@thl3t1c C&P for people who don't support CONTENT CREATORZ

thanks (i guess)!

hollinger’s award picks

Most Valuable Player: Nikola Jokić, Denver Nuggets

A quick reminder before we start: This award is for the Most Valuable Player in the 2021-22 regular season. It is not for the player you think will be the best in the playoffs, or was the best player in last year’s playoffs, or for the guy who deserves it most because he hasn’t won yet, or for any other coded reason to avoid giving a second-straight trophy to the Joker.

We’re getting increasing amounts of this type of chatter in the blabosphere right now, mainly from people who have consumed an average of 0.04 Nuggets telecasts this season. So, let’s cut to the chase: Jokić was the most valuable basketball player in the 2021-22 NBA regular season. As great as Antetokounmpo and Embiid have been this year, I don’t see how anyone could study this in an intellectually honest way and come to a different conclusion.

The fact that Denver plays at an inconvenient time for a lot of people, plus its own ongoing local market TV blackout saga, has somewhat muted the discussion of what an insane, historic season Jokić is having. He’s been so good that even the phenomenal seasons by Embiid and Antetokounmpo still don’t quite stack up.

Consider this: Jokić is the entire focal point of his team’s offense, and yet he leads all high-usage players in True Shooting Percentage, a measure of shooting efficiency that takes into account field goals, 3-pointers, and free throws. He’s running Denver’s offense from the center position, on a club with no knockdown shooters in its core rotation, and it works well enough that the Nuggets are sixth in offense. He’s put up box score lines like 37-13-9, 39-19-8, 41-17-4 and 38-18-6 … this week!

Aesthetically, if you cut a mix of the best NBA passes from this season, they’d all just be Joker dimes. Even the Lukas and LeBrons of the world seem like rank amateurs compared to the Joker; as a passer, he’s on a completely different level. The question is no longer whether Jokić’s the best passing big man in league history; it’s where he ranks among the best passers, period.

The passing is awesome, but I also don’t think people understand how crazy Jokić’s shooting efficiency has been. He has a 66.0 percent True Shooting mark, or .660 if you move the decimal point. It’s not just that it leads all high-usage players, it’s that nobody is even close. Of the league’s top 75 players in usage this year – a pretty broad sample – Karl-Anthony Towns (.642) is the only one within 20 percentage points of Jokić. Again, he’s doing this on a team where every opponent’s entire game plan is to go kitchen sink at Jokić.

I say all this to underscore some of the “why” of how virtually every alphabet-soup metric available has Jokić rated as the top player in the league, and in fact, as having posted one of the best seasons in all of NBA history. No, this isn’t just some bug in the program.

Speaking of those metrics, Jokić is on track to break the PER record, set by Antetokounmpo two years ago, and the BPM record, set by James in 2008-09. (Mind-blowing stat while we’re here: Jokic leads the league in defensive BPM. He’s not some pudgy dude getting cooked in pick-and-rolls anymore, folks. Among centers, only Bam Adebayo has a higher steal rate.)

If the quality argument doesn’t win you over, the quantity argument should. Jokić is also doing this while playing more minutes than nearly every other star – he has played 301 more minutes than Giannis and 218 more than Embiid. That’s about a nine-game edge on the former and seven games on the latter, which is a big deal in an 82-game season. Giannis and Embiid have both been brilliant, don’t get me wrong — in any other year each would be a shoo-in MVP — but right now Jokić has quality and quantity on his side.

For those still resisting a vote for Jokić, riddle me this. How do you reconcile Denver (47-33) having nearly the same record as Philadelphia (49-30) and Milwaukee (49-30) despite what would appear to be an inferior supporting cast? The Nuggets are headed toward 48 or 49 wins even though they have two max contracts on the sidelines and an unshakeable addiction to playing Austin Rivers. Their next-best available option after Jokić was previously the third-best player on the Orlando Magic. Amazingly, nobody on this year’s Nuggets has a positive BPM except Jokić, while only Aaron Gordon has a PER above the league average.

In a related story, the Nuggets crumble into dust without their star center in a way that doesn’t happen in Milwaukee or even Philly. I know Sixers fans fret deeply that their team is outscored by 3.7 points per 100 possessions in the non-Embiid minutes. In Denver, the non-Jokić minutes number is minus 7.3.

I feel for Embiid here especially, as he’s never won the award and had a year that normally would make him an automatic pick. But the Joker has been even better. He’s the MVP.

Most Valuable Player
1. Nikola Jokić, Nuggets
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bucks
3. Joel Embiid, 76ers
4. Luka Dončić, Mavericks
5. Jayson Tatum, Celtics

All-NBA Team

I ended up with 16 players for 15 spots and wasn’t really sure how to settle it. And it turns out, these decisions will actually matter – to the tune of about $35 million in Trae Young’s case.

We also have the issue of position eligibility to deal with, which brings up the question of … why? If you’re going to make Embiid and Jokić both eligible at forward — a position neither has played for one minute the entire season — then don’t have positions at all. For some reason, the league has a lot of trouble figuring out who plays what position (witness: every All-Star ballot), and it should dispense with this entirely. Doing so would have no material impact on the voting that I can see.

If we allow ourselves to put Embiid and Jokić on the first team (and there is no way I’m demoting one after the year each of them had), then there is only one difficult choice on the first team. Antetokounmpo and Dončić are no-brainers, but the last spot is a toss-up.

I went with Jayson Tatum over Devin Booker here. While I’m strongly tempted by the idea of rewarding Phoenix’s season-long dominance and superior clutch play, this is an individual award. Tatum has had the better season by most metrics, and by my eyes, and has also appeared in more games.

The second team, meanwhile, becomes something of a part-timers’ club; Booker joins Ja Morant, Stephen Curry, LeBron James and Kevin Durant on the “probably would have been first-team if they played all year” squad. Except for one thing: none of them are eligible at center. So I have to bump up Karl-Anthony Towns to the second team and push Durant, who played the fewest games of this quintet (52), to the third team.

That decision then streamlines our choices for the third team; Durant, obviously, and Rudy Gobert as the third center. DeMar DeRozan and Jimmy Butler are must-adds. The only lingering question is whether to go with Young or Chris Paul for the final spot, my 15th and 16th players. I went for Young here based on durability and that he is a one-man offense for a team whose role players mostly went south.

First Team
Jayson Tatum, Celtics
Luka Dončić, Mavericks
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bucks
Nikola Jokić, Nuggets
Joel Embiid, 76ers

Second Team
Ja Morant, Grizzlies
Stephen Curry, Warriors
Devin Booker, Suns
LeBron James, Lakers
Karl-Anthony Towns, Timberwolves

Third Team
Trae Young, Hawks
Jimmy Butler, Heat
DeMar DeRozan, Bulls
Kevin Durant, Nets
Rudy Gobert, Jazz

Evan Mobley (David Richard / USA Today)
Rookie of the Year: Evan Mobley, Cleveland Cavaliers

As I noted yesterday, we have a pretty amazing rookie class this year. But only one of them can win the award.

So, before we go any further, this is the part where I have to remind you that it’s Rookie of the Year, not Rookie of the Last Six Weeks, or Rookie of Next Year, or Rookie Who Will Have the Best Career.

Thus, a body of work matters. Jalen Green’s last few weeks have been electric, but he was also a destructively bad player for two-thirds of the season. To a lesser extent, we can say the same thing about Cade Cunningham. His March stats are awesome, but Cunningham has a full-season line with a 13.0 PER, 50.5 True Shooting Percentage and an alarming turnover rate for a 23-win team.

When we evaluate the year, as a whole, it’s pretty clear that two players — Cleveland’s Evan Mobley and Toronto’s Scottie Barnes — stand head and shoulders above the rest. Barnes and Mobley played major, impactful roles on playoff teams, were the keys to the defensive strategy for each and were statistically superior to the rest of the rookie crop over the course of the season.

Impact stats tend to back up the idea that these were the top rookies, but they also make a further distinction in favor of Mobley. It’s just not normal for a rookie to factor into the Defensive Player of the Year discussion; I’ll refer you to my October piece salivating over Mobley basically being a one-man zone defense covering the entire court.

Cleveland was 25th in defense a year ago. This year, the Cavs are sixth. It remains to be seen who will have the best career among this stellar draft class, but Mobley was the most outstanding rookie.

Rookie of the Year
1. Evan Mobley, Cavaliers
2. Scottie Barnes, Raptors
3. Cade Cunningham, Pistons

All-Rookie Team

I’m not going to spend a lot of time litigating this; I put Josh Giddey on the second team because he missed a little too much time relative to the other guys. Also, nobody really talks about Franz Wagner because the Magic were such a dull watch this year, but he was really good and shouldn’t be forgotten here.

First Team
Cade Cunningham, Pistons
Scottie Barnes, Raptors
Evan Mobley, Cavaliers
Franz Wagner, Magic
Jalen Green, Rockets

Second Team
Josh Giddey, Thunder
Herb Jones, Pelicans
Chris Duarte, Pacers
Bones Hyland, Nuggets
Ayo Dosunmu, Bulls

Defensive Player of the Year: Jaren Jackson, Jr., Memphis Grizzlies

There was an obvious choice for NBA Defensive Player of the Year, until there wasn’t. Draymond Green was awesome for half the season, and seemingly a no-brainer selection for the award. Unfortunately, injuries intervened. Green has only played 43 games, and since returning in March from injury, he hasn’t quite been the snarling, all-encompassing force he was in the season’s first two months.

What made Green so valuable, however, was his ability to spearhead the defense from either the four or five position. While the league featured several prominent bigs who put together compelling defensive seasons, the positional versatility offered by Green gave the Warriors a major “go-big-or-go-small” advantage.

Fortunately, there is another Michigan State product we can nominate here who provided the same flexibility. You’re gonna call homer on me for picking Jackson but look at the data. Jackson is a major reason the Grizzlies are 20-3 in games Ja Morant missed, and also the biggest reason Memphis has the league’s fourth-ranked defense. As a defensive playmaker, he was rivaled by few this year. Consider, first, that Jackson led the NBA in block rate while not playing center (mostly), an amazing feat in this four-out era. Jackson also led the NBA in “stocks” by a wide margin. Additionally, opponents only shot 49.7 percent at the rim this year with Jackson lurking, the best percentage in the league.

Sheer playing time is a real differentiator here, too, which is an odd point to bring up in Jackson’s favor given how his first three seasons went. While foul trouble is still an obstacle for him at times, he’s played 2,081 minutes this season … 277 more than Robert Williams, and 289 more than Adebayo. He’d have even more minutes under his belt if it weren’t for the Grizzlies’ frequent blowouts that leave Jackson watching Yves Pons and Xavier Tillman mop-up fourth quarters. Jackson averages just 27.4 minutes per game but was available 74 times in the team’s first 75 contests before a couple of recent “rest” nights as Memphis prepares for the playoffs.

That minutes advantage is a real distinguishing feature of his candidacy vis-a-vis Williams or Adebayo, as is his positional flexibility. (Although Bam can play some four.)

Also, any discussion of this award must automatically reference Rudy Gobert, who was again awesome this year, even if he slipped a bit from his peak. Gobert rates as the top defender in a couple of alphabet-soup ratings, and Utah’s defense once again turned into sawdust any time he checked out. The difference is that Gobert has only played 63 games this year and that he’s a one-position player.

Finally, while we’re here: there’s been a lot of “Why can’t a guard win Defensive Player of The Year” chatter, but it turns out that the game of basketball tends to favor tall people. This is particularly true on the defensive side of the floor. That is why centers tend to win Defensive Player of the Year; the lack of guards to win this trophy is about as much a mystery as the lack of 6-foot-4 jockeys or 138-pound linebackers.

One could argue that a guard could have a strong case if he was so much better relative to other guards that he still conveyed a massive defensive advantage to his team. And while Marcus Smart has become a bit of a cause célèbre this year in regard to this discussion, I’m not sure he’s created such a gulf to warrant that kind of vote. Should Smart be a first-team All-Defense pick this year? Yes, clearly. Is the difference between him and, say, Jrue Holiday or Alex Caruso, a wide-enough gulf to rate him over the switching, multidimensional velociraptors discussed above? I don’t think so.

Defensive Player of the Year
1. Jaren Jackson, Jr., Grizzlies
2. Rudy Gobert, Jazz
3. Bam Adebayo, Heat

Photo of Jaren Jackson Jr. blocking Rudy Gobert: Chris Gardner/Getty Images
All-Defensive Team

Again, injuries are a massive story up and down this list. Alex Caruso and Lonzo Ball might have been the first-team backcourt if not for their injuries; they’ve only played 76 games combined. Paul George has been awesome, but only for 29 games. Myles Turner swatted everything in sight, but once again, he only played in 42 contests.

So let’s give a special shoutout to Phoenix’s Mikal Bridges, who proved himself as an elite wing stopper for the league’s best team while leading the league in minutes played.

Tough choices abound in the frontcourt, where I have to weigh a half-season of Draymond Green’s awesomeness against the totality of Evan Mobley’s campaign, and where Robert Williams has to be left off the list entirely to make way for two other elite centers.

First Team
G Marcus Smart, Celtics
G Jrue Holiday, Bucks
F Mikal Bridges, Suns
F Jaren Jackson, Jr., Grizzlies
C Rudy Gobert, Jazz

Second Team
G Chris Paul, Suns
G Kyle Lowry, Heat
F Matisse Thybulle, 76ers
F Evan Mobley, Cavaliers
C Bam Adebayo, Heat

Sixth Man of the Year: Kevin Love, Cleveland Cavaliers

The best way to handle this award would be to just drop the trophy in Memphis and let about six players split it. But if we must hand it over to a single person, it has to be Love.

There seems to be a chorus that is convinced that Tyler Herro is a shoo-in for this award and, based on previous years’ voting, I can see why. It would be yet another example of the weird emphasis on scoring averages (or “yay points” as our Seth Partnow puts it) that has infected any discussion of this award for about two decades now. Herro, as well as last year’s winner, Jordan Clarkson, are the league’s only two players with more than 1,000 points off the bench this year. So, what, they’re the only two people we can select?

Stop the madness, people. Being a sixth man isn’t just about coming out flinging. Herro’s 20.6 scoring average off the pine is impressive, but he’s basically operated as a high-volume, middling-at-best efficiency possession sponge, while his defense makes him a popular target for opposing offenses.

As for Love, he may trail Herro in points per game, but smokes the field on every available advanced metric. It’s been an important impact, too. His return to being a floor-spacing, rebounding, out-letting menace is one of the biggest reasons the Cavaliers are a winning team again.

Love has only played 1,629 minutes to Herro’s 2,118, and that’s a significant difference. But in terms of effectiveness, it’s not even close. Love is shooting 38.5 percent from 3 on career-high volume, rebounding like a center and diming people up when his shot isn’t there (4.8 assists per 100 is elite stuff from a big). Overall, his 19.1 PER and 4.1 BPM lap the field.

Another player I think needs a strong look here is Phoenix’s Cameron Johnson, who like Love trails Herro by more than 400 minutes, but has outperformed him pretty significantly in terms of two-way impact.

I don’t mean to dump on Herro – he’s having a good year! The Heat are really good! But this award isn’t reserved for the backup guard who jacks the most shots, despite what recent history may indicate. The voting mindset for this award has become increasingly weird over the past several years and it’s long past time to inject some rationality. Love should be a fairly obvious pick here, and I find it really odd that he doesn’t seem to be.

Sixth Man of the Year
1. Kevin Love, Cavaliers
2. Cameron Johnson, Suns
3. Tyler Herro, Heat

Dejounte Murray (Soobum Im / USA Today)
Most Improved Player: Dejounte Murray, San Antonio Spurs

I generally loathe this award, but if required to vote on it I’ll pull the lever for Murray. It is one thing for players in their second or third season to make a major jump, as Ja Morant, Desmond Bane and Darius Garland did. For a player to do it in year six? That’s a different animal.

Murray made more than half his 2s for the first time in his career, shot a respectable 33.0 percent from 3 on increased volume and massively spiked both his assist and scoring rates. In the Spurs’ post-DeRozan world, he took on a much-greater scoring responsibility but was also more efficient. Murray’s PER jumped from 16.5 to 22.4; his BPM from 0.8 to 5.5. He single-handedly dragged an otherwise tanky roster into the postseason, if only for a day, and none of the changes look fluky or unsustainable.

The other prominent player to mention here is Boston’s Robert Williams. The fourth-year center went from occasional starter to Defensive Player of the Year candidate and keyed the Celtics’ transformation into a defensive juggernaut.

Also, keep an eye on Herro here when the actual vote comes out. I don’t actually think he improved enough to get on the ballot, but he was my preseason pick to finish second in the MIP voting.

As we all know, picking the runner-up in an obscure category is the pinnacle of basketball nerdom, the NBA equivalent to picking the NIT runner-up before the season starts. This is my Super Bowl.

Most Improved Player
1. Dejounte Murray, Spurs
2. Robert Williams, Celtics
3. Ja Morant, Grizzlies

Coach of the Year: Monty Williams, Phoenix Suns

I’m trying to avoid having this be the “team that most exceeded expectations trophy.” With apologies to Chris Finch in Minnesota and J.B. Bickerstaff in Cleveland, who both did fine jobs this year, I can’t quite get you guys in my top three. Boston’s Ime Udoka is another name I wanted to get onto my ballot and couldn’t quite find room for; the Celtics’ transformation in the second half of the season under his leadership has been impressive, and the defensive system he implemented has a lot to do with it.

Three coaches stand at the top of my ladder. Let’s start in Memphis; the Grizzlies are 20-3 without their best player, and while the depth of their roster is the biggest factor, also credit Taylor Jenkins’ willingness to use them. This year’s Grizzlies have a rare combination of joy and selflessness, especially for a group so young, and Jenkins has to get major credit for nurturing that, and for the player development that has led to big jumps from players like Bane and De’Anthony Melton.

And yet, I would argue two coaches might warrant ranking higher on the ballot. Miami has overcome a myriad of injuries to its best players and somehow has the best record in the East, despite frequently cobbling together lineups with two-ways and reclamation projects. This year, Erik Spoelstra and his staff have shown the full package of coaching mastery – developing players like Max Strus and Gabe Vincent, instilling a crazy mindset on defense that has players taking charges seemingly every other play, and having the stones to make rotation shifts (such as the recent benching of Duncan Robinson) even with key players involved.

Finally, at the top, it has to be Monty Williams. We screwed up not giving him the trophy last year. Not only has his team lapped the league in the standings, but also the Suns have done it with the league’s best late-game execution at both ends. Phoenix has had injuries too, believe it or not – it just doesn’t seem that way because the Suns have carved up the league so easily.

Coach of the Year
1. Monty Williams, Suns
2. Erik Spoelstra, Heat
3. Taylor Jenkins, Grizzlies

Can I get a...

https://theathletic.com/3323396/2022/05/22/kevon-looney-playoffs-defense/

“Wrong guy!”

This was a favorite taunt of Warriors coaches and bored bench players a few seasons ago.

Here’s the scenario: Kevon Looney, finally past the two hip surgeries that stalled his early career, had nudged his way into the rotation. Opposing scorers viewed him as a target.

It made sense. Looney is a center without exceptional speed or rim-protection ability. He had no reputation. So guards would get him on a switch, clear the floor and begin their dribble attack, salivating at the matchup. That’s when you’d hear that familiar call bellowing from the Warriors’ bench area.

“Wrong guy!”

Spencer Dinwiddie is one of the three guards currently attacking Looney in these 2022 conference finals. Here is Dinwiddie, back in 2018 for the Nets, getting Looney on a switch, getting into his dribble package and failing to get past his right or left hip. The possession ends in a turnover.

The Warriors essentially gave up on Looney before his third season. They added Damian Jones and Jordan Bell in back-to-back drafts and already employed Zaza Pachulia, JaVale McGee and David West. Looney was the team’s sixth center without any clear future with the franchise. They declined his fourth-year option, the clearest sign that a front office has pulled the plug on a young prospect.

“Didn’t see it (the first two seasons) because he wasn’t out there,” Kerr said. “He had two hip surgeries and we didn’t know what we had. Then his third year he has a great year and it’s like, ‘Uh oh, we might lose this guy.'”

But before they expected to lose Looney in unrestricted free agency — where they weren’t permitted to offer him anything more than the price of that declined fourth-year option — they found him as an essential rotation player in the 2018 conference finals against a matchup, the 2018 Houston Rockets, that they’ve repeatedly compared to the 2022 Dallas Mavericks in recent days.

The Rockets surrounded James Harden and Chris Paul with versatile defenders who could shoot. When the Warriors deployed a switching attack, they targeted centers. By the middle of the series, McGee, Pachulia and West were deemed nearly unplayable. But the Warriors didn’t want to go with Draymond Green at center the entire game. So they needed Looney. He’d proven to be their most stable center in a switching environment.

“Wrong guy!”

Here is Harden — in his prime, much quicker on the drive — during a late-clock scenario in the first quarter of Game 1. Looney has already switched out onto him. Harden tries an array of dribble moves, but a patient Looney doesn’t bite on any of them. It’s part of his defensive effectiveness. He isn’t jumpy. He isn’t block- or steal-thirsty. He’ll stand there while you try to fake him out.

The possession leads to a late-clock pass out from Harden, a pass back to him and a stepback, well-contested 3.

Similar to the current Mavericks with Jalen Brunson, there was a second scorer who regularly went after Looney in that matchup. Here is a younger Chris Paul early in Game 5 only finding his way to a contested 19-foot baseline fadeaway over Looney’s long arm.

Looney, you’ll notice, is much skinnier then. He was considered a forward when he entered the draft. The league forced him to upsize into a center for survival. He’s bulked up in recent years to better handle the position. The Warriors drafted James Wiseman to take over the center spot, but Wiseman’s career has yet to take off.

So, ending his seventh season, entering another unrestricted free agency this summer, it’s still the stable Looney as the switchable backbone of the Warriors’ defense, still holding up against switches despite his bulked-up frame.

“I’m pretty much kind of the same,” Looney said. “I take kind of the same approach. I’m just a little bit more battle-tested. That was my first time playing on a big stage like this (in 2018). I don’t know if even my teammates had the most faith in me, but they put me out there and I handled it pretty well. Those experiences got me ready for things today and I feel a lot more confident being out there guarding guards.”

Looney is a film junkie. He studies tendencies and asks veterans like Andre Iguodala how best to guard each particular player.

“I’m just a little bit smarter and a little bit more physical now,” he said. “So I’m able to guard those guys a little bit better.”

Here is Looney against Dončić in Game 1. He gets him on a switch and shades him to go left. That’s part of the Warriors’ scouting report. Looney’s gameplan discipline, according to coaches, is probably the best on the team. He doesn’t mess up instructions.

Looney doesn’t go after a steal and leave himself vulnerable. Because of his wingspan — 7-foot-4 — he’s always in position to at least get a decent contest on a stepback 3. If a player drives, Looney pretty much always funnels him into help. On this possession, he shuts off Dončić’s stepback and Steph Curry is there for the strip.

Here is Looney against Brunson in Game 2. This is about as well as you’ll see a center track and contest a guard on a drive.

Stan Van Gundy, calling the game, spent much of the second half of Game 2 wondering aloud why the Mavericks kept going after Looney instead of Curry or Jordan Poole or others. Van Gundy probably should’ve just been screaming “Wrong guy!” from the sideline. But Looney doesn’t expect the Mavericks to adjust. Teams have always stayed on the attack against him. He expects it in Game 3.

“Luka, Brunson and Dinwiddie are all different type of players, different type of iso players,” Looney said. “Kind of tough having to guard those guys. I think (I’ve done) a good job. It’s going to be a long series, so I got to keep it up because those guys are going to keep coming.”

How Robert Williams grew to become a key piece in Celtics’ Finals run
Jay King

Robert Williams cannot move like he normally does. That much is obvious throughout Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals.

Williams hobbles into closeouts twice over the first two minutes. When Kyle Lowry drives to the hoop later in the first quarter, Williams fails to recover in time. One of the NBA’s best at altering shots, he cannot summon the bounce necessary to challenge the layup. After Lowry misses anyway, Williams can do little but watch as Bam Adebayo follows up with a resounding slam dunk. Williams, dealing with the lingering impact of a recent knee surgery, has little to give.

Still, as his Celtics teammates notice, he gives whatever he has. They understand what he has been through after tearing his left meniscus late in the regular season. They have seen him go through two-a-day workouts to return to the court as early as possible after surgery. They have watched him bounce in and out of the lineup, his impact depending on what his body allows him to do on any given day.

Head coach Ime Udoka has also noticed. After the Celtics escape with a 100-96 win, setting up the franchise’s first finals berth since 2010, the coach singles out a few players for their impact on the game. He credits Al Horford for a big block and Jayson Tatum for key rebounds. Then, Udoka glances at the shirtless center in the back of the locker room.

“Rob,” Udoka says, “for playing through pain.”

The Celtics locker room applauds Williams with the most spirit. Maybe they aren’t cheering him just for his contributions on this night, but the journey he has traveled to put himself in this position.

After arriving in Boston four years ago surrounded by concerns about his maturity and work ethic, he has emerged as a cherished teammate and trusted worker. Raised in Oil City, La., a small town with a population of about 2,000, Williams has needed to learn how to navigate so much about the NBA world. He has needed to grow up. He has needed to round out his game, starting with the most basic aspects of it. He has needed to bat away the doubts inside his own head.

Still, as the Celtics have discovered, Williams is built to lift up the ones he loves. That includes his teammates, who love him back.

“Don’t be afraid to be great,” Jaylen Brown tells him.

Williams isn’t. Not anymore.

The burden of talent strapped itself to Williams’ back long before the Celtics drafted him with the 27th pick in 2018.

At a young age, he started hearing from coaches how great he could be. When he swatted away eight shots, people watching wondered why he didn’t block nine or 10. When he soared for a putback dunk, spectators questioned why he didn’t do it on every possession. As he progressed into a big-time college basketball prospect, coaches told him he needed to seek out better competition, but Williams didn’t always want to leave his situation. Used to Oil City, which has one traffic light and zero grocery stores, Williams liked to be around the people and places he knows best.

“Those people up that way, that’s where they’re comfortable,” said Ricky Evans, one of Williams’ youth coaches. “They know everybody. And it’s hard to get them to branch out and leave.”

Because of Williams’ unique production on a basketball court, many coaches tried to convince him to bolt anyway. They pushed Williams to leave for a different high school, but he never took anyone up on the offer.

Evans, who played at Centenary in the early 2000s, understood the value of better exposure. In hopes of putting Williams’ gifts in front of more eyeballs, Evans lined up a spot for him in the Houston Hoops AAU program. On that team, which also featured NBA talents De’Aaron Fox, Carsen Edwards and Jarred Vanderbilt, Evans knew plenty of college coaches would see Williams. One problem: Williams didn’t want to leave behind his own squad from Louisiana.

“Literally, to get him to go to different tournaments and stuff, I’d have to send my son (one of Williams’ good friends) with him just to get him to go,” said Evans. “It was always a bribe where, ‘If you go, I’ll do this.’”

Williams would inevitably flourish when he did step out of his corner of northwest Louisiana. Nothing could contain his ability on the court. He just didn’t like to leave what he called his “comfort zone.” In Oil City, he knew what to expect. His sister, Bri, said it’s the type of place where the whole town shows up to every neighborhood barbecue.

“It’s very family-oriented,” said Bri. “Southern, country.”

“Especially when you in the country and you got nothing to do,” Robert said, “your family is your friends basically.”

Each Saturday, Bri said she and Robert would wake up early in the morning, clean the house and visit one of their grandparents. They would help their grandmother or grandfather clean up, too, then go grocery shopping together and eventually head to the movies or do another family activity. The small town didn’t have much.

“We had one grocery store in Oil City, but it closed down,” said Bri. “We have one gas station. We don’t have a hospital. Just recently, maybe a couple years ago, they just built a health clinic. No grocery stores. You have a Family Dollar. You have a Dollar General. We had a school, but it closed down, it’s a historical landmark now.”

“I know everybody say they from a small place or whatever, but my hometown has to be the smallest city I ever been in,” said Robert. “Can’t even be considered a city, you know what I’m saying? Being away from everything else in the world, that’s all you really know.”

Robert’s mother, Tundra, would stress to her children that they should pursue happiness, not riches. Basketball coaches could see Robert had a chance to land both. One look at him could persuade talent evaluators to rearrange their plans.

Kyle Keller, who helped recruit Williams to Texas A&M, said he first spotted the center at an AAU tournament during Williams’ sophomore year. At the end of a long day, Keller said he was ready to leave the event when Williams walked into the gym. After spotting the young center, “this 6-7 or 6-8, 180-pound dude whose arms hang down to his ankles,” Keller decided he would stay just in case.

“And he blocked about 10 shots in the first half,” Keller said.

At halftime, Keller said he called his travel agent and told her he needed to change his flight. He needed to see the rest of the game so he could find out as much as possible about this bouncy teenager with incredible shot-block timing. The travel agent said all of the later flights out of Vegas were booked, but Keller stayed anyway. By the end of the game, he knew Texas A&M needed to land the prospect. Within about 12 months, Williams had joined Houston Hoops and become a high-major recruit, but Texas A&M stayed in front of all the other schools who tried to lure him.

When Williams first arrived on the college’s campus, the coaching staff considered him a “flight risk,” according to Darby Rich, a former Texas A&M strength coach who now works at Texas Tech. Back in Oil City, people also weren’t convinced Williams would stay at the school. Evans said some took bets on when Williams would return to his hometown.

“It was like, he’s so confined to being at home and being around people, that sometimes he can be scared of change a little bit,” said Bri. “But if you can get him out of a certain situation, or get him out of his comfort zone, just to try something new, he runs with it.”

The Celtics would discover that, but not before those at Texas A&M.

Darby Rich first met Williams during the recruitment process. He was tasked with detailing the strength and conditioning program for Williams and others.

Rich didn’t hold back, telling Williams how difficult the work would be. He said he would love Williams like his own child. Still, on the days Williams didn’t bring his best energy, Rich promised he would be “the guy you like the least in the world.”

He believed the talk intimated Williams. Williams swore it didn’t. He knew Rich had worked with Blake Griffin at Oklahoma before joining the Texas A&M staff.

“All I see is this big ass picture of Blake Griffin on the wall,” Williams said. “So I’m like, ‘Hell yeah.’”

Even so, Williams had plenty to learn. In high school, said Keller, the big man weighed about 180 pounds. Back in Louisiana, Williams didn’t have the benefit of a world-class weight room. He did at Texas A&M, but sometimes needed to be encouraged to work out hard. Amir Abdur-Rahim, an assistant coach at the time, said he would stress the importance of bringing the right energy every day.

“You’re doing too much, man,” Williams would respond.

But Abdur-Rahim knew what Williams could do for his team.

“It’s like, Rob, your energy and personality is so infectious that when you’re on, everybody’s on,” said Abdur-Rahim, now the head coach at Kennesaw State. “They don’t have a choice but to be on because they’re gonna look bad if they’re not.”

Williams needed to kick some other bad habits, including a questionable diet. He loved his sweets. Bri said he used to rummage through the pantry, eating his own snacks first and then cycling over to the rest of his family’s. He was especially fond of Little Debbie cakes, including his favorite kind, Zebra Cakes. Before long, the rest of his family stopped wondering who ate all of their food. Robert had a toy box, shaped like a football, where he would stash the empty wrappers. On the weekends, when his mother would make him clean up, Robert’s room would look spotless at first glance.

“But if you look under the bed, and if you look in that toy box,” Bri said, “you will see everything that you’ve been missing out of the pantry.”

Even at Texas A&M, Robert would drive nutritionist Blair Hitchcock crazy with some of his food choices.

“She’d be so mad, man,” said Abdur-Rahim. “Because Rob, all he was going to eat was chicken tenders and fries. She would say that’s not enough food, he needs to eat, he needs to have some vegetables on his plate. It’s like, ‘Hey, Blair, I know what you’re saying. But that dude right there, he could eat hamburgers every day of the week and he’s going to be better than everybody.’”

Williams made rapid progress on the court and with his body. The Texas A&M coaches quickly learned how well Williams could process information. During one of his first days at the school, he looked lost in drill work against the team’s two best returning big men, Tyler Davis and Tonny Trocha-Morelos. Williams didn’t have their awareness, wisdom or attention to detail. Abdur-Rahim told head coach Billy Kennedy they should remove Williams from the group work until he could compete at the level of his veteran teammates. That lasted maybe three days.

“He came back in the group and he was almost doing the stuff better than they were,” said Abdur-Rahim. “That’s why I was like, ‘That dude is a sponge.’ He might not know something the first time you mention something or the first time you introduce it. But from the second or third time and from there on, he’s going to be one of the best guys that you have (at that skill).”

Alex Lloyd, a Texas A&M video coordinator who is now the head coach at Bowdoin College, noticed early that Williams would ask questions about defensive rotations most other players wouldn’t think about. Wouldn’t it make sense if we pre-rotate on the backside, Williams asked once, so I can stay back and protect the rim?

The other coaches marveled at his combination of intelligence and unique athleticism. Williams’ teammates enjoyed his style, which was all about the team. He didn’t need the ball to make an impact. He focused instead on rebounding, defending and catching lobs. Though the Texas A&M staff initially wondered if Williams would leave during his first month at the school, he found a new family there instead. Whenever Robert was forced out of his comfort zone, Bri could trust her brother to make new friends. She compared him to his mother, a paraprofessional for young students. Near graduation time every year, Tundra puts together a bag of gifts for the children.

“If you look at that you’ll think that it’s Christmas,” said Bri. “From outfits, to pajamas, to candy, toys. She loves people, and loves seeing people happy. And he’s the same way.”

By the end of that first summer, Abdur-Rahim believed Williams, who arrived as ESPN’s 51st-ranked recruit in his class, would eventually leave early for the NBA Draft. Over time, Abdur-Rahim started to think Williams could even contend to be the first pick. One day, he called his brother, Shareef, who scored more than 15,000 points over a 12-year NBA career.

“This dude is Stromile Swift with feel,” said Abdur-Rahim, referring to the extremely athletic second pick in the 2000 draft.

Two hundred and thirty five miles away from Oil City, Williams thrived on campus. He emerged as a beloved teammate, the same way he later would in Boston. Keller called him a “pure spirit.”

Abdur-Rahim called Williams everybody’s favorite teammate. Brad Stevens would later say the same thing about Williams with the Celtics. After coming off the Aggies’ bench early in the season, Williams won the SEC Defensive Player of the Year award. He was viewed as a likely lottery pick, but didn’t consider himself ready for the NBA. He told Bri he did not consider himself mentally prepared for the jump.

“I was just nervous,” Robert said. “I think it was just everything in general. Am I going to fail? Am I not going to be as good as I think I am? Am I going to be a bust? Do I need another year of maturity?”

Brown would later urge Williams to ignore similar doubts in Boston. Like he tells himself, Brown told Williams not to be afraid of greatness.

“Me and Rob are similar in a lot of regards where sometimes we can overthink situations or allow what the outside world is saying to kind of seep into our minds,” Brown said. “Especially when I was younger in my career. Just come out and play basketball, man. Don’t let your anxiety take over. Don’t let those thoughts that you have inside of your head that’s doubting or having fear or saying that you’re not going to be able to do it, you’re going to fail. Don’t listen to that voice. Listen to the voice that’s going to tell you that you’re great. Listen to the voice that’s telling you you’re going to get the job done. And sometimes you need somebody to remind you of that.”

Those around Williams at the time told him how much he could accomplish and how much he already had. Even so, he didn’t trust it yet.

“Coming from a place like Oil City, such a small town, there were times I thought the success – scared him is not the right word – but it created expectations, right?” said Abdur-Rahim. “And the one thing about Robert, which makes him so great, is that once somebody has an expectation of him, he doesn’t want to let anybody down. He’s a pleaser. So he felt like if he let you down, that was the worst thing ever to him.”

Shortly after Williams decided to return to school in 2017, he showed up for an April morning workout with glitter in his hair. He had gone to a sorority party the night before.

“It was lime green paint,” said Rich. “I remember it clearly in his left ear. And I’m thinking, this kid’s coming back to A&M for another year because of that paint party.”

More seriously, Rich believed Williams returned to school because he “didn’t want to be a 19-year-old in New York City all alone.”

“He just literally was not ready to live that lifestyle,” Rich said.

The decision did not pay immediate dividends. Williams was suspended for the first two games of his sophomore season for a violation of team policy. He still went on to win the SEC Defensive Player of the Year award for the second straight season, but saw his NBA stock slide between the end of the season and the draft.

People who saw him work out then reported he was clearly out of shape, which Williams acknowledged during a recent conversation. He said he only did 1-on-0 workouts, which highlighted his lack of conditioning while failing to show off his passing and defensive instincts. Williams’ initial agents, Mike Silverman and Brandon Grier, held him out of the NBA combine, which Rich saw as a huge mistake.

“They made some poor decisions,” Rich said. “They didn’t let Robert Williams go to the combine. Let’s talk about that. Maybe the best athlete in the draft doesn’t go to the combine. Even if you don’t want to do all the drills, you let Robert Williams go be measured, you let Robert Williams run and jump, and more than anything, he’s such an engaging kid that if you put him in front of GMs and coaches and the people that are conducting interviews, they would sit there — even if there are red flags — and think, golly, he’s a good kid, we need him in our organization. And they didn’t give him a chance to do that.”

Grier said he didn’t think they could put Williams in front of any teams at that time.

“I would never put my client in front of NBA teams or decision-makers in the shape he was in and the level of preparedness he had,” Grier said. “So, until he was ready, we were going to keep him locked up from anybody seeing him.”

The agency set up Williams to prepare for the draft at a training facility in Dallas, but he left in a matter of days to split time between Texas A&M and back home in Louisiana. Rich said Williams didn’t do the type of conditioning and basketball training necessary to be ready for that critical time. He believed the agents should have done more to hold Williams to the right type of daily regimen.

“I don’t care if I’m rolling them under the bus because they screwed the kid,” Rich said. “They were so afraid that he would sign with somebody else that they kind of let him make his own schedule. And Rob making his own schedule at 19 or 20 years old is not what he needed.”

Grier said the agency tried its best to help Williams, sending trainers to Louisiana, but had problems getting him to show up for workouts. Williams, who eventually parted ways with Silverman and Grier, later said he jumped into the business relationship too quickly. Whoever was to blame for the pre-draft process gone wrong, Williams’ stock fell with certain teams.

The Clippers showed serious interest, but passed on him with two picks late in the lottery, setting him up for a long slide. Contributing to the fall, many teams outside of Williams’ expected range, including the Celtics, did not have access to his medical information.

After hearing Williams could slip down the draft board, the Celtics organized to hunt down why. According to Danny Ainge, the team spent about two hours in a “frantic” search for additional details on his health. The Celtics called anyone who could potentially help them out, including teams that had passed on Williams. Word had spread throughout the NBA that he was dealing with some sort of vascular issue. The Celtics hoped to uncover whether he was a draftable prospect. Because of his talent, they badly wanted him to be.

As the first round crept on, the Celtics contacted Rich. He said he impressed upon Ainge that Williams’ popliteal artery entrapment syndrome would not threaten his career or his life. Even if the condition did worsen, Rich said, it could be taken care of with a procedure that would allow Williams to keep playing.

In College Station, those close to Williams were rooting for him to land on a team with solid veteran influences. Rich said he told people he wanted Williams to play with somebody like Al Horford, who could show him the right way to approach the job. Abdur-Rahim said he did not want Williams to land on an inexperienced team with little leadership because “then you may look up in five years and he’s not in the league because he didn’t have anybody to show him, hey, this is what it takes.”

When the Celtics did pick Williams, Rich said he saw the bright side of the center’s draft-night fall.

“Golly,” Rich thought. “He lost a lot of money today, but he may make it up on the back side because he may be in the league eight more years because he’s with an organization that’s going to be good for him.”

Over the next four years, Williams would grow to believe he needed the Celtics just like they needed him.

Shortly after one of his first workouts with Jerome Allen, then a Celtics assistant coach, Williams looked down to check a text message on his phone.

“You bullshitting,” read the note.

Allen was following through on a promise he made to Williams. After Brad Stevens paired the two together, Allen had vowed to let Williams know whenever he brought an unacceptable effort level to the gym. That morning, Williams had let his coach down.

The two came to an agreement.

“I’m going to tell when you bullshit,” Allen said. “You just got to listen to me.”

Williams bought in. Some days, the workouts with Allen would seem remedial. Allen would guard Williams 1-on-1 full-court, pressuring him to work on his ballhandling. The two would practice different types of pivots. Allen would show Williams where to point his toe during certain moves. Though Williams had plenty to work on, he also had obvious gifts, including a rare ability to see the court. Allen would help Williams read the help defense to set up the passes he loved to throw.

As the two grew closer, Allen started to consider Williams misunderstood. He had a reputation for immaturity because he missed a conference call the day after the Celtics drafted him then failed to show up in Boston in time for his first summer league practice. Even before those moments, several NBA teams had doubts about Williams’ makeup thanks partially to the rough pre-draft circuit.

From the start, Allen saw Williams as a selfless person, all about the team.

“Rob doesn’t like a lot of attention,” Allen said. “And I’m not saying that he constantly carried this anxiety that came along with it, but he just wanted to be like a kid. He just wanted to be Rob. And everybody’s like, ‘Overnight, you got to become a professional.’ And that just wasn’t fair to him.”

Some people need more time to develop. Williams worked at it. With the Celtics, he could look around and see good examples everywhere. By the time he would show up to the gym, Al Horford and Aron Baynes, both fathers of young children, would be finishing their workouts. Williams could see what NBA success required.

He didn’t always believe he could even reach the league in the first place. Evans used to tell Williams regularly that he had a chance to play in the NBA one day, but he never bought it.

While Williams fought for minutes early in his NBA career, Allen needed to help build the young man’s confidence.

“He helped me believe that I can get all I want in this game,” Williams said. “He just reassured me daily, man. He helped me work on it.”

On certain days, Allen and Williams would stop talking to each other after getting into a heated argument. Always, they would move past their disagreement. In quieter moments, they would talk about family, kids and responsibilities. Williams started to realize Allen cared about him on a far deeper level than basketball. When Williams got sick, Allen would stop by the house to check on him. When Williams needed help, he found himself turning to Allen.

On the court, Williams began to find ways to impact the Celtics. Brown saw him evolve.

“Rob has made huge jumps,” Brown said. “Not just in his game, but just the mental game. Just being able to be consistent, being able to be solid, being able to be available. And a lot of that comes from confidence. A lot of that comes from self belief, inner belief.”

Off the court, Williams developed close bonds with his teammates. Jayson Tatum, who has called Williams his favorite teammate to play with, had conversations with Stevens about the big man’s importance to the team. Stevens needed no convincing. He believed last season that Williams’ growth would determine the Celtics’ ceiling. Stevens said that this season, which saw Williams make the second team all-defense during his first year as a full-time starter, has only reaffirmed that belief.

Williams regularly delivers highlights, but cares more about lifting up the players around him.

“He is a genuinely thankful person,” Stevens said. “He’s one of the great teammates around for sure. First of all, when you play with him, everything screams, ‘That’s a guy I’d love to play with.’ Does a lot of little things, defends, passes, rolls, sometimes doesn’t get the ball but opens it up for the weak side. And then when you are around him every day, he just raises the energy level. He does a good job of that. He’s gone from that kind of shy young guy, looking around, to one of the adults in the room who is ready to infuse the room with energy.”

This January, Williams named his new son Hendrix Rome Williams, with the middle name to honor Allen. Earlier this season, after Allen left for the Pistons, Williams sent him a message about how God puts people in your life at certain times, and how it was no accident they ended up working together.

“I feel like people are put in your life for a reason,” Williams said. “Even if it’s for a month. Even if it’s for a year.”

The Celtics all believe Williams has another level to reach. His sister believes he could win the Defensive Player of the Year award next season. She said he defends the basket in the same way he supports those he loves.

“If he’s protecting what’s his, he’s fine with it,” Bri said.

The Celtics are his now. And he’s theirs.

DURING THE LATE winter of 2013, an 18-year-old curio named Giannis Antetokounmpo was turning heads in Greece's second-tier professional league. Though he was averaging fewer than 10 points per game, Antetokounmpo's physical profile, body control and vision screamed "modern-day NBA."

Only a handful of front-office executives from the NBA had witnessed Antetokounmpo in person, and only the Atlanta Hawks had brought him into their facility. Most of the league had relied on video, as well as intelligence from scouts and various contacts in the world of European basketball, for their information. What multiple front offices heard gave them great pause about the prospect.

An executive from one team that passed on Antetokounmpo in the June draft did so because the word was that the teenager was soft. For all the raw talent and upside, Antetokounmpo, who spoke no English and had limited exposure to the world outside of Greek basketball, couldn't survive in the NBA. The intel also warned that Antetokounmpo's family could be an impediment: The immigration status of his parents and brothers was thorny, and the task of getting them into the United States could present complications for a team that drafts him. Being alone in a strange city without his family, the thinking went, Antetokounmpo would struggle personally.

The Milwaukee Bucks selected Antetokounmpo in the 2013 draft with the 15th pick, one slot ahead of the Hawks, who were devastated. After a steady development period during his first few years in the league, Antetokounmpo has blossomed into a five-time All-Star, two-time MVP and NBA champion before his 27th birthday.

So far as Antetokounmpo's potentially problematic family, his filial piety and brotherly love have been defining characteristics of his success. Far from being a distraction, Antetokounmpo's devotion to his kin has been a main driver of his renowned work ethic. To the extent it informed the ultimate decision of any of the 14 teams that drafted ahead of the Bucks, the intel was a germ.

Intelligence is merely one ingredient that goes into the talent evaluation of NBA draft prospects. Yet despite extraordinary advancements in so many areas and exponential front-office growth to match, the NBA collectively is no better at projecting an elite draft prospect than it was 40 years ago.

In a landscape where the NBA's brightest minds have pushed the boundaries of the frontier, the NBA draft remains the most stubborn line of resistance. But there's one team that believes it might know something the rest of the league doesn't.
The Warriors' dynasty was formed by the considerable power of the NBA draft. The team drafted Stephen Curry No. 7 in 2009, Klay Thompson No. 11 in 2011 and, famously, Draymond Green No. 35 in 2012. Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images

THIS SPRING'S FINALS offer an object lesson in the power of the annual draft. The Boston Celtics' starting five featured four first-round picks between 2014 and 2018. The Golden State Warriors transformed from a backwater to glam franchise by drafting Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. Younger draftees Jordan Poole and Kevon Looney also proved indispensable in the Warriors' title run.

In contrast, the failure of the Sacramento Kings and Orlando Magic to find franchise players despite drafting repeatedly near the top of the lottery have consigned them to chronic mediocrity.

One team that's had mixed results in recent years -- like most NBA teams -- is the Phoenix Suns. Unlike most NBA teams, the Suns have determined that the best way to value the NBA draft might be to not value it at all.

In a league where teams spend millions of dollars and employ an ever-growing number of scouts in a year-round pursuit to nail the June draft, the Suns, under the current leadership of general manager James Jones, are taking the inverse approach.

Phoenix's tack is as unconventional as it is anti-establishment: Not only are the Suns bucking a pronounced league trend by divesting from the Draft Industrial Complex, they're also espousing a view in the information age that less of it is better.

Michael Lopez, now the director of football data and analytics for the National Football League, examined the historic performance of the NBA at drafting in a 2017 study. Then an assistant professor at Skidmore College who had earned his Ph.D. in biostatistics from Brown University, he found that the NBA didn't improve at all between 1980 and 2017.

The flatline isn't monocausal -- there are a host of factors that range from youth to various intangibles. The most common response offered speaks to the youth of most draftees.

Both successful and unsuccessful teams rely on scouting, workouts, interviews, physical measurements, medical reports and analytics. Over the past few decades, these processes have advanced considerably. Video platforms enable a scout to watch the most granular elements of a prospect's game with the touch of a button. More sophisticated technology allows team physicians and performance specialists to spot red flags that might compromise a player's health. Psychologists assess a teenager's competitive makeup. Sophisticated statistical modeling projects how the production of a collegian or international player might translate to the NBA.

Multiple other front-office executives charged with the unenviable task of projection say confirmation bias is the most derailing factor. A scout may fall in love with a prospect in November after watching him at a college tournament and author a report to that effect. Then, as the basketball operations person now vested in that prospect's continued maturation, he continues to champion the player, even as countervailing evidence emerges that exposes the player's vulnerabilities. Like a Texas Hold 'em player who is pot-committed, the scout continues to ride hope, even with the probabilities turned.

Beyond the on-court factors, execs and scouts say it's harder than ever to project the human dynamics. Will a teenager asked to move thousands of miles from home have the life skills to manage the demands of an inordinately demanding job? How will millions of dollars affect that process? Do they have the mental and emotional capacity to buy-in to a new brand of basketball after years of dominating at every level?

Then there's the smallest of sample-size theater. James Wiseman played all of 69 minutes at Memphis, while Darius Garland played five games at Vanderbilt. Famously, Kyrie Irving played only 11 games at Duke. Top 2022 prospect Shaedon Sharpe didn't play a single game this season for Kentucky.

One executive said he's been burned by an overly cautious medical staff who raised red flags that dissuaded him from selecting a first-round prospect. Many feel that workouts, more controlled by agents than ever, are overvalued, as is performance in the NCAA tournament (see Williams, Derrick and Flynn, Jonny). Combine results can be tantalizing, though scouts and execs feel as if the league has made a proper correction on a traditional fetish -- "athleticism." Yet at the same time, some say the swing toward "basketball IQ" has moved so dramatically in the past few years, that teams might look up to find that they don't have the necessary shot creation to contend.

In 1992, 53 of the 54 selections chosen in the NBA draft were college players. In 2020, 12 of the 60 picks didn't play Division I basketball. In 2021, that number was 10. Today, teams must measure college freshmen against 19-year-olds who opted for the G-League or pro ball in Australia, to say nothing of international prospects from Africa, South America and the lower professional leagues of Europe.

All these factors fit neatly under a single rubric: No matter how many tools and how much expertise, it's damn near impossible to predict the future.

N'FALY DANTE HAS the paint on lockdown. The 7-foot center for the University of Oregon has claimed as a personal imperative this afternoon to deny any eager Oregon State opponent proximity to the basket. In this Pac-12 tournament game, he'll block five shots in 28 minutes and affect a half dozen more, the Beavers all but giving up trying to penetrate, lest they encounter Dante in his circle of hell in the key.

Out of high school, Dante was a five-star recruit, one of the best young centers in the world who was recruited by a number of big-name programs, including Kentucky. Had he not suffered knee and ACL injuries in 2020, Dante might be a projected first-round prospect.

To the naked eye -- and even an informed basketball fan -- Dante appears dominant. But Danny Gomez, 34, and Drew Mastin, then 24, who are here scouting the Pac-12 and several other conference tournaments in Las Vegas this week for the Phoenix Suns, aren't impressed. It's early on a Wednesday afternoon at T-Mobile Arena, and scouts outnumber the fans in this section behind the Oregon State basket for this not-so-anticipated matchup between the No. 5 and No. 12 seeds.

"Oregon State doesn't really have any pull-up jump shooters," Gomez says. "It's easy for Dante to be deep defensively. Very little we'll see today will tell us how well he'd defend the NBA pick-and-roll game."

Much of Gomez and Mastin's week will be spent observing imperfect college players such as Dante in an effort to find a Nikola Jokic, Draymond Green, Khris Middleton, Fred VanVleet or Jalen Brunson. Though the Suns don't currently own a pick in Thursday's draft, it's fairly easy for a team to buy into the second round if they stumble upon a prospect who intrigues them. That's why Gomez and Mastin are here -- to determine whether Dante has recovered enough of the uncommon agility he displayed prior to the injury to qualify as one of those unvarnished gems.

After Gomez and Mastin finish their work at the Pac-12 tournament, they ride 2 miles east on Tropicana Avenue to UNLV's Thomas & Mack Center for the Mountain West Conference tournament. One of the MWC players they're watching most closely is David Roddy, a projected second-rounder. A thick, 6-foot-5 fireplug with solid ball skills and a 64.5 true shooting percentage, the conference player of the year is catnip for any evaluator who is determined to find the next undervalued and positionless unicorn.

Yet as they watch Colorado State face Utah State the next afternoon, the confounding task of talent evaluation is a persistent theme. Just as measuring Dante against one of college basketball's worst teams provides little reliable insight, gleaning much from Roddy on Thursday proves similarly impossible. He's less impactful than his reputed basketball IQ implies he should be despite an efficient 6-for-9 performance from the field. He seems passive against matchups that appear favorable, and though he's clearly a strong individual defender, he seems a half-second slow to react in help situations.

The limitations of watching the Dantes and Roddys of the world play some live basketball, then projecting a 15-year career, is just one reason the scouting operation Gomez and Mastin are part of in Phoenix operates with more skepticism about the draft than those of most NBA teams. While it's still marginally useful to perceive a player's body language in a live game and immerse oneself in the temperature and tone of a game, Gomez and Mastin will leave the arena with a few notes, but no inclination to write up an elaborate report as scouts from many NBA teams would.

The Suns don't have a formal reporting system for Gomez or Mastin to feed after each game they see, or conversation they have with a college coach. Jones prefers that his scouts stay as close to the team in Phoenix as possible. Consequently, Gomez -- the Suns' lead international scout -- will spend far more time over the course of the basketball season in Phoenix than his counterparts in Europe will at their mother ships, if they return at all. Whereas most NBA teams do exhaustive work to draw up their "draft board" ranking dozens of prospects, the Suns have sworn off the practice the past three years.

"Our draft board would be a mockery to other teams," says Zach Amundson, the Suns' senior analyst of personnel and team evaluation. "By the time we were done, we had only five to seven guys on our draft board."

The Suns look with a jaundiced eye on one-and-done prospects. Jones believes that there's precious little to glean from watching an 18-year-old player in his sixth career game during a Thanksgiving tournament in person. He feels that, most days during the regular season, a Suns scout is probably better off observing Monty Williams run practice than watching a college prospect with "raw talent" play against NCAA competition. Jones regards the draft as much as a promotional pageant for the league as a pool of ready-made NBA players who can affect winning right away.

"The draft is one of many channels where we can acquire talent," Jones says. "It's the one we glorify. It's the one that comes with the excitement. And it comes with an advantage -- the ability to get productive players on low salaries, and under contractual control for multiple years. But it's just one vehicle for acquisition. You can only devote so many resources to it, and there's a different value proposition here."

That different value proposition -- less time, expense, brainpower and grunt work -- might pay dividends by simplifying the cumbersome task of appraising hundreds of amateur and international basketball players. But it could also prove to be a quixotic, reductive scheme that leaves the Suns woefully behind the organizations who scour the ends of the earth to mine for draft talent.
Suns GM James Jones, who won executive of the year in 2021, believes that a scout is better off observing coach Monty Williams run practice than watching a college prospect with "raw talent" play against NCAA competition. Barry Gossage/NBAE via Getty Images

AMUNDSON ESTIMATES HE cranked out 200 to 300 reports on NBA prospects after arriving for his first full-time season in Phoenix in 2019. For a 24-year-old eager to make an impression, it made sense to mimic the veterans in the business who pounded away on their laptops at college arenas. In the spring of 2020, Jones approached Amundson and informed him he wouldn't be reading his young scout's exhaustive reports.

Jones told Amundson that he would welcome macro-level conversations about the kinds of prospects the Suns should be monitoring, or even a holistic discussion about a specific college player's career. When Amundson determined a draft-eligible player cleared a threshold to warrant the most serious consideration of the organization, he would then assemble a thorough evaluation making his case.

The presentation, Jones told him, would include an extensive video edit, an evaluation that includes data analysis and an intelligence report. Jones would sit at the head of the conference table during the presentation and make the case against the player, thereby pressing Amundson -- or whichever member of the front office is advocating for the player -- to defend his position. Others in the room would ask questions too.

Jones played four seasons at the University of Miami before the Indiana Pacers selected him with the No. 49 pick of the 2003 draft. During his 14 seasons with the Pacers, Phoenix, Miami and Cleveland, Jones won three NBA championships, all as a teammate of LeBron James, who referred to him as "my favorite player of all time." Jones is one of 31 players in league history to make more than 700 3-pointers at a rate of better than 40%, a skill he got to showcase as a member of the Suns' revolutionary "Seven Seconds or Less" teams.

In many ways, Jones the 22-year-old player is the personification of the prospect Jones the 41-year-old GM values most -- an older player with a refined skill and a mature temperament. In Phoenix, the word "potential" is strictly verboten.

"We're not allowed to talk about 'potential,'" says Ryan Resch, the Suns' vice president of basketball strategy and evaluation. "We say 'capacity' instead of 'potential,' because capacity forces you to recognize what the player can actually do today and what he is capable of doing tomorrow."

Jones, who never played on an NBA team with a losing record, harbors an ideological opposition to the notion of a rebuild, which he finds corrosive to an organization and a disservice to fans.

"You're either trying to win, or you're not trying to win," Jones says. "If you're not trying to win, you can say what you want, but you're trying to lose. You can say, 'Well, let's go slow and win later,' but there are too many things between now and later. I'm trying to win now and win later. Players know every day in the league brings them one day closer to the end of their careers, and I can't waste their days."

"The draft is one of many channels where we can acquire talent. It's the one we glorify. It's the one that comes with the excitement. And it comes with an advantage -- the ability to get productive players on low salaries, and under contractual control for multiple years. But it's just one vehicle for acquisition."
Suns GM James Jones

Jones and his staff insist they're interested in "players, not prospects." The Suns say they apply the same criteria used to determine the value of a prospective free agent to the draft. If the player can contribute immediately, and if his skill set can fill an explicit role in Williams' system for the upcoming season, he's worth considering. If neither of those measures can be met, he's not for Phoenix.

Over the past decade, NBA front offices have undergone a movement of professionalization. The Oklahoma City Thunder epitomize this pivot away from old-world scouting and toward technocracy. The Thunder are renowned for their massive database that includes terabytes of information on virtually every basketball prospect in the past two decades that has a remote chance of sniffing an NBA career. In recent seasons, the Thunder have stripped down their team to the studs and are patiently constructing the roster piece by piece with little attention on their win-loss record, all the while stockpiling draft assets. In the parlance of the NBA, this is a tank job, and even those who find the practice distasteful concede it's a sensible strategy for a team in one of the league's smallest, least glamorous markets.

"I respect what OKC does," Jones says when asked if he has an appreciation for the Oklahoma City Thunder's more deliberate strategy. "That's what they've chosen to be, I guess. Everything's a choice. I don't judge. I respect it. It's just not for me."
If the player can contribute immediately, and his skill set fills an explicit role in Williams' system, he's worth considering for the Suns. Cameron Johnson, taken No. 11 in 2019 to much criticism, could do both. Kate Frese/NBAE via Getty Images

"PICKS ARE JUST players," Jones says.

Officially, the Suns traded away their 2021 first-round pick (No. 29) last July when they packaged it with Jevon Carter for Landry Shamet. In their judgment, they essentially acquired a 24-year-old sharpshooter in Shamet and his Bird rights. Internally, they regard 27-year-old Danish guard Gabriel "Iffe" Lundberg, whom they signed in March, as this year's draft pick, tantamount to what they could have obtained with the 30th selection, which went to Oklahoma City in the Chris Paul trade.

Jones' time in Miami playing alongside James and in an organization with Pat Riley's handprint on it has informed much of his thinking about building a sustainable roster long on veterans and short on projects. Riley told the media in 2018 in his postseason news conference, "To be really honest with you, I'm not a draft pick guy," and Jones has, in large part, adopted Riley's limited appetite for both the draft and rookies.

Jones' first draft as the Suns' lead basketball executive was 2019, when the Suns held the No. 6 pick and were coming off their worst season since their inaugural expansion year in 1968-69. The Suns' sparse draft board included Cameron Johnson, a 6-foot-9 forward out of North Carolina with range. A five-year college player, Johnson was projected by most prognosticators to go late in the first round.

"'Don't take an older guy, because there's less upside or potential,'" Jones says. "That's the narrative. 'He doesn't have as much potential to grow as everyone else. There's not enough raw physical talent and skill. Is he that much better than the freshman who is playing on the team who flashes star potential?'"
NBA on ESPN+

Get access to exclusive original series, premium articles from our NBA insiders, the full 30 for 30 library and more. Sign up now to unlock everything ESPN+ has to offer.

When the Suns examined players of comparable size and positionality in the field, they determined Johnson had a greater capacity to contribute right away than Sekou Doumbouya or Cam Reddish did. They preferred his temperament as a more mature rookie on a team that needed to grow up quickly. Recognizing they likely valued Johnson appreciably more than any other team, they traded the No. 6 pick to Minnesota in exchange for No. 11 and forward Dario Saric.

The pick was roundly panned, with some detractors noting that even at No. 11, the Suns still wildly overcommitted to a 23-year-old who was the oldest lottery pick in a decade.

Johnson, who averaged 12.5 points per game on a true shooting percentage of 62.5 in 26.2 minutes per game this past season, embodies the Suns' heterodox posture on the draft. The Suns examined the player as a de facto free agent rather than a potential NBA player. They evaluated his skill set solely in the context of what it could provide Williams' preferred style on both sides of the ball. They thought about how Johnson's presence on the floor would influence the three players of greatest priority in their youth movement -- Devin Booker, DeAndre Ayton and Mikal Bridges.

With a career 3-point shooting percentage of 41.4 in 34 playoff games with Phoenix, Johnson has solidified himself as part of the Suns' prime core moving forward. For Phoenix, it further emboldened them to forgo the tedious draft boards, and zero in on the handful of players who fit their narrow criteria.

Says Resch: "We were prepared to take him sixth if we had to."

THE SUNS' BASKETBALL operations team gathers for a strategy meeting in the second week of April just before the playoffs, for which they secured the No. 1 seed weeks ago. The staff is noticeably small. Everyone fits more than comfortably in the main conference room that overlooks the practice courts of the Suns' new training facility.

When he's assessing the trade-offs of devoting less attention or a smaller budget toward draft scouting and preparation, Jones makes repeated mention of resource theory. The implication is that the Suns have a finite amount of resources and, in his words, "can't do everything."

"The constraints are not financial," he says. "We will continue to intentionally build a group that can excel at identifying the modern player as the NBA continues to evolve."

The Suns have a total 14 people employed in basketball operations, including Jones. For comparison, the LA Clippers have 14 people alone in their scouting department. Jones says he maintains a smaller staff by design.

"How big can your staff be before it becomes too much for the system to bear?" he says. "When you have 25 or 30 front-office people and scouts, now you have to tell people they can't be in our strategy meeting. I don't want certain people sitting and certain people standing. I don't want anyone here to feel like they're on the fringe, or that their voice isn't heard."

The strategy meeting in Phoenix lasts less than two hours, with everyone having a chance to speak and present.

"The people who have to connect those dots must be proximal to the actual team to know what truly is an area of need for us," Jones says. "They need to be constantly engaged with our coaching staff. A regional scout scouting games on the East Coast who is never watching our team practice has no context. This is an intimate business, and I find it really hard for people to truly understand what matters and what's of significance if they're not close to it."

The year following the selection of Johnson, the Suns drafted big man Jalen Smith with the No. 10 pick. Smith played infrequently and ineffectively, and was the first top-10 pick to have his third-year option declined. He was traded last February to Indiana.

"Jalen wasn't better than [Suns backup center] JaVale [McGee] on a competitive team trying to win a championship," Jones says. "You could say, 'If we give him opportunities he can be productive,' but what's the trade-off?"

Jones readily admits that if another unformed Antetokounmpo is toiling in obscurity in southeastern Europe, the Suns wouldn't give him much of a look. He concedes that rarely does a franchise superstar enter the draft as a plug-and-play talent -- think Dwyane Wade or Stephen Curry -- ready to contribute immediately. He appreciates that it's easier for a team in the Win-Now stage of its life cycle to roll its eyes at the faith other franchises place in the draft. But in Jones' worldview, a franchise should exist in a perpetual state of Win-Now with a combination of ready-made players, be they drafted or undrafted, and the right veterans who can support them. In short, he sees a Miami in the desert.

He even confesses that, had he been at the helm in 2015, he probably would have passed on Booker.

"It all depends on what your goal is," Jones says. "Devin is great, but there are 50 skeletons tied to that swing for the star. It wasn't until winning was imported -- Chris, Jae Crowder, drafting a three-year guy who could help right away like Mikal -- that it translated to success. And if you don't import winning around him, there are even more skeletons. So if you want to find the guy with the highest potential to be the future star, then it makes sense to draft him -- if you're willing to navigate the land mines."

anyone got access to pelton's trade grades on the murray deal?

Grades for the Dejounte Murray trade: https://t.co/uVJGuWXspX (ESPN+)

— Kevin Pelton (@kpelton) June 30, 2022

How will Dejounte Murray fit alongside Trae Young with the Atlanta Hawks?

The Hawks made the biggest addition of the NBA offseason to date on Wednesday, sending three first-round picks -- two of them unprotected, per ESPN's Zach Lowe -- and a pick swap to the San Antonio Spurs in exchange for Murray, chosen as an NBA All-Star for the first time last season at age 25.

Having played point guard in San Antonio, Murray will be an interesting fit next to Young in the Atlanta backcourt. An All-Defensive second-team pick in 2017-18, Murray will undoubtedly be an upgrade at that end of the court for a Hawks team that ranked 26th in defensive rating last season -- worst of anyone to make the playoffs.

On the other side, the Spurs are dealing Murray at the peak of his value with two years remaining on his inexpensive contract. San Antonio's roster is now built around six first-round picks from the past three drafts, including three this year, with more on the way.

Let's break down what this trade means for both teams.
The deal

Hawks get:
Dejounte Murray

Spurs get:
Danilo Gallinari
2023 first-round pick (via Charlotte Hornets)
2025 first-round pick
2027 first-round pick
Future pick swap with Atlanta

Atlanta Hawks: C

Adding Murray will surely revive the age-old question of how the Hawks can utilize Young's shooting without constantly having the ball in his hands. Young's 8.7 minutes per game time of possession ranked third highest in the NBA, per Second Spectrum tracking on NBA Advanced Stats; and the 3,730 pick-and-rolls he ran, according to Second Spectrum, were 11% more than the next-highest player (Luka Doncic).

Building a heliocentric offense around Young has produced great regular-season results for Atlanta, which ranked second behind the Utah Jazz in offensive rating in 2021-22. Come playoff time, however, Young struggled as the primary option against the aggressive defense of the Miami Heat, averaging just 15.4 points per game on 32% shooting with more turnovers (31) than assists (30).

Given Young powered the Hawks' surprising run to the Eastern Conference finals in 2020-21, the question isn't whether he can succeed in the playoffs. It's whether putting so much offensive responsibility in his hands maximizes his value to Atlanta against the best defenses. Enter Murray, another high-volume ball handler who ranked sixth overall in pick-and-rolls (2,608) and seventh in time of possession (7.4 MPG).

When pairings like this have succeeded, it's typically because both players are also off-ball threats. Think Chris Paul with either James Harden in Houston (at least the first season) or Devin Booker in Phoenix. That doesn't describe Murray, a 33% career 3-point shooter who is better in catch-and-shoot situations (36% last season, per Second Spectrum) but still below average.

It also hasn't described Young, who has the shooting chops to succeed in that role (he hit a sizzling 45% of his catch-and-shoot 3s in 2021-22, 11th among players with at least 50 such attempts) but rarely plays it. He took just 86 catch-and-shoot 3s all season. The 83% of Young's field goals that were unassisted last season was fourth highest among players who made at least 250, per NBA Advanced Stats. Murray again wasn't far behind at 73% (11th in that group).

The obvious comparison when we talk about Young being more of an off-ball threat is Stephen Curry, the deep-shooting, undersized guard who has always been a reference point for Young. As Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr recently pointed out on the Lowe Post, that's possible partly because Curry played shooting guard his first two years at Davidson, requiring him to work on the movement necessary to get open without the ball. Unlike Curry, Young has always had the ball in his hands as he developed.

Ultimately, the comparison is unfair because Curry's combination of ballhandling and ability to wreck a defense with off-ball movement is unparalleled throughout NBA history. The Hawks don't need Young to be Curry. They just need Young to be active enough to keep defenses engaged and allow Murray room to operate with the ball in his hands.

There are two clear wins from this deal for Atlanta.

The first is defensively. Although Murray hasn't quite reached his All-Defensive peak since returning from an ACL tear in the 2018 preseason, he generates steals at a high rate and is an excellent defensive rebounder for a guard. Murray is capable of taking on the tougher defensive assignment in the backcourt, allowing Young to hide on less threatening opponents.

Additionally, the Hawks should have more hope of surviving the minutes Young spends on the bench, allowing him to get more rest. After finding a successful formula for the second unit built around Bogdan Bogdanovic in the second half of the 2020-21 season, Atlanta again struggled to score without Young last season. The team's offensive rating dropped by 10 points per 100 possessions with Young on the bench.

To some extent, I think those issues are inevitable with an offense built so much around a single player, but the Hawks will have an All-Star point guard on the court at all times now and (hopefully) won't be as reliant on Young.

Despite Murray having one of the league's better contracts -- paying him like a midtier starting point guard ($16.6 million this season and $17.7 million in 2023-24) -- adding him will still be costly because Atlanta used Danilo Gallinari's partially guaranteed salary to match it rather than that of one of the team's core players, such as forward John Collins.

By waiving Gallinari today, the Hawks could have ducked the luxury tax this season. Instead, they'll start free agency over the projected tax line before filling out their roster. Atlanta will be hard-pressed to get out by the deadline because there's so little fat to trim. All eight players making more than $3.5 million this season will be part of the Hawks' rotation.

Although adding Murray is an upgrade for Atlanta, I'm not sure it puts the Hawks in the projected top half of the East playoff standings. I'd still have them behind the Boston Celtics, Heat, Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers, pending additional moves this offseason. And that's where you start to wonder about the price.

As Lowe argued, giving up three first-round picks for a player on a value contract makes sense if that player gets a team to a crucial new level. The Bucks surely don't regret shelling out even more swaps and picks for Jrue Holiday after Holiday immediately helped them win a championship. But there's more room here for the Hawks to second-guess this deal.

Giving up two unprotected picks has the benefit of providing Atlanta a little flexibility to trade additional first-rounders. The Hawks can, at the moment, trade their own picks in 2023 and 2029. The downside is there's no parachute if the Hawks' future goes worse than planned. (Say, by Murray leaving as an unrestricted free agent in 2024 because his low salary makes an extension unrealistic.) Even the pick swap in 2026 in between the two first-rounders is unprotected, per ESPN's Tim Bontemps.

Atlanta is betting big on Murray fitting with Young. For the team's future, that bet better be correct.

San Antonio Spurs: A

I understand if Spurs fans are disappointed about trading an All-Star who won't turn 26 until September and has two years left on his contract. However, the value San Antonio got in return would have been difficult to turn down. As Murray moved toward unrestricted free agency and either bumping up his salary near the max or heading elsewhere, his trade value would have diminished rapidly.

By pushing the two picks from the Hawks three years into the future, the Spurs both increased the chances of those having lottery upside and timed them to land just as San Antonio's remaining young core should start paying dividends. In addition, the Spurs will get an extra first-round pick as early as next year from the Hornets that Atlanta got in the Cam Reddish deal.

For now, San Antonio's best pick is probably the team's own in 2023. It's worth remembering that the Spurs' decades of success started when a gap season due to injuries (primarily star center David Robinson) was rewarded by winning the Tim Duncan sweepstakes. I don't think it's fair to say at this point that French center Victor Wembanyama or G League Ignite guard Scoot Henderson (the projected top two picks in the recent 2023 mock draft from ESPN's Jonathan Givony) are at that level, but San Antonio can hope for a similar outcome.

There is still young talent on hand, led by the duo of Keldon Johnson and Devin Vassell. Those young players will likely struggle with the increased offensive responsibility created by Murray's departure, but those growing pains could pay off in the long term. The Spurs also should be able to find minutes for all three of this year's first-round picks: guards Malaki Branham and Blake Wesley and forward Jeremy Sochan.

Pending a possible buyout for Gallinari, San Antonio could still create more than $25 million in cap space. That wouldn't be enough at the moment to make a max offer sheet to Suns center Deandre Ayton, but the Spurs could surely get there if they want to envision Ayton as the centerpiece of their rebuild. Alternatively, San Antonio could continue the slow build by using the room to take unwanted contracts from other teams.

in case anyone wants to read zach lowe's thoughts on the "five most interesting players of the 2022-2023 season"

article start

It's time for our last preseason tradition -- my five most intriguing players for the coming season. We don't pick superstars or rookies. The goal is to find young-ish X factors.

TYRESE HALIBURTON, INDIANA PACERS

Haliburton understands the franchise-defining wager Indiana placed trading Domantas Sabonis to the Sacramento Kings for him: that Haliburton could be more than a second banana whose passing genius and gregarious personality draw in everyone. The Pacers were betting Haliburton could be an All-Star -- a foundational offensive fulcrum.

"Sacramento was great," Haliburton says. "I wasn't ready to be a full-time point guard when I got there. Playing with [De'Aaron] Fox helped. But now, this is everything I ever wanted. I get to be the full-time guy. I love this."

The transition requires a recalibration of Haliburton's game, maybe of his basketball soul. He is wired to be unselfish. He reads defenses from two steps ahead and gets rid of the ball early.

"In the modern game, where guys love to hold the ball, he's an outlier," says Rick Carlisle, Indiana's coach.

Whipping the ball early empowers teammates, catches defenses midrotation and triggers ping-ping-ping passing sequences.

"There are a lot of guys who only pass if it equals an assist," Haliburton says. "That's not who I am."

Those sequences often end with the ball returning to Haliburton, and he's productive in that position as a knockdown shooter -- 43.5% on catch-and-shoot 3s -- and as a catch-and-go driver.

But the Pacers need him to score -- to sometimes hold the ball longer, take an extra dribble. Haliburton rarely gets to the rim or the line.

"This whole summer has been about challenging my mind and become more of an a--hole in a sense, offensively," Haliburton says.

EDITOR'S PICKS

NBA season preview: Get ready for one of the most wide-open title races ever
2d

Everything you missed this NBA offseason
2dBrian Windhorst

Luka's bag of tricks includes lethal stepbacks, sneaky-quick drives and a 'Baby Dirk'
3hTim MacMahon
It's a tricky balance -- hunting points and free throws without sacrificing what makes Haliburton who he is. "I want to score more," Haliburton says, "but I also think I'm one of the best passers -- if not the best."

He entered camp 18 pounds heavier after working with Indiana's strength coaches, Carlisle says. (The Pacers hope the added muscle will help Haliburton navigate screens on defense and hold up better one-on-one.)

He spent the summer working with Drew Hanlen, the renowned skills trainer, on going left and absorbing contact.

Hanlen had interns smash Haliburton after one lefty dribble and pushed Haliburton to plow through the punishment. "There were entire days where literally all I did was take hesitation dribbles left and get hit," Haliburton says.

"I have plenty of videos of him throwing the ball against the wall," Hanlen adds.

Haliburton has a habit of picking up his dribble early, around the elbow, when he has a runway ahead. His intentions are good. Sometimes, he spots a pass. If the defense snuffs that, Haliburton toggles to his floater -- one of the league's best; he hit an incredible 59% on floater-range shots last season.

That accuracy will be almost impossible to sustain. Free throws and dump-off dunks are more efficient.

"We'd watch film, and [Hanlen] would say, 'You came off that screen thinking pass, and I'm tired of that,'" Haliburton says. "'Go score.'"

That mindset will help in one-on-one situations -- something Haliburton focused on this summer for the first time. "Naturally, I am not an iso guy," Haliburton says.

He will have to bail out possessions late in the clock. He also expects to face more switching defenses, and his ability to counter that is perhaps the most important big-picture question about Haliburton adapting to a first-option burden.

"Everybody wants to be the [Toronto] Raptors now, and I'm prepared for that," Haliburton says.

Haliburton can slice apart any defense that puts two defenders on the ball. He does not have the blow-away burst to consistently roast speedy bigs on switches:

But Haliburton compensates with craft. He was 41-of-98 on step-back 3s last season, and he leverages the threat of that shot with hesitation dribbles that get bigs lurching. He studied how former Pacers guard Victor Oladipo would give the ball up against switches, retreat near midcourt and get the ball back with space to rev up.

Haliburton will put in the work, and set the tone for the organization. He gets to know every staff member -- asks them questions about their families and jobs. Chad Buchanan, the Pacers' GM, first heard of Haliburton when his nephew was a manager at Iowa State University -- and told Buchanan of the star who treated everyone with respect. Buchanan began watching Haliburton. "His game grows on you," Buchanan says.

After the Utah Jazz walloped Sacramento by 49 points his rookie season, Haliburton put off his postgame lifting and asked two staffers to accompany him to the practice court. Haliburton stayed until he made 49 3s -- one for each point in the scoring margin -- from seven different spots, for a total of 343 triples. He got home around 1 a.m.

He brings the same commitment to his new team.

"I want to bring the Pacers back where they belong," Haliburton says.

ANTHONY EDWARDS, MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES
Edwards strutted into his first postseason as if the NBA's biggest stage had been waiting for him all along. He seized Minnesota's offense as Karl-Anthony Towns battled foul trouble, and he averaged 25 points -- including 40% shooting on 9.5 3s per game.

He hypnotized defenders with crossovers and hesitation moves before rising above them -- or zooming through them. He hunted Ja Morant and tracked Morant on defense. He looked fearless and unfazed in a way only stars do.

2022-23 NBA Schedule

• Rivalries on opening night
• Must-see Christmas Day lineup
• Games you won't want to miss
• Videos: Top schedule release reactions

• Full NBA schedule

"I was having even more fun than it looked like," Edwards says. "It was the best basketball experience of my life."

With few exceptions, even teams that invest big in frontcourt stars -- as the Wolves have done pairing Towns and Rudy Gobert -- need star-level perimeter creation to chase titles. Trading everything for Gobert at age 30 was a massive bet on Minnesota's barely 21-year-old phenom becoming that star ahead of the typical pace. (Last month, Edwards apologized for anti-gay comments he made in an Instagram video.)

Those nights where Edwards looks unstoppable obscure how much work remains. He has been a below-average shooter from almost every spot. Like any young scorer, Edwards has struggled at times as a distributor -- missing passing windows, holding the ball too long. (The Wolves' offense too often ground to a halt in Minnesota's first-round loss last season.) Edwards ranked in the bottom-half in efficiency among high-volume ball-handlers in pick-and-rolls and isolations, per Second Spectrum.

But the foundation is so strong, and Edwards seems to know the path forward -- including as a passer. "I gotta start seeing the help before it's in my face," he says. "And getting off the ball early, making advance passes."

Good things happen when Edwards makes the simple play. It jolts Minnesota's offense into gear, and gets Edwards the ball back with an advantage:

When he sees them, he can make all the pick-and-roll passes -- including cross-court lefty slingshots. A D'Angelo Russell-Gobert action on one side could shift into a full-speed Edwards-Towns pick-and-roll on the other -- perhaps an easier set of reads for Edwards. Gobert instantly becomes Minnesota's best screener by miles. He's an easy lob target for Edwards, who has had issues finding bigs on the pick-and-roll.

Edwards hit 36% on 177 step-back 3s -- the sixth-most attempts in the league; he'll drill triples over drop-back schemes. Mid-rangers will always be core to Edwards' game, but he wants to turn more ultra-long 2s -- those dreaded 21-footers -- into 3s, and burrow to the rim more. (Edwards has averaged four free throws per 36 minutes; that number should get much higher.)

Edwards had only 19 post touches last season; bully-ball would be a game-changing weapon as Edwards continues targeting small guards on switches.

"My post-ups will be a lot better," he promises. "I'm working on it now. That's all I can say."

Alongside Russell and Towns, the Wolves need Edwards to be an off-ball threat too. He hit 41% on catch-and-shoot 3s last season. Duplicate that, and defenses will stick more closely to him. Edwards can exploit that attention with backdoor cuts, and needs to be a more active off-ball mover. You see glimpses -- including an encouraging habit of running into catches:

Edwards has talked about being a stopper on defense, and has the tools to do it. He's fast and well-balanced, able to slide in sync with ball-handlers. He stays under control closing out on shooters, and can wall off almost anyone chest-to-chest. He is the rare wing who offers fearsome rim protection. "I love blocking shots," Edward says. "I might get dunked on, but I'm still coming for you."

(Speaking of dunks: I asked Edwards if he was sad he no longer has the chance to dunk on Gobert. "I'm happy he's on my team -- for his sake," Edwards quips.)

His focus and fundamentals can wane; he can ball-watch and lose his assignment. "My only problem off the ball is seeing my man," he says. "I just kind of forget I'm guarding somebody." He's so confident in his speed and leaping, he sometimes strays too far from shooters -- assuming he can recover.

Edwards is also, frankly, a bad rebounder who doesn't box out. That was a team-wide issue for Minnesota; they cannot count on Gobert to solve it alone.

But Edwards sees the game on defense. He calls out coverages. He has all the ingredients of the player Minnesota needs him to be. It's just a matter of harnessing them in time.

DE'ANDRE HUNTER, ATLANTA HAWKS
Hunter -- fresh off signing a four-year, $95 million extension -- is a textbook case of how hard it can be for young players to find their rhythm. Injuries short-circuited every stretch of momentum -- including Hunter's scorching start to the 2020-21 season.

He entered the league as an NCAA champion and No. 4 pick, with ambitions of Carmelo Anthony-style mid-range scoring. That role didn't exist in Trae Young's offense; the Hawks needed Hunter to become a spot-up threat. Meanwhile, Hunter jostled with other young guys eager to prove their scoring chops.

"It's really difficult to establish your game when you come in with a group of talented players," says Nate McMillan, Atlanta's coach.

Hunter has bounced between roles -- spot-up guy with sprinkles of one-on-one -- but never looked comfortable in either. He has been a stilted isolation player -- unable to power through defenders his size, not quick or deft enough with the ball to get by wings. The Hawks scored a ghastly 0.823 points last season when Hunter shot out of an isolation or dished to a teammate who fired -- 159th among 198 players who recorded at least 50 isos, per Second Spectrum. He hit just 39% on mid-rangers after nailing 54% in 23 games in 2020-21.

Hunter spent the offseason training with Chris Brickley, and worked on cleaning up his handle, says Ty Jerome, Hunter's college roommate who joined him in Brickley's gym. Hunter's dribble can get high and loose. "The best wing scorers, their handle is tight," Jerome says. "Dre focused on that."

He has done well posting up mismatches -- often after screening for Young and forcing switches. Atlanta scored almost 1.12 points per possession directly out of Young-Hunter pick-and-rolls -- 52nd among 457 pairings that ran at least 100 such actions, per Second Spectrum. Atlanta milked that play against the Miami Heat in the first round of last season's playoffs:

Hunter averaged 21 points in the series, and shot 61% on 2s. McMillan vows to feature Hunter's one-on-one game -- including to punish opponents who stash their weakest defenders on him.

"You can give Dre the ball and ask him to make plays," McMillan says. It injects stylistic variety, and nudges Young to move more off the ball.

It's easier for Atlanta to get to the Young-Hunter two-man game when Hunter slides to power forward. McMillan plans to use that alignment; Atlanta's backup power forward options are unproven. That setup also gives Hunter a speed advantage against bigger defenders.

But Hunter's main job is spotting up, and he hasn't been good enough. He drained 37.5% from deep last season, but attempted a career-low 3.7 per game. Hunter passed up too many open looks to drive into nothingness. Teams don't treat him as a dangerous shooter.

"He's gotta be a spread shooter," McMillan says.

The bigger problem is shaky decision-making. It's not enough to be a 3-and-D guy anymore. You have to catch, drive and make the right read with the floor in flux.

Hunter has 224 career assists and 201 turnovers. He misses open players, and makes passes too late:

(He has the same issue on pick-and-rolls. Hunter recorded assists on only 3.4% of his ball screens -- lowest among 227 players who ran at least 100 pick-and-rolls, per Second Spectrum. Hunter shot on 66% of those plays -- second-highest, behind only Dillon Brooks of the Memphis Grizzlies.)

He sometimes overthinks after catching a kickout pass -- pass-faking and jab-stepping at ghosts, gifting the defense time to reset.

"It has to be catch and go, or catch and shoot -- not catch and hold," McMillan says.

Decisive Hunter gets places:

He is a solid defender. He's best on bigger wings and stretch fours, and Dejounte Murray's arrival should push him there. Hunter often defended waterbug point guards so the Hawks could hide Young elsewhere; Murray will do that now.

One knock: Hunter's poor rebounding; the Hawks defense has been scattershot with Hunter as a small-ball power forward.

"We need him to improve his rebounding," McMillan says. "This is a big year for him in terms of maturing and establishing his identity."

If everything clicks, Hunter could be the superstar role player every contender needs. Jerome compares Hunter's NBA journey to his time at the University of Virginia -- where Hunter rose from redshirt freshmen to top-five pick.

"I've seen this movie," Jerome says. "When he puts it together, Dre could be one of the best players in the league."

OBI TOPPIN, NEW YORK KNICKS
Good things happen when Toppin plays, and the Knicks should be in the business of discovering why -- and whether that effect carries over against opposing starters. That success has come despite New York playing Toppin almost exclusively alongside rim-running centers -- marginalizing Toppin's skill as an explosive screen-and-dive guy. When Toppin bolts inside for lobs, he might bump into a center calling for a lob at the same time:

New York could solve this issue by playing Toppin at center or pairing him with Julius Randle, but they likely worry about torpedoing their defense and rebounding -- weak points in Toppin's game. Toppin somehow logged more minutes alongside Jericho Sims than Randle last season, and Tom Thibodeau, New York's head coach, has not seemed interested in exploring the Randle-Toppin duo much more. (I'd do it.)

Toppin has spent too much time chilling in the corners. You spot him bouncing on his toes, begging for some reason to get moving -- to get involved. But when the ball swung to him, he mostly refused open 3s.

"We all saw it -- he wasn't confident in his shot," Thibodeau says.

Defenders ignored him to muck up the paint:

The low-hanging fruit is Toppin becoming a better shooter, and he let it fly in New York's final 10 games when Randle was mostly out injured -- drilling 26-of-58 from deep. He honed that shot over the summer, and swears he's ready to fire.

"I'm super confident, and that's the only thing I needed," Toppin says. "I felt like I had a good shot. It was just about confidence. If I shoot and miss, just shoot the next one. I know that now."

"He got better and he didn't stop," Thibodeau says. "He's always in the gym."

Improved shooting would coax defenders closer to him -- unlocking what could be an explosive pump-and-drive game. Toppin is much more effective roasting defenders in rotation than beating them in static situations.

Even in tight half-court confines, Toppin's game can sing. He is a quick-twitch playmaker on dribble hand-offs and pindowns -- secondary actions that flow out of an initial pick-and-roll involving New York's centers. If Toppin's man lunges to help on the ball-handler, Toppin slips out of screens at turbo speed. He's fast enough to get to the rim before the opposing center crosses the lane to stop him.

"He's one of the quickest I've ever seen getting out of screens," says Anthony Grant, who coached Toppin at the University of Dayton.

He's a nifty passer too, with a knack for the always fun quarterback keeper:

Toppin should set more flare screens, and even run off pindowns -- anything to keep him active. He thrives in a fast-paced ecosystem with lots of ball movement, but New York's starters -- the guys Toppin should play alongside more -- didn't fit that ethos last season. Randle was a ball-stopper. The point guard spot was a sinkhole once the Kemba Walker experiment failed and Derrick Rose got injured. Perhaps Jalen Brunson, some creative coaching and a renewed commitment to passing could remedy that -- and benefit Toppin.

He'll get the offense moving anyway. Toppin is one of the league's most ferocious end-to-end runners, and should be even more dangerous trailing fast breaks this season -- jacking 3s and pivoting into his hand-off game. He can sprint into mismatches, and seal smaller guards under the rim.

"He can run all day," Thibodeau says. "His energy is a gift. It allows us to play at a different pace, and everybody likes that."

Toppin might leak out more than Thibodeau likes -- leaving New York vulnerable on the defensive glass. "We can't run if we don't rebound," Thibodeau says. The general rule, according to Thibodeau: If Toppin challenges a shot up high, run. If he's in the paint, try to secure the rebound and then sprint.

Toppin is a minus defender at both front-court positions, but he tries and talks. His biggest obstacle is a stubborn upright stance that makes it hard for him to slide.

"He's got some flexibility issues," Grant says.

Toppin tried to crouch lower this summer in defending guards -- including Brunson and Chicago Bulls guard Coby White in workouts. "Even if I can't get low, I have to find a way to stay in front of them and contest shots," Toppin says.

Right now, Toppin is a good backup big. If he stagnates or improves only a bit, that's what he'll be. But the actualized version of Toppin is an average defender and major plus on offense -- a true-blue starter. That's what the Knicks need him to be.

PATRICK WILLIAMS, CHICAGO BULLS
Williams may be the most important young X factor in the league, and the one who feels most like a blank slate. Williams has played only 88 games in two seasons after missing most of last season with a wrist injury. He's barely 21 -- younger than Edwards and eight first-round picks from the last draft.

He returned for last season's playoffs, and embraced the assignment of guarding Giannis Antetokounmpo (and sometimes Jrue Holiday). He looked a hair more aggressive on offense, averaging 12 points, doubling his 3-point volume and nailing 58% on 2s.

Opening Week on ESPN, the ESPN App
Wednesday
Knicks-Grizzlies, 7:30 p.m.
Mavs-Suns, 10 p.m.

Friday
Celtics-Heat, 7:30 p.m.
Nuggets-Warriors, 10 p.m.

*All times Eastern

A major short-term leap from Williams is Chicago's best and maybe only avenue of contending in the DeMar DeRozan/Zach LaVine/Nikola Vucevic era. Williams holds the keys to their next era given the Bulls dealt three first-round picks and Wendell Carter Jr. for DeRozan and Vucevic.

He hasn't lived up to expectations on defense, but chalk that up to youth and injury. Williams should grow into a very good, ultra-switchable alpha defender. He's huge and strong, and tries hard. In his one season at Florida State University, coaches often spotted Williams lingering after practice and early in mornings with an older teammate -- Wyatt Wilkes -- peppering Wilkes with questions and having Wilkes walk him through actions, says Leonard Hamilton, the Seminoles coach.

"Unlike most kids -- 'What are my stats? What are my minutes?' -- Pat only cared about getting better," Hamilton says. "He didn't worry about the NBA. He just wanted to learn."

He asks staffers for film on elite scorers, looking for clues on guarding them. He has worked on slithering around picks, and uses his giant hands and arms to disrupt passing lanes.

Offense is the wild card. So far, Williams has been a bit player -- a reluctant corner shooter and tentative dribbler. He defaults to his one-dribble pull-up -- an important shot, but not one to overdo.

Williams has good feel and vision with the chess pieces in motion. The Bulls have dabbled in using him as a screen-setter -- with Vucevic spotting up -- and Williams comes to life in that role, flipping rapid-fire between actions and slinging smart passes in space:

Williams tripled his screen-setting volume last season, per Second Spectrum, and early indications are we will see more of that. Zipping closer to the rim should generate more offensive rebounding chances for him. The Bulls may even experiment with Williams at center.

In his best screen-setting moments, Williams is a good playmaking power forward -- think peak Aaron Gordon in that role, but well short of the apex version in Draymond Green. He has hit 41% from deep; as a spot up stretch four, he brings to mind someone like Harrison Barnes. The blend of all those role players -- the ability to shift between those identities -- is a really, really good player.

That's fine now, with Williams so young and surrounded by three recent All-Stars. But the Bulls did not draft Williams No. 4 in 2020 for him to be a Barnes-Gordon hybrid. At some point, they will want more on the ball.

Even now, Chicago's coaches and stars encourage Williams to be less deferential -- to take the reins when action dictates it. (Williams joined DeRozan in Los Angeles this summer for DeRozan's "Hell Week" of early morning workouts and lifting. He also played pick-up in L.A. with several stars.)

Those around the Bulls whisper that Williams hasn't discovered how good he is. That tracks with Hamilton. When Hamilton sat with Williams to discuss declaring for the draft, Hamilton said that Williams asked, "What if I don't get drafted?"

Williams has run a piddling five pick-and-rolls per 100 possessions over two seasons, per Second Spectrum. His efficiency on isolations has been dreadful. He has nine career post touches, and that's a tool he needs as a screen-setter -- a way to exploit smaller defenders on switches. (Teams already hide their weakest defenders on him.)

When Williams kicks the skittishness and gets aggressive, he almost looks like a different player. It's jarring. If the Bulls want that more, all they have to do is ask, Hamilton says.

"If you tell him what you want," Hamilton says, "he's gonna give it to you."

so much more of this nytimes sport section type shit on there now

https://i.imgur.com/ZV5QHyn.png

I hope Pat Will makes it, just for Zach’s stock performance.

Anyone post the Lowe article on espn+ on Maxey?

1. Tyrese Maxey and the Sixers are ... fine?

Every few weeks, one security guard at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia reminds Maxey of the unlikely series of events that led Maxey to the 76ers -- a rare stroke of strange luck for a franchise that has suffered some of the weirdest NBA melodramas: "Shout out Mike Muscala!" the guard chants, according to Maxey.

It is an inside joke, Sixers lore -- code that identifies a hardcore fan. The Sixers selected Maxey with the 21st pick in the 2020 NBA draft -- a pick that belonged to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Sixers acquired it in 2016, traded it away, and then got it back in the deal that sent Markelle Fultz to the Orlando Magic. It contained a twist: Philadelphia would receive it only if it fell 21st or later; otherwise, the Thunder would send two second-rounders.

It came down to the wire in the Orlando, Florida, bubble. Muscala hit two 3s in the final 35 seconds of the Thunder's second-to-last game to help their deep reserves complete a comeback that meant nothing to that specific Thunder team and everything to these current Sixers. With that win, the Thunder pick was capped at No. 21.

Four years later, Maxey's ascension toward his first All-Star nod has the Sixers well positioned to pivot away from a spasm of deals that saw Ben Simmons and then James Harden come and go as would-be co-stars for Joel Embiid. Maxey is that guy now, averaging 25 points and 7 assists on nearly 50/40/90 shooting splits -- taking care of the ball and developing deeper pick-and-roll chemistry with Embiid every game. Maxey being this good is the most important positive thing to happen to the Sixers since drafting Embiid. If the rumblings around Embiid quiet -- if he chooses to ride out his career with the franchise that drafted him -- Maxey will be a big reason.

Philly is 6-1 after edging the Boston Celtics on Wednesday, with the league's second-best net rating. The Sixers' passing numbers are almost identical to last season's. Harden's assists and touches have been redistributed across the roster in a faster and more democratic offense under new coach Nick Nurse.

The Sixers appear much closer to title contention without Harden than perhaps even they projected during the Harden stalemate. If that sustains -- if their championship-level No. 2 option is already in-house -- the pool of players the Sixers can target with the draft picks they received for Harden becomes much wider. Their play may also afford patience: Do they have to burn assets now if they are confident the same player -- or someone better -- might be available later, or even sign into their cap space in July?

Two players the Sixers nabbed in the Harden deal -- Nicolas Batum and "Process" favorite Robert Covington -- are contributing already. The Sixers can slot three switchable wing shooters between Maxey and Embiid in combinations involving Batum, Covington, Tobias Harris, Kelly Oubre Jr. and De'Anthony Melton. Patrick Beverley and Paul Reed round out the core rotation.

The formula is working, but the Sixers need one more ball handler to fortify them. They will spend the months before the trade deadline looking, with one eye on the maximum cap space they can carve out this summer.

They have extricated themselves from the Harden morass as cleanly as possible, if not with quite the asset haul they craved. This outcome is better than either losing Harden for nothing or re-signing him to a massive multiyear contract. They have optionality and hope.

"I was prepared for one role if James came back, and if he didn't, I was prepared to be a lead guard," Maxey told ESPN.

He worked and watched film in the offseason with Embiid and Drew Hanlen, Embiid's longtime trainer. When Hanlen visits Embiid in Philadelphia for what are intended to be individual workouts, Maxey volunteers to help as the passer feeding Embiid -- leading to jokes that Maxey is an "intern."

"Joel is the most important player on our team, and I need to know how he likes to catch the ball," Maxey said. "That means post entries, when he's the trail man, everything." (Maxey is a very good entry passer, and he and Embiid love a little pitch-back action when Embiid trails Maxey in transition.)

It means lots of pick-and-roll, and Maxey is a much different sort of partner there than Harden. He has worked on slowing down, giving Embiid time to find pockets in the lane. In the opening two games of this season, Maxey was passing early -- with Embiid catching 20-plus feet from the rim. With every game, Maxey hits Embiid more in his sweet spots near the foul line.

The two are honing a mean empty-side pick-and-roll game on the left wing. Maxey loves to reject picks -- zooming away from them -- and does so much more often than Harden. It is a way for him to occupy Embiid's defender, maybe force a switch, and give Embiid daylight for pick-and-pop actions. Maxey is learning to stay in touch with Embiid on those actions -- to not outrun him. Embiid is learning how to make himself available -- when to cut, when to fade for 3s.

Maxey can punish switches with step-back 3s, but he has made a concerted effort to roast bigs off the dribble -- to reorient Philly's offense toward the rim and open up drive-and-kick chances:

Maxey is happy to make the first simple play -- the easy kickout or swing pass that keeps the machine moving. (The Sixers could stand to shoot more 3s.)

He is shooting 54% from floater range on a dizzying variety of runners -- bank shots, high-arching moon balls, hot-potato floaters Maxey flicks even before jumping. That is an important weapon against defenses that sell out to take away any pass to Embiid -- something Boston did in last season's conference semifinals.

"They say the midrange game is a lost art, but it's big for small guards -- especially in fourth quarters," Maxey said.

He has helped stabilize the Sixers when Embiid rests; Philly has outscored opponents by nine points per 100 possessions when Maxey plays without Embiid, per Cleaning The Glass.

Challenges await -- blitzes, complex help schemes, offenses that hunt Maxey. But Maxey seems up to it. He has given the Sixers a chance at stability -- something this franchise has not known for far too long.

"I work so hard every summer to get 1% better," Maxey said. "I'm ready."

ty!