Vibes. They are impossible to quantify, impossible to pin down, but you feel their absence immediately. You feel their presence even faster. Tuesday night had them. The Phoenix Suns, rolling into the City of Brotherly Love for the second game of a back-to-back, walked onto the floor with a pulse. A hum. Something alive.

Why were the vibes humming? Health. Actual, real, honest to basketball health. For the first time all season, everyone was available. No asterisks. No caveats. The full roster. Including Jalen Green, the centerpiece of the Kevin Durant trade, finally upright and ready to roll.

It did not start pretty. The Suns opened the night 0-of-9 from the field, cold, clunky, searching for rhythm. Philadelphia tried to punch, tried to manufacture runs, tried to tilt the floor. Phoenix bent. Phoenix answered. Every surge met with a response. Every wobble met with composure.

The numbers tell part of the story. 16-of-39 from deep, a clean 41%. 20-of-20 at the line. Then there was the bench. 58-28 in favor of Phoenix. Wave after wave. Energy that did not fade. Meanwhile, the 76ers were grinding through their own second night of a back-to-back, short-handed without Joel Embiid or Paul George, asking too much of too few.

This one mattered. Not for style points. For tone. For trajectory. For vibes. The win locks in a road trip where the floor is now .500, sitting at 3-2 with one left to play. The math works. The vibes agree. Sometimes basketball is less about schemes and more about momentum, belief, and bodies being available at the same time.

On this night, the Suns had all three.

Bright Side Baller Season Standings

Collin is now up to 8 Bright Side Baller’s on the year after a hyper-efficient 22-point performance against the Nets. Who woulda thunk it?

Bright Side Baller Nominees

Game 44 against the 76ers. Here are your nominees:

Devin Booker
27 points (9-of-23, 2-of-5 3PT), 3 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal, 6 turnovers, -10 +/-

Grayson Allen
16 points (5-of-11, 4-of-9 3PT), 5 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 steal, 0 turnovers, +11 +/-

Jordan Goodwin
16 points (6-of-9, 2-of-4 3PT), 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, 0 turnovers, +9 +/-

Collin Gillespie
12 points (3-of-6, 3-of-6 3PT), 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 0 steals, 2 turnovers, +7 +/-

Oso Ighodaro
12 points (5-of-7), 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 block, 4 turnovers, +10 +/-

Jalen Green
12 points (4-of-11, 2-of-4 3PT), 2 rebounds, 3 assists, 0 steals, 2 turnovers, +10 +/-

…and the winner is?

The 2025-26 NBA rookie class is absolutely packed with characters certain to draw intrigue from all corners of the basketball map. Of course, you have your Cooper Flagg, VJ Edgecombe, and Kon Knueppel upper-echelon of players who seem poised to one day control the ground they walk upon, but it isn’t challenging or interesting to talk about how excellent Dylan Harper is as a downhill attacker, or how seamless a fit Derik Queen has proved to be in a professional environment. I could harp on about the unexpected 3-point renaissance ushered by Brooklyn’s Egor Demin. I could rave about Cedric Coward and his miraculous journey from basketball limbo to becoming one of the most promising young players in his class.

Those topics have been discussed to death and will continue to be the headlines of their respective memoirs, biopics, documentaries, etc. More studious individuals than I have the patience to dive play-by-play into each of these players’ bodies of work to this point in the year. I’ll leave the in-depth, broad-stroked analysis to those characters.

Here’s what captures my attention: a player whose arrival was preceded by the promise of salvation to an organization in desperate need of a hero. The prize of a team that had gutted itself, tearing its foundation to meager scraps, all in the hopes of acquiring an all-world talent. An individual who carries a tremendous burden of expectation — an expectation both to elevate the ceiling of his team and to ascend to stardom.

The Utah Jazz tanked in 2025. They tanked hard. And after successfully finishing with the fewest wins in the entire association, their great reward arrived via a reverse-order, lottery-finalized draft. That reward was Airious “Ace” Bailey.

Ace has not been the most impressive rookie in his class. He won’t get many votes for Rookie of the Year. He may not even be the go-to guy when Utah is finally prepared to compete for more than just a spot in the playoffs. Ace Bailey is a mystery; one with tremendous promise, but a mystery nonetheless. So, what does Utah have in its bright-eyed rookie forward? Where does he stand among his fellow rookie classmates, and where does his roadmap lead to?

Welcome to the rookie ladder: just as they arrived, each of these newbies has a spot on the totem pole. That order has changed since draft night, and understanding the “why” and the “how” will be critical in projecting future development in the NBA. Keep in mind, of course, this is the rookie landscape through my eyes, meaning it is far from inarguable. I am aware of this fact.

NBA Rookie Ladder, January 2026:

Name, Draft Position, Season Stats:

1. Cooper Flagg (1) – 18.8 pts, 6.3 reb, 4.1 ast
2. Kon Knueppel (4) – 19.0 pts, 3.5 ast, 43.5% 3pt
3. VJ Edgecombe (3) – 15.6 pts, 4.3 ast, 1.5 stl
4. Dylan Harper (2) – 10.6 pts, 3.5 ast, 3.2 reb
5. Derik Queen (12) – 12.6 pts, 7.5 reb, 4.3 ast
6. Egor Demin (8) – 10.4 pts, 3.4 ast, 39.8% 3pt
7. Cedric Coward (11) – 14.0 pts, 6.5 reb, 2.9 ast
8. Ace Bailey (5) – 10.2 pts, 3.4 reb, 0.5 blk
9. Jeremiah Fears (7) – 13.9 pts, 3.7 reb, 3.2 ast
10. Maxime Reynaud (42) – 10.1 pts, 6.5 reb, 1.2 ast

In the short term, the Ace Bailey experience has been more akin to a teppanyaki-style pyrotechnics display than an all-you-can-eat buffet. There will be pyrotechnics — fire shooting from his fingertips, jaw-dropping displays of skill, the works — but if it’s a sustainable, reliable, and consistent eating experience you’re after, you’d better push your money into the Flagg, Knueppel, Harper eatery.

Me? I love the idea of a Japanese steakhouse, where the meal’s preparation is on full display for all participants, and watching every step, every flash of spectacle (of which there are many, in Ace’s case), and the evolution of what promises to be an incredible result. Ace Bailey is a work in progress; there were many reasons why he slid in the draft from 2nd to 5th. Likewise, there are many reasons to believe that his final product will be well worth the wait.

With respect to Cody Williams, a player who is finally striding in the right direction after a harrowing rookie campaign, Ace Bailey is a far more complete prospect than the Jazz’s highest selection from the season prior. Much more than just a lengthy frame with athletic tendencies, Bailey entered the NBA with elite athleticism and a pro-level diet of shot selection.

He’s already thrown down more than a few dunks this season, with a degree of difficulty and defiance of the laws of physics that make me question his humanity. Just take a look at this flat-footed yam that turned a pivot point into a launch pad.

I mean, what on Earth was that?

Earlier in the year, a late-game situation was approached with a nothing-to-lose up-and-under reverse two-handed slam that has me exhausted simply trying to describe it. He is aerobatic, he is graceful.

His defensive upside projects incredibly favorable as well, with footspeed to match some of the league’s shiftiest ball-handlers, and the length to erase any perceived offensive advantage in a heartbeat.

In the midst of a league-wide return of the mid-range shot, Ace Bailey feasts on a supply of turnarounds, fallaways, and pull-ups. Eyes wide, grin flashing, Ace proudly declared that “[If] nobody wants to take [a mid-range], I’ll take it. I love it!” in an interview with Kevin O’Connor (am I allowed to reference O’Connor on a Utah Jazz platform anymore?).

And with a surprising amount of patience and maturity for a player with a one as the first digit of his age, Ace is deliberate, smooth, and skilled at getting his high-release jumper off with minimal interference.

Don’t be alarmed to see Ace falling below his draft order on the rookie ladder; everything is still moving according to plan. If you feel antsy while awaiting his development, exercise a bit of patience. If the early positives are any indicator, Bailey projects to be a highly dangerous weapon in Will Hardy’s arsenal.

Calvin Barrett is a writer, editor, and prolific Mario Kart racer located in Tokyo, Japan. He has covered the NBA and College Sports since 2024.

A season for the Hawks that started with so much promise has quickly turned into a nightmare. I wrote last month that the season was close to being flushed down the drain for good if they didn’t improve on three key areas.

They didn’t improve on any of those three key areas.

Let’s list off all of the things that have gone horribly wrong this year:

• Trae Youngentered the season without a contract extension he desired. Then he missed a month and a half of action with a knee injury suffered in the fifth game. And finally, the organization (with help from Young’s agency) decided the time was right to move on.

Regardless of how you felt about Young, it was always going to be an extremely difficult pivot midseason when so many resources over so many years had gone into building around him.

One extra note: the centerpiece of the Young trade to Washington is now public enemy number one to the fanbase after his last second gaff and general ball dominance. So, even the pivot has been fruitless.

• Kristaps Porzingis was confident preseason that his bout with post-viral syndrome/postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) was in the rearview mirror. It was not. Most recently, he’s been out nursing an injury to his Achilles. To date, Porzingis has only played 413 total minutes and 17 games out of a possible 45. The all-in gamble on his health came up bust.

• Jalen Johnson’s growing list of deficiencies on defense have been magnified with the absence of Porzingis. Has the tradeoff between his offensive growth for defensive regression been worth it? That’s at least a valid question to ask for what this team needs.

• As an undersized 5, Onyeka Okongwu had begun to play the 4 part of the time — especially when sharing the floor with Porzingis. The plan was to make him a flexible third big man, splitting his time between both frontcourt positions while coming off the bench to limit his minutes.

Instead, he’s estimated to have played 95% of his minutes at center (per basketball-reference), is posting by far a career-low offensive rebound rate, and has been subject to an atrocious -12 on-off +/- per 100 possessions.

The lineups he’s been tasked to anchor defensively haven’t help and neither has playing the 24th most minutes in the league this year, somehow just fourth (!) on the team. The plus-minus metric to date is a statistical anomaly given his track record in previous seasons, but clearly his level of play has dropped.

• He’s a genuinely impactful defender now, but Zaccharie Risacher didn’t take the step forward offensively all of us had hoped. Not even close, in fact.

• Dyson Daniels, now the team’s starting point guard who has admittedly come on offensively, hasn’t made a three since December 14.

With the exception of Nickeil Alexander-Walker, you can point to every one of the Hawks’ top eight or nine players and argue that their impact has been levels below what was expected of them.

The Hawks get out-physicaled (I don’t care that it’s not a word) on a nightly basis. They can’t rebound. They can’t even defend in transition despite being a shockingly bad offensive rebounding team*.

*Sidenote: often teams prioritize one of those areas over the other, but you really shouldn’t be bad at both. Either send bodies to the glass or get back on defense. The Hawks, worryingly, do neither.

The heavy minutes load on Johnson, Daniels, Okongwu, and Alexander-Walker is clearly showing a major toll. They’ve been blown out at home more times than I can count, including a calamitous 43-point deficit at one point in a 26-point beatdown at the hands of the Boston Celtics last week.

Even the close games aren’t going their way. The team has been dreadful in clutch situations since the start of December.

Finally, as of Tuesday afternoon, the team is just barely clinging onto 10th in the standings, with the 11th and 12th place Bucks and Hornets respectively vying for that final Play-In Tournament.

From visions of a top-four conference finish to out of the postseason entirely would be a humiliating end to a season of collapses.

The team is a mess, and any hopes of being the next Indiana Pacers are over.

The team was projected to win 46.5 games (per basketball-reference), and they’re on pace to win a full 10 games fewer than that (roughly 36.5). Yes, the Hawks still have 37 games remaining, the Eastern Conference isn’t exactly a juggernaut, and the schedule gets easier after the All-Star break, but it will be way too little too late.

I do think they’ll make the Play-In Tournament at least and have a puncher’s chance at entering the playoff bracket.

But for what? A sweep at the hands of the Detroit Pistons? Yawn.

So now where do they go? For me, here are the biggest areas to monitor going forward:

Finding a franchise center

The trade deadline is on the near horizon. I have to imagine the decision makers have been working the phones heavy in wake of the wildly disappointing performance of the team.

We’ve heard the Hawks linked to Giannis Antetokounmpo (who is now reportedly off the market), Anthony Davis (likely not happening with him nursing yet another injury), and other bigs who can fill in the huge physicality and rebounding gaps in the team.

This is almost certainly the end of the road for the persistently unavailable free-agent-to-be Kristaps Porzingis. I don’t foresee any team offering him a multi-year contract given his injury and illness recurrences — especially not the Hawks.

And Okongwu’s overburdening was discussed above — I still see him as a quality backup big on a friendly contract but nothing more.

Atlanta needs to find a dependable center who can anchor the defense, clear out space for rebounds, and provide a level a physicality the team needs (let’s just move past the fact that Atlanta had a real opportunity to do so two drafts ago).

Could they use their projected cap space this summer to sign Isaiah Hartenstein, likely the best center in the upcoming free agent market? That’s one thought. Or they could target someone else by trade.

But this, to me, is the most pressing issue given that the Hawks are headed for a ninth straight bottom half of the league finish in defensive rating.

Draft acquisitions

The one thing that has gone right has been the equally ugly collapse of the Milwaukee Bucks in addition to the (somewhat predictable) dreadful performance of the New Orleans Pelicans. More than halfway through the season, the best of both superpick acquired at the draft last year looks even better now than then.

It’s unlikely the Pelicans will finish with the worst record in the NBA given the many tanking teams just ahead of them and their own lack of incentive to tank. But all it takes is a few lucky ping pong bounces to possibly transform this franchise with a premium talent.

With the Cleveland Cavaliers also underperforming relative to preseason expectations, the pick swap they picked up through the De’Andre Hunter trade could land them a first-round pick in the teens.

It’s debatable that the Hawks focused a bit too much on youth over experience this past offseason, but with these two picks in a strong draft, it’s still a very viable avenue to add cheap — and possibly high-end — talent.

Assess whether Snyder is the right person for the job

Here is the elephant in the room.

Let me start by saying coaching in the NBA is an incredibly difficult job, and that so much of the position happens behind closed doors. You need to manage rich and famous NBA player egos, and navigate the politics of communicating with the media, one’s front office, and one’s ownership group.

Also, of course, comes the Xs and Os portion of the job. Implementing your system of basketball tactics and strategies — all that good stuff.

Putting a good product on the floor is clearly the most visible part of it all. And I’m not here to judge head coach Quin Snyder on anything but what the eyes can see.

One can argue this season’s roster isn’t fit to succeed (although bettors and oddsmakers certainly thought so preseason). One can are argue injuries have derailed the initial plan (although that hasn’t stopped the Celtics, Nuggets, and others from overcoming major injuries).

One can no longer argue that Snyder has elevated the individual play of players — as detailed above — or the team writ large.

Wins and losses are inarguable, and when a team’s record underwhelms relative to expectations, the coach tends to get the hook. This is just a universal truth throughout the history of the NBA.

Lloyd Pierce fell fate to that very scenario. Once the goalposts moved from player development to contention, his 14-20 record halfway through the 2020-21 season sealed his fate. Snyder’s 20-25 record to date looks eerily similar to Pierce’s record then and Nate McMillan’s 29-30 record in 2022-23 (although both previous coaches had some level of fallout in the locker room).

Maybe it’s best to wait until the end of the season for the higher ups to assess this situation. And if a different direction is desired, there will likely be a great availability of candidates to replace him in the offseason.

But a real, honest assessment needs to be made before tipping off next season lest we end up in the same place this time next year.

DETROIT — Jaylen Brown was asleep when the news first broke out: for the first time in his 10-year NBA career, he was selected as an All-Star starter.

Monday’s primetime game between the Celtics and the Pistons was hours away, and Brown was taking his usual midday nap. By the time he awoke, his phone was filled with congratulatory texts from family and friends.

“I think that’s who it matters most for — my support group,” Brown said. “I think it means a lot to them to see me celebrated in that light now.”

Among Eastern Conference players, Brown received the most votes from media members, the 3rd-most from NBA players, and the 5th-most from fans. That gave Brown the fifth-most votes among East players, edging out Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell for the final starter spot.

Next month in Los Angeles, he’ll represent the conference alongside Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson, Philadelphia 76ers guard Tyrese Maxey, and Detroit Pistons guard Cade Cunningham.

But Brown played down the personal significance of the accolade, noting he’s always felt he’s been this type of player.

“ I’ve always felt like, regardless of what people may think or whatever, that I’ve been one of the better players in this game,” he said. “Just now, I’ve got an opportunity to show it a little more.”

Brown did not feel like being named an All-Star starter was validating.

“I’m a very confident guy,” Brown said. “I don’t allow other people to tell me what my validation is. I always felt like I was better than a lot of these guys.”

Jaylen Brown has benefited from a much greener light this season

This season, Brown has averaged 29.8 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 4.7 assists — while shooting 48.7% from the field, 36.3% from three, and 79.1% from the line.

He attributes some of his offensive improvements to having a much greener light than previous seasons of his career — particularly in the midrange, where Brown has been among the NBA’s most effective players.

“I was discouraged from taking midrange shots at different points in my career,” he said last week. “I’ve been literally told not to. Now it’s like ‘Jaylen, you can take whatever shot you want.’ I’m like, ‘sure.’ I’ve been shooting as many mid-ranges as I can get up. At different points in my career, that hasn’t been the case.”

Joe Mazzulla praised Brown for his leadership and improved ability to make reads this season.

“Really happy for him — it started in the offseason, just the way he approached it, the professionalism, the work ethic, the commitment to 1) getting healthy, to 2) coming in and setting the tone for the building and working with each guy separately,” Mazzulla said on Monday.

The Celtics are 26-16, good for the East’s second-best record. They also have the third-best net rating in the NBA.

And, Brown feels like they’re just getting started.

“I’ve enjoyed being with this group, I’ve enjoyed playing with the young guys, helping with their learning curve,” Brown said. “It’s been a joy. I’m looking forward to the next part of the season. We still have some work to do.”

During halftime of Monday night’s Spurs game, Harrison Barnes made a surprise donation to the San Antonio MLK Commission.

His $50,000 contribution was the largest in the fund’s history.

Established in 1986, the Commission is a volunteer organization that helps assemble the annual MLK March. They host a variety of community events and programs encouraging awareness, acceptance, and appreciation of the teachings and philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement.

Barnes spoke briefly about the donation in his postgame presser.

Since joining the San Antonio Spurs, Harrison and Brittany Barnes have made multiple charitable donations. Early in 2025, they donated $250,000 to AlamoPROMISE.

During the holiday season, Barnes went into multiple H-E-B stores and paid patrons grocery bills for some while distributing gift cards to others.

Up I-35 in Austin, Barnes has supported the Play ATX initiative refurbishing basketball courts at community centers.

Barnes was brought into the Spurs offering a veteran and champion presence in the locker room. He continues to make an impact on the floor. What he and his family have done off the court makes a difference in the lives of many in the local community.

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