Can Frank Vogel provide a jolt to Warriors’ lackluster defense?
The word on the street coming out of the islands is Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr spent the first day of camp in Laie, Hawaii, drilling transition defense. He called the live work controlled, with possessions going up and back maybe three times max. Let’s hope that live work translates because anybody who sat through last season watching this team give up layups like they were handing out free samples at Costco wants this defense to snap out of the funk it’s been in over the past handful of seasons.
Most of the optimism this fall belongs to a coach. Frank Vogel came over as associate head coach and he will run the Warriors’ defense. His pitch for why he took the job was simple. “You want your defense to have teeth,” he told the SF Chronicle, and then he explained that Draymond Green used to scare the hell out of him every time he played the Warriors:
“I don’t know how much I want to say about it publicly, but I have a lot of confidence in what’s ahead of me, when the time comes,” Vogel continued. “But it’s very important to me that, your piece — that’s for when it happens. I am not hunting it. I’m excited about being in this role, for this team, and supporting Steve, and helping Steph and Draymond get another chance at a ring.”
Vogel will have to implement a new defensive system without two key wing defenders in Butler and Moody, who are both rehabbing knee injuries. Still, he sees a path. That starts with Green, the nine-time All-Defensive supercomputer who Vogel said was a “big reason” he took the job.
Bad defense was something I long associated with the Warriors of my youth, run and gun teams that would try to score 120 but give up 135. When Kerr got asked years ago how he turned the Warriors into a defensive team, he refused the credit. “I didn’t; Mark Jackson did,” Kerr said, remembering how bad Golden State’s defense looked from the broadcast booth before Jackson arrived.
The last two Jackson seasons tell the story. In 2012-13 the Warriors allowed 105.5 points per 100 possessions, 14th in the league and basically average. One year later they were at 102.6 and 4th overall. Ten spots in one season is an astronomical jump. He drilled connectivity, grit, and consistency and had the personnel to make it happen. With Andrew Bogut patrolling the paint, Andre Iguodala locked in, and a young fireball named Draymond Green coming off the bench learning how to be a problem, the pieces were all there.
Then Jackson got fired, Kerr walked in, and the 2014-15 Warriors posted a 101.4 defensive rating. That was No. 1 in the NBA and Kerr said he didn’t change one thing defensively. I believed him, and kudos to him for letting another coach’s ingrained philosophy continue on.
Now I’m sure everybody remembers the threes the Dubs rained down like hellfire during the dynasty. But I absolutely remember the stops that came right before them.
That’s how the dynasty worked. Draymond would blow up a pick-and-roll, somebody would poke the ball loose, and four seconds later Steph was pulling up from 30 while the other team was still arguing about the switch. The defense lit the fuse on every fireworks show.
The one that surprises people is 2022. After two years of lottery tickets and injury reports, the Warriors allowed 106.9 per 100, and returned to No. 1 overall. Relative to its era, the “nobody believed in us” team had the nastiest defense of all four champions. Kevon Looney was everywhere, Andrew Wiggins clamped on the opposing stars like a pitbull, and Draymond still lorded over the defense barking out rotations and stymieing opposing gameplans. That was the most maniacally dogged version of the whole thing, and I mean that as the highest compliment I can give a basketball team.
Since then, the defense has been predominantly mid. After that last title, the Warriors have ranked 17th, 15th, 7th, and 17th in defensive rating. The only season with some bite was 2024-25, when Jimmy Butler showed up and the Warriors finished 2.8 points better than average and 7th overall. Average those four post-title finishes and you land on 14th, something Pastor Mark Jackson would have lost his mind over. For a franchise that built its identity on making opponents miserable, 17th feels like a team losing its identity and relying on offensive pyrotechnics to bail them out. Let’s recap, courtesy of Basketball Reference:
Mark Jackson era
2012-13: 105.5 DRTG — 14th
2013-14: 102.6 DRTG — 4th
Kerr dynasty defenses + 2022 title run
2014-15: 101.4 DRTG — 1st
2015-16: 103.8 DRTG — 5th
2016-17: 104.0 DRTG — 2nd
2017-18: 107.7 DRTG — 11th
2021-22: 106.9 DRTG — 1st
Post-2022 Warriors
2022-23: 114.4 DRTG — 17th
2023-24: 115.2 DRTG — 15th
2024-25: 111.7 DRTG — 7th
2025-26: 115.6 DRTG — 17th
With Butler and Moses Moody unable to play as they nurse themselves back to health from injury, the team has lost their two primary wing defenders for the time being. Can the Dubs survive the early part of the season without them on the defensive end?
Steph Curry and Draymond Green are the last two people in that gym who heard Coach Jackson preach defense in 2013. Everything Vogel is selling, they already bought once. What nobody in Laie can answer yet is whether a 38-year-old and a 36-year-old can sell it to Lendeborg, Melton and Brandin Podziemski fast enough for that old magic to come back in time for ring #5.
Conflicting reports emerge on Wizards’ interest in Jalen Duren
The Washington Wizards have been floated as a potential trade destination for Jalen Duren over the past week. It remains unclear whether there is any actual fire amid the billowing smoke.
The Wizards were among four teams ESPN’s Marc J. Spears mentioned during Monday’s episode of NBA Today that were said to “have interest in a potential sign-and-trade” for Duren. Washington’s inclusion in the report caught Jorge Sedano off guard, to the point that he felt the need to interrupt Spears.
“The Wizards one, let’s just recklessly speculate for a second,” Sedano said. “There’s one salary, one particular one that still is unsigned moving forward in Anthony Davis that could make the math work.”
“I think you are probably doing good math,” Spears replied.
A report published Wednesday by The Athletic’s Sam Amick and Hunter Patterson initially corroborated Spears. At first, the article “confirmed an ESPN report indicating that the Washington Wizards would have interest in a Duren-for-Anthony Davis trade,” which was supposedly not of interest to Detroit.
The Athletic later removed the Wizards mention from the article entirely and included an amendment clarifying that the earlier reporting was erroneous.
“An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that the Wizards would have interest in a potential Duren-Anthony Davis sign-and-trade. The article has been corrected by removing that reference,” the amendment read.
It’s possible the Wizards tried to gauge interest in a Duren-Davis swap and covered their tracks once they realized there was none, so as not to risk shaking up team chemistry. It could also be that the reporting was simply wrong or overblown from the beginning.
The regular season starts in three weeks, folks.
Happy 24th birthday to Warriors rookie Yaxel Lendeborg
I’ve been in the Warriors birthday letter business for a minute now. I wrote Brandin Podziemski one when he turned 22, then another when he turned 23 and was ripping down 30 boards in two games like the ball owed him money. I wrote Jonathan Kuminga a whole armchair therapy session for his 23rd. So when I sat down to wish the newest homegrown hope a happy birthday, I did the math and almost spilled my coffee on the keyboard. Yaxel Lendeborg turns 24 today, and the rookie is officially older than every player I’ve ever written one of these things for.
It gets funnier. Kuminga turns 24 on October 6th which makes Yax six days older than the guy Golden State took seventh overall in 2021, back when JK was an 18-year-old with 13 inefficient G League Ignite games to his name. Podz was 20 when the Warriors called his name at No. 19 in 2023. Yaxel went No. 11 this June as the oldest first-rounder in the whole draft, at least three years older than all ten guys picked ahead of him.
The internet loves treating a 23-year-old draft pick like a carton of milk you found behind the leftovers. Check the date, give it a sniff, toss it. I absolutely get the instinct; by the time Steph Curry was 24 he was already in season four, dropping 54 on the Knicks in Madison Garden. I also think it misses the entire point of this kid, because Yaxel spent the years most lottery picks spend in AAU gyms doing something way less glamorous.
He played 11 varsity games in high school. Eleven! He ended up becoming a national champion at Michigan while taking Big Ten Player of the Year averaging 15.1 points and 6.8 rebounds and hitting 37.2% from deep.
So what did Mike Dunleavy buy with the 11th pick? A 6-foot-9 forward who connects things, and Vegas showed it. Yax walked out with the Summer League MVP trophy, after averaging 14.8 points, 6.8 rebounds and 4.0 assists, then put up 21 and 10 to beat Memphis in the title game. And then he graded himself a C-plus or B-minus, saying he could have been more aggressive and needs to get in better shape. The humility!
It’s also why the fit makes sense. Steve Kerr just rolled out a 5-Out offense at camp, and a 6-9 forward who spaces the floor and makes the extra pass is the type of piece that system eats with.
All of which brings me back to the letter I wrote Kuminga, because the whole thing was built on one question: who decides when it’s taking too long? This franchise has spent a decade struggling to answer it. Wiseman got two and a half seasons. Poole won a ring and got shipped out a year later. JK got five years of flashes and stretches of searching. The Warriors kept drafting teenagers and then asking them to grow up on a contender’s schedule.
With Yax, they flipped it. Steph is 38. Draymond is 36 and starting his 15th season. So the front office went out and drafted a grown man who already did his growing up in Yuma and Birmingham and Ann Arbor. The patience problem doesn’t go away this time, rather it just lands on him faster, because a 24-year-old rookie doesn’t get the “he’s still a baby” grace period JK got for four years.
Happy birthday, Yax. Next Tuesday, Kuminga blows out the same number of candles you did today. Sunday night in Honolulu, you get your first preseason minutes against the Clippers, and Dub Nation finds out if Golden State finally drafted someone who is gonna be here for the long haul.
Ryan Nembhard Is off to The Mile-High City
After being an unrestricted free agent for less than a day and receiving multiple two-way offers from around the NBA, lead guard Ryan Nembhard has signed with the Denver Nuggets. Combo guard KJ Simpson was released from his two-way contract in order to make space for the former Gonzaga Bulldog, who will become teammates with fourth-year wing Julian Strawther.
Nembhard was traded by the Dallas Mavericks to the Atlanta Hawks back in July before being acquired and waived by the Charlotte Hornets in September. The Consensus NBA was the first to report Denver’s initial interest in the all-time Zag.
At an undersized 5-11, the rookie averaged 6.6 points on a shooting split of 41.5 field goal percentage/35.6 three-point percentage/80.6 free throw percentage, 5.3 assists, and 2.2 rebounds in 19.5 minutes across 60 appearances in the 2025-26 campaign. Nembhard set an NBA rookie record with 23 assists in Dallas’ season finale against the Chicago Bulls.
Entering his second season in the NBA, the 23-year-old primary ball handler looks to play meaningful minutes during the regular season for coach David Adelman while spending some time with their G League affiliate Grand Rapids Gold. The Nuggets training camp has already begun in Boulder at the CU Events Center on the University of Colorado’s campus.
Arden Cravalho is a Gonzaga University graduate from the Bay Area… Follow him on X @a_cravalho
Kelly Olynyk Leaves NBA, Joins Club in Italy
Gonzaga Bulldogs great Kelly Olynyk is leaving the NBA to join BC Roma of Italy’s Lega Basket Serie A and the EuroCup, according to multiple reports. The club was co-founded by Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic, who also serves as a minority owner.
On his way to an NBA Finals appearance with the San Antonio Spurs this past summer, the seven-foot forward/center averaged just 3.2 points, 1.8 rebounds, and 1.2 assists in 8.6 minutes across 42 appearances off the bench. He also made the 2020 NBA Finals with the Miami Heat inside the league’s COVID-19 quarantine bubble in Orlando, Florida.
Olynyk, the 13th overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft by the Boston Celtics, has suited up for 842 regular-season games with eight different franchises in his 13 seasons in the NBA. The now 35-year-old Toronto, Ontario, Canada native put together career averages of 9.8 points on a shooting split of 48.6 field goal percentage/36.9 three-point percentage/79.4 free throw percentage, 5.0 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game.
Gonzaga now has a total of 12 alums in the NBA to be listed on an opening day roster for the 2026-27 season.
Arden Cravalho is a Gonzaga University graduate from the Bay Area… Follow him on X @a_cravalho
Michael Porter Jr. knows exactly what he needs to show Nets as contract talks continue
When asked what Michael Porter Jr. had to show amid salary negotiations, Nets GM Sean Marks was transparent in saying consistency and intangibles.
Porter was just as honest in his self-evaluation, admitting he has more to prove to get the kind of contract he wants from Brooklyn.
“Yeah, of course. There’s always more to show,” Porter said. “The main thing is winning. Who cares about putting up 20-plus points a game if you’re not winning? So I think I’ve got a lot more I want to show and prove.
“Obviously one of the big things is being a winning player in this role. I think we can win a lot of games with me being a focal point on offense. So, we’ve just got to win and it’ll take care of itself. But like I said before, I’m not really tripping about it. I’m just excited to play basketball and get the season rolling.”
Despite Porter having become extension eligible on July 6, he and the Nets haven’t reached a deal yet.
Porter is on a $40.8 million expiring deal. He can sign for up to four years, $234 million. He won’t get that much, but how much will he and agent Mark Bartelstein press for? And considering he’s 28 and coming off a career year, what else can he show Brooklyn that he hasn’t already?
“Great question. First and foremost, you’ve got to give the coaching staff a lot of credit there, not only what they did for Mike, but for the whole roster in general,” said Marks, who eschewed the typical GM-speak.
“For us, we’re looking for consistency from [Porter]. We’re looking for him to take another step on the defensive end of it, rebounding. … So just become more of a complete player on the court. The other one is what can you do [in terms of] the intangibles. That’s important for us in the locker room.”
Rookie lottery pick Mikel Brown Jr. is still recovering from rolling his left ankle, not yet having advanced to contact yet.
“He’s been doing noncontact. He’s in good spirits. He’s engaged with the practices. He’s learning what’s going on, getting the reps that he can,” Jordi Fernández said. “So far that’s where we are right now, which is a small setback.
“But mentally that’s going to also be a positive thing for you, is how you overcome adversity and fight through it. It defines who you are. Those are the type of players and people that we want in this organization, people [that] have grit.”
Porter praised the 20-year-old in his work coming back from the minor injury.
“Yeah, he’s doing what he can,” Porter said. “He’s staying in shape, getting on the VersaClimber, getting on the bike, lifting weights, doing what he can to be ready to go once his ankle gets better.”
The Nets open the preseason Tuesday in Charlotte.
Phoenix's Dillon Brooks officially charged with DUI tied to March incident
PHOENIX (AP) — Phoenix Suns forward Dillon Brooks has been charged with driving under the influence related to his arrest in March by police in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Online court records show that Brooks has a court date on Oct. 28 for the the Class 1 misdemeanor charge.
“This charge stems from the incident last March,” Suns senior vice president of communications Stacey Mitch said in a statement. “We have addressed the matter with Dillon and have no further comment.”
Brooks was arrested during a traffic stop on March 6 at roughly 1 a.m. and after an investigation, he was taken to jail. He was released following the booking process around 3:30 a.m.
The 30-year-old was out with a fractured left hand at the time. He averaged a career-high 20.2 points per game last season and signed a $73 million, three-year extension during the offseason that will keep him with the team through 2030.
Brooks is also facing separate misdemeanor reckless driving and speeding charges related to an arrest in January. The court date for that case is Nov. 9.
ESPN first reported the developments in the cases.
Knicks sign Tony Bradley as final roster spot battle takes another twist
The battle for the last Knicks roster spot has taken a twist.
They waived John Konchar on Wednesday and signed Tony Bradley to a nonguaranteed Exhibit 9 deal as a training camp tryout. Bradley will join Drew Eubanks and James Wiseman as centers trying to win that battle.
Coach Mike Brown acknowledged that “we’re looking at that position heavily,” given that Andre Drummond is the only backup center on a guaranteed deal behind Karl-Anthony Towns.
But Bruce Brown and Ochai Agbaji — both wings, not bigs — are part of that veteran battle as well. The Knicks could theoretically take one of those two and kick the need for a third-string center down the road.
“Tony’s a veteran guy that’s still in his prime and has a good feel for the game,” Brown said of Bradley. “Knows how to play the game the right way.”
The Knicks also signed Jaden Akins to a two-way deal. He fills the last two-way slot, after previously signing Tyler Nickel and Kevin McCullar Jr.
Akins was with the Knicks at Summer League. Undrafted last year out of Michigan State, he spent last season with the Pistons G-League team.
Brown joked about what position Josh Hart considers himself.
“Josh was a power forward but when it came to the conditioning test, the power forwards and centers have an easier time [requirement],” Brown said. “Not much, but an easier time than guards. So all year I was calling him a power forward and he was cool with it but I could tell he didn’t really like it. But as soon as he heard about the conditioning test, he said he was a power forward.”
The Knicks championship helped rekindle familial relationships.
“I have people coming to me and saying, ‘I haven’t talked to my family member in 10 years,’ ” Miles McBride said. “And I’m like, ‘Well, we should not be the reason you’re rekindling relationships.’ But that’s cool to hear. It’s not what I want to hear necessarily but those are cool moments to hear that what we’re doing on the court was able to bring people back together.”
JJ Redick admits he felt he was ‘cosplaying’ as Lakers coach when he joined the team
JJ Redick acknowledged something he hadn’t planned to divulge.
When asked how different it feels being in his third year as an NBA coach than his first, he opened up.
“I probably shouldn’t admit this,” Redick said at Lakers practice Wednesday, “but early in my coaching career I felt like I was cosplaying a little bit, you know? It’s like I was pretending to be a coach.”
Redick was stunningly hired to take over the Lakers’ helm in June 2024 after Darvin Ham was fired.
Why was it so eyebrow-raising?
He had no coaching experience. He was taking over a 17-time championship franchise. There was no margin for error.
Talk about pressure.
Redick has always come across as ultra-confident. He had to be. But on Wednesday, he let us peek behind his tough veneer.
Even the coach of the Lakers can have imposter syndrome.
Good thing for the Lakers, their gamble has panned out.
Last season, Redick became the first coach since Phil Jackson to have back-to-back 50-win seasons.
Redick has drawn comparisons to Pat Riley, who had very little coaching experience (two years as a Laker assistant from 1979-81) before taking over the helm in 1981. Riley went on to win four championships in LA. Last season, he was honored with a statue outside of Crypto.com Arena.
As for Redick, he still has a long way to go. The Lakers haven’t gotten past the second round of the playoffs since he took over, though Luka Dončić, Austin Reaves and Walker Kessler desperately want to help him change that.
“I think he’s got a little more gray hair. but he’s been great,” Reaves said when asked about Redick’s growth over the last three seasons. “Care factor’s high, intelligence is high. He cares more than anybody else and wants to win just like we do. So, you know, having that as a coach, you respect that.”
This much is for sure: Redick has gained the respect of everyone in the locker room over the last two seasons. No one is second-guessing the Lakers’ decision to hire him anymore.
And Redick no longer feels as though he’s faking it.
“I just think you get more reps, you get more comfortable,” Redick said.
That said, Redick is very much still learning.
He’s the first to admit when he thinks he could’ve handled situations better. There was the time he snapped at a reporter who asked if he was going to lean on his assistants for substitution patterns ahead of Game 5 of the first round of the 2025 playoffs. Or when he and Doncic shared a tense moment on the bench last season. After both of those moments, he vowed to do better.
Redick is willing to do the hard work. He’s introspective. He obsessively rewatches games in a dark basement.
He’s his harshest critic.
That led to a major change last season.
“I had a great revelation towards the second half of last year that I talked about with my performance coach this summer,” Redick said. “…Some of the things that helped me as a player are deterrents for me as a coach. I think particularly with last year’s team — and I don’t know how this year’s team is going to be — but I felt like calm is better.
“When I played — I talked with Coach K [Mike Krzyzewski] about it this summer — when I played, I played with an anger. There was an inner-anger that drove my competitiveness. That’s not always a good thing as a coach, particularly now.”
Redick, who was known as a dagger 3-point shooter during his 15 seasons in the NBA, realized he needed to adjust his style.
He set the tone. If he was too intense, it resonated differently as a coach than as a player. Instead of being inspiring, it was detrimental.
So, Redick adjusted.
After laying into the Lakers following an embarrassing 119-96 loss to the Rockets on Christmas, Redick was noticeably calmer when they dropped the rope in subsequent games. And as the season progressed that started happening less and less.
Then in the spring, the Lakers showed what they were made of by going on a 16-2 run. Everyone around the league began to wonder if they were championship contenders before Doncic and Reaves suffered injuries on April 2.
Redick then inspired the Lakers to believe they could win without their two-highest scorers in the playoffs. They went on to beat the Rockets in the first round before being swept by the Thunder in the Western Conference semifinals.
This season will be yet another learning curve for Redick.
But he’s ready for whatever comes.
He knows he belongs.
And that’s very obvious to the rest of the league, too.
Julius Randle lays out his Nets mission after seeing Knicks finish what he helped start
Julius Randle spent a half-decade lifting the Knicks from cellar-dwellers to contenders, only to get traded away before they finally earned a championship.
Now he’s back in the city, across town in Brooklyn, happy to have seen his old teammates become winners while trying to help his new ones on the Nets do the same.
“I’m happy [for the Knicks], man,” said Randle, one of the first Nets to utter that phrase. “I kept in touch with guys. I’ve had a lot of great moments here in the city. I spent five years here, my family has grown here; so I was extremely excited, happy for those guys. A lot went into that; it’s not just myself, years before me.
“So, just happy for those guys. I was just last month on a trip with OG [Anunoby] in Brazil, just kicking it, talking with each other. So it was a great thing, not just for them, for the organization, [but] for the city that has craved that — we know how New York is — so has craved that winning formula, winning environment. And we plan to do the same thing here.”
As a soon-to-be 32-year-old — one who’ll be linked in trade rumors, since he can opt into unrestricted free agency next summer — Randle might not be around long enough for that. But almost anything is possible. The Knicks proved that.
Randle arrived in the Garden in 2019, joining a Knicks team that was a league-worst 17-65 and had gone six seasons without the playoffs. Two years later, Randle made his first All-Star game, and he had them back in the postseason.
But two years ago this month, Randle was traded to Minnesota in a three-team deal that brought Karl-Anthony Towns to the Garden.
Randle wasn’t around to see the Knicks close the deal this June. And the end of his tenure with the Timberwolves was bittersweet … and desultory.
After averaging 12.8 points and .342 shooting in Minnesota’s second-round defeat — finishing with three points on 1-for-8 shooting in Game 6, and blowing off his exit interview — Randle came under fire and was traded again.
Anthony Edwards said Monday that he missed Naz Reid, but conspicuously didn’t mention Randle, and said he was pleased with the roster as is.
“I’m gonna miss Naz for sure; that’s my brother. But I’m super happy about the changes in the locker room,” Edwards said in what many saw as a slight to Randle.
But in need of an on-ball scorer, floor raiser and experience, the Nets are confident Randle is the right sort of veteran to guide their youngsters.
“Everything [I’d] heard was not good but great, as a person, family man, worker, ultimate pro, about the right things,” Jordi Fernandez said. “He’s been in eight playoff rounds, [three]-time All-Star.
“He’s going to impact what we’re trying to do here. … He’s coming here to get better, to lead by example. So, very happy before when we were trying to get him — and now that I’ve got [him], I couldn’t be happier.”
Randle is happy to be back in New York, never wanting to leave.
Now he’s back, older and wiser. When asked if he ever feels his veteran status, Randle joked “Yeah, I feel it every single day. … I’ve reached Unc status for sure.”
Tasked with teaching the league’s youngest squad, teammates have asked him about playing alongside the late Kobe Bryant.
Both Fernandez and GM Sean Marks will rely on Randle to lead, with Fernandez saying he’ll “challenge” the All-NBA forward.
“I love to be coached, and there’s different ways he’ll challenge me in parts of the game, whether it’s my rebounding or if it’s running the floor or if it’s being better on defense,” Randle said. “I’m not afraid to be coached, and whatever he needs to do, you should coach your best players the hardest.
“If he needs something from me, he’ll call me. So it’s a great relationship. But communication is key, and trust. So he’s been great at building that with me, and I trust him fully; so it’s been good.”
What Are Your Expectations For the 2026-27 Season?
We are three weeks away from opening night for the Rockets, when they open their season at against Cooper Flagg, Kyrie Irving and the Dallas Mavericks. It seems hard to believe, but the day is fast approaching. I thought now would be a good time to ask what your expectations are for the season, the playoffs, and what constitutes a successful season. Also, generally, what do you expect to to see from the Rockets?
Let’s look at something that’s a matter of public discourse, and of course, betting, in this brave new world of sports leagues promoting gambling. Let’s consider season win totals for the Rockets.
(The usual caveats about injuries and other catastrophes apply.)
Season Win Totals
Right now the range for season win totals for the Rockets seems to be from about 46 to 48 wins. This seems like a lot of regression for a team that won 52 games the past two years, and should honestly be better. They should be better because they’ll have a seasoned point guard running the show, and a bench that despite not wowing anyone with summer signings, should be far more useful than the bench of last season, overall.
Further, it’s not crazy to think the Rockets might have won 60 games last season, as they did in fact surrender 19 fourth quarter or overtime leads. If they’d won just under half those games, there’s your 60 wins. I can’t say this enough, this number is jaw droppingly bad, and extraordinary. It’s difficult to find much of anyone talking about it, and if they do, the conclusions roughly seems to be that this event doesn’t fit any normal patterns and is an outlier. Outliers being something that did in fact happen, but we’ve chosen to pretend they didn’t because they tend to drag our account of things out of coherency. But it did happen, even if it’s weird and bad.
Viewed in a positive way, not having so many blown leads boosts the argument for a higher win total.
Viewed in a negative way, it might point to a deep flaw in the players, team construction, approach to the game, or coaching. It might be some, or all of those. Which suggests what seems to be a suppressed win total isn’t that suppressed after all.
All that said, I’d go over, and hit good old 52 wins again, as a target, with a bias to higher, if I did such things as bet win totals.
Playoff Expectations
First, yes, I think the Rockets are a playoff team. There’s a tremendous amount of talent on this roster. There’s no reason to believe in a steep decline for Kevin Durant until we see signs of one. There’s reason to believe that the somewhat plodding, low mistakes, organization of Fred Van Vleet will be far better than Kevin Freaking Durant initiating the offense.
So I think the Rockets place between 3-6 in the NBA, inside the playoffs.
If they don’t win their first round series, I expect Udoka to be fired. I don’t think they can win a first round series with Udoka, but we’ll see. It would be hard to pick a weaker opponent than the very injured Lakers, and they won handily.
Normal expectations, for a team that had shown some success in the playoffs might be to make the Western Conference Finals, but we’re going to have to give Udoka a golf handicap here. He’s shown no sign of being up to par in the playoffs. So let’s say a single series win is success, and we should expect at least that.
The Rockets are like 22 to 1 to make the NBA Finals and 50 to 1 to win them, so if you’ve got a lot more confidence than me in the playoff future of the Rockets this season, those are attractive odds.
Team Expectations
First, I’m a Rockets fan, as approximately one zillion articles here will attest. I want them to win, to succeed, and if possible, dominate. I want to see another title before I’m dead. I don’t have some grudge that makes me want to see them fail.
Two, I think there is tremendous amount of talent on this team. I mean, there’s Kevin Durant, still able to do Durant things. There’s Amen Thompson, who could find an offensive breakout, or at least go back to being a DPOY candidate. At least? Yes, at least, that’s how high his defensive potential is. There’s Alperen Sengun, who might be greatly helped by having FVV back directing point of attack defense (though I think the biggest defensive weak point isn’t Sengun, it’s Durant). We can hope he’ll be more efficient, though I think the easiest way to see that would be to use him differently.
There’s Jabari Smith, who has quietly become a very good overall player, and is still in the growth stage of his career. There’s Steady Freddy Van Vleet, who can at least run offense. There’s Reed Sheppard, who put on that muscle everyone wanted, and was a top 10% three point shooter by percentage, and a top 6% three point shooter by volume. There’s Tari Eason, who got paid and is apparently now happy, and man mountain Steven Adams who might stay healthy. I think we’re going to see quite a lot of Marcus Smart, also.
Three, my fear is, this team is limited by coaching. There’s plenty of talent to be excellent here. Unfortunately, I feel as though if you gave Ime Udoka a roster of Damien Lillard, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Michael Porter Jr and Karl Anthony Towns, that he’d insist on playing the exact way the Rockets play now. Defense first, despite literally no good defenders, but great scorers and shooters. At least that team would have a couple of guards to initiate offense.
All that said, I think the regular season should be enjoyable, even if that enjoyment comes on the knife edge of Fred Van Vleet’s health (I don’t think anyone will enjoy Smart as full time PG). If the Rockets can get more guard play from VanVleet, Smart and Sheppard, and have Adams around to help dominate the boards again, they can make it work in the regular season, and probably finish top four. After that, all bets are off.
Conclusion
I think the Rockets have the talent to be great, and the coaching to be good, and that should lead to a successful regular season. I want to enjoy that as much as I can. What are you expectations? I’d put up a poll, but I still can’t.
Lakers forced to alter practice due to ‘great effort and physicality’
Lakers coach JJ Redick made the mandate to the team’s crop of wings clear: It’s on them to establish the team’s defensive physicality.
They’re the ones who can set the tone in front of premier rim protector Walker Kessler.
After Tuesday’s practice, the second of the team’s training camp sessions, consider the message heard and fulfilled, to the point where Redick and his coaching staff had to cut a couple of drills and modify the latter third of practice because “these guys were just giving great effort and physicality”.
“It was wonderful,” Redick said.
Redick reiterated it’s been the wings who’ve stood out the most with establishing physicality.
“We talked about a line of confrontation,” the coach said. “Picking the ball up earlier, being disruptive earlier, eating at the shot clock earlier. Our physicality off the ball has been really good. It’s the entire group of wings. Anybody that’s been out there, it’s been really good.”
The stakes for the wings during training camp are clear.
Two of the Lakers’ starting spots alongside Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves and Walker Kessler are up for grabs.
As Jake LaRavia put it, the competition for not just those starting spots, but also playing time on the wings in general next to the Lakers star guards is going to come down to “who’s the best 3-and-D player for us.”
And with multiple Lakers saying defense has been the main priority early in camp, players know that will determine how much court time they’re able to see.
“It’s been high intensity from the start,” Quentin Grimes said. “We’re trying to set the tone defensively for who we want to be as a team, picking up full court, everybody, all five guys trying to switch one through five. So, just having that intensity the whole practice, JJ could see it, we could all feel it, the coaches could feel it.”
The intensity comes at a cost, though.
“And then we have a pretty intense practice like that, things get sloppy offensively,” Grimes added. “And so [Redick] probably knew, like, ‘yeah, just shut it down’ because the intensity was getting really high, for sure.”
The Lakers’ defense has been heavily scrutinized after their offseason reconstruction, with many external observers expecting for them to once again be a subpar defensive unit.
But Kessler pushed back on that narrative.
“We’re going to be a nasty defensive team, I’m just being honest,” Kessler said. “Just seeing these guys hound the ball on the perimeter. We’re going to be really good defensively. We have a lot of defensive tools.”
Among those tools are Matisse Thybulle’s anticipation and instincts.
Ziaire Williams’ size, length and athleticism.
The point-of-attack defensive skills Quentin Grimes showed early in his career.
Adou Thiero’s strength, size and athleticism.
The hope is that’ll make life difficult for opponents, not just the Lakers who’ve had the misfortune of going against them the last couple of practices.
“Let me tell you, trying to score on Matisse and Ziaire, especially with Adou out there too, and then Walker on the back line is not easy,” Reaves said. “I had to deal with that all day [Tuesday] and [Wednesday], and it’s not fun.
“So, defensively, we’re going to be much better. Those guys compete every possession, and then everybody else, fills in their roles and plays the right way. So, yeah, I see how special we can be.”
Miles McBride is playing for a future that may not be with the Knicks
Knicks coach Mike Brown has spent much of the early days of training camp answering questions about how his team will address what he labeled “elephants in the room.”
Miles McBride’s expiring contract is one of the biggest.
The 26-year-old McBride is entering the final year of his three-year, $13 million contract and is set to become a free agent next year unless he and the Knicks agree to an extension. But there has been little movement in that regard, and his long-term Knicks future is uncertain.
“Obviously I love being in New York,” McBride said after practice Wednesday. “I’d love to continue my career here, end my career here. Best fans, I feel like we’ve done, obviously, something great this past year and the years leading up to that and I want to continue with this team.”
He is one of a trio of key Knicks whose contract situations are likely to hover over the season — Karl-Anthony Towns and Josh Hart spoke Monday about the discomfort of not yet having signed extensions themselves. But McBride is the only one currently on an expiring deal, and the Knicks front office has a history of trading players on expiring deals rather than losing them for nothing in free agency. Mitchell Robinson this past offseason was an exception.
And the Knicks have a well-documented edict from owner James Dolan to remain under the second apron. McBride, set to earn just under $4 million this year, is one of the best values in the league. But assuming he has another productive season, he is in line for a dramatic pay raise.
The Knicks have significant money invested in their starting five and will already be hard-pressed to keep that unit together, much less anyone else. It is likely just not feasible to also give a big contract to a bench player, even if he plays a key role. Robinson was a casualty of that reality.
The Knicks also have good depth at backup guard in Landry Shamet, Jose Alvarado and Jordan Clarkson. They lack depth at center behind Towns, with Andre Drummond the only backup who is a lock to make the roster. McBride is the best trade chip on the bench that would actually bring back good value and it would make sense that the Knicks could look to flip him for a quality big man.
“I feel like in a sense, every year you have to prove yourself,” McBride said. “I feel like there’s uncertainty across the board for everybody in the league. Everybody’s going for big contracts and this and that. So I don’t let it really bother me. At the end of the day, I just want to go out there and give it my shot, play my best basketball.”
Along with Towns’ and Hart’s negotiations, it presents a potential distraction amid the attempt to repeat as champions.
“We’re gonna face a lot of adversity and challenges throughout the course of the year,” coach Mike Brown said on Wednesday. “I addressed the group on that. I addressed individuals on that. There will probably be a time and place that I talk to [McBride] because he’s human, we’re all human, and we all want what’s best not just for ourselves but for our family as well as the organization, too. That’s a nice balancing act. But at the end of the day, he wants to be here, we want him to be here, and that’s something that I have faith in [president] Leon [Rose] and even Deuce’s representatives to figure that out.”
That McBride played through injury and sacrificed his body last year also plays into this.
He was terrific, shooting a career-high 42.0 percent from 3-point range before being sidelined after undergoing surgery for a sports hernia. He came back at the end of the regular season, though he was not as effective and struggled at times in the playoffs.
“It’s kind of crazy, thinking about how unhealthy I was playing through that playoff run,” McBride said. “You go through surgery in an area where you need it. The easy medical term is sports hernia but it was a lot more complex than that. … The pain, there’s only so much you can do with that.”
Healthy again, McBride is confident he’ll be back to his best while auditioning for a new contract — with the Knicks or someone else.
Lakers Training Camp Notebook: Two standout players emerge
LOS ANGELES — The offseason is where rosters and expectations are formed. Training camp is where the process to meet those goals begins, and the Los Angeles Lakers have been putting in the work through the first two days.
The Lakers came into the new season expected to take a dip defensively, but if what we heard at training camp on Wednesday is true, two players are looking to turn that perception on its head in Matisse Thybulle and Ziaire Williams.
Take it directly from the guy who’s dealt with their defensive impact first-hand.
“Trying to score on Matisse and Zaire…is not easy,” Austin Reaves said after practice on Wednesday. “Had to deal with that all day yesterday and today, and it’s not fun…I think that they’re two of the best defenders in the league. They can guard multiple positions. Matisse’s anticipation is top tier. So excited to have them on our team and see what they can do.”
Thybulle and Williams both come to Los Angeles on minimum deals — the former a veteran, the latter still just 25 — each looking to prove they still belong in the league. If the impression they’re making on the rest of the roster bears true, they both may be integral pieces in making the Lakers one of the best defenses in the league.
“It starts with the defense,” JJ Redick said of Williams. “He’s a pest. He’s disruptive. He’s got great length. I think even going back to September when we watched pickup games and through the first two days of camp, his physicality stood out. I know he probably doesn’t have a reputation as being invisible, and you combine that with the length and the instincts, and he’s got just a solid base defensively.”
Modifying practice
Redick has been a coach of great detail in his tenure with the Lakers. So, naturally, when he has to modify practice, you’d think it would be a problem for him. Not on Wednesday.
“[Today] was great,” Redick said. “I mean, we actually had to modify the latter third of practice because these guys were just giving great effort and physicality. So we cut a couple things, but it was wonderful.”
Redick expanded, saying the wings were the main source of that physicality, especially on defense, being early disruptors, eating at the shot clock and maintaining that physicality off the ball.
“It’s been high intensity from the start,” Quentin Grimes said. “We kind of set the tone defensively with who we want to be as a team. Picking up full court, everybody, all five guys trying to switch one-through-five. We went smaller a couple times today, so just having that intensity the whole practice. JJ can see it. We could all feel it. The coaches can feel it.”
“It was very intense,” Sandro Mamukelashvili added. “Everybody’s very intense, hands-on, very, very physical. We try to set the tone from the beginning of the practice, make sure we pick each other up. But at the same time, it’s very, very healthy competition and everybody tries to establish themselves and get comfortable with each other and learn each other’s tendency.
“But today, it was very, very hard. We were going at it. We’re pushing, shoving, and just trying to make sure we help each other get better.”
Imposter syndrome subsiding
The majority of Lakers fans welcomed Redick with open arms three seasons ago despite no professional coaching experience. Many pointed to his lengthy playing career, the brief, but impactful, media career that followed and the natural charisma he’s had since he was at Duke as reasoning. Outwardly, he’s always had a confidence to him, too.
That wasn’t always the case internally, though.
“As I reflected this summer,” Redick said candidly. “Probably shouldn’t admit this, but early in my coaching career, it felt like I was cosplaying a little bit. It was like I was pretending to be a coach. You get more reps, you get more comfortable. I don’t think the confidence was ever not there, and you also just know what you want.
“When I played, I played with an anger. There was an inner anger that drove my competitiveness. That’s not always a good thing as a coach, particularly now. So, yeah, just working through all that stuff. But I think the biggest thing is just intrinsic knowledge. You do things enough, you just feel more comfortable.”
Redick led the Lakers to 50-plus wins in each of his first two seasons as head coach, something the franchise hasn’t seen since Pat Riley’s first two years. Aside from the few more gray hairs Reaves jokingly said he’s noticed, there’s been a tangible impact in his coaching style.
“He’s been great,” Reaves said. “Care factor is high. Intelligence is high. He cares more than anybody else in the gym. He’s been a good leader since day one. He’s confident in what he wants to do. He’s confident in himself and confident in his basketball.”
Other notes:
- Austin Reaves had to pause his media sessions to admire Luka Dončić hitting five halfcourt shots in the span of 30 seconds.
- Redick says Walker Kessler and Kevon Looney will be playing closer to the basket on defense while Mamu’s usage in that role will be more matchup-dependent.
- Mamu is concentrating on learning team principles and being a reliable contributor rather than worrying about starting or coming off the bench.
You can follow Connor on Twitter at @cmorenoNBA.