison.     The Pre and Post Game is 22 minutes of content, and you know what you need to know for those particular programs.    However, when you’re doing a live game, you never know what you’ll need to know (laughs).    You have to know a little bit of everything, so I’d say that’s the biggest difference.     I just put my nose into it, start studying, find a few storylines on players and then identify the right place to use it.   That’s the real challenge.    The preparation is much greater.

Welcome to Inside the Suns, your weekly deep-down analysis of the current Phoenix Suns team. Each week, the Fantable — a round table of Bright Siders — give their takes on the Suns’ latest issues and news.

Fantable Questions of the Week

Q1: Mat Ishbia’s hiring of Brian Gregory as GM was initially considered questionable and attributed mostly to Gregory’s MSU ties. What are your thoughts on Gregory’s performance so far?

zenzino: I didn’t know much about Brian Gregory, but I had a good feeling about him, mostly because of the reports that he was a big part of drafting Dunn and Igodaro. I never paid much attention to the MSU ties. Mine was always a wait-and-see attitude. Mat’s a smart guy; he knew there would be Michigan talk, so he needed to make doubly sure BG was the right hire. BG got hired because of the year he spent with the Suns before that, not ‘mostly due to Gregory’s MSU ties’. I’m sure the fact that Ishbia knew him previously got his foot in the door, but performance opens that door.

I’ve said it in the past, BG’s ability to unfuck the Suns in record time is nothing short of miraculous. Not only was he a huge part of the culture and mindset shift in the FO, but he also was big in bringing in Ott as head coach.

Even if you ignore how well the KD trade worked out when the Suns’ hands were basically tied by KD only wanting to go to Houston and the super-exciting draft we had last year. Just look at this offseason alone. We thought we were essentially sitting this draft out with a late 2nd-rounder, and BG gets the Suns a first-round pick (someone who was projected as a mid-first-rounder and the guy they wanted) for next to nothing.

I was against the Suns waiving and stretching Beal’s contract. I thought they should just eat it for two years and be done. I was wrong. Because of the college-type family atmosphere and culture this team established, BG was able to extend 4 key players on team-friendly contracts that come close to covering the $20M in dead cap hit. That is hella impressive.

I’m all-in on BG. He should have been executive of the year last season, and he damn-sure should be this season.

Ashton: While I was writing this up, CBS Sports dropped an article of the Fifteen Worst Contracts and ranked them. Eagle-eyed Suns fans jumped on this, but essentially the Suns have two worst contracts ranked. Jalen Green (13) and Booker (6). Granted, there is no official metric for these rankings and is really only an opinion piece, but that is not good. Add in Beal’s dead money on the Suns balance sheet, then one really has to ask themselves if the Suns are doing a good job in the FO?

Yes, there will always be hits and misses, and that comes with the business. I think BG has drafted well and was able to extend existing talent at cheaper costs.

But as far as a Key Performance Indicator? I think it is trending down for Brian Gregory. The front office deserves to be questioned.

Rod: I was skeptical at first, but Gregory has already far surpassed my initial expectations. Like many, I cringed a bit when he kept repeating “aligned” over and over when he first took over the job, but now I can see what he was trying to get across back then.

He’s played a big role in forming not only a solid team under trying circumstances, but he’s put together a group of players that truly like playing together and want to be here. Getting three players back on very friendly deals as well as signing another to a very favorable extension is largely a result of this. Don’t for a second believe that they all would have signed those deals if they didn’t really want to stay in Phoenix.

He’s drafted well and manipulated the few picks he’s had to move up in the draft to get players he wanted. I wish we’d had him as GM earlier before the Suns had traded away control of all their own first-rounders to acquire Durant and Beal. I think we would likely be in a much better place right now if he’d been the one whispering in Ishbia’s ear instead of James Jones back then.

Q2: It has been said that the Suns are in a “half-hearted rebuild” since moving on from the failed “Big 3” (Booker, Beal & Durant) experiment, mostly because of their refusal to also trade Devin Booker. What are your thoughts on trading Book and its possible effect on the Suns’ rebuild?

zenzino: This one makes my head hurt. I’m sooooo tired of the ‘trade Book for picks’ trope. After the Nash era, it took the Suns 12+ years just to make it back to the playoffs. And they had lottery picks. The Jazz started a full rebuild when they had their own picks as well as a haul from the Timberwolves. Finally, 5-years later, they might not be tanking this season. It took the Thunder 7 years for their full rebuild. Same for the Spurs. Full rebuilds take time… and luck. And that’s if you have your own lottery picks.

Let’s look at the two big trades this summer:

Jaylen Brown – Celtics get Paul George, 2028 1st & 2nd, 2030 2nd, 2031 1st. Basically an expiring contract for a player who barely plays, a 1st round in two years and another in 4 years. All going to be late rounds because of Jaylen Brown, Tyrese Maxey, and VJ Edgecomb. An utterly useless haul if a team was rebuilding now. If the Suns got this kind of return, they’d be on the 10-12 year plan for getting back to the playoffs (and be more of a laughing stock than the Celtics currently are).

Giannis – The Bucks did a little better. Tyler Herro, Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kasparas Jakučionis, 2026 13th pick (Nate Ament), 2030 1st swap (useless), 2031 1st, 2033 1st, 2033 2nd. They got some young talent, but none of them come close to filling Booker’s shoes. They had their own #5 pick this draft so that helped. Still, except the 13th pick, all the others are 5-7 years down the road. Not much help to the Bucks now.

So, if two Finals MVPs are mostly garnering picks far into the future, trading Book wouldn’t help the Suns much in the next 4-6 years.

Also, the Suns would only trade Book to someplace he wants to go. Which would limit their return. I think he’s earned that. Whether you agree or not says more about you than anything else.

As much as it was refreshing to watch the never-quit, gritty Suns team play last season, the losing record in the second half made it less fun. I don’t want to watch them play hard and lose for at least the next 5-7 seasons.

So, no. I don’t agree that this is a ‘half-hearted rebuild’. It is a smart rebuild given the lack of draft picks and the dead cap hit. The Suns are going to put out a competitive team that’s fun to watch for the next 4 years and in 2030 we might see some bigger changes.

It’s not a coincidence that Brooks was eligible for a 4-year extension and the Suns opted for a 3-year. If Bridges is extended, I expect the same. I don’t think the Suns will sign any veterans past 2030.

And, for all the Book trade proponents out there, please stop. Not. Gonna. Happen. Ishbia and BG have made it crystal clear that they are ride or die with Devin Booker. Deal with it. Let it go. The only way Book gets traded is if he wants out. And I don’t see that happening.

Ashton: And that is the big question. Do you want to do a full-on rebuild or a soft rebuild with little assets? This question ties nicely with Q1 on Booker’s contract and if BG can handle a full-on rebuild.

The first obvious question is what do the Suns get in return for Booker? Very few teams want to take on a max contract or unable unless they really think it will push them over the edge into the Finals. The formula is usually “we will trade you a bad contract for your bad contract for salary matching purposes”. The second formula is “we will take Booker’s contract off your hands for a few bits and pieces that another third-party team will help us with, mainly because we get picks”. No, keep in mind that it is probably not picks going to the Suns but to another team that wants to hoard them.

Quite honestly, I do not think the Suns would get anything of appropriate value for Booker. Add that Suns fans would probably be enraged that they are now buying tickets to the Suns vs. Kings game to witness the race to the bottom in the West, you know, where the Suns can’t tank.

I have to remind myself sometimes that the Suns did make the playoffs last season. I find that much more palatable this season than watching the inverse. I have no desire to watch a team without Booker, and neither should you. I was not a fan of the Steve Nash trade to the Lakers, though it worked out well for the Suns, because I found it disrespectful for a player that gave legions of Suns fans so many good memories. I would say the same about trading Book, a true Valley Son.

Rod: First off, trading Book would only bottom out the Suns, make the draft picks they’ve already traded away more valuable, and likely turn Phoenix into a franchise that many – if not most – NBA players would dread being traded to or sign with rather than one whose players re-sign at a discount to stay.

Yes, the Suns would get some draft picks back for Book, but any of them would likely turn out to be lottery picks, and using only late first-rounders to do a full rebuild would be more of a strategy based on hope/luck than anything else.

Right now, the Suns have managed to put together a tough, competitive roster that was a very entertaining team to watch last season. Entertaining was not a word that could be honestly used to describe the Suns in the two seasons previous to the last one…and they weren’t very good either despite all of the top-end talent they had.

Is this team a championship contender? No. They are an extreme long shot for that and aren’t likely to much more than that for a while, but I don’t see any way that trading Book would accelerate their ascension to that level any faster than the course they’re currently on.

Q3: What do you believe is the key (or keys) for the 2026-27 Suns to surpass their 45 win total from last season?

zenzino: Health. Numero uno. Had Brooks and MW not gotten injured, the Suns had a legit shot at the 5th or 6th seed.

I think it would be foolish not to assume that MW is going to miss 15-20 games. Maybe with Man Man improving, it will lighten his load. Hopefully, the Suns choose which games he misses rather than injuries deciding. Then he’d be available at the end of the season.

Between Green, MW, Brooks, and GA (Book can always be counted on to miss 10-15, nbd), there were a lot of missed games. However, I am counting on Jalen Green to play almost (if not all) 82, and Brooks’ injury was an accident that is highly unlikely to happen again.

Defense is two on my list. I don’t see them letting up. It’s a core part of Ott’s philosophy. After a year together, I expect them to be even better. Especially with the development of Sheer and Man Man.

Third, is Green and Bridges working out how they fit within this offense. How to use Book’s gravity and also how to take pressure off of Book. While I expect the defense to be good from the start, I think the offense might take a little time to gel.

The teams behind the Suns (except the Kings) got better and the teams ahead of them didn’t fall off to the point where they would be easy pickings.

Aside from the top 4 teams, there is definitely parity among the rest. Even if the Suns were able to improve by a few games and get the 5th or 6th seed, I’d consider that a success.

Ashton: Do not trade Book!

For one, I am in the camp that the Suns will not surpass their season record from last season. But, if they did, it starts with the obvious: injuries. Stay healthy and beat the teams that you are supposed to beat. For that, the bench minutes have to climb significantly for starting players’ rest. If it doesn’t, then the starters are going to try and be heroes with more minutes in close games and increased risk of injury.

That is really my big two. No injuries and player development. Sure, we can walk down the road of increased 3pt and FT shooting percentages or even better to elite defense to keep games close. But that would be my two areas of focus. Oh, maybe three, just keep the game entertaining!

Rod: There are a lot of things worth mentioning here, but I’m going to start off by pointing to Jordan Ott. I didn’t criticize him much last season for essentially playing small-ball most of the time because I saw it as him sticking with the players he trusted the most rather than him just wanting to play small. After Maluach and Fleming spent time getting their feet wet in the G League and showing good progress and the additions of Bridges and Peat, he needs to start playing bigger, more physical lineups this year. They need to work at getting to the basket more and not rely so much on threes because – as we all saw last season – those threes just aren’t going to fall every night, and the Suns’ offense needs to be more multi-dimensional.

Without an overpowering offense (which the Suns won’t have), defense is going to be extremely important this year. Everyone has to play D and play hard all game long. With the depth they have, they should be able to utilize that to limit minutes in such a way to keep players fairly fresh during games, and they shouldn’t be afraid to play more than 9-10 player rotations at times to do so.

Injuries will also be a key, but those are largely due to bad luck and something that can’t really be controlled. But, keeping everyone’s minutes down through utilizing the team’s depth could also help avoid some of those.

And one key, specifically aimed at Book but a good thing for all, is to play efficiently. The Suns need to be efficient on offense and play using the old sniper’s motto, “One Shot, one kill.” It was great to see the Suns rank 5th in offensive rebounding last season, but this year I would rather them just simply not have as many offensive rebounds to go after. Get down the court, put the ball in the hole, and get back on defense. I want the Suns to be one of the leaders in defensive rebounds this year.

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

---

Suns Trivia/History

On August 13, 2020, the Suns defeated the Dallas Mavericks 128-102 to finish their perfect 8-0 run in the Orlando Bubble. No other team did this. This was the first time NBA regular season games were played during August and will likely be the last, as the 2019-20 season was delayed for several months during mid-season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Unless such an event happens again, the Suns will go down in NBA history as the only team to ever go undefeated during the month of August.

On August 14, 2008, the Suns signed Lou Amundson as a free agent. While Amundson rarely made a big impact on the scoreboard, his enthusiasm and high-energy style of play quickly made him a fan favorite off the bench. In the 2009/10 season, he was part of the near-legendary “Bench Mob” made up of Lou, Goran Dragic, Jared Dudley, Channing Frye and Leandro Barbosa, who weren’t just good enough to hold a lead but at times could blow games open. Then coach Alvin Gentry utilized the bench mob like a hockey coach, structuring the minutes so that the entire second unit would be on the floor together to start the second and fourth quarters in every game. Lou is also remembered as the prankster who once filled Shaquille O’Neal’s ride up to the brim with popcorn.

On August 16, 1987, former Sun Nick Vanos and his fiancée, Carolyn Cohen, tragically died when their plane crashed after takeoff from the Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Romulus, Michigan en route to Phoenix. Vanos and Cohen were among the 154 passengers and crew that died in the crash. Vanos was 24 and had just finished his second season in the NBA after being selected by Phoenix in the second round of the draft with the 32nd pick. Vanos played college ball at Santa Clara University, the same college where Steve Nash would play almost ten years later.

On August 18, 2005, the Suns signed Pat Burke as a free agent. Burke is still the only Irish-born player to make an NBA roster. He rarely made an impact on the court but became a fan favorite during his two years with Phoenix… and not just because of his play.

Pat Burke’s Hair Restoration Tonic

On August 19, 2005, seven weeks after the trade had been agreed upon, the Phoenix Suns completed a sign-and-trade with Joe Johnson, sending him to the Atlanta Hawks. Phoenix acquired Boris Diaw and two lottery-protected first-round picks in 2006 and 2008.

The 2006 draft pick acquired from Atlanta in this trade was originally owned by the Lakers, traded to Boston, and then traded to Atlanta. The Suns then traded this pick – which eventually was used to select Rajon Rondo — back to Boston for a 2007 1st round draft pick (which originally belonged to Cleveland) and cash considerations. That 2007 draft pick was used to select Rudy Fernandez, whose draft rights were then traded along with former Suns GM James Jones to Portland for… cash considerations. The 2008 1st round pick (15th) was eventually used by Phoenix to select Robin Lopez.

---

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
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 weekend 2027

The four players the Bucks acquired from the Miami Heat in the Giannis trade—Tyler Herro, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kel’el Ware, and Kasparas Jakucionis—may already be a step ahead in knowing Taylor Jenkins’ offence when training camp hits.

Allow me to explain.

Noah’s mark

Before the 2024-25 season, a relatively unknown assistant named Noah LaRoche was hired by Jenkins as the Memphis Grizzlies’ Head of Player Development. The Grizzlies had finished dead last in offensive efficiency the season prior (granted, there were also a heap of injuries to key players that impacted that). Injuries aside, though, Memphis clearly wanted to try something new. LaRoche—even though he was not some high-ranking assistant at the time—was entrusted with installing an offence that would deliver that change.

And boy, did he think outside the box.

You see, the offence that LaRoche installed wasn’t just some run-of-the-mill playbook that he nicked from another system. No, this offence not only stood out from the rest of the NBA but also from the greater basketball world because, well, it wasn’t even really an “offence” in the traditional sense; it was more of a system that championed speed, spacing, driving, and basketball IQ. There were no play-calls. To use a classic Budenholzer-ism, it was basically “structured randomness” that also happened to deprioritise screens—both on and off-ball.

To see what I mean, watch this video:

Fascinating, right? So why the zag? It’s a combination of things. Firstly, there’s the most basic idea of just catching teams off guard by doing something different than what they’ve seen for years and years. But mostly, this is a personnel-based thing: if majority of a team’s key players have below-average shooting ability but above-average IQ, driving ability, craft, and ball skills, then an offence that prioritises the latter will probably be better suited to that team.

The 2024 Grizzlies fitted this mould. Sure, they had Desmond Bane, who is a great shooter, but overall, this was not some team of snipers. What they had in spades was players with these aforementioned traits, such as Ja Morant, Brandon Clarke, Jaren Jackson Jr., Jake LaRavia, Jaylen Wells, and Marcus Smart. Well, it worked a treat. Memphis finished the next season with the sixth-best offence in the NBA.

Basketball groupthink

It’s fascinating to take a step back and think more conceptually about basketball every once in a while. Why bring four bodies into an action if you can get to the rim one-on-one? Is a pick-and-roll really the only way to draw two to the ball and generate an open shot, or could you achieve the same thing from a drive and kick? As basketball consumers, we sometimes get so used to viewing and understanding basketball through a certain lens that we forget to think outside the box.

From a mental standpoint, this is a system that caters to heady, instinctual players who can recognise patterns and cues. Someone driving baseline means another must cut from the 45; someone cutting one pass away means the ballhandler might have an opportunity to drive right behind them; someone attacking to the middle means the big must empty and get to the opposite short corner. When you really boil it down, it’s a system with a few basic principles:

• Play fast
• Always keep the court spread
• Don’t hold onto the ball; make quick decisions and commit to them
• Don’t fall asleep off the ball; you will get caught out
• Cut with the view that you may not get the ball, but it could create an opportunity for a teammate
• Aim for layups and three pointers on most possessions

Cool, but what’s this got to do with Miami?

With that out of the way, let’s talk about how the Miami Heat came to implement this offence. Obviously, Taylor Jenkins was dismissed by the Grizzlies with nine games remaining in the 2024-25 season (even though the team made the playoffs!)—Noah LaRoche was a casualty alongside him. This also happened coincide with the Heat getting utterly destroyed by the Cavaliers in the 2024-25 playoffs, losing in a sweep by a combined margin of 122 points.

“I hope that players became better from it, but damn, it was humbling,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said after the worst loss in his 17 seasons. “This series was humbling.”

“Really no excuses for it,” Tyler Herro said. “It’s embarrassing.”

Miami came out of that series knowing their offence had gone completely stale and that something had to change, so they hired—you guessed it—Noah LaRoche and had him implement that same read-and-react offence. Once again, it got results. BasketNews’ Vukasin Nedeljkovic did a great breakdown of how the their offence shifted last season:

Miami ran approximately 12 to 15 pick-and-rolls per 100 possessions, accounting for only 5% of its total play types.

Historically, no team has relied less on the pick-and-roll as a primary action.

Even when factoring in both ball handlers and roll men, the action accounts for only seven percent of their offense–a stark contrast to a league where it remains the dominant half-court engine.

Instead, Miami’s offensive profile is built around entirely different sources of production.

Spot-up situations account for roughly 34% of their offense, transition nearly 25%, and isolation around 9%, while cuts, offensive rebounds, and putbacks fill in the margins.

Traditional structured elements like post-ups, off-screen actions, and the pick-and-roll serve only as complementary tools rather than foundational actions.

The Heat started the season 14-7. They went from 27th to first in pace, from 24th to first in field goal attempts, and from 21st to 12th in offensive rating. Now, their defence declined as a result—ninth to 14th—but on balance, you take those results any day of the week.

Ironically, Miami last season just happened to have players very similar to what the Grizzlies had in 2024. Bam Adebayo, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Davion Mitchell, Pelle Larsson, Dru Smith, Andrew Wiggins… these guys all fit that style of play.

I should note that opponents did start to “figure the Heat out” in the second half of the season. They lost 10 of their final 15 games and then fell to the Hornets in the Play-In Tournament (though we should note that Miami sustained some injuries in that game too). It remains to be seen if this type of offence would consistently survive in a playoff setting, when the game becomes inherently slower—the Thunder swept the Grizzlies in the 2024 playoffs, but firstly, it’s the Thunder; secondly, Ja Morant got injured halfway through the series; and lastly, Games 3 and 4 were very close—but it’s an interesting way to attack the regular season.

Anyway, Milwaukee traded for four guys who played last season under the same system that Taylor Jenkins led in Memphis during his final year there. Moreover, the Bucks happen to have a fair few holdovers who can play this sort of basketball as well. Maybe we see a LaRoche-inspired offence in Milwaukee this season?

---

Speaking of the Heat recruits, vote on this week’s Reacts poll:

In the mid 1980s, farmers throughout the U.S. were being squeezed between high interest rates on operating loans and low prices for commodities; lacking a sufficient government safety net, over 300,000 farmers defaulted on loans during this decade and even more farmers found themselves struggling to break even.

Clarence Willcome was one such farmer. He owned a dairy farm near Birnhamwood, a small town between Wausau and Green Bay in northern Wisconsin. The 59-year-old father of thirteen was a two-time heart attack survivor with a pacemaker and a pile of debt.

In April 1986, he wrote a letter to a guy who grew up on a farm asking him for advice.

By the time Don Nelson got around to replying to the letter, his Bucks had been swept by the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals. The team, widely acknowledged as one of the best in NBA history, was on its way to a championship. Nelson would spend his summer doing something that was, perhaps, more significant than winning a title.

After losing game four against the Celtics, Nelson told reporters, “I am not feeling very good right now, yet I’m not losing my home or going bankrupt and having to start over with my life.”

He pledged his share of the Milwaukee Bucks’ playoff bonus to Clarence Willcome, and convinced Herb Kohl, then the owner of the Bucks, as well as Milwaukee-based Miller Brewing, to kick in and help as well.

But this was just the beginning.

Having put on a few pounds since his playing days, Nelson went on a diet and invited donations for each pound he lost.

He also took off on a 250-mile jaunt through Wisconsin in August of that year, driving a tractor as part of a campaign to raise funds and awareness to assist farmers.

It was a colossal give-back from a guy who definitely knew hardship growing up.

---

Don Nelson was born on May 15, 1940, in Muskegon, Michigan. When he was two years old, his parents moved to Grant, Michigan, where his father tried his hand operating a maple syrup farm. Two years later, the family packed up and relocated again, this time to his grandparents’ farm outside Sherrard, Illinois.

His first experience playing basketball came there. As happened on farm after farm in the Midwest in that era, Nelson learned to play on dirt, shooting at a makeshift hoop nailed to an outbuilding. In his case, it was a spokeless bicycle rim attached to a chicken coop.

Nelson started school in a one-room schoolhouse with seven other students, three of them being his sisters, and all taught by an 18-year-old girl fresh out of high school. It was a school that Nelson occasionally attended barefoot.

Don had a rocky relationship with his father, who constantly lectured him, but his mother doted on him; in her eyes, according to Sharon, “the sun rose and set on Don.” “He’s got his mother’s heart,” his oldest daughter would later remark, “very tender and affectionate.”

Just before Don started seventh grade, his grandparents lost their farm.

The family relocated to Rock Island, Illinois, and Nelson began playing competitive basketball, “I went out for my seventh-grade team and got hooked on basketball.”

The Nelsons lived in town, and Don used to stop at various locations on the walk to school in the morning and shoot hoops. His afternoons were spent at the YMCA doing the same.

He grew to a suitable height for the game, topping out at 6’-6” and playing center for the Rock Island Islanders.

Nelson jumped to the varsity squad as a sophomore, and was a starter by the time his junior year rolled around. He made First Team All-State as a senior. During Nelson’s two years as a starter, the Islanders racked up a 47-7 record, while Nelson put up incredibly gaudy numbers given that he was playing a 32-minute game without a shot clock. As a senior he averaged better than 21 points per game and set a school scoring record. There were opponents and occasions in his senior year where he was triple-teamed in an effort to slow him down.

Despite those numbers, Nelson was not a hot recruit. The only real interest in his services came from the University of Iowa, and his father thought that he would be better served working as a watch repairman, a thought that amused Don’s first wife, Sharon: “Can’t you see Big Don sitting there with those little glasses, fixing watches?”

Bucky O’Connor was the coach at the University of Iowa, and he’d been recruiting Don. Bucky had an eye for talent, and was fresh off coaching the Hawkeyes to a pair of Final Four appearances (1955, 1956). Nelson signed a letter of intent to play for the team. Then, O’Connor was killed tragically in a car accident in April of 1958.

Bucky’s replacement was Milton “Scharm” Schuerman, who had graduated from Rock Island in 1952, and who had just traded his basketball jersey for the clipboard of an assistant coach the previous fall. The death of O’Connor made him head coach of a Big Ten squad when he was just 24 years old.

As a sophomore (freshmen were ineligible to play college basketball in those days), Nelson averaged a double-double, toting up 15.8 points and an even ten rebounds per game. In his junior and senior years, he averaged 23.8 points per game. His rebounds per game jumped every year, going from ten as a sophomore to 10.6 as a junior and then 11.9 as a senior. He left the program as the school’s all-time scoring leader.

Once again, Nelson’s numbers didn’t attract that much interest from the next level of basketball. He had planned on becoming an assistant coach with Iowa, but the Chicago Zephyrs had expressed an interest in him, and as Nelson later recalled, “I figured I could always fall back on coaching if a playing career didn’t work out.”

He was picked in the third round of the 1962 draft by the Chicago Zephyrs. He spent a year in Chicago, where he averaged a respectable 17 minutes as a rookie, but the team didn’t see much of a future in either him or Chicago.

They decamped for Baltimore and became the Bullets (now the Washington Wizards) and Nelson was picked up by the Los Angeles Lakers.

Nelson spent a year and a half playing for Fred Schaus’ squad, but again, the team didn’t see a lot of value in what Nelson brought to the table either, and he found himself unemployed once more when 1965 rolled around.

Don was 25, hadn’t finished his degree requirements at the University of Iowa, and his future seemed to be particularly dim. The only work he’d done apart from basketball up to that point was manual labor.

By then, Nelson was a family man—he and wife Sharon had welcomed their first daughter, Julie, into the world in 1961, followed, in rapid succession, by a son, Donnie in 1962, and another daughter, Chris in 1963. A fourth child, Katie, joined the family in 1967.

In 1965, the Lakers had just lost to the Celtics in the Finals, and a player who was apparently not good enough to suit up for the losing team had caught the eye of the winning team’s coach.

While Red had a well-deserved reputation for being astute at both drafting and trading, his ability to recognize talent wherever he found it included picking up guys off waivers, and none of these castoffs turned out better than Nelson.

With Havlicek working his way towards a starting role, the team would soon be in need of a good sixth man, and Nelson was Red’s target to slot into the role that he had pioneered with Frank Ramsey and expanded with Hondo.

Red offered Don a one-year, $11,000 contract, which was $4,000 less than his rookie deal; Don swallowed his pride, took the deal, and spent the next eleven seasons wearing green and white. It wasn’t a bad career for a guy who retained a modest view of his on-court abilities: “I had to work all the time, do everything extra I could,” Nelson would recall, adding, “I was just average.”

The Celtics faced off against Nellie’s former team in the Finals three times in the next four years.

Boston prevailed all three times.

Down three games to two in the 1969 Finals, Nelson scored 41 points across two must-win games, nearly double his season average. His final two points came with a minute and a half to go in the fourth quarter of Game 7. The Celtics were clinging to a 103-102 lead when Nelson’s shot bounced up off the back of the rim passing high above the backboard before dropping cleanly through the net, narrowly beating the shot clock and stopping an 8-0 Los Angeles run. “I shot it so poorly that it hit the back of the rim and it went way up in the air, and it came down and went straight through the basket,” Nelson would later recall. “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

In the early years of the 1970s, the Celtics had to rebuild their squad—among the major contributors to the 1960s dynasty, only Nelson and Havlicek carried the torch on into the 1970s.

However, Auerbach’s shrewd drafting and trading brought the Celtics back into contention by 1973, when they lost a closely contested Eastern Conference Finals to the eventual champion Knicks. The following year, the Celtics would win it all. Coached by Tommy Heinsohn, the Celtics faced the Milwaukee Bucks in the Finals, and Nelson played a key role in defending Kareem, despite about an eight inch height differential between the two players. Heinsohn’s strategy of double- and triple-teaming Kareem in the decisive game didn’t do much to slow down the Bucks’ center, but it did lighten the load on Dave Cowens enough that he was able to outscore Kareem 28-26, as the Celtics secured their twelfth championship overall and their first of the post-Russell era.

Don played two more seasons with Boston, going out a champion with the 1976 squad that defeated the Phoenix Suns in six games.

After retiring, Nelson had a family meeting in Moline, Illinois at a Maid-Rite restaurant—a small Midwestern chain specializing in loose meat sandwiches and fried chicken. His son Donnie recalled that his father presented the family with three options. He could sell cars, become a referee, or take a job as Larry Costello’s assistant with the Milwaukee Bucks.

According to Donnie, the vote came down 5-0 in favor of the assistant coaching gig.

Although he had spent just a year playing for Auerbach, he called that year “a master class.”

“I learned everything that I knew about coaching from Red,” Don would say years later. “I basically adopted what he imparted.”

In addition to his year as a player under Red, Nelson cultivated a close friendship with the coach, taking advantage of every opportunity he had to soak up Auerbach’s knowledge of the game—and his ability to handle players.

Eighteen games into his first season as an assistant coach, Larry Costello was fired and he was promoted to the head coach assignment.

Don would coach the Bucks from 1976 to 1988, becoming the franchise’s winningest coach, securing eight consecutive playoff appearances, seven straight Central Division titles, and six consecutive 50 game winning seasons. Despite these regular season accomplishments, Nelson’s teams failed to achieve the highest level of success in the playoffs, although a fair bit of that can be attributed to the overall strength of the Eastern Conference. On four occasions the Bucks were eliminated by the eventual league champs. Only once was Nelson able to defeat his mentor’s team, and that was when the Celtics were in nearly open revolt against their own coach, Bill Fitch.

Nonetheless, Nelson cut a unique and memorable figure as a head coach.

At a time when the informal dress code for coaches was a bit more strict than it is these days, Nelson waged a small campaign of protest by wearing tennis shoes—sometimes held together with tape—and ties that looked like fish.

When the Bucks felt it was time to move on from Nelson, he quickly found a spot in California, coaching the Golden State Warriors.

Nelson brought a run-and-gun style of offense to the Bay Area, with his “Run TMC” squad of Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, and Chris Mullin bringing a measure of success to a franchise that had been mired in the Western Conference doldrums for the past decade. Before Nellie arrived, the Warriors had finished above .500 exactly once in ten years; Don bested .500 in year one, and recorded a pair of 50-win seasons while dealing with an injury-prone team. More than that, though, he brought excitement back to the fans. “The fast-paced play was so fun to watch, and there were so many enter­tain­ing head­lines between games, that I don’t have memor­ies of a single defeat,” wrote San Francisco Chronicle columnist Peter Hartlaub in a tribute to the coach.

In 1991, the San Antonio Spurs lost to the Golden State Warriors in the first round of the playoffs. Just over halfway through the following season, the Spurs fired head coach Larry Brown, and at the end of the season, his coaching staff was also dismissed.

But, in the same way that Auerbach had seen something in Nelson that the Lakers overlooked, Don saw something in one of Brown’s assistants that Spurs GM Bob Bass had missed.

He leaped at the chance to bring Gregg Popovich onto his staff.

The two would become lifelong friends, even if Nelson did, on one memorable occasion, prank the seemingly unprankable Popovich.

Popovich had a great deal of admiration for Hank Egan, his coach at the Air Force Academy, and when Nelson discovered that Egan was an amateur painter, he contacted him and offered to buy one of his paintings.

On finding out that the painting was an intended gift for Pop, his former coach pointedly refused to accept any money for it and sent it to Nelson.

When Nellie got the painting and had it framed, he took it to a Bay Area art gallery and had them put it on display with an inflated price tag.

Nelson proceeded to take his staff to the gallery, and lured Pop over to the painting.

“He says, ‘That’s my Coach! That’s him!’” Don recalled, “So I said, ‘Is that really, Pop? I’d like to buy it for you.’ We take it up to the cashier and he says, ‘It’s $25,000.’ I said, ‘Wrap it up and give it to Pop.’”

“We get the picture wrapped up and we’re walking out. He starts crying. He’s literally bawling like a baby.”

Don takes everyone out to dinner afterwards and reveals the prank; Pop’s only response was, “God damn it, Nellie; you got me!”

Later on, when Nelson was spending a year out of coaching and the Spurs had landed the number one pick in the draft, Don found out that Popovich was considering an offer to trade the pick that would become Tim Duncan. His response to this rumor was an overt threat. “If Pop trades him, I’ll go down there and take a shotgun to his house!”

Nelson was later hired to coach the Mavs in 1997, spending eight years on the bench there, including three 50-win seasons and a single 60-win season. While there, he picked Dirk Nowitzki and acquired Steve Nash in the 1998 draft; both would go on to win MVP awards, and Dirk would be instrumental in securing a championship for Dallas in 2011.

A final stint with the Warriors didn’t go particularly well on the bench; for the first time Nelson’s team failed to crack 50 wins during his tenure, but he did prove influential on the Warriors’ future when he went to a 2009 NIT matchup between Davidson and St. Mary’s on Monday, March 23, in Moraga, California, in the hills east of San Francisco Bay. Davidson lost 68-80, but Nelson was struck by the play of their point guard, “I just thought he was a star,” he remarked of Steph Curry. “I never dreamed we were going to be able to get him.”

On draft night, he made himself heard, urging rookie GM Larry Riley to take a risk and select Curry with the 7^th overall pick in the draft.

During his final year as a head coach, in 2010, Nelson secured the NBA record for most wins, hitting 1,333 and bumping Lenny Wilkens out of the top spot in the 78^th game of the season, a contest at Minnesota. Don went on to retire with 1,335 wins—a record that would eventually be broken by his friend and protégé, Gregg Popovich, in March of 2022.

As a coach in an era dominated by centers, Nelson frequently built winning teams by going small and exploiting mismatches by running the court, something he learned from Auerbach, “Red used to play the smalls against the bigs in practice to get everyone fired up. When we played full court games, the bigs never won. They were ineffective because they couldn’t handle the basketball, and that gave the smalls an advantage.”

“All I did was use a small lineup with a team that didn’t have very good big men, and I was very successful with it.”

Nellie downplayed his own contributions to the game, “Over time I added a few of my own wrinkles.”

One of those wrinkles, and one which has been incredibly influential, is the ‘point forward.’

By inverting the typical ballhandling duties, Nelson’s teams created the mismatches he loved by pulling defenders into parts of the court and assignments that they were decidedly uncomfortable with. Today, when Jayson Tatum brings the ball up court after a basket, he’s filling a role that Don Nelson practically invented.

Naturally, in a 31-year coaching career, there were a couple what-ifs. After the Celtics lost to the Bucks in the 1983 playoffs, with the team in need of a new coach, Red approached Nellie and offered him the top spot in Boston. Don turned down his friend, “I felt a loyalty to the Milwaukee Bucks because they had been so good to me,” Nelson said. In reflection, he added, “maybe I should have been more willing to make that break and pursue the Celtics job.”

Eleven years later, Gregg Popovich was hired as the Spurs’ general manager. He wasn’t particularly pleased with the team’s current head coach, Bob Hill, so he reached out to Don and offered him the coaching assignment. Nelson was more than willing to accept the job, as he was having difficulties coaching Chris Webber, and he was well aware that in the NBA coaches are often far more expendable than talented players are. However, the Warriors refused to negotiate a deal with Nelson and the Spurs that would’ve gotten him the San Antonio gig.

There were perks as well.

Nelson’s son Donnie grew to be 6’-4” and was a pretty good basketball player himself. After attending Wheaton College, near the family home in Milwaukee, Donnie was hired by the San Francisco Warriors as an assistant coach. The following year, the Warriors hired his dad as their head coach, and the two would work together throughout Nellie’s tenures at Golden State and later in Dallas. Their years together on the bench helped make up for time lost during Don’s playing career when he was frequently gone on road trips, and when the demands of coaching left him little time for his family. These years also helped repair a relationship that was damaged when Don left the family and divorced his first wife, Sharon in 1982. “It gave me an opportunity to get to know him at a different level and really gain a ton of respect for him away from the household,” Donnie told the Dallas Morning News, reflecting on his father’s “passion, integrity, and honesty.”

After retiring from the game, Don moved to Maui, “I know how far I’ve come from being a hog farmer. I’ve come a long, long way from being some country kid. I got in the fast lane, and I’ve stayed there a long time,” he once said.

And yet, as it turned out, in some ways, Nelson didn’t come that far after all.

As a child, Nelson had a pet pig, Butchie, that the family butchered while he was at school one day—a lesson, no doubt, in the sometimes harsh nature of life on a farm.

But Nelson retained an affection for pigs that carried over into adulthood. While he was on his first stint at Golden State he ran afoul of Alameda city regulations when it was found that he was keeping a potbellied pig as a pet.

He also returned to farming as a retiree—although he ended up raising a crop that might not have been approved of by his parents or grandparents.

Nelson’s second career, after basketball, was growing medicinal marijuana in Hawaii.

Actually, Don’s hobby farm of 22 acres grows flowers and coffee as well as pot, but pot is undoubtedly what grabs the headlines—especially since Nellie admitted to smoking the stuff. He also hybridized two strains of cannabis, producing a variant dubbed “Nellie Kush.” He even went so far as to build a guesthouse on his property out of ‘hempcrete,’ a concrete which uses embedded hemp fibers for reinforcement.

Nellie claimed that he didn’t smoke pot as a coach or player, but at least one account out there suggests that he was not unwilling to engage in a celebratory puff or two.

Nelson had his number retired by the Celtics in 1978, and was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach in 2012. He was named the NBA’s Coach of the Year three times (1982/83, 1984/85, and 1991/92). In fact, no one has won the award more than Nellie, although Pat Riley and Gregg Popovich have also won the award three times.

“I spent 50 years in the NBA,” Don once remarked, “Can you imagine doing something that you love the most in the entire world and doing it for your entire life?”

Nelson moved from Maui back to Dallas earlier this year. He passed away on August 9, 2026.

Reflecting on his career as a coach, Nellie once told Michael D. McClellan, “I have no complaints with the way things worked out,” adding, “If you write my epitaph, I would be very happy if you just said that Don Nelson was a good guy and a pretty good coach.”

February 21^st, 2002 found the Dallas Mavericks swinging a trade deadline deal with the Denver Nuggets. In the move, the Mavericks shipped off Juwan Howard, Tim Hardaway (Sr.), Donnell Harvey, a first round draft pick in 2002 and cash. That netted Dallas Raef LaFrentz, Avery Johnson, Tariq Abdul-Wahad and Nick Van Exel. The centerpiece of the deal at the time was actually Raef LaFrentz, a 25-year-old 6’11” center who was the well-established starter for the Nuggets at the five.

To that point, Dallas had two true centers on their roster – Shawn Bradley and Evan Eschmeyer – neither of whom were three-point threats. Head coach Don Nelson loved unconventional lineups (that would look much more like the league norm years later) with a stretch big who was a legitimate deep threat. LaFrentz fit the bill and upon his arrival, he slotted in as the go-to starter (starting 25 of 27 games for the remainder of the regular season). The outbound Juwan Howard played some minutes at center for the Mavericks, but didn’t bring the size or shooting range they were after, so the deal was generally a win/win for both sides in that respect. Little did anyone know at the time, but the trade brought in future head coach Avery Johnson, and the player who would meaningfully change the identity of the Mavericks as he shifted to a sixth man role – Nick Van Exel.

Who was Van Exel before the trade?

As much as the trade was framed about LaFrentz, Van Exel was certainly no slouch. Spending his first five seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers where he earned a single All-Star selection, Van Exel was a staple in the starting lineup throughout his career to that point. Up until his final season in LA, he started every game he played except one, which came in his rookie season. He then started all but two games he played during his time with the Nuggets. The season he was traded to Dallas, he was averaging 21.4 points and 8.1 assists per game across 45 contests with Denver.

Of course, everyone knew the trade meant Van Exel would be shifting roles from a sure-fire starter, to a backup behind Steve Nash. That may have been part of why he wasn’t the featured name of the transaction, but coming off the bench proved to be a role he thrived in. So much so, in fact, that he averaged more points per game as sixth man than LaFrentz did as the starter!

Uncrowning the Kings

In Van Exel’s first Postseason with the Mavericks, he was part of the 3-0 first-round sweep of the Minnesota Timberwolves. That series has since become a talking point about the careers of Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Garnett, with some deeming it to be the tie-breaker as to why Nowitzki is the better power forward of the two. In the next round, Dallas got walloped by the Sacramento Kings, 4-1.

That Kings team was relatively stacked with players such as Mike Bibby, Peja Stojakovic, Chris Webber, Vlade Divac and others. Dallas meanwhile had Steve Nash, Michael Finley, Dirk Nowitzki and LaFrentz leading the way as something of a well-matched mirror for the Kings. The similarities between the teams and the frequency of high intensity regular season games between them supercharged a rivalry that was only added to by the Kings’ young hotshot owners from the Maloof family, who were perfect rivals for Mavericks’ then-owner Mark Cuban.

The following season, the Mavericks met the Kings in the Playoffs in the second round once again. Following a game seven win over the Portland Trailblazers in the first round, Dallas dropped game one of the second round series against the Kings, at home. That loss prompted Van Exel to ask Nelson if he could speak to the team. With permission granted, Van Exel told Nash, Finley and Nowitzki that they needed to stop deferring to the Kings and stop believing them to be a better team. Van Exel backed up his words with stellar play of his own. In game two, the Mavericks ran the Kings out of the gym after dropping 83 first-half points on them. Van Exel scored 36 points in that one, then hung 40 points in game three’s double-overtime victory back in Sacramento. For the series, he connected on over 50% of his total field goals and just north of 45% from downtown.

Van Exel’s legacy with the Mavs

Van Exel’s stay in Dallas was relatively short, clocking in at a season-and-a-half overall. He was largely electric in his time with the Mavs, and certainly brought a much-needed grit and attitude to the team. His only full season in Dallas was the first time the franchise won 60 games. His motivational speech in the Playoffs against the Kings was the only series win Dallas had against Sacramento across three-straight seasons in which the two teams met in the postseason. Van Exel then returned to the fold as the head coach of the Mavericks G League team, the Legends, for the 2015-2016 season.

Van Exel’s unconventional free-throw shooting from about two feet behind the line, his post-up game (yes, the 6’1” point guard had a nice back-to-the-basket game) and his quirky spinning hook/push shot were all memorable. His unwillingness to back down and his ability to turn it on when needed should be unforgettable, despite a relatively short tenure in Dallas.

I invite you to follow me @_80MPH on X, and check back often at Mavs Moneyball for all the latest on the Dallas Mavericks.

The Boston Celtics have had a puzzling offseason. By trading away Jaylen Brown, one of their franchise cornerstones, to a long-time conference and division rival in the Philadelphia 76ers, it appears they opened up a can of worms.

In a vacuum, Brad Stevens helped to steer the team in the right direction with the latest moves this summer. Signing veterans Mitchell Robinson and Mike Conley Jr., locking in extensions for Ron Harper Jr., Jordan Walsh, and Neemias Queta, and drafting Chris Cenac Jr. and Dillon Mitchell were all hits.

Though controversial, swapping JB for Paul George and picks could be seen as a small win too, finding a player who could be a slightly better fit next to Jayson Tatum, while also giving the team more flexibility for the future.

If we leave the vacuum and look to the rest of the league, Boston’s situation might not look as appealing. By sending Brown to the Sixers, it seems they turned Philly into the hottest destination of the offseason. Dean Wade, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Anfernee Simons – oh, and LeBron James all decided to join JB, Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid, and VJ Edgecombe to help fill out the roster in pursuit of a ring.

The Miami Heat took a swing of their own, beating out Boston in the race for Giannis Antetokounmpo that later prompted the Brown trade. They haven’t had much financial flexibility to improve the roster around him and Bam Adebayo, but they’re a team that constantly overachieves under the coaching of Erik Spoelstra, so they can’t be taken lightly.

The Charlotte Hornets sent out LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges in favor of more veteran players as they look to make their first return to the post-season since Kemba Walker was on the team. The Toronto Raptors went all-in for Kawhi Leonard as well, though we’ll have to see how the league handles that one…

The Indiana Pacers made their push last season when they gave up a haul for Ivica Zubac, giving Tyrese Haliburton a solid starting center to work with and round out the team as he returns from rehabbing his torn Achilles. The New York Knicks, reigning champs, are bringing back nearly the same roster that won it all, the main change being the loss of Mitchell Robinson, who they now replaced with Andre Drummond.

Long story short, the Eastern Conference got a whole lot better, and a whole lot more competitive. Several teams made big moves to win now, so why didn’t Boston? Why favor “optionality” over a proven super star like Giannis?

It’s a fair question fans have been asking all offseason. Sorry to say, I’m not sure I have the answer, if there is one at all.

Only one team brings home the Larry O’Brien Trophy in the end. Is a high chance of winning the championship this season worth more than maybe having a potentially high chance of winning one or more championships in the future?

As we’ve learned in the past, even “super teams” aren’t guaranteed to win every year. If the Celtics traded Jaylen, Hugo Gonzalez, and Baylor Scheierman for Giannis, a package that Boston was rumored to have been unwilling to offer, instead of trading Brown for PG, would they be closer to winning a championship this year? I would bet on it. Would they be head-and-shoulders over the rest of the league, or even the rest of the East? Not to the point where a ring would be guaranteed, especially given Giannis’ injury history.

Keep in mind, Giannis is also on the final guaranteed year of his contract, with a player option in the following season. Boston would be faced with either extending him for another four years at around $275 million, or potentially seeing him walk in free agency. If he continues to have health issues, would extending him make sense?

It’s hard to say what the “right” answer is. So much of sports is left up to chance. If things go according to plan, it’s a no-brainer to always go all-in, but it’s incredibly rare for that to happen. Injuries can strike at any time, even after perfect preparation, as Celtics fans already saw with Jayson Tatum.

For my fellow Red Sox fans, we gave up a haul of top prospects at the trade deadline in a win-now move, acquiring Adley Rutschman from the Baltimore Orioles. Rutschman is a great player at a position of need coming from an in-division team, and was also being pursued by Boston’s rivals as well.

This comes in a season where the Red Sox were playing terribly to start and sitting well outside of the playoff picture for quite some time. Their climb back into a wildcard spot for the playoffs has felt magical at times, and the front office decided it was as good a time as any to make a real push for a ring.

Boston is dealing with some injuries to key players at the moment, and now with five straight losses, it feels like their improbable comeback is starting to lose steam. If they don’t win it all, was it a bad idea for them to make the trade? Could one or more of those prospects have brought Boston a ring somewhere down the line?

Again, there’s no right answer.

Jeff Passan, ESPN’s lead MLB insider, said on the Pardon My Take podcast that fans have been “conditioned to accept that now is not as important as the future,” going on to say that he hates that as a fan. He made that comment while saying that the Red Sox “comically overpaid” for Rutschman, though praising them for actually “going for it.” He wants “executives and owners to treat this year like it’s the last year that’s going to be played… We don’t know what the future is going to look like. We don’t know when our franchise player is going to suffer a catastrophic injury … So why wouldn’t we throw all of our resources at what we’ve got right now, and try to steal a championship.”

It’s a very fair assessment to make, and incredibly hard to argue with as a fan. In my heart, I share the same sentiment, though it is noteworthy that the MLB and NBA operate very differently in terms of salaries, roster spots, and the ability to have and develop prospects. The stakes are a bit higher on a player-to-player basis in the NBA when playoff rotation can shrink to as small as 6-7 players.

Maybe you trade DeMar DeRozan for Kawhi Leonard, and immediately win your first championship in franchise history. Maybe you trade Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and a boatload of picks for Paul George and end up with at least half a decade of mediocrity, if not more.

Regardless, I think everything Celtics fans have felt this offseason has been justified, and I say that knowing how hard it is to find two Celtics fans who agree on anything more than loving the team. The pain, the joy, the confusion, the anger – all of it is justified.

Unfortunately — or maybe fortunately — we aren’t in those executive offices making the tough decisions. We don’t get to dictate the makeup of the team. We just get to feel what we feel, and if so inclined, share it with the world as we all watch along.

No one knows the future. Maybe this current iteration of the team is still enough to get it done. The only way to find out is to wait and see how everything plays out. It may be frustrating at times, but I for one would like to sit back and enjoy the ride, wherever it may take us.

This journey through the wonderful world of The Statistical Doppelgänger Machine starts with some warnings.

Remain seated throughout the duration of this article. Keep your hands, feet, legs, and arms securely accounted for. For the protection of others, avoid flailing about or throwing objects, including — but not limited to — smartphones, laptops or other electronic devices. Do not attempt to read or listen to this article while exercising, driving, or operating heavy machinery. Use of safety gear such as a seat belt or lap bar are recommended. Do not read or listen while under the influence of drugs, alcohol or other substances.

Maybe keep those substances handy for after reading.

This one is a trip.

For those wondering what the heck this is all about, welcome to my statistical doppelgänger series, in which I run Wizards players through an algorithm connected to a player database. The algorithm calculates which player seasons (as measured across 14 categories) through NBA history are “most similar” to the reference player.

In the first article of this year’s series, we learned that Alex Sarr just might be the second coming of Kristaps Porzingis. Right down to the broken foot.

Anyway, today we’re looking at Wizards wing Bilal Coulibaly.

Through three seasons, Coulibaly has been somewhat enigmatic — long and hyper-athletic. At times, he’s defended well and exhibited athletic arrogance. At others he’s seemed timid and too ready to defer. Also, he’s gotten hurt a lot — sitting out 27.8% of the team’s game since he entered the league.

Entering his fourth season, Coulibaly is still just 22-years-old.

As I wrote in his production ekg article, what he can do remains more than a little unknown, even after three seasons. What he seems to do best (defend) seems to have had little impact on the team performance, which is a) ultimately what matters, and b) might be a function of less-than-committed teammates, a terrible defensive ecosystem, and a franchise that was trying to lose.

The offensive end is where he’s shown the least promise, though over his final 20 games played last season, he showed sustained aggression, reasonable efficiency, and an apparent ability to get by nearly anyone off the bounce nearly any time he wanted.

All that said, I was in no way prepared for what the doppelgänger machine says are Coulibaly’s closest comps (similar per possession production across 14 categories at a similar age).

To save you some typing in the comments:

• Yes, I double-checked to make sure The Doppelgänger Machine was functioning correctly. Triple-checked, if I’m being nitpicky.
• I warned you.

To the doppelgängers:

1. James Harden | 2010-11 | Oklahoma City Thunder | Age: 21 — Yes, this is THE James Harden. The Beard. The 8x All-NBA selection, the NBA MVP, the 3x scoring champ, the 2x assists leader. This was Harden in his second season with OKC — he’d win 6th Man of the Year the following season. In this comp season, Harden shot better and notched higher efficiency than Coulibaly did. Amazingly, Coulibaly’s usage was slightly higher (19.5% to 18.9%) and their stats on a per possession basis were remarkably similar. If someone had asked me to list players Coulibaly was like, I probably would have named dozens (if not hundreds) before I got to Harden. But don’t worry, The Machine is going to get weirder.
2. Aaron Gordon | 2016-17 | Orlando Magic | Age: 21 — I promised weird(er), but you’ll have to wait a little longer for that. Gordon is closer to what I would have expected. This was back when Orlando was trying to make him into a wing because they were one of those teams through the years that always seemed to think how great it would be to play a freak athlete power forward type on the perimeter. I can’t think of too many such attempts of this sort were successful. Gordon’s gone on to have a good career, which included helping Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets win a championship.
3. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander | 2018-19 | Los Angeles Clippers | Age: 20 — That’s 2x NBA MVP and NBA champion Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. I mean, I watched Coulibaly for three seasons and saw an enigmatic wing with offensive deficiencies. I fed The Machine numbers, and it sees a future all-time great. This was SGA’s rookie season. He then got dealt to OKC in the Kawhi Leonard/Paul George transaction. And then…he kinda languished in the good-to-maybe-very-good range for another three seasons before erupting into what we’ve seen the past four years. That three-year semi-wilderness stretch included missing games by the dozens as the Thunder tanked.
4. Hedo Turkoglu | 2001-02 | Sacramento Kings | Age: 22 — Another comp I would not have come up with my eyeballs and memory. The multi-talented forward was probably not as impactful as my Stan Van Gundy-aided recollections would suggest, but he was a good player for a long time.
5. Omri Casspi | 2009-10 | Sacramento Kings | Age 21 — Another international player, which is kinda interesting. Casspi played 10 seasons and never cracked average in my PPA metric. This was his rookie season, and like each of the player’s on this list (including Coulibaly), his offensive usage rate was in the 18-20% range (SGA was highest at 19.9%), and his statistical production in the other categories was in that “about the same” range.

One of the fascinating things about this annual exercise is the different directions young players can go from a similar start. Coulibaly’s comps range from guys who had similar production patterns early in their career and then went in wildly divergent directions. Which way will Coulibaly go?

Moving into the “honorable mention” section, the player types start feeling more like what I expected before I order The Machine to run:

• Tim Thomas — age 23 with the Milwaukee Bucks — talented forward who never became as good as expected
• P.J. Washington — age 21 with the Charlotte Hornets
• Martell Webster — age 21
• Peyton Watson (last season)
• John Williams — yes, the Bullets’ John Williams (before the knee injury and weight gain)
• Troy Brown Jr. — age 20 — the not bad season (PPA: 96)

Then seasons from other guys who make sense: Devin Vassell, Jerami Grant, Jaylen Brown (age 21), Jae Crowder, Will Barton, Jalen Suggs, Paul George (age 21).

The Doppelgänger Machine in this case largely reinforced what I wrote about Coulibaly back in May. But maybe the point is that with young players, it’s hard to tell what they’re going to become. The range of possibilities is vast.

If Coulibaly does the kind of psychotic work that Harden and SGA did on their bodies and games, he probably has the physical tools to reach elite status.

If he does “hard-working NBA player” work — which is to say borderline psychotic — maybe he’s a high-level role player like Gordon or Washington.

If he does “normal NBA player” work — which would provide work-life balance and probably $150 million in career earnings over a 10-12-year career — maybe he’s an 8th or 9th man type like Casspi.

Next through The Statistical Doppelgänger Machine: Kyshawn George. I promise it won’t be so weird.

Per a Spurs press release:

“The San Antonio Spurs today announced Heybike as the organization’s official e-bike partner, uniting the two brands through a shared vision for connection through sports and movement. This marks Heybike’s first agreement with an NBA team, as they seek to align with strong, internationally recognized sports brands like the Spurs.”

Heybike, a global e-bike brand, seeks to redefine eco-mobility with sleek design and user-centric innovation. Jason Fang, Heybike founder, stated,

“Partnering with the San Antonio Spurs is a historic milestone for Heybike. We believe an e-bike is more than just transportation—it is a bridge that brings generations together. Through this partnership, we are excited to integrate into the Spurs’ vibrant community and inspire fans of all ages to explore, connect, and let their joy out!”

To celebrate the launch, Official Spurs Fan Club can receive a 20% discount on their Heybike purchase from now until Sunday, September 30.

Brian Colbert, senior vice president of global partnerships for Spurs Sports & Entertainment added,

“We’re proud to welcome Heybike to the Spurs family. Whether we’re bringing people together through sport or helping fans explore their cities in new ways, we share a belief in the power of mobility to create connection and strengthen communities.”

If you are not a current member of the Spurs Fan Club, joining now makes you eligible for the discount on a Heybike purchase.

---

Welcome to the Thread. Join in the conversation, start your own discussion, and share your thoughts. This is the Spurs community, your Spurs community. Thanks for being here.

Our community guidelines apply which should remind everyone to be cool, avoid personal attacks, not to troll and to watch the language.

The Los Angeles Lakers were sold for a record $12.5 billion. So now what?

Like every major sports league, the NBA has specific protocols in place to structure the sale of franchises. Those procedures are outlined in Article 5 of the league’s Constitution and By-laws. Yet, given how quickly the agreement came about, and given how much work goes into vetting prospective owners, this is a multi-step process that may take months to resolve, possibly dragging into 2027.

On Wednesday, Aug. 12, Mark Walter agreed to sell the Lakers to businessman Joshua Kushner and former Disney CEO Bob Iger in a deal that set the record for the highest amount paid for a North American sports franchise. Neither the NBA nor the Lakers publicly acknowledged the agreement Wednesday because the formal application requesting the transfer of ownership — what is tantamount to a private purchase agreement — hadn’t been filed to the NBA league office.

This is the first step in the process. That document must be filed to NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who then has the right to request any additional information from the parties. The NBA, however, has a nine-person advisory finance committee that will oversee the thorough vetting of Kushner and Iger, including potential background checks and a complete review of the finances of each.

This, though, is where the process might be expedited. If the NBA was vetting a prospective owner completely new to the league, there would be more steps to clear to fully understand the financial picture of those parties. But since Kushner and Iger were actively exploring the NBA’s expansion opportunity in Las Vegas, the NBA may have already done some legwork in vetting them in what could be considered a head start.

While this vetting is taking place, Silver and other league executives can receive updates about the process, as needed.

Then, once the vetting has been completed, the advisory finance committee will present a recommendation to the rest of the NBA’s ownership groups (Board of Governors) on whether transfer of ownership should be approved.

At this point, the issue will be put to a vote, with approval requiring 75% of the Board of Governors, or at least 23 of the 30 franchises.

The first date to watch is the Board of Governors meeting that is set to take place in New York in September. While that timeline would appear to be too soon for the matter to be put to a vote — just the process of drafting the detailed private sale agreement takes considerable time — it’s almost certain that an update on the Lakers sale will be an item on the agenda.

Furthermore, Silver will hold a press conference upon the conclusion of the Board of Governors meeting, where he can provide any updates to assembled media.

The following Board of Governors meeting will be in the Spring of 2027, but a vote to approve the Lakers sale does not need to take place in person. There can be a remote session to accommodate the closing date outlined by Walter and Kushner and Iger; Walter’s purchase of the Lakers, for example, was approved unanimously on Oct. 30, 2025 in a virtual session.

It’s tricky to gauge a timeline, as each sale has its own considerations. Using Walter’s purchase of the Lakers as an example, the agreement was reached in mid-June 2025, putting the timeline at four months until NBA ownership approved the sale in late October of that year.

Once approved, the NBA would then issue a statement announcing the decision, though the transaction would still need to close. That step is typically a formality and requires all documents to be signed and all money to be wired. Only then can ownership be fully transferred, and only then can the transaction become fully binding.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The Lakers have been sold for a record $12.5 billion. What happens now?

NBA history spans 80 seasons, and as CelticsBlog readers well know, the Boston Celtics have won a league-high 18 championships. This month, we are recapping each of those title years.

He was a kid born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., whose parents ran a deli. He went to college in Washington, DC, and continued to live there for the rest of his life. He also wound up spending nearly six decades in Boston as the architect of the greatest basketball franchise of all time. He coached 20 seasons and won more than anyone in the NBA at the time he retired, holding records that still stand. He invented the victory cigar. The Coach of the Year trophy is now named after him. As a team executive, he pulled off legendary trades and led the franchise to endless achievements. Throughout his career he was an influencer on civil rights. And he was associated with winning 16 NBA championships.

Yes, that was the real life that Arnold “Red” Auerbach lived during his 89 years. So, when he decided to step down from coaching and go to the front office full-time after the 1966 playoffs, that got people’s attention.

Auerbach announced his plans in preseason and literally told his opponents that they had “one last crack at me.”

Red Auerbach coached 20 NBA seasons, the last 16 in Boston. He won 938 regular season games and 99 playoff games. His overall record was 1,037-548, equaling a .654 winning percentage. His eight consecutive titles with the Celtics is an unbreakable record.

The regular season

For the first time in 10 years, Boston did not win the Eastern Division. Their record was 54-26, with uneven results throughout the schedule. Their longest win streak was during the last six games of the season, but the Philadelphia 76ers edged them by one win. Many of the original core were now retired or moved on. And the Sixers were improving.

The Celtics still had the league’s best defense, but the offensive rating ranked next to last. While they were motivated to win one for Red on his way out, that sort of pressure can wear you down too. On top of that, going for an eighth straight title was even more draining.

A new roster addition was Don Nelson, entering his fourth NBA season. Nelson was on the Lakers when they were run off the court at the end of the 1965 Finals. He was cut after the season. Boston signed him as a free agent. “Nellie” would go on to play more than 1,000 games, win five titles, then become a head coach with five teams spanning three decades. He ranks second all-time with 1,335 wins, as well as earning Coach of the Year three times. Don Nelson passed away this past Sunday at age 86. Rest in peace, champ.

K.C. clips

We haven’t mentioned K.C. Jones enough in this Banner Years series, so let’s pause and correct that with this short video.

Eastern playoffs

Because they finished second, the Celtics finally had to play a first-round, best-of-five series, versus the Cincinnati Royals. All the aforementioned motivation must’ve been forgotten because the Royals won Games 1 and 3 in Boston. Only a fourth-quarter comeback fueled by 42 points from Sam Jones in Game 2 saved the Cs from a catastrophic sweep.

Game 4 was in Cincinnati, but the Royals missed their chance to end the dynasty when Sam and Satch Sanders combined for 60 points. Oscar Robertson almost drove the Royals to victory in Game 5 with 37 points. However, Sam Jones once again nearly matched him with 34 points and Boston won, 112-103. It was the only game won by the home team.

The Sixers were next, and this time they had home court advantage – which the Celtics immediately stole by blowing out Game 1 there, 115-96, and Game 2 at home, 114-93. The latter contest featured an actual fistfight between Boston’s Larry Siegfried and Philly’s Billy Cunningham, which led to Russ and Wilt going nose-to-nose. No one backed down!

(no audio)

Chamberlain’s 31-point, 27-rebound effort saved face and saved Philly from doom in Game 3. Temporarily. The Celtics refused to allow the Sixers to close out Red’s career. Game 4 at home, 114-108, and Game 5 away, 120-112, and it was over. A gentleman’s sweep, almost like the regular season never happened. Chamberlain went for 46 and 34 in the closeout, but John Havlicek and Sam Jones combined for 62 points. Russell’s line was 18/31/6.

The matchup

Chamberlain’s various teams had now faced Russell’s Celtics in five playoff series. Wilt’s record: 0-5.

NBA Finals

Auerbach and the Celtics moved on to their 10th straight Finals appearance. Their opponent was another regular foe, the LA Lakers. But before the series began, the Celtics announced that Bill Russell had accepted the coaching job as Red’s successor beginning next season. Russell would serve as player-coach and would be the first black head coach of a major professional sports team in the United States.

The first black draft choice, black and white players rooming together on the road (at that time, teams customarily assigned two players per room), the first all-black starting five, and now the coach. Another milestone action by the franchise.

The push for integration and equal rights versus the segregationists who resisted had created a volatile situation in the U.S. Sports were not excluded. Russell had a big job ahead of him. But first, there was one more series to play.

And the way it unfolded was frustrating for the Celtics and their fans. If it happened like this today, Twitter would melt down.

Game 1 in Boston began with the Celtics running out to a 14-point advantage, but LA cut it to one by halftime. A tight second half led to overtime and the Lakers pulled it out for a 1-0 series lead. Russell, Sam Jones and John Havlicek combined for 72 points, but Elgin Baylor – healthy this year – and Jerry West compiled 77 points, plus rookie Gail Goodrich added 20. Most noticeable was the 39 of 55 free throws for LA, compared to Boston’s 27 of 34, especially since the final score was close, 133-129.

Series turning point, part 1

Game 2, West and Baylor combined to shoot just 12 for 34 and 34 points. No one on the Lakers scored more than 18 points. Final: 129-109, Boston, series tied and momentum beginning to build.

In Games 3 and 4 in Los Angeles, Boston appeared to settle matters by winning both, 120-106, and 122-117. In each game, the Celtics had a trio of players combine for nearly 80 points. Now up 3-1, it’s back to Boston Garden for Red’s anticipated celebration.

Series turning point, part 2

Not so fast. The Lakers delayed the party by winning Game 5, 121-117. Baylor and West got hot again with 72 combined points. Russell’s 32-point, 28-rebound effort wasn’t enough. Game 6 in LA also went to the Lakers, 123-115, thanks to a fourth quarter in which they pulled away down the stretch.

Two closeout games lost, LA forcing Game 7 in Boston – the motivation probably changed from “let’s win for Red” to something like “we cannot let this happen.”

The Celtics immediately made a statement, jumping out to a 10-0 lead. They stretched it to 16 after three quarters, but the Lakers rallied to within a few points. In response, Sam Jones banked one in from what was called 40 feet, and Russell’s drive and dunk made it 10 with 30 seconds left.

The Garden crowd was jubilant and Red lit his cigar, with Massachusetts Gov. John Volpe handling the lighter. The celebration had begun, but the game wasn’t over, and the chaos of fans getting in the way nearly caused a disaster in the last three minutes. The desperate Lakers patched together an 8-0 run, still with time on the clock. Auerbach had never lit his cigar too soon, but on this night, of all nights, he almost did. It’s all in this amazing video.

WHEW!

The heroes we needed

Russell was masterful with 25 points and 32 rebounds in Game 7. His dunk with 30 seconds left triggered the celebration that nearly backfired. Sam Jones added 22 points.

It wasn’t over until…

…Literally the last second of the final minute of the series. Boston had been right there to end it in five, then found themselves barely able to run out the clock to survive Game 7. LA simply ran out of time. The Celtics were great enough to win eight straight titles, but the perception that they strolled to those titles with no competition couldn’t be more wrong.

The matchup

This was the fifth time the Lakers had faced Russell and the Celtics in the Finals. The Lakers’ record: 0-5.

Notable facts and stats

• Russell may not have been a scorer but he led Boston in the series with 23.6 points per game, while adding 24.3 boards, 3.7 assists and ridiculous numbers of blocks, which we know even though they weren’t counted.
• Sam Jones and Havlicek each averaged 23 PPG.
• Jerry West averaged 33.9/6.4/5.1.
• With hindsight, we know the title streak ended here, but the new coach Russell wasn’t finished.

And finally…

Banner Years continues tomorrow with a review of the 1967-68 season and the road to winning Banner #10.

The NBA released their opening week and Christmas Day schedules on Tuesday and the Celtics are featured a good bit.

They have a weird opening game in Detroit on Tuesday, October 20th at 3pm on NBC — it will be the first game played of the season.

However, it represents a good first test for the new look Celtics, who added Paul George, Mitchell Robinson, Mike Conley Jr. and Chris Cenac Jr. this summer, while seeing Jaylen Brown head out the door in the process.

Detroit also shook up their team, seeing Tobias Harris, Isaiah Stewart and Caris LeVert depart while adding John Collins, Isaiah Joe, Gary Harris, Taurean Prince, and first round pick Ebuka Okoire. They’re also still waiting on Jalen Duren, who remains a restricted free agent but is expected to be back in Detroit next season.

I like the Joe addition and LeVert subtraction for Detroit and did not mind them moving off of Stewart. Paul Reed outplayed him in the playoffs, but I didn’t like the Collins move. This is a team that needed an upgrade as a secondary scorer and creator and Collins is a downgrade from what Harris gave them in that regard. He will also hurt their spacing if he slots in at the 4-spot. Duren and Ausar Thompson are bad shooters and adding another bad shooter is a weird move.

I still expect the Pistons to win a lot of games next season though. Maybe not the 60 they won last season, but this is a very good team.

Both these teams are going to be defined by their elite defenses. For the Celtics to make a deep run in the Eastern Conference playoffs, they are going to need to be built around one of the best defenses in the NBA — the same goes for Detroit.

This will be a good spot for both sides to show off their elite defenses and for each team’s best player to show off their offensive games.

Cade Cunningham has broken out over the last two seasons and has become one of the best players in the NBA. He has made the All-Star team the past two years and on All-NBA the last two years, including First Team last season. He is the guy that defenses try and stop on the Pistons and he still gets going anyways. I would expect that Paul George gets the first crack at guarding Cunningham.

In his first season back from a torn Achilles, the Celtics have become Jayson Tatum’s team. With Brown’s sudden departure, there is no more debating who the guy the Celtics are building around is, Jayson Tatum is the guy.

We all know how Tatum’s return was last season, perfect until he missed Game 7 vs. Philadelphia with left knee soreness. I expect Tatum to be awesome in his first full season back from the torn Achilles he suffered.

In the season series a year ago, the Celtics went 1-3 against the Pistons — Tatum did not play in any of the four games — and they will look to change that for the 2026-27 with an Opening Night win against Detroit.

The New York Knicks entered last season’s NBA Cup as a team with good-not-great odds of conquering it. They left it with the trophy and outright refused to raise a banner, but will ultimately find themselves hanging up two, not one, by the end of October. Ah, life.

Now, the defending NBA Cup champions know exactly what stands between them and another deep tournament run, ideally back-to-back tourney chips, after the NBA unveiled the full group-play schedule for the 2026 NBA Cup on Wednesday.

The NBA already suspiciously placed New York in East Group B back on July 1, alongside the Philadelphia 76ers, Indiana Pacers, Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat, with group play running from Oct. 30 through Nov. 27. The group winner, along with one Eastern Conference wild card, will advance to the knockout stage.

The Knicks will open group play on Oct. 30 in Philadelphia against a royally revamped 76ers team featuring LeBron James and C’s odd-man-out Jaylen Brown. They then travel to Indiana on Nov. 13 to face a Pacers squad expected to welcome back — but not much more — Tyrese Haliburton after he missed last season recovering from an Achilles injury.

New York’s final two games come at Madison Square Garden, beginning with a Nov. 25 rematch of last season’s Eastern Conference Finals against Donovan Mitchell and the Wannabe Contenders Cavaliers before closing group play on Nov. 27 against a Miami team that added Giannis Antetokounmpo and depleted its four-to-12 depth in the process.

Knicks’ NBA Cup Group Breakdown

• Philadelphia 76ers (Oct. 30, Away): The Sixers added LeBron James and Jaylen Brown and look like the strongest opponent out there. Not only that, but they also boast franchise player Tyrese Maxey and an extraordinary young man in VJ Edgecombe.
• Indiana Pacers (Nov. 13, Away): Yes, they will have Tyrese Haliburton back, but this Pacers team is lottery bound for me until they prove they were not a one-year fluke. And you bet I’m betting on my belief.
• Cleveland Cavaliers (Nov. 25, Home): Eastern Conference Finals rematch after New York swept Cleveland. It will be good to extend the streak, won’t it?
• Miami Heat (Nov. 27, Home): Now led by two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo following a blockbuster offseason trade, it’s unknown whether the Heat will be able to field any playable dude besides Giannis, Adebayo, and Wiggins — depending on how you see the latter.

Anyway, for what matters here, the NBA Cup knockout stage will begin with the quarterfinals on Dec. 4 and Dec. 5, followed by the semifinals on Dec. 8 and/or Dec. 9. This year’s championship game — mark it on your calendars if you’re a Knicks fan — is scheduled for Dec. 11 at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis after the event moved from Las Vegas.

Full 2026 NBA Cup Schedule

• Oct. 30: Knicks at 76ers
• Nov. 13: Knicks at Pacers
• Nov. 25: Cavaliers at Knicks
• Nov. 27: Heat at Knicks
  
• Dec. 4-5: Quarterfinals
• Dec. 8/9: Semifinals
• Dec. 11: NBA Cup Final

New York will enter the tournament with a chance to become the first franchise to successfully defend the NBA Cup title after defeating the San Antonio Spurs in last year’s championship game, and will have a shot at putting together three consecutive championship victories (a mini three-peat? three-peat lite?) for the first time since the 2000-2002 LA Lakers.