Category: Basketball

Let’s get it Dub Nation. As training camp begins and the Golden State Warriors are getting back into the swing of things, I’m continuing my review of what the rest of the NBA has done, division by division.

We’re still in the Atlantic Division right now, and I’ve already covered the Boston Celtics and the Toronto Raptors. Next up on the list is the Brooklyn Nets, fresh off of winning their third straight title with the super trio of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden.

Wait wait, you mean to tell me those three stars have been gone for hella long and the franchise is a wasteland that hasn’t won anything since Dr. J was playing? Whoaaa.

Last season the Warriors went 2-0 against Brooklyn. On December 29th at Barclays, Golden State won 120-107. The rematch at Chase on March 25 was tighter, 109-106, and the leading scorer was Gui Santos with a career-high 31. Santos detonating on Brooklyn was a pretty clear indicator of how badly the non-Knicks New York team was spiraling.

Gui Santos vs. Brooklyn Nets 3/25/2026

31 PTS | 11-16 FG | W 109-106 pic.twitter.com/xvt6GXP2gB

— NBA Shooting Audit (@NBAShotAudit) March 26, 2026

These guys eventually collapsed to a 20-62 finish as their season mercifully ended. Brooklyn walked into the summer trying to figure out a new identity, which can be an exciting thing! But perpetual rebuild mode is enough to break the hearts of even the most hardened fanbase. I wonder if the Nets are ready to play an inspired brand of basketball that would keep all of their supporters from burning their jerseys and bandwagoning the champion orange and blue of their neighbors.

Nicolas Claxton left for Chicago, Ziaire Williams went to the Lakers, and the draft brought in Mikel Brown Jr., Joshua Jefferson and Tyler Bilodeau. Also, financial freedom! Isn’t that what everybody wants if you’re not winning championships?? Per Nets Daily:

Who can forget flexibility!?! To recap, Brooklyn still has $4.9 million in cap space, the $9.4 million room exception, the full $8.5 million in cash considerations plus 32 draft picks. You know the math … or should by now! 13 firsts, 10 of which can be traded, and 19 seconds, all of which can be traded. And at the moment, no Nets player has a contract that extends beyond 2027-28.

And then they traded for Julius Randle.

Mikel Brown Jr. on his vision for the Nets:

“I was talking to Julius Randle about it the other day and he told me, ‘We’re gonna shock the world.’ That’s what we plan on doing.” pic.twitter.com/4fvaUXssBt

— Erik Slater (@ErikSlater_) June 29, 2026

CBS Sports’ Sam Quinn was confused too:

Brooklyn’s front office probably faces the biggest disparity between perception and reality of any in basketball. The prevailing narrative surrounding the Nets is that they’ve been poorly run and their outlook is bleak. True, they haven’t yet found any truly foundational players, but they have a clean cap sheet and a six-pick first-round draft surplus (not including swaps, though in fairness they owe their 2027 swap to the Houston Rockets). The reality is that this is a pretty promising blank slate if you’re willing to take the long view.

The Julius Randle addition makes no sense. He’s an expensive floor-raiser in his 30s. The Nets don’t need their floor raised. They don’t control their own pick this year, so the relegation zone isn’t a concern. He overlaps positionally with Michael Porter Jr. (whom they have neither traded nor extended, strangely). He’ll take the ball out of the hands of their many young players who need it.

Julius Randle on playing alongside Michael Porter Jr. and how their games can complement each other 🤝 pic.twitter.com/2SVIsdVKk4

— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) September 28, 2026

I gotta admit, I do enjoy seeing Michael Porter Jr. pull up with zero conscience and fire up shots from beyond the arc like a real flamethrower. It reminds me of Klay Thompson sometimes; except less accurate. I can see a world where certain nights MPJ and Randle thrive off inferior defenders and light up the scoreboard. I also am curious to see how the Nets win games if they aren’t both clicking. But is Porter Jr. really just trade bait for a potential contender?

Per Sports Illustrated, here’s MPJ’s thoughts on the topic: “I’ve voiced that I’d love to be in Brooklyn and that I’m enjoying playing with these guys. And I think we’ll be a lot better this year, obviously. … The way these young guys have gotten better just in one year, I’m excited to see what we can do. So that’s where my mind is at and I’m not even thinking about anything else.”

I’ve seen the Nets take two major swings at the title in the last dozen or so years. There was the time they assembled Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Deron Williams, and Joe Johnson for an aging superteam back in 2013. Then there was that KD-Kyrie-Harden trio that the pandemic and injuries washed away. To see this franchise struggling while their NY neighbors guzzle championship champagne shows just how close despair and success live.

I expect the Warriors to give these guys the business when they meet this season. And with how stacked their division is, it’s gonna be tough to make some noise. They’ve got the athletic Toronto Raptors, the chip-on-their-shoulder Boston Celtics, and the new and improved Philadelphia 76ers all staring down at them in the standings. And whenever Brooklyn needs a break from looking up at the division, it can glance across the East River and watch the Knicks hang a banner.

Have fun with that, Brooklyn.

When the Lakers opened training camp with their first practice on Tuesday in El Segundo, there were a lot of new faces inside the building. 

And many familiar faces were nowhere to be seen.

Gone were LeBron James, the league’s all-time leading scorer who spent eight seasons in Los Angeles before joining the 76ers.

Same with Rui Hachimura, who spent 3 ½ seasons with the Lakers before joining the Clippers, as well as Marcus Smart, Deandre Ayton, Luke Kennard and Jaxson Hayes, all of whom played important roles for the Lakers’ playoff series victory over the Rockets in the spring. 

Enter nine new players on the Lakers’ roster and a lot of new possibilities as the franchise fully establishes itself in the Luka Doncic era.

With so many new players on the roster (9), will that change how training camp looks for the Lakers compared to the last couple of seasons?

JJ Redick: "Not necessarily. We had a really productive August and September with our small group works. ⁰In terms of installs and… pic.twitter.com/QosWYQNTAb

— Khobi Price (@khobi_price) September 29, 2026

Doncic lobs to marquee free-agent addition Walker Kessler? Check, with Kessler saying Doncic threw him around four lobs on Tuesday, quickly establishing a connection. 

“It was great,” Doncic said. “We had a lot of fun, a lot of teaching points, and everybody I think felt that it was like it was a great first day.”

The beginning of a battle for two of the Lakers’ open starting spots? Check, with the team’s wings competing for minutes establishing the defensive physicality during the first practice.

“We went after it from Day 1,” Kessler said. “So it’s fantastic.” 

Outside of the new faces, which included shakeups on coach JJ Redick’s staff after longtime assistant coach Bob Beyer’s retirement, the first practice of camp didn’t look much different than it did during Redick’s first two years as coach. 

The installs and teaching for this portion of preseason will look the same, with Redick acknowledging his growth as a teacher, continuing to build off the small-group sessions players had in August and throughout September. 

The excitement for what this new group can be is palpable.

“They are a very receptive group, eager group,” Redick said. “Even a couple of the guys that sat out a portion of the live play were constantly asking questions, and they want information. and they want to learn and they want to be better.”

And there’s also clear goals for camp ahead of the first preseason game against the Kings in Sacramento on Monday: establish their defensive principles, continue to establish their early offense (which was their main priority for all of September) and get in “great shape.” 

“We’ve gotten terrific buy-in over the last several weeks,” Redick said, “and [Tuesday] was very additive to those three things.”

But with so many new faces in the building, it led to a key question: Are there ways to fast-track on-court chemistry so everyone’s in sync when the games start to count beginning with Opening Night against the Warriors in three weeks (Oct. 21)?

“That’s a hard question — I honestly don’t know,” Doncic said. “Some things [we’re] going to figure out quicker; some things are going to [be figured] out later. I feel like we had a great first practice. A lot of teaching points. It was a great practice.”

In light of the significant roster changes, are there ways for the Lakers to fast-track on-court chemistry?

Luka Doncic: "I honestly don't know. Some things [we're] going to figure out quicker, some things are going to figure out later…I feel like we had a great first… pic.twitter.com/gBmQ7EM9V4

— Khobi Price (@khobi_price) September 29, 2026

And for now, that’s all Tuesday needed to be. 

With a lighter preseason schedule compared with the previous year (five exhibitions instead of six), the Lakers will have more time to work out the kinks that could come with such drastic roster turnover. 

Their teamwide trip to Slovenia, which Doncic led, helped fast-track the players’ connections with each other.

And that connection, which was felt on Tuesday, already has most of them believing they can compete with not just the best teams in the Western Conference but throughout the NBA.

“No question — undoubtedly,” Kessler responded when asked whether the Lakers can be NBA title contenders. “We have a lot of great tools and a lot of versatility. The guys are already getting along. Connection makes championship teams, and we definitely could be a contender.”

Like Redick mentioned last week, no team is a championship-level team on Sept. 29. 

And they likely won’t be on Sept. 30, either. 

The journey to becoming a contender is an ongoing process that lasts from the early fall all the way through the following spring. 

But the Lakers felt great about Tuesday being a step forward in that process. 

Which is all that the first practice needed to provide. 

A longtime NBA coach retired from Lakers coach JJ Redick’s staff, triggering shakeups.

Bob Beyer decided to call it a coaching career, which started for the 64-year-old when he became an assistant coach for Alfred University’s men’s basketball team in 1983 and ended after two seasons on Redick’s staff from 2024-26.

Beyer was an assistant coach in Orlando (2007-12) and New Orleans (2020-21) when Redick played for the Magic (2006-13) and Pelicans (2019-21).

“He’s been a very important person in my NBA life and a very important friend,” Redick said after the Lakers’ training camp practice Tuesday. “He’s someone I explicitly trust and believe in. He’s an incredible teacher. He was an incredible mentor for a lot of our young coaches and an incredible example.”

JJ Redick on longtime NBA coach Bob Beyer's retirement after two years on his coaching staff.

"To be honest with you, it came as a surprise…I understood the reasons why. I didn't try to talk him out of it. What he did say to me was like, 'I was basically retired, and then you… pic.twitter.com/pcAJJTdmJn

— Khobi Price (@khobi_price) September 29, 2026

Redick said Beyer’s retirement came as a surprise since Beyer shared the news around mid-August.

“I understood the reasons why,” Redick said. “I didn’t try to talk him out of it. He leaves on great terms with the Lakers. What he did say to me was like, ‘I was basically retired, and then you asked me to do this with you, and I did it for two years, and now I’m ready to retire.’ But he’s a legend. We all love him. We’re so appreciative of everything you did for us.”

After coaching in college for 20 years, Beyer took his first NBA assistant coaching job with the Raptors in 2003-04. He was an assistant coach at Dayton in 2005-07 before coming back to the NBA with the Magic in 2007, staying in the NBA coaching ranks for 19 consecutive years before retiring. 

With Beyer’s retirement, assistant coach Greg St. Jean has been promoted to a front-of-bench role.

Michael Wexler was elevated to assistant coach after being the head video coordinator the last two seasons on Redick’s staff. 

Zach Guthrie was also promoted from the South Bay Lakers (now known as the Coachella Valley Lakers) to assistant coach and head of player development.

Drew Seifert was promoted from assistant video coordinator to head video coordinator, while Gerdarius Troutman went from assistant video coordinator to player development coach.

Austin Pope (previously the South Bay Lakers head video coordinator) and Lucas Vargas (coaching associate) are the new assistant video coordinators.

The NBA plans to select the winning bid for owner of the Las Vegas expansion team “in the very near future.”

The franchise and new arena is expected to be sold for $12 billion to $13 billion. There are three finalist groups, according to ESPN: Nancy Walton Laurie and Bill Laurie; Steve Apostolopoulos and Marc Lasry; and Bill Foley and Jerry Colangelo.

The league will hold an official approval process by the end of December on two expansion teams, but Las Vegas is expected to be settled before Seattle. For one, Las Vegas has a more active bidding market that consists of higher offers.

In Seattle, there are no logistics of developing a new arena as Climate Pledge Arena is already a set home for the new team. Moreover, the Vegas runners-up may have interest in joining the Seattle bid process.

Nancy Walton Laurie is the daughter of Walmart co-founder James “Bud” Walton. She is married to Bill Laurie, the former owner of the NHL’s St. Louis Blues. The couple resides in a suburb of Las Vegas and has a net worth of $17 billion, per Forbes.

Apostolopoulos showed interest in purchasing the Charlotte Hornets from Michael Jordan in 2023, but the Canadian billionaire pivoted to buying the Washington Commanders. The NFL franchise was later sold to a group led by Josh Harris, Philadelphia 76ers owner.

Lasry is the former co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks and sold his stake in the franchise to Cleveland Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam at a valuation of $3.5 billion.

Colangelo, the former owner of the Phoenix Suns, began talking with Foley about teaming up with his Las Vegas Jacks group. Colangelo and Foley became partners because of the latter’s ties to the city and the Jacks’ plans for a new arena as well as the relationship equity with key league stakeholders.

The Knicks are apparently still deciding whether to become the first NBA champs to visit President Trump’s White House.

Months after Knicks owner James Dolan said he accepted Trump’s invitation, Mike Brown, the team’s coach, said the organization hasn’t committed.

“No, that’s still something that our guys, the organization, is internally discussing,” Brown said. “Whatever we decide to do, we’ll all do together.”

Four previous NBA champs during the Trump Administration were either uninvited or skipped — the Warriors (twice), Raptors and Thunder.

Last year, the Thunder cited a “timing issue” for not visiting the White House. But scheduling conflicts can’t be a Knicks excuse this year. They have a day off before their first game in Washington against the Wizards on Dec. 18, followed by two days off before their next contest in New Orleans.

It’s in the middle of a road trip.

In 2018, the Warriors even visited former President Barack Obama instead of Trump. The year prior, Trump rescinded an invitation to the Warriors because star guard Stephen Curry expressed reluctance to go. Brown was the top Warriors assistant coach for both those titles.

Under President Biden, three of the four NBA champions visited the White House. The Nuggets skipped it after the White House postponed.

Dolan publicly declared on WFAN that he’d bring the 2026 champs to visit his buddy in Washington.

“I’ve known [Trump] for 30 years and I’m very proud to bring the team to the White House,” Dolan said June 17, four days after the Knicks won the title.

Trump, a longtime Knicks fan, became the first sitting president to attend an NBA Finals game when he watched Game 3 at MSG from a suite. He was briefly shown on the jumbotron and jeered by the crowd.

Five days later, the Knicks ended a 53-year title drought by beating the Spurs in five games.

“Congratulations to Jim Dolan and the New York Knicks!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social. “What a year it has been but, even more so, what incredible playoff wins we have all witnessed, especially the last four – Maybe the greatest in the history of basketball. Also, tonight, a superstar was born. His name is Jalen Brunson, and there are others, including Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby, and great Patriot, Mitchell Robinson!”

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Two-time NBA champion J.R. Smith has been arrested in Texas on family violence charges.

The former Laker is being held on suspicion of family violence assault causing bodily injury, with no bond currently set, according to the Hunt County jail’s booking records. The charge is usually a misdemeanor for first-time offenders.

According to a news release from Royse City police chief Kirk Aldridge, officers stopped Smith, whose full name is Earl Joseph Smith III, on Interstate 30 on Monday afternoon after receiving an automatic license plate alert about an outstanding warrant for his arrest issued by the Southlake Police Department..

The officers stopped the vehicle, identified Smith and took him into custody. He was transported to the Hunt County dentention center and booked on the Southlake warrant. Smith’s car was released to his brother, who was with him at the time.

Southlake police said in a statement that the investigation is ongoing and no additional information will be released at this time.

Read more:Swanson: Lakers paid Austin Reaves to be a star. Now they need him to prove his durability

Smith played for five teams during his 16-year NBA career. He was named the league’s sixth man of the year in 2013 as a member of the New York Knicks and was a member of the LeBron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers that won the 2016 NBA championship.

After signing with the Lakers while the league was shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic in July 2020, Smith played sparingly after the season resumed in a bubble environment in Orlando, eventually winning another NBA championship with James as his teammate. His last NBA appearance was in Game 3 of the 2020 finals, a 115-104 Lakers loss to the Miami Heat.

In 2009, Smith was sentenced to 90 days in jail, with 60 days suspended, and 500 hours of community service for reckless driving after he caused a 2007 auto accident in Millstone, N.J., that resulted in the death of a friend who was a passenger in the vehicle.

Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

At a news conference on the second day of Knicks training camp Tuesday, star point guard Jalen Brunsonand head coach Mike Brownspoke about the offseason, the upcoming campaign, and more.

Brunson bounces back after wrist injury 

In July, Brunson underwent surgery to repair a wrist injury sustained midway through the Knicks' victorious playoff run, leaving him in a cast for about two months and rendering him unable to complete his usual offseason training regimen.

Nevertheless, Brunson said he feels no need to "catch up" on practice ahead of the 2026-27 season.

"I just feel like I didn't do my normal summer stuff," he said. "I feel good, but also I know that it wasn't just my normal summer."

Brunson sustained the injury — a tendon-bone friction issue in his left wrist caused by the repeated motion of shooting the ball — in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals but continued to play through the remainder of the Knicks' title hunt, averaging 28 points and six assists across the entire postseason and securing the honor of NBA Finals MVP.

Two years earlier, Brunson fractured his hand on the same side in a season-ending loss to the Indiana Pacers in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. He compared that injury to the one in his wrist, noting that although the rehab periods were similar, he had more time to recover during the offseason last time.

"It was similar, but I was shooting earlier than I was this time," Brunson said. "I was in a cast longer than I was before, when I broke my hand. Plus, [surgery] was a little bit earlier — I think I got surgery right after it happened. I didn't get surgery until like three weeks later [this time] because I didn't know it was a necessity."

Brunson announced Sept. 24 that he's "fully cleared" for the upcoming season.

Brunson returns respect from LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo

Since leading the Knicks in their historic title run, Brunson has received praise from across the league — including from stars like LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo. 

Both players chose to shout Brunson out, along with the rest of the Knicks, in their respective media day comments Monday. James described Brunson as "unbelievable," and Antetokounmpo called him "one of the best players" in the NBA.

"I really do appreciate it," Brunson said. "I respect the hell out of them. It's honestly really cool ... I really do appreciate it, and it shows where I've grown, but still got a lot of work to do."

In the same news conference Monday, James stated that, had the Knicks not won the championship last season, he would have wanted to sign with them as a free agent in the offseason, reaffirming the sentiment his agent expressed in early July. 

"I had visions of playing in [Madison Square] Garden and finishing my career in the Garden," James said. "One of the best places I've ever played."

Instead, the 41-year-old signed a two-year contract with the Philadelphia 76ers.

Mike Brown weighs in on White House visit

Head coach Mike Brown took the podium after Brunson and, among other things, gave an update on whether or not the team has accepted President Donald Trump's invitation to the White House following their title win.

"That's still something that our guys, the organization is internally discussing," Brown said. "Whatever we decide to do, we'll all do together."

Knicks owner James Dolan stated on the radio after the team's victory in June that they would indeed make the trip to Washington, D.C. 

A visit would make the Knicks the first NBA team to visit the White House under a Trump presidency.

Despite still not fully cracking the rotation, Bronny James showcased strides in his second NBA season a year ago. He shot 38.6% from deep (28.1% in 2024-25) and 43.1% on 2-pointers (34.3% in 2024-25) while continuing to flash some impressive feel, on-ball defense and connective passing.

In 2026-27, the goal should be to prove his outside shooting was not an aberration and further grow attacking closeouts if run off the arc. For the first time, he’ll also be playing without his father, LeBron James, as a teammate and wants to make clear he’s his own player beyond his dad’s shadow.

“I think, for me, just the motivating factor of creating my own path and my own career just makes me want to get up every day and work hard and come into the gym and learn from guys that have been here longer than me,” he told reporters at Monday’s media day. “I think it’s just something I’ve followed my entire life. You guys know me as Bronny and my real name is LeBron. I’ve been doing this for however long so I think it’s a motivating factor for me just getting up every day to prove myself as Bronny instead of LeBron.”

As a 6-foot-2 off-ball guard with limited dribbling and interior scoring comfort, Bronny is facing an uphill battle to establish himself as a full-time rotation player in the league. Fortunately, the Los Angeles Lakers’ offense is led by a pair of bigger initiators, Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves, who can allow smaller players to slide off the ball — an area Bronny focused on this offseason — and reap the rewards of their creation talents.

Los Angeles needs more point-of-attack stoppers, where Bronny has displayed promise, so if he’s a legitimate floor-spacer and develops a bit offensively, it’s plausible he becomes a reliable option off the bench independent of any ties to his family name. That certainly seems to be his goal.

You can follow Jackson on Twitter at @jackfrank_jjf.

It’s not often we get a cataclysmic sports gaffe on Capitol Hill, but Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) gave us something absolutely incredible on Tuesday morning. In what can only be described as “the Sideshow Bob stepping on rakes of attempted gotchas,” Schmitt confidently dropped what he believed would be a smoking gun in causing Jack Smith to perjure himself as part of the probe into Smith’s investigation of President Donald Trump.

Schmitt confidently (and cockily) claimed that he had evidence from a series of text messages that Jack Smith was in Atlanta on Feb. 3, 2024, watching the Atlanta Hawks play the Golden State Warriors. Just one problem: Smith was actually in Maryland, seeing the Iowa Hawkeyes play Maryland.

🤡 Eric Schmitt beclowns himself during Jack Smith hearing 🤡

Schmitt concocted an elaborate conspiracy theory that Smith traveled to Atlanta to go to a Hawks game and collude with Fani Willis, and briefly displayed his "evidence" on a poster board before accusing Smith of… pic.twitter.com/wDMiVrrKBF

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 29, 2026

“It … it was because Caitlin Clark was coming to Maryland to play. That’s why we went to the game,” Smith said. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) tried to hold back her laughter at the gaffe, before criticizing her fellow senator for insinuating Smith was a “dirtbag” over his incorrect “evidence,” while also taking a shot at his lack of hoops knowledge: “For a U.S. Senator to have false information, and imply, based on a confusion about the name of a team — which I knew, knowing my midwestern sports…”

Smith said that he was present at the game with members of the U.S. Marshall’s service, which was confirmed. He absolutely was not in Atlanta, when Schmitt said he was. But … should he have been?! Let’s compare the game he went to, with the one that Schmitt thought he was at.

Iowa Hakweyes 93, Maryland Terrapins 85

Caitlin Clark went off, scoring 38 points, dishing 12 assists, and adding 6 rebounds for good measure. It wasn’t her most efficient day from beyond the arc, as she shot 7-for-17 from three — but ultimately it was an astonishingly good game.

Atlanta Hawks 141, Golden State Warriors 134

It took overtime to settle the game between the Hawks and Warriors. Steph Curry was nuclear, scoring 60 points, including 10-of-23 from three, but it wasn’t enough to stop a barrage of Hawks’ offense led by Trae Young.

I don’t know if there was a right or wrong game to go to here, to be honest. I’m giving the edge to seeing the Hawkeyes in Maryland — only because you got to be a part of the Caitlin Clark experience and saw a game where she absolutely went off. Obviously, Steph had an amazing game as well, and it’s not every day you get to watch him drop 60, but it doesn’t have the same level of gravitas.

In any event, the Iowa Hawkeyes aren’t the Atlanta Hawks. Moreover, the smoking-gun text message exchange missed the fact that the Atlanta Hawks’ arena uses letters for their rows, not numbers — so this was incorrect before it was ever presented to the floor.

When the Warriors lost their play-in game to the Suns 111-96 last season, the year ended at 37-45 and Steve Kerr walked into the postgame presser sounding like a man drafting his own farewell. “These jobs all have an expiration date,” he said; his contract had already hit one.

I’m gonna defer to the legendary Anthony Slater at ESPN who described how for the next three weeks Kerr sat with owner Joe Lacob and general manager Mike Dunleavy and talked about everything from how the team should play to who should be sitting next to him on the bench. Apparently the real sticking point was the roster as Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody were both rehabbing serious knee injuries that will keep them out into the new year, and the core was getting older by the month. There was belief that if management wanted to hit the eject button and rebuild, Kerr probably wasn’t the coach for that job.

Management didn’t hit the button though! On May 9 Kerr agreed to a two-year deal that keeps him the highest-paid coach in the league after he made $17.5 million the season before. Kerr brings stability, championship know-how, and the comforting voice that Stephen Curry and Draymond Green have been hearing for most of their careers.

The question from Dub Nation is whether Kerr can develop some young frontcourt talent while the Warriors are still trying to win. The narrative is that he has relied on squeezing all the juice he can out of trusty veterans while recent top lottery picks like James Wiseman and Jonathan Kuminga never realized their potential in Warriors’ uniforms.

Steve Kerr to the fans who say he doesn’t develop young players

"Grownups win championships… Any frustration from our fans is probably coming from this idea that young players should get it right away. It just doesn't work that way."

(Via @957thegame, h/t @TheNBABase) pic.twitter.com/WNnXTO7adG

— Fullcourtpass (@Fullcourtpass) March 5, 2026

That brings us to this past summer, when Golden State’s No. 11 pick was their most valuable chip, and for a while it looked like it might get packaged for a star.

Then Giannis went to Miami, and the Warriors kept the pick. A couple days before the draft, the front office asked Kerr what the roster needed most. Dunleavy told NBC Sports Bay Area that Kerr’s answer was, “There’s a huge gap in the middle of it with our forward position.” He wanted a connector, somebody who could fill that hole by sliding into the Steph and Draymond machine and keeping it moving. Dunleavy said he sat there wondering whether Kerr was steering them toward Yaxel Lendeborg on purpose. Then they took Lendeborg at 11, and on paper you can see what Kerr saw.

Lendeborg was the best player on a Michigan team that won the national title, averaging 15.1 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.2 assists while stuffing the defensive box score too. He’s 6-foot-9, 240 pounds, and took the long road through junior college and UAB before Michigan, where he evolved from a bruising power forward into a wing. He’ll be 24 when the season starts. Then he went out and led the Warriors to a Summer League title, just in case anybody needed some more data before the season starts that this young man is a hot prospect.

The 2026 NBA Summer League MVP is… Yaxel Lendeborg of the Warriors!

Lendeborg, the 11th overall pick, averaged 14.8 PPG, 6.8 RPG, and 4.0 APG en route to Golden State becoming NBA Summer League Champions. pic.twitter.com/IKeQ4fykzm

— NBA (@NBA) July 21, 2026

Yaxel Lendeborg on his early conversations with Steve Kerr: “He doesn’t normally play rookies as much. He has a history of that. But the way the team is looking right now, I’m going to have a really good chance to play, maybe even start.” pic.twitter.com/Vm1DXhkjUO

— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) June 26, 2026

The opening for Big Yax is real. Butler’s knee has him targeting early 2027, Kuminga is in Minnesota, and besides Draymond Green the other options at the four are Gui Santos, Georges Niang and Malevy Leons (unless you go super big with Kristaps Porzingis and Al Horford). None bring Lendeborg’s combination of size, athleticism, and spacing. Here’s every frontcourt player the Warriors have drafted in the Kerr era since 2019, plus Trayce Jackson-Davis, whose rights they traded for, with their rookie-season numbers:

Eric Paschall — 2019, No. 41: 60 games, 27.6 MPG, 14.0 PPG, 4.6 RPG
Alen Smailagić — 2019, No. 39: 14 games, 9.9 MPG, 4.2 PPG, 1.9 RPG
James Wiseman — 2020, No. 2: 39 games, 21.4 MPG, 11.5 PPG, 5.8 RPG
Jonathan Kuminga — 2021, No. 7: 70 games, 16.9 MPG, 9.3 PPG, 3.3 RPG
Patrick Baldwin Jr. — 2022, No. 28: 31 games, 7.3 MPG, 3.9 PPG, 1.3 RPG
Trayce Jackson-Davis — 2023, No. 57: 68 games, 16.6 MPG, 7.9 PPG, 5.0 RPG
Quinten Post — 2024, No. 52: 42 games, 16.3 MPG, 8.1 PPG, 3.5 RPG

The best rookie line on the board belongs to Paschall, the 41st pick in 2019. He got a ton of playing time with the Splash Bros out and was a genuine bright spot in a dismal pandemic season. I loved that year for him…and I also remember the rest of the roster, because 2019-20 was the 15-50 year. Paschall got those minutes because somebody had to play them. When the roster got reformed around Curry, Paschall’s fit suddenly started disappearing. Remember his quote:

“Steph and them came back, and Dray was hurt early in the season,” Paschall explained. “But I couldn’t play with Steph early in the season. I’m still going to do me — y’all saw what I did last year. That’s what I’m thinking. But I can’t do that because I’m on the floor with Steph all the time. I ended up asking to come off the bench. I was not wired to set a screen, pass up an open shot — like if I’m open, I’m shooting it. It gave me a false reality of how the NBA works.”

The Dubs traded Paschall before the 2021-2022 season and won a championship, while Paschall was out of the league the next year. So the one frontcourt player the Dubs drafted who really put up numbers with serious playing time suddenly had trouble fitting the minute the basketball started revolving around Curry again. Hmmm.

Take Paschall’s outlier season out and the rookie frontcourt pattern gets loud. In any year the Warriors were trying to win something, no rookie frontcourt player averaged more than Wiseman’s 21.4 minutes. Kuminga played 70 games as a teenager on a championship roster and stayed under 17 minutes a night, which was the right call for a team hanging a banner. Baldwin, a first-rounder, barely got off the bench. Jackson-Davis and Post, picked 57th and 52nd, both had promising stretches before eventually being overshadowed by the vets.

There’s one common denominator with those guys: all of them are gone! The Warriors have been swinging at frontcourt prospects for over half a decade, and nothing has stuck.

"We don't practice anymore. So we have to develop these 19 year old kids who are coming into the league without much practice time…Frankly, I'm not great — I'm an older coach…So I lean on the young [coaches]."

– Warriors HC Steve Kerr on developing players, via @GlueGuys_Podpic.twitter.com/gHCoUP2Ocf

— Marc Grandi (@MarcGrandi) August 15, 2025

The good news is Kerr isn’t being asked to teach another teenager how to play NBA basketball. Wiseman and Kuminga were 19 and learning the league in real time. Lendeborg has already played the highest level of college ball and Kerr’s checklist of dribble, pass, shoot and process is something that the rookie apparently aced. The Curry era is running on borrowed time, and the franchise has been desperately trying to find the next wave of quality players that show up while the old ones are still here. If Lendeborg develops into the big, jack-of-all-trades connector Kerr envisioned, then Golden State’s coach has something he hasn’t had since the dynasty’s prime: a young frontcourt player he can close games with.

If he doesn’t, a coach who nearly walked away in April will be staring at the same roster problem that almost ended his run, with fewer years left to solve it.

Through five games last year, Walker Kessler was off to the best start of his career as he averaged 14.4 points (78.6 percent true shooting), 10.8 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 1.8 blocks. But his quick success was immediately derailed as he suffered a labral tear in his left shoulder and underwent season-ending surgery shortly afterward.

Despite that, the Los Angeles Lakers were willing to dole out two unprotected first-round picks, two first-round pick swaps and a four-year, $130 million contract for Kessler’s services to land their center of the future. The organization seems optimistic about both his recovery and how he fits with the roster. During Monday’s media day, Kessler addressed the injury and told reporters he’s entirely past the problem, with full confidence from both Lakers GM Rob Pelinka and head coach JJ Redick in his health.

“I’ll speak to the health. I feel 110%. My shoulder feels better than it’s ever felt,” Kessler said. “To have that confidence in playing is going to be really important. As far as my injury, speaking to [President of Basketball Operations] Rob [Pelinka] and then [head coach] JJ [Redick], we haven’t really talked about it because they believe in it. It’s back to better than what it was. So there’s no question in my mind about it.”

Kessler didn’t have much injury trouble through the first three seasons of his career. While a handful of minor issues kept him out of games once the new year began in 2023-24 and 2024-25, he still averaged ~65 games per season from 20223-23 to 2024-25. If the Lakers organization is confident in his availability, fans likely should be, too.

Kessler is critical to the Lakers’ success this season. I’m fascinated to see how he’s deployed on both ends and whether he forms more chemistry offensively with Luka Dončić or Austin Reaves, which I assume will impact how Redick opts to stagger his starters throughout the rotation.

You can follow Jackson on Twitter at @jackfrank_jjf.

Andre Drummond drew interest from several other clubs around the league during the offseason, but after talking things over with his agent, he decided that joining the Knicks made the most sense. 

“This was the best option,” he said Tuesday. “Being born in Mount Vernon and then moving to Connecticut very young, I’ve always been a Knicks fan -- from Amar’e [Stoudemire] to PatrickEwing, the list of greats in this organization, it’s a true honor to put the jersey on.”  

Bruce Brown is Drummond's only new teammate whom he's played with before, but he does have plenty of experience competing against the majority of this roster over the years.

The most recent time, of course, was when the Knicks sent him and the 76ers packing in the Eastern Conference Semifinals last year en route to their drought-snapping championship berth. 

One thing Drummond remembers from that series: New York fans completely taking over Xfinity Arena. 

“It was crazy,” he said with a smile. “It felt like a road game the whole series, you guys came down and took over the Philadelphia arena, it was crazy even seeing some of the fans from there wearing Knicks jerseys too -- the Knicks fanbase is far-and-wide, it doesn’t matter where you are in the world, definitely the basketball Mecca.”

Now, the 33-year-old will get to experience what it’s like being on the other side of that passionate fanbase. 

Drummond is expected to play a pretty significant role in his first year with the team, too, helping make up for the loss of beloved big man Mitchell Robinson to the rival Boston Celtics in free agency. 

The Knicks know replacing Robinson's production is an awfully tall task to ask of anyone, though, so they are simply looking for the veteran center to go out and play his game.

"The best part of the situation Andre is in," captain Jalen Brunson explained. "He’s not coming in to be Mitch, he’s coming in to be himself -- we have to give him the confidence to be himself -- this is a new team and a new journey, we’re going to attack it every day.”

Though he's seen his production drop off a bit as his career has progressed, Drummond was able to pull in 8.4 boards while averaging just under 20 minutes per night across 63 games with Philly last season.