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Jaylen opens up about left hand narrative, improved court vision and more originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

Jaylen Brown is in his 10th NBA season — and he keeps getting better.

The Boston Celtics star is averaging career highs across the board in points (28.8), rebounds (7.0), and assists (5.3) per game while improving his shooting percentage (47.6 percent) despite a higher volume of shots. With Jayson Tatum sidelined until early March, Brown has thrived in a lead role for Boston, emerging as a legitimate MVP candidate while helping the C’s maintain a top-two seed in the Eastern Conference.

Brown has dispelled plenty of narratives this season; he’s been consistently strong driving to the basket with his left hand despite that part of his game previously being viewed as a weakness, and he ranks second on the Celtics in assists after being viewed as a more ball-dominant player earlier in his career.

Brown recently sat down with NBC Sports Boston analyst and ex-Celtics champion Brian Scalabrine to watch film from his dominant 2025-26 season to date. Brown discussed the criticism around his left hand, his growth as a playmaker and much more. Here are two notable soundbites:

Brown opens about left hand issues

“I think there was some truth to it,” Brown told Scalabrine about the narrative that he struggled on drives with his left hand. “… I had a major surgery on my left wrist, and then I actually reinjured it again in 2023. So in 2021, I had a major surgery where I tore all the ligaments on my left hand.

“Basketball, the game is ruthless. If the team knows that you had an injury, they’re gonna try to force you to that. And then I had a loose body again in 2023 where I had a chip in my wrist that had to get fixed. So, I think that was a real criticism or critique of my game is that I struggled going left, but a lot of it was due to injury.

“As I’ve gotten more healthy, I’ve done stem cells and stuff like that in my wrist that’s helped improve the flexibility and the motion. I’ve been able to get back to being more progressive with my left hand. But at one point, I barely could dribble the ball with my left hand at times, you know what I mean? So, I was out there playing with one hand behind my back.”

Brown describes how the game has slowed down for him

“I think I’ve definitely been more patient,” Brown told Scalabrine. “I’ve slowed down in certain areas where you still see me use my athleticism and explosion in certain areas, but then you’ll notice I’ll get real slow, almost like I’m going at a casual pace. Because the slower you go, the easier it is to read everything. The faster you go, the harder those reads are.

“If you slow down where you’re going two miles per hour, you can see the stop signs, you can see the dog, you can see the mailman putting stuff in the mail. You see everything when you slow down. When you’re going too fast, you’re driving full speed, you’re not seeing nothing. Everything is a blur.

“… I know certain spots on the floor where, no matter who’s guarding me, I have a good chance of getting a good shot up. So, I’m just identifying those spaces, and then as the flow of our offense goes, I’ve always got my eye on where those spaces are. … When I get there is when I try to slow down and focus on my footwork.”

Watch the full interview in the video player above, or on YouTube below.

An Achilles injury is one ofAn Achilles injury is one of the most devastating injuries an athlete can suffer. Knee injuries used to be nearly as bad, but arthroscopic surgery has really changed that. ACL injuries still require major rehab, but it’s become fairly manageable. Achilles injuries are still a very difficult thing to overcome, one of the most devastating injuries an athlete can suffer. Knee injuries used to be nearly as bad, but arthroscopic surgery has really changed that. ACL injuries still require major rehab, but it’s become fairly manageable. Achilles injuries are still a very difficult thing to overcome.

So when former Blue Devil Jayson Tatum collapsed in a heap last year during Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the New York Knicks, his future was at best cloudy. He was expected to miss all of this season and come back next year, if things go well.

For that matter, the Boston Celtics were also expected to suffer this season. However, both have exceeded expectations.

The Celtics are currently 51-25, good for second place in the East, behind only Trajan Langdon’s Detroit Pistons (the Pistons are 4.5 games ahead at 56-21). Most of that was without Tatum, who returned to action on March 6th, less than 10 months after his injury. That’s almost miraculous.

And remarkably, on April 1st, Tatum got his first triple-double after coming back, racking up 25 points, 18 rebounds, and 11 assists against Miami on April 1st.

It’s a bit under the radar somehow, but what Tatum is doing may be the most amazing story in the NBA this spring.

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This race, unexpectedly, has become a lot closer.

Although it feels like a two-man battle at this point, with no team having more than six games left in the 2025-26 NBA regular season, these players are quickly running out of chances to elevate their arguments for Most Valuable Player.

Thursday, April 2 was an interesting night, too, with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Luka Dončić of the Los Angeles Lakers facing off, while phenom big Victor Wembanyama's San Antonio Spurs played the Los Angeles Clippers.

Here’s this week’s USA TODAY Sports NBA MVP rankings:

USA TODAY Sports NBA MVP rankings

5. Jaylen Brown, Boston Celtics

He has simply not let up. He dropped 43 in a rout Wednesday, April 1 against the Heat and has scored at least 29 points in his last seven games, and is averaging 33.6 over that stretch. More importantly, he has been the biggest reason for the Celtics to be a real threat in the East, despite missing Jayson Tatum (Achilles rehab) for most of the season. Brown has led Boston to a decently comfortable hold on the No. 2 seed in the East, and, even though Tatum is returning to form, Brown is looking poised to have a massive postseason.

4. Nikola Jokić, Denver Nuggets

He has notched triple-doubles in five of his last six games, as the Nuggets are peaking at the right time. Denver has won seven consecutive games and 10 of its last 12, and Jokić has been as consistent and dependable as always. He leads the NBA in rebounding (13.0) and is the only player averaging a triple-double (adding 27.7 points and 10.8 assists). He’s having a monster season, so it’s kind of absurd to rank him fourth. It’s just a testament to the players above him on this list, and the seasons they are having.

3. Luka Dončić, Los Angeles Lakers

In 17 games in March, Dončić scored 600 points, becoming just the 10th player in NBA history to put down that output in any single month. The Lakers, crucially, went 15-2 over that stretch and have been impressive, with recent victories over the Timberwolves, Nuggets, Rockets (twice) and Cavaliers. Thursday’s blowout loss against the Thunder was a letdown, as Dončić struggled from deep, going just 1-of-7 from 3-point range. But the bigger problem was a left hamstring injury that sidelined him and may jeopardize his eligibility for individual awards. Thursday night was his 64th game, leaving him one shy of the minimum.

2. Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio Spurs

This has actually gotten really close. Wembanyama missed Thursday night’s game against the Clippers with a right ankle injury management designation, but his play as of late has closed the lead the top player on this list has held for much of the back half of the regular season. No player impacts the game on both sides more than Wembanyama, who has dropped 41 points in each of his last two games. As if that wasn’t enough, he swatted away 3 shots in each and collected 10 rebounds Monday, March 30 in a win over the Bulls and hauled in 18 Wednesday against the Warriors. San Antonio has won the last 15 games that Wembanyama has played in.

1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder

He remains the most consistent force in the NBA and Thursday’s beatdown of the Lakers was proof of how dangerous he can be. Gilgeous-Alexander had scored a smooth 21 points by halftime, as Oklahoma City had opened a massive, 31-point lead on the Lakers. Before that, SGA dopped 47 points in an overtime victory against the Pistons, and he has extended his consecutive 20-point streak to a ridiculous 137 games. Still, he’ll need to close strong because Wembanyama is making a late charge.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NBA MVP rankings after Luka Doncic injury

The Cleveland Cavaliers did enough to escape with a 118-111 win over an undermanned Golden State Warriors team.

Max Strus’s timely shotmaking saved the Cavs. He poured in 24 points on 6-10 shooting from deep. That included scoring eight in the fourth quarter and burying two threes in the closing minutes to put the game away.

The Cavs have so much offensive firepower in the starting five of Strus, James Harden, Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen. Strus can get lost in the shuffle with his off-ball movement and the attention the dynamic guards demand. The Cavs were able to find Strus enough late and ultimately secured the victory because of it.

This is a much more well-rounded offensive attack when they’re able to get this level of contributions from a proven playoff performer like Strus. He’s rounding into form at the right time as he’s combined to go 17-28 (60.7%) from three over his last three outings.

Overall, the late-game offensive execution since the Harden trade has been impressive. It was again here as the Cavs generated quality looks seemingly every time down the court.

The Cavaliers are doing this without any one player dominating the ball. Harden was orchestrating the offense late once again, but he wasn’t controlling possessions. Every member of the starting five scored four or more points in the final frame, with each scoring critical baskets to help put the game away.

More importantly, this five-man group has good playmakers for their position at every spot. When they create advantages — as Harden is known for doing — everyone on the court can capitalize on it by finding the open man.

This pass from Mobley is a great example of that. The Warriors showed help defense on Harden at the top of the arc. He found the open man in Mobley. And when the defense rotated over to prevent a shot at the rim, Mobley located Strus alone in the corner.

The ball is always faster than the man. Even if the defense does make the right play initially, if you’re moving the ball as efficiently as the Cavs have been in the clutch, you’re eventually going to find a crack in the armor.

The best offenses are often the most well-rounded and diverse. The Cavs have shown over the last several weeks that they can dissect opposing defense in a variety of ways, and did so again here.

Free-throw shooting is a concern for the bigs. Mobley’s struggles at the line have been well documented over the last month. He didn’t get many chances to prove himself at the charity stripe here, but he missed both opportunities he had.

Allen did a good job of aggressively attacking the defense, which led to him taking 12 free throws. The only problem was that he made just six of them.

There’s not much to really dive into with missed free throws. They aren’t fun to talk about, and there typically isn’t an easy fix for them. If they were, LeBron James would’ve figured it out a decade and a half ago.

That said, the margins in the playoffs will be incredibly thin. The Cavs don’t have the luxury of leaving points at the line, and they also can’t have their bigs hesitant to attack because they don’t want to take free throws.

Injuries have held the Cavs back all season, and still are.

Even though Cleveland had their four best players on the court together — which has been a rare sighting this season — you can still see that they aren’t close to being whole considering who’s still out of the lineup.

The Cavs were without Dean Wade (ankle) and Jaylon Tyson (toe). And while neither would be considered among the best five players on the team, the lineups that head coach Kenny Atkinson has been forced to use without those two forwards have been rough.

The four guard lineups simply don’t work. Point of attack defense is an issue when the team is fully healthy. Combine that with two players being asked to guard up a position as well, and there are too many holes to clean up for whichever lone big is on the floor.

Additionally, your defense is always just one switch away from a terrible mismatch. The Warriors used this to their advantage as they consistently forced smaller guards onto Kristaps Porzingis and then allowed him to work from there in the high post.

These groupings with four players that are 6’5” or under need to be potent offensively to make up for their shortcomings on the other end. And to their credit, they have been solid. But there’s a difference between spreading the floor out because you have wings and bigs who can create space and doing so with guards.

For one, these four guard lineups don’t have the multiple big screen setters you need to make Atkinson’s motion offense work. And while the Cavs do a lot of guard screening actions already, that is more of a changeup than a fastball.

Despite how much the NBA has changed over the last decade, positions still matter. Or at the very least, having size and a variety of skills does.

Right now, the Cavs don’t have any better options than to continue running these small lineups.

Nae’Qwan Tomlin hasn’t been able to replicate his early-season success much over the past several weeks. Teams know that he isn’t a threat to beat them with his outside shot, which makes it more difficult for him to get to the basket, and in turn cramps the spacing.

Thomas Bryant is the other forward who has shown that he deserves minutes, but he’s a center. That makes it difficult to play him alongside Jarrett Allen.

Atkinson hasn’t been willing to look outside of those options for minutes. Larry Nance Jr. hasn’t played consistent rotation minutes since the beginning of the season. There’s an argument that one of the three two-way players who are forwards should get an opportunity, but since none are eligible for the playoffs on their current deals, it’s not worth seriously exploring.

Getting Wade and/or Tyson back will help. These lineups will have much more size and versatility on both sides of the floor. That will drastically improve how this all looks.

At the same time, how incoherent these lineups are underscores the fragility of the current roster construction.

There are no perfect teams in this new parity era (except the Oklahoma City Thunder). Everyone has holes (again, except OKC). And with the speed of the game, you can’t just play six or seven guys in the playoffs and expect to get by. True contenders need to and can comfortably trot out nine at a minimum.

Health will play a significant role in determining the eventual champion. Not being able to cover up for multiple rotation players isn’t necessarily alarming on its own. At the same time, nothing about what we’ve seen this past week would make you believe the Cavs can compensate for missing either or both Wade and Tyson. That’s a scary place to be and isn’t ideal for the most expensive roster in the league.

The NBA has narrowed down their list of anti-tanking measures to three options.

I think that, unfortunately, this list is too short, and it leaves too many good ideas off the table. Below are some of the ideas that didn’t make the cut…

The Wheel

Proposed by Mike Zarren, the wheel assigns draft picks without regard to record. Instead, the rank order of the picks changes from year to year.

Pros: There’s no point in tanking anymore.

Cons: It will take 32 years to figure out if it works.

The Drop-Dead Date

The lottery seeding is fixed at a certain arbitrary point in time—the All-Star break is often suggested—after this point, further losses don’t improve your odds of getting a top pick.

Pros: It doesn’t matter if you lose games after the drop-dead date.

Cons: It doesn’t matter if you win games after the drop-dead date either.

The Lottery Tournament

Teams will compete to get the most favorable odds in the lottery in a tournament—or the draft order will be fixed by the results of the tournament.

Pros: There’s more basketball to watch and, importantly for the league these days, more basketball to bet on. After expansion, there will be as many teams in the lottery tournament as in the postseason, and this way even players on bad teams can get the chance to play an extended schedule with even more chances to get hurt. Oh wait.

Cons: Does anyone want to see Sacramento hang a banner when they win the lottery tournament?

The Really Complicated Rule System

Under this system, the two-year record of a team is taken into consideration, and a floor will be set, such that no team that wins less than 25 games gets credit for a greater number of losses, and this will be used to determine the odds for a drawing that will assign the first four spots in the draft. The 22 teams in the league with the worst cumulative two-year records will be entered in the drawing.

Pros: It’s complicated!

Cons: The league is actually considering this one.

The Pig in a Poke

The league doesn’t reveal the lottery selection method until the end of the season. Odds could be weighted to favor really bad teams, or they could be even across the board. This takes away a lot of the incentive behind planning to be bad.

Pros: I kind of like this idea.

Cons: Nobody else seems to.

The Big Tumbler Full of Envelopes

A bit of a throwback to the good old days when lottery odds were even across the board, and the drawing was done with plenty of spectacle, instead of taking place in a locked room.

Pros: It’s a great way to get Patrick Ewing, if you’re the Knicks.

Cons: It’s a great way to not get Patrick Ewing, if you’re not the Knicks.

The Trial By Combat

This option would consist of a physical competition that would probably, but not necessarily, be relatively safe. Say an arm-wrestling contest. Teams would nominate a different champion every year who would compete on their behalf. The catch is that the champion has to be employed in a responsible position in the front office, and not with some hokey title like “Assistant General Manager in charge of Arm Wrestling.”

Pros: Who wouldn’t want to watch this?

Cons: I’m not really seeing any

The Hunger Games

It’s sort of like Trial By Combat, but this time the champions for each team are drawn by lot from the team’s fanbase. Of course, fans could also volunteer as tribute, Katniss style, but regardless, the actual competition would be suitably rigorous. Different contests would include “Sitting quietly at the bar while the game is on, after having had a few drinks,” “Ignoring Nick Wright,” “Watching a movie with your significant other while the game is on,” and other feats of endurance designed to test every fan’s stamina.

Pros: Who wouldn’t want to represent the Boston Celtics and bring home the top draft pick?

Cons: The movies and books weren’t that great.

The Softball League

Who doesn’t like corporate sponsored softball leagues? Well, why not have one every summer to set the order for the following season’s draft? Sure, this seems like a variation of the two previous options, but it deserves special mention because this would be an actual slow-pitch league, not just a tournament. The only ringers teams could bring in would be guys from the team roster. So maybe save a fourteenth or fifteenth spot for a real slugger?

Pros: Joe Mazzulla coaching a softball team.

Cons: I didn’t come up with this idea, Bill Sy did.

The Fantasy Basketball League

This league would run concurrently with the regular season. GMs from various teams would draft for a fantasy league at the start of each season. Importantly, they can draft players from any team in the league. Maximum chaos will occur when a team GM drafts a player that’s truly hated by that team’s fanbase. Can you imagine what would happen if Brad Stevens drafted Lebron James?

Pros: Knowing that SGA’s grifting is good for your draft position.

Cons: Feeling good about that grifting.

The Ouija Board

Pretty much what the name suggests. Designated league representatives would consult a Ouija board to determine the draft order.

Pros: It’s completely impartial

Cons: Or is it?

The Vote

Each team would vote on which team should get the top pick. The catch, obviously, is that no team can vote for itself. Teams can’t trade votes, or agree to support each other in different years.

Pros: Complete and utter chaos

Cons: None—except for the chaos.

The Roulette Wheel

The league might as well go all-in on gambling and set the draft order this way as well. I mean, it’s already called a lottery… But why not just put team reps around a roulette wheel and whoever’s luckiest over the course of, oh, say, an hour, gets the top pick.

Pros: It’s gambling, so it’s got to be good

Cons: What if all this gambling isn’t good?

The Carnival Midway

When the draft rolls around, the players eligible for it are awarded as prizes for winning various games on a carnival midway. Want Keaton Wagler? You’d best be prepared to peg five tin ducks with a suspiciously inaccurate BB gun.

Pros: This rectifies the longstanding shortage of cotton candy and funnel cake at the NBA draft

Cons: The Kings might get mixed up and end up drafting an oversized teddy bear by mistake.

The High School Essay Contest

General managers from each team would be required to submit an essay to the league saying why they should get the top pick that year. The team with the best essay would get the top pick.

Pros: It’s better than the current system, which is “my team deserves the top pick because we are terrible.”

Cons: There’s a risk that some GMs are illiterate.

6 key questions left for Sixers, from seeding to starters  originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

As of Friday morning, heading into a back-to-back vs. the Timberwolves and Pistons, the Sixers have six regular-season games to go and sit sixth in the Eastern Conference standings.

Let’s look at six key questions for the team with postseason looming:

Can Sixers avoid the play-in?

The odds of the Sixers staying in the top-six and steering clear of the play-in tournament feel like a coin flip.

They trail the fifth-seeded Hawks by 1.5 games and also lost the regular-season series to Atlanta, so rising would be unlikely. That’s especially true because the Sixers have the NBA’s fourth-hardest remaining strength of schedule, according to Tankathon.

The Raptors and Sixers both currently sit at 42-34. The teams split their regular-season series, but the Sixers hold the tiebreaker over Toronto because of their superior record against other teams in the Atlantic division. The Sixers are 9-7, the Raptors 4-10. 

The other teams in play-in spots are the Hornets, Magic and Heat. The Sixers lead Charlotte by 1.5 games, Orlando by two games and Miami by 2.5 games. 

Basketball Reference’s playoff probabilities report says the Sixers have a 41.9 percent of finishing in the top-six. 

Who’s going to start in the postseason? 

Kelly Oubre Jr. has come off the bench in the three games he’s played since returning from a left elbow sprain. Does Sixers head coach Nick Nurse anticipate eventually sliding Oubre back into his starting five? 

“I don’t know about that,” Nurse said Wednesday night before the Sixers’ road win over the Wizards. “I envision probably having some changes here and there going down the stretch. He’s probably going to be involved in that, but he might not be the only one.”

After opening the season on a two-way contract, Dominick Barlow has wound up starting 58 games so far. Nurse has had plenty of valid reasons to like him as a starter. 

“He’s played really well,” Nurse said. “Not always, but a lot of times he’s been a factor on the offensive glass. He’s always a factor on the defensive end. He’s continued to grow in his switch-ability. We can play some different coverages with him; he can switch out on to most guys and do a lot of good work there for us.

“And then obviously, most of the time it was just a numbers game. There were always one, two, three, four guys out and he ends up kind of being there, and he earned it as well. 

“Now that everybody’s back, I thought Kelly probably needed a game or two rhythm-wise. And then again, (Barlow) reminded of us how good he is paired along Joel (Embiid). So there’s lots of stuff going on there to look at and evaluate.”

Barlow’s teammates are very aware that his impact often doesn’t come through shotmaking.

“He knows his role, man,” Tyrese Maxey said. “He’s a star in his role. … He does all the dirty work for us. He guards who he needs to guard, he rebounds — offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds. He’s a connector and he does a really good job of just being who he is. We need him.”

Can Sixers sustain contender-caliber defense?

The Sixers rank 18th in the NBA in defensive rating.

Both on paper and on the floor, they’ve appeared capable of better. One suggestion of a higher defensive ceiling: The Sixers’ defensive rating in fourth quarters is third in the NBA behind only the Knicks and Thunder. Their stellar defensive rating of 98.0 in clutch situations is the best in the league.

Glimpses of greatness won’t be good enough in the playoffs, though. 

“Especially when you’re talking about competing for a championship, we’ve got to be a better defensive team,” Paul George said.

George’s play post-suspension is a reason for optimism on the defensive end. His scoring’s attracted the most attention — 28.0 points per game over his last four, including a 39-point performance against the Wizards — but the 35-year-old forward has looked excellent physically on both sides of the ball. 

“The games were coming fast and my body just wasn’t responding quickly enough,” George said Wednesday. “So I knew. It was a hard decision: Do I keep playing? I knew my body just needed a little time to heal without so much pounding and wear and tear. 

“I knew that the 25-game suspension, I was going to use it wisely, stay in shape, stay sharp, stay working. … I knew that this was kind of a blessing in disguise with the time off that I needed to get ready.”

How costly could rebounding woes be? 

The Sixers’ third-quarter troubles have been well-documented. They still have the NBA’s worst net rating in third quarters this season at minus-13.1.

Defensive rebounding has been a problem across all quarters for three years in a row. The Sixers are on track for another bottom-five season in defensive rebounding rate, per Cleaning the Glass. Last time the team was in the playoffs, the Sixers were decisively worse than the Knicks on the boards during their first-round series loss. 

In Nurse’s eyes, some of the rebounding struggles are fixable. 

“The first thing is our defensive rebounding needs to be better more consistently,” he said. “Again, it seems to get pretty good the last 18 minutes of the game, but it’s not very good in stretches. A lot of those come from a high volume of threes. I don’t think we’ve been great at running down long, loose-ball types of rebounds and that definitely needs an improvement. I think we’ve got the speed and athleticism to run those down. A lot of those long shot, long rebounds I think are the majority of them. 

“And then I would like to improve our side of it. We’d like to be a good crash team. We have been at times this year, but it’s not been as good recently as it was (earlier) in the year, so we’d like to get that back, up that a little bit and get our own share of put-backs and kick-out threes off of offensive rebounds.”

Will Maxey’s progress as floor general make a big difference?

By the numbers alone, Maxey’s only taken a modest step forward this season as a passer. His 0.95 assist-to-usage ratio would be a new career high, according to Cleaning the Glass. He had a 0.88 assist-to-usage ratio last year. 

The stats might undersell Maxey’s progress running the team a tad. He’s stumbled here and there in clutch moments — every star guard does — but Maxey’s certainly appeared more comfortable dictating the Sixers’ offense. Nurse almost never minds when he veers from a scripted play or invents something on his own. 

Much of that confidence stems from Maxey refusing to let himself fade from games. Even when Embiid is dominating or George is on fire, the Sixers need Maxey eager to attack. Compared to past postseasons, Maxey will have a greater sense for all the nuances of being a lead guard.

“I think we’ve got him to an aggressive state of mind,” Nurse said. “I think he’s got that where it needs to be. … I just see him where he’s tweaking plays a little bit that maybe we were calling for him and he puts someone else in there. Again, just to get VJ (Edgecombe) going, to get Kelly a bucket, to get Paul one. I think that’s growth for him for sure.”

Joel Embiid 

No formal question here because the truth remains that asking whether Embiid will play on a given night sometimes leads down strange paths. The Sixers’ Friday morning injury report listed Embiid as doubtful against Minnesota because of the illness that caused him to miss Wednesday’s win.

It is clear that Embiid always wants to play and has generally looked like an All-Star again this season when available. 

He’s dealt with an absurd amount of health misfortune in past postseasons. Stringing together some strong games before the playoffs would be nice for Embiid, but the Sixers will be happy with any route that involves him being (and staying) healthy in the postseason. The team is obviously much better when Embiid takes most of the center minutes as opposed to the alternative world of Adem Bona, Andre Drummond and small-ball options. 

North Carolina needed a basketball coach, and it set its sights on one in the Final Four.

Its top target had a good job. A darn good one, and one newspaper columnist felt adamant Roy Williams wouldn’t leave Kansas, even if his alma mater tried to call him home to Carolina. Williams already turned down UNC once before, a few years previously.

No way Roy’s going to Carolina.

So read the headline of Joe Posnanski’s column in the Kansas City Star on April 2, 2003. Two weeks later, Posnanski wrote another column about how he got it all wrong. He trusted a coach to have loyalty. Whoops, rookie mistake.

If we’ve learned one thing in the more than two decades since then, it’s to never say never when it comes to these situations, and that a coach’s loyalty is the underdog when matched up against his ego.

Now here we are at another Final Four, and UNC’s hiring, and it’s déjà vu, with stay-or-go questions hovering over the coaches of the two favored teams in Indianapolis.

Tommy Lloyd fuels speculation about UNC job

This time, nobody’s writing there’s “no way” Tommy Lloyd would leave Arizona for UNC. That doesn’t mean Lloyd will definitely bolt, but even he’s not saying he won’t. Lloyd himself fed into speculation he’s a prime option for UNC when he said, “Arizona’s going to have another good coach after me, I promise you.” And, when will Arizona need to hire its next coach? Will that be next week? Next year? Ten years from now?

No telling. At least, Lloyd’s not telling, other than to say he’s “present in the moment” and that neither he nor his players are distracted by UNC speculation.

He’s probably right about his players, anyway.

Arizona’s Brayden Burries, Koa Peat and Motiejus Krivas are projected first-round NBA Draft picks. Wildcats point guard Jaden Bradley is a senior. They’re out the door after this Final Four, regardless of Lloyd’s decision. A fifth starter, Ivan Kharchenkov, might return for another college season, but thanks to the transfer portal, he could follow his coach if Lloyd decided to leave. No stress. No fuss. No distraction.

Twenty-three years ago, KU star Wayne Simien expressed open frustration when Williams jilted the Jayhawks for North Carolina. Now, athletes better understand it’s not personal, it’s just business, because players field interest from other high-paying suitors, too, and face business decisions of their own.

Is Dusty May more of a 'Michigan man' than Bill Frieder?

While we’re on the subject of déjà vu, here’s Michigan with a team that can win it all, but will coach Dusty May prove himself a “Michigan man” or a renegade?

If UNC would like to have Lloyd, then it should love to have May. He’s now a veteran of Final Fours, having led Florida Atlantic there in 2023.

Toppmeyer: Dusty May so good, you almost forget Sherrone Moore — now, UNC needs him

Perhaps, Michigan can breathe slightly easier than Arizona's administration, because at least May isn’t talking about how great Michigan’s next coach is going to be.

Even if May wouldn’t leave Michigan for UNC, the Tar Heels could cause a domino effect that results in May leaving Michigan. Just as the Wolverines lost John Beilein to the Cleveland Cavaliers, May has the goods of a future NBA coach. And if UNC hires Billy Donovan, well, then the Chicago Bulls will need a coach, won’t they?

Michigan knows what it’s like for a coach to spurn it. When Bill Frieder accepted the Arizona State job ahead of the 1989 NCAA Tournament, Bo Schembechler promptly booted Frieder and promoted Steve Fisher, explaining his decision with the now-famous line that, “A Michigan man is going to coach Michigan.”

The lesson Frieder provided: If you’re leaving for another job, maybe don’t tell anyone until the NCAA Tournament is finished.

Worked out great for Michigan. Fisher led the Wolverines to a national championship.

Never mind a Michigan man. The Wolverines would do well to keep their Indiana man. May got his start as a student manager under Bob Knight, but Frieder proved a coach’s alma mater doesn’t mean everything to everyone, even if Mama lured Williams home in 2003.

“I was a Tar Heel born. When I die, I'll be a Tar Heel dead,” Williams said after he took the UNC job.

In between, he became a turncoat at Kansas.

We learned then that when North Carolina wants to hire a Final Four coach, it’s naïve to think, “no way.”

Blake Toppmeyer is a columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Tommy Lloyd, Dusty May would be great for UNC — if they pull a Roy Williams