Wolfpack

With just days left until the 2024-25 NBA season tips off, the Eastern Conference teams are settled, prepped, and ready for action. The offseason moves are done, rosters are set, and almost everyone&rsquo;s locked in for what&rsquo;s shaping up to be an intense race. From title contenders to dark horses, the East is packed with teams ready to make noise. So, let&rsquo;s dive into the top 15 teams in the East as we gear up for this brand-new season&mdash;no fluff, just what you need to know.
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">New York Knicks The Knicks made significant moves this offseason, adding Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges while retaining key pieces like Jalen Brunson and OG Anunoby. With depth, defense, and firepower, they look primed for a deep playoff run. After a 50-win season in 2023-24, they now have realistic championship aspirations and could be the biggest threat to the Celtics in the East.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Boston Celtics The defending champions kept their core intact, extending Jayson Tatum and Derrick White. With Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Jrue Holiday leading a formidable lineup, the Celtics are aiming to repeat as NBA champions. Despite concerns about Al Horford&rsquo;s age and frontcourt health, Boston remains the favorite heading into the 2024-25 season.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Milwaukee Bucks The Bucks didn&rsquo;t make major changes but added depth with Gary Trent Jr., Taurean Prince, and Delon Wright. After an injury-plagued season from Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, Milwaukee looks to bounce back under returning head coach Doc Rivers. With questions surrounding Lillard&rsquo;s form and Middleton&rsquo;s durability, the Bucks remain playoff contenders, but how far they go will depend on health and chemistry.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Philadelphia 76ers The 76ers had a big offseason, adding Paul George, Andre Drummond, and Caleb Martin to support Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey. Maxey&rsquo;s rise as a star solidifies Philly&rsquo;s title hopes, and Embiid&rsquo;s MVP-level play is crucial for their success. With an improved supporting cast, the Sixers could be serious challengers in the East, but Embiid&rsquo;s health remains the key.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Cleveland Cavaliers After a solid 48-win season, the Cavs focused on continuity by keeping their core of Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen. New coach Kenny Atkinson brings fresh leadership, and Cleveland hopes to build on last season&rsquo;s playoff run. With a healthier roster and improved coaching, the Cavs could reach 50 wins and challenge the top teams in the East.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Indiana Pacers The Pacers had a quiet offseason but retained Pascal Siakam and made a key addition in James Wiseman. Tyrese Haliburton&rsquo;s breakout season makes Indiana a team to watch, and they&rsquo;re looking to build on their deep playoff run. With improved chemistry and young talent, Indiana could surprise as a top-five team in the East.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Orlando Magic The Magic are banking on internal growth, led by Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner. After winning 47 games and making the playoffs last season, they added veteran Kentavious Caldwell-Pope for shooting and leadership. With a young core developing, Orlando could win 50 games if they continue their upward trend and improve their perimeter shooting.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Miami Heat The Heat had a quiet offseason, adding Alec Burks while re-signing key players like Bam Adebayo. With Jimmy Butler&rsquo;s future uncertain and health concerns for both Butler and Tyler Herro, Miami could face challenges in a competitive Eastern Conference. However, Adebayo&rsquo;s All-NBA-level play will keep them in the playoff hunt.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Atlanta Hawks The Hawks overhauled their roster after a disappointing 36-46 season, headlined by trading Dejounte Murray and acquiring the No. 1 pick, Zaccharie Risacher. With Trae Young remaining the focal point, the Hawks are banking on Risacher&rsquo;s development and contributions from new additions like Larry Nance Jr. and Dyson Daniels. This team looks poised to contend for a Play-In spot but lacks the co-star power needed for a deep playoff run.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Charlotte Hornets The Hornets enter the season with fresh energy, thanks to the hiring of new coach Charles Lee and the re-signing of Miles Bridges. With LaMelo Ball back healthy and Brandon Miller continuing to impress after an All-Rookie season, Charlotte&rsquo;s young core could surprise many. If Ball stays on the floor and their youth develops quickly, the Hornets might find themselves contending for a Play-In spot and shaking off years of underachievement.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Detroit Pistons The Pistons are looking to turn the page on a tough 2023-24 season and have made moves to fast-track their rebuild. With Cade Cunningham healthy, new leadership under J.B. Bickerstaff, and rookie Ron Holland adding spark, Detroit could outperform expectations. If Cunningham returns to form and the team gels quickly, don&rsquo;t be surprised if the Pistons emerge as a dark horse in the East.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Toronto Raptors The Raptors are in transition, keeping their young core of Scottie Barnes, RJ Barrett, and Immanuel Quickley intact. After a poor finish to last season, Toronto is betting on Barnes&rsquo; continued growth and the addition of Davion Mitchell to improve their fortunes. While their ceiling might be a Play-In appearance, the Raptors are hoping their trio can take a big step forward.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Chicago Bulls The Bulls traded DeMar DeRozan and Alex Caruso, adding Josh Giddey and Jalen Smith to the mix. Zach LaVine&rsquo;s injury history remains a concern, but the Bulls are counting on Coby White&rsquo;s emergence and the potential of lottery pick Matas Buzelis. Chicago is likely to be a competitive team some nights, but they may struggle to rise above the Play-In threshold.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Brooklyn Nets The Nets are entering a rebuild after trading Mikal Bridges and Lonnie Walker. With a young roster led by Nic Claxton and Cam Thomas, Brooklyn&rsquo;s focus is on player development. Ben Simmons remains a question mark, but the team&rsquo;s recent moves set them up for future success with significant draft assets. A playoff berth seems unlikely as they look to position themselves for a high draft pick.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Washington Wizards The Wizards continue their rebuild with the addition of Alex Sarr, the No. 2 overall pick. With Malcolm Brogdon and Saddiq Bey joining the squad, Washington hopes to see growth from young talents like Bilal Coulibaly. However, they&rsquo;re still far from playoff contention and will likely be looking at another lottery-bound season.</li>
</ol>

Let's dive into the top 15 teams in the East as we gear up for this brand-new season.

2024-2025 NBA Eastern Conference Power Rankings: A new number one arises at the top

Three teams have booked their quarterfinal spots in the Paris 2024 Olympics basketball tournament after winning each other&rsquo;s crucial matches. Here&rsquo;s how the games went:
Brazil 102, Japan 84
Brazil needed more than 10 points to win coming into the game to qualify for the quarterfinals and they did just that. Behind Bruno Caboclo who played the game of his life, the Brazilians ran Japan off the court to win by 18 points. Caboclo for himself had 33 points and 18 rebounds en route to making history. Vitor Benite and Marcelo Huertas added 19 and 13 points respectively as Brazil now moves on to face undisputed favorites Team USA in the knockout rounds.&nbsp;
Greece 77, Australia 71
Greece upset Australia in this one after losing their first two games to Canada and Spain. After virtually carrying his team for the past two games, Giannis Antetokounmpo had ample help this time as Greece finally claimed a win. Thomas Walkup had 18 points with 4 threes while Dinos Mitoglou had 13 points and 7 rebounds to help the &lsquo;Greek Freak&rsquo; who himself had 20 points, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists. This win by Greece complicated Group A&rsquo;s standings, as Australia, Greece, and Spain all have identical 1-2 records. However, due to superior quotient, Australia and Greece will finish 2nd and 3rd respectively to kick Spain out of the competition. Both teams will now move on to the quarterfinals facing Germany and Serbia respectively.&nbsp;
Canada 88, Spain 85
Canada edged Spain in a close match and ended up taking their opponent&rsquo;s chance to make the quarterfinals. Spain needed to win by 3 points or more coming to the game to qualify, however, it was Canada who ended up having the margin and taking the win. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was once again brilliant for Canada as he tallied 20 points while Andrew Nembhard provided the necessary support after Jamal Murray struggled once again, scoring 18 points off the bench. Canada will face hosts France in the knockout rounds in a pivotal matchup that may likely decide a medal winner.&nbsp;

Three teams have booked their quarterfinal spots in the Paris 2024 Olympics basketball tournament after winning.

Paris 2024 Olympics Day 3: Brazil, Greece, and Canada book QF slots with huge wins

To strengthen their defense, France Men&rsquo;s Basketball team head coach Vincent Collet has revealed the 12 men to go and get gold on home soil in arguably the most competitive Olympics of all time.
Bannered by NBA Rookie of the Year and phenom Victor Wembanyama and four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert, Collet has emphasized defense as the team&rsquo;s main identity coming into the Games.&nbsp;
France notably disappointed last year in their FIBA World Cup campaign after not even getting out of the initial group stages. Despite being one of the favorites to win it all, France was booted out early in the competition after losing to the likes of Canada and Latvia.
This time, Les Bleus brings in a solid 12-man lineup that aims to be on top of the world&rsquo;s basketball stage.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨 S&Eacute;LECTION OFFICIELLE POUR PARIS 2024 D&eacute;couvrez nos basketteurs en 5x5 et en 3x3 qui participeront aux Jeux Olympiques de Paris 2024 🏀 <a href="https://t.co/e7q6WcsySP">pic.twitter.com/e7q6WcsySP</a>
&mdash; Equipe France (@EquipeFRA) <a href="https://twitter.com/EquipeFRA/status/1810283594511720540?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 8, 2024</a>
<script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
</blockquote>
Joining Wembanyama and Gobert are French national team veterans Nicolas Batum, Nando De Colo, Frank Ntilikina, Guerschon Yabusele, and Isaia Cordinier.&nbsp;
As he looks to build the team of defense and share the ball, Collet has tapped young guards Andrew Albicy and Matthew Strazel. Collet also added one of the best Euroleague players this season in Matthias Lessort and Wembanyama&rsquo;s former teammate and the 7th overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft Bilal Coulibaly.&nbsp;
France&rsquo;s early adversaries in the Games are Germany, Japan, and Brazil in Group B.

To strengthen their defense, France head coach Vincent Collet has revealed the 12 men to go and get gold on home soil.

France unveils Paris 2024 Men’s Basketball roster

The 2024 NBA Free Agency underway. Here's everything you need to know about the makings and the moves around the NBA.

2024 NBA Free Agency Tracker: All the signings and deals in the offseason

This article was originally published on Jan. 16, 2021.
We&rsquo;ve all been here before.&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s a random Wednesday. Full slate of games, hard to keep track of everything. Maybe you&rsquo;re peeping an ESPN matchup. Perhaps you&rsquo;re watching your favorite team on the local channel if you&rsquo;re in the market, or you&rsquo;re streaming it LEGALLY ON NBA LEAGUE PASS BECAUSE THAT IS THE ONLY WAY YOU ARE ALLOWED TO DO IT. WINK.&nbsp;
But anyway, you&rsquo;re watching a game. You&rsquo;re roaming Twitter. And then a tweet catches your eye: PLAYER X HAS DUNKED ON LEBRON JAMES.
Your brow raises. You see a few tweets from your online pals big-upping the play. You&rsquo;re really interested now. You click on the video from a Big Social Media Account. And this is the dunk:
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/brr.gif" alt="" width="512" height="AUTO" />
The excitement drops a little bit. That&rsquo;s a nice dunk from Wendell Carter Jr. LeBron James is underneath the basket, and there&rsquo;s a challenge. But something doesn&rsquo;t feel right about it.&nbsp;
Then you see a different angle of the Dunk Heard &lsquo;Round The World.
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/wendell-w-lebron-in-the-area.gif" alt="" width="512" height="AUTO" />
You feel betrayed. LeBron didn&rsquo;t get dunked on; LeBron&rsquo;s arm got dunked on as he jumps out of the darn play! This isn&rsquo;t <a href="https://youtu.be/xtOUpybXmzo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Scottie Pippen on Patrick Ewing</a> or <a href="https://youtu.be/6kBWO82HUa4?t=28" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vince Carter on Alonzo Mourning</a>! I can yell at these clouds if I want to!
If you&rsquo;re anything like me, you&rsquo;re tired of being misled. If I hear or read that a player got baptized, I want to see some Holy Water coming out of the rim after the aerial duel. And if you are like me, this is the piece for you. This is the guide of all guides, breaking down the different types of dunks. A universal standard of slams, if you will, so we can finally get on the same page about poster dunks.
A brief note before digging in. I am using a tier system so it&rsquo;s easier to separate the types of dunks. Like many things in life, the scale can slide on a case-by-case basis. For example, breakaway dunks are generally uncontested, which makes them the lowest tier of dunk for me. However, a breakaway dunk from 360-enthusiast Zach LaVine is different -- and much cooler -- than the two-handed flushes we see from Jimmy Butler. Each dunk is still its own thing.&nbsp;
Disclaimer: Alley-oops can fall under virtually all of these categories, with the obvious exception of put-backs.
TIER 10: BREAKAWAYS
Break-away dunks are pretty self-explanatory. There&rsquo;s a long rebound after a miss. A player leaks out early, and gets a dunk with no resistance. They&rsquo;re pretty basic with a few exceptions. LaVine, Paul George or Glenn Robinson III may bust out a 360 or windmill on occasion. LeBron has made the one-handed tomahawk a staple of his repertoire.
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/lebron-tomahawk.gif" alt="" width="512" height="AUTO" />
It&rsquo;s basic, but it&rsquo;s so darn cool. Power, a little bit of flair, the hang time. All that good stuff.
TIER 9: TIP SLAMS
I like the timing, positioning and coordination it takes to pull off a putback slam. The lower-level ones are uncontested, but can be rated higher depending on the work a player puts in before the ball comes off the rim. Take this multiple-effort possession from Larry Nance Jr. as an example:
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/larry-nance-jr-putback.gif" alt="" width="512" height="AUTO" />
TIER 8: BUSINESS DECISIONS
The OG: Shaquille O&rsquo;Neal
Also popularized by: LeBron James, Blake Griffin, Zion Williamson
This is for the power dunkers. Whether it&rsquo;s in transition, flowing off of a broken play or rumbling down the lane after a high-ball screen, it&rsquo;s hilarious to watch players actively decide, &ldquo;Nope, I don&rsquo;t get paid enough for this.&rdquo; Take this play from the 2016-17 season, featuring Blake Griffin:
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/willy-hernangomez-business-decision.gif" alt="" width="512" height="AUTO" />
The key actor here is Willy Hernangomez (No. 14). He is watching this snug pick-and-roll all the way through. His man, noted three-point marksman DeAndre Jordan, is chilling above the break. Not only can Hernangomez make the rotation to cut off Griffin at the rim, he should make that rotation because Jordan is not a threat at all. Instead, he begins to load up, quickly realizes that Griffin will put him in the gulag, and decides against challenging the shot.
Hilarious sequence.
TIER 7: FLY-BYS
This is where having a discerning eye is important. When you think about it, this kind of dunk -- and the praise that these types of dunk typically generate -- is about deception.
A defender jumps across a player to make it look like he&rsquo;s legitimately challenging the dunk. There&rsquo;s no real threat of a block or swipe. The dunk happens because, again, there&rsquo;s no real threat to it otherwise. And somehow both players end up looking good. The dunker gets &ldquo;poster&rdquo; equity they don&rsquo;t deserve; the defender gets a slight pat on the back for giving effort instead of making a business decision.
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/hhh.gif" alt="" width="512" height="AUTO" />
It&rsquo;s all a darn farce. A cool-looking farce at times, but a farce nonetheless.&nbsp;
TIER 6: SELF-LOBS
We&rsquo;ve reached the coolest of the non-contact dunks. It doesn&rsquo;t get much better than throwing the ball to yourself for a slam, man. Look at Jamal Murray getting himself out of trouble.
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/jamal-murray-self-lob.gif" alt="" width="512" height="AUTO" />
TIER 5: &ldquo;IN THE VICINITY&rdquo; SLAMS (Also known as ITVs)
Folks, the rubber is starting to reach the road. The ITVs involve actual attempts at a contest and/or a little contact, a step up from the Fly-bys. This is where I&rsquo;d say the Wendell-on-LeBron dunk falls, though I wouldn&rsquo;t be mad at anyone that would classify it as a Fly-by. A better example would be this slam from Matisse Thybulle last season.
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/mfff.gif" alt="" width="512" height="AUTO" />
There&rsquo;s an attempt at a challenge, but Thybulle still gets the better of Mason Plumlee. But Plumlee doesn&rsquo;t get dunked on. There isn&rsquo;t enough contact to call it a poster of the highest order.&nbsp;
This is also where failed chasedown blocks come in. With guys flying in from behind, the dunk-on element just isn&rsquo;t there most of the time. Take the famous Kobe-on-LeBron dunk from the 2011 All-Star game.
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/kobe-on-lebron.gif" alt="" width="512" height="AUTO" />
TIER 4: PUTBACK POSTERS
I&rsquo;ve always gone back and forth with myself about where to place these types of dunks. On one hand, the blindsided nature of it makes it a bit unfair to defenders. You can&rsquo;t defend against what you can&rsquo;t see. However, there&rsquo;s enough contact at play, and a player Mossin&rsquo; a dude and flushing it down is generally some high level stuff.
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/gerald-green-putback-poster.gif" alt="" width="512" height="AUTO" />
Yes, that is the #BASED and #RARE Gerald Green in a Celtics uni. And yeah that&rsquo;s Mason Plumlee again. Sorry, man.
TIER 3: DUNK-ONS/CHARGE CRUSHERS
We&rsquo;ve reached the portion of the program where dudes are getting legitimately yammed on, but there are a couple of factors that keep it from ranking higher.
First, the level of contest still matters. A lot of these dunks feature dudes sliding over in an attempt to take a charge (hence the alternative name). The higher level posters feature someone trying to actually block the dunk. Sure, a charge and blocked dunk are functionally the same in terms of the result the defense wants -- taking away two points -- but we&rsquo;re talking about highlights here.&nbsp;
Secondly, and I admit we&rsquo;re splitting hairs a bit, size also matters. The first dunk I thought of was Nuggets-era J.R Smith yamming it over Gary Neal:
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/jrs.gif" alt="" width="512" height="AUTO" />
Objectively a good dunk, but Gary Neal is ground bound and short. You have to dock some points there. I&rsquo;m sorry. The famous DeAndre Jordan-on-Brandon Knight flush, while iconic, also falls in this category.
The higher end of this would be another classic involving the Spurs: LeBron dunking on Tim Duncan.
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/lebron-on-tim-duncan.gif" alt="" width="512" height="AUTO" />
That&rsquo;s more like it.
TIER 2: THE THROW-IN
THE OG: Blake Griffin
ALSO POPULARIZED BY: Derrick Jones Jr.
DUNK TRUTHERS DON&rsquo;T READ THIS!
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Dunk Truthers are stupid poopyheads.&nbsp;
Yes, we&rsquo;re well aware that dunks that involve the rim being grabbed -- or at least touched -- are more pure, whatever the heck that means. But you look at Blake Griffin embarrassing the life out of Timofey Mozgov and tell me it isn&rsquo;t one of greatest athletic feats you&rsquo;ve ever seen.
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/blake-over-mozgov.gif" alt="" width="512" height="AUTO" />
Derrick Jones Jr. has some gnarly ones in his bag as well, highlighted by this lob he converted against the Raptors that still doesn&rsquo;t make much sense to me.
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/hyyy.gif" alt="" width="512" height="AUTO" />
TIER 1: THE PURE POSTER
Pippen on Ewing. Carter on &lsquo;Zo. <a href="https://youtu.be/tYpwjB0IzoU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Baron Davis on Andrei Kirilenko</a>. Michael Jordan on, well, name almost any big man you can think of that played in the '90s.&nbsp;
We can go more modern, like Larry Nance Jr. doing this to pre-DPOY-candidate Brook Lopez:
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/lrrr.gif" alt="" width="512" height="AUTO" />
Another hidden gem: young DeMar DeRozan throwing the hammer down over Rudy Gobert:
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/derozan-on-gobert.gif" alt="" width="512" height="AUTO" />
The constant for these dunks: full-on, body-to-body contact with a legitimate attempt for a contest. You&rsquo;ll know it when you see it.
BONUS TIER: THE VINCE CARTER
Yeah, this is still the best dunk I&rsquo;ve ever seen.
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/vince-carter-dunk-of-death.gif" alt="" width="512" height="AUTO" />
You clear a seven footer, you get your own dunk tier. Those are the rules.

Nekias Duncan has put together the guide of all guides, breaking down the different types of dunks and rating them on a tier system.

The Dunk-tionary: The official guide to ranking dunks

Blake Stern previews the NBA's Central Division, breaking down each team's projected lineup and burning question entering the year.

NBA Central Division Preview: Burning questions, rotation projections

When the new league year began on July 1, NBA teams were quick to sign free agents and start negotiating extensions with some of their younger players.&nbsp;
Players who were selected in the first round of the NBA Draft are signed to rookie-scale contracts, which are eligible to be extended on the first day (July 1) of the fourth and final year of their deal. This past offseason, the vast majority of players eligible for rookie-scale extensions were picked in the first round in 2020. Teams have until the day before the start of the 2023-24 regular season (which begins on October 24) to agree to an extension, or else those players will hit restricted free agency next summer.&nbsp;
Out of the 30 first-round picks in the 2020 NBA Draft, 27 were eligible for rookie-scale extensions. In addition, the Orlando Magic&rsquo;s Chuma Okeke also became eligible for a rookie-scale extension because he signed his rookie deal in 2020, a year after he was drafted due to injury. So far this offseason, five players have signed extensions, with four of them receiving maximum contracts.&nbsp;
Those who received the max signed what&rsquo;s called a Designated Rookie Extension, which has a starting salary at 25% of the 2024-25 salary cap (projected at $37,405,750) with 8% raises over five years (for a total contract value of $216,953,350). However, via the &ldquo;Derrick Rose rule,&rdquo; if any of the players who signed one of these extensions is a member of any of the 2023-24 All-NBA teams, their starting salary will be set at 30% of the 2024-25 salary cap (projected at $44,886,900) with 8% raises over five years (for a total contract value of $260,344,020). These players include Minnesota&rsquo;s Anthony Edwards, Charlotte&rsquo;s LaMelo Ball, Indiana&rsquo;s Tyrese Haliburton and Memphis&rsquo; Desmond Bane. However, Bane&rsquo;s extension doesn&rsquo;t contain the &ldquo;Rose Rule&rdquo; language, so he can&rsquo;t receive a starting salary raise even if he earns an All-NBA nod.
There is also a new wrinkle in the Collective Bargaining Agreement that changed the rules in regards to rookie-scale extensions, allowing teams to offer all players an extension up to five years. Previously, only players who were offered maximum contracts could agree to an extension up to five years. So far, no team has given out a five-year non-max extension.
The only player who has signed a non-max rookie extension this offseason is Detroit&rsquo;s Isaiah Stewart. Stewart, the No. 16 pick in 2020, has been a starter for the rebuilding Pistons over the past few years. The tough, defensive big man agreed to a four-year, $64 million extension with $60 million guaranteed, $4 million in potential performance bonuses and a team option in the final season. Stewart&rsquo;s extension could serve as a potential benchmark for other big man extension candidates like Toronto&rsquo;s Precious Achiuwa and Atlanta&rsquo;s Onyeka Okongwu.
With 21 first-round picks (and Okeke) still awaiting a potential extension, let&rsquo;s take a look at who is most likely to receive an extension and what their deals might look like.
LIKELY TO BE EXTENDED
Patrick Williams (Chicago Bulls): Williams has been a steady force for the Bulls amid the team&rsquo;s struggles to consistently play winning basketball. The former Florida State forward has improved his shooting each year of his career but has yet to really break out as a primary scoring option for Chicago. Williams is just 22 years old and still has a lot of potential, so he should command an extension similar to what Atlanta&rsquo;s De&rsquo;Andre Hunter received last summer.
Extension Prediction: Four years, $90,000,000, no options
Onyeka Okongwu (Atlanta Hawks): Okongwu has been slotted as the Hawks&rsquo; center of the future for a few years now and has mostly looked the part backing up Clint Capela. Atlanta has a very crowded cap sheet, especially after extending Dejounte Murray. It is possible they could look to move Capela soon in order to free up cap space and give the starting center job to Okongwu. As mentioned above, look for Okongwu to ask for slightly above what Detroit gave Isaiah Stewart.
Extension Prediction: Four years, $72,000,000, could earn up to $80,000,000 with incentives, no options
Devin Vassell (San Antonio Spurs): The Spurs should try to lock up some of their reliable young pieces as they begin the Victor Wembanyama era. Similar to what San Antonio did with Keldon Johnson, they&rsquo;ll likely look to give Vassell a long-term value deal. They also could take advantage of the new CBA rules, keeping the former No. 11 pick under contract through 2029.
Extension Prediction: Five years, $110,000,000, no options
Josh Green (Dallas Mavericks): Green has quietly been developing very nicely with the Mavericks and could fight for a spot in the starting lineup this fall. The Australian native has shown real potential as a 3-and-D wing and could command the full mid-level exception if he reaches the open market next summer. Dallas shouldn&rsquo;t (and most likely won&rsquo;t) let that happen.
Extension Prediction: Four years, $65,000,000, no options
Immanuel Quickley (New York Knicks): Quickley is coming off his best season as a pro that saw him finish as runner-up for the NBA&rsquo;s Sixth Man of the Year award. A scoring machine, the former Kentucky guard would likely start for a good chunk of NBA teams, but will likely have to be the backup as long as Jalen Brunson is in New York. The Knicks would certainly love to keep Quickley, but look for them to wait all the way up to the October 23 deadline to pay him in order to maintain trade flexibility.
Extension Prediction: Four years, $88,000,000, could earn up to $92,000,000 with incentives, no options
Jaden McDaniels (Minnesota Timberwolves): McDaniels is certainly viewed as a core piece by the Timberwolves&rsquo; brass as they fought hard to keep him out of the Rudy Gobert trade, sacrificing more draft capital instead. The Washington product has been a versatile, two-way player since arriving in Minnesota and is an ideal wing next to Anthony Edwards. He should be paid accordingly.
Extension Prediction: Four years, $100,000,000, no options, declining annual salary
LIKELY TO REACH RESTRICTED FREE AGENCY
James Wiseman (Detroit Pistons): Wiseman has been better on both sides of the ball since being traded to Detroit last February, but his game still needs to be developed further if the Pistons are to seriously invest in him.
Isaac Okoro (Cleveland Cavaliers): Cleveland has been looking for a permanent solution at their starting small-forward position for some time now, resulting in them paying Caris LeVert and signing Max Strus. Okoro hasn&rsquo;t shown he can be the Cavs&rsquo; long-term solution.
Obi Toppin (Indiana Pacers): If Toppin had stayed in New York, there&rsquo;s no way he would have been extended. Now in Indiana, the former Naismith National Player of the Year should get a chance to start and improve his stock going into next summer.
Deni Avdija (Washington Wizards): Avdija is a pretty good young player outside of his shooting struggles. With a new regime in Washington, Avdija may be a trade candidate if new president Michael Winger doesn&rsquo;t see him as a part of the team&rsquo;s long-term plan.
Aaron Nesmith (Indiana Pacers): A starter for the Pacers last year, Nesmith may be buried on the depth chart with the additions of Toppin and rookie Jarace Walker. He hasn&rsquo;t made enough of an impact to warrant an extension.
Cole Anthony (Orlando Magic): Anthony has been a solid bench contributor for Orlando since being drafted out of North Carolina. However, the Magic backcourt is extremely crowded with the addition of rookie Anthony Black, making them unlikely to prioritize securing a deal with Anthony.
Aleksej Pokusevski (Oklahoma City Thunder): Poku is coming off a fractured leg that kept him out for the back half of last season. He needs to show that he can be a long-term piece if he wishes to stay with the Thunder.
Saddiq Bey (Atlanta Hawks): Bey is certainly talented enough to warrant an extension, fitting into the starting five seamlessly after being acquired from Detroit at the trade deadline. However, the team may have to choose between extending Bey or Okongwu in order to manage their already-very-full salary cap sheet.&nbsp;
Precious Achiuwa (Toronto Raptors): The Raptors have already committed to a center in Jakob Poeltl this offseason. Achiuwa hasn&rsquo;t shown enough to break through outside of his bench role to warrant an extension.
Zeke Nnaji (Denver Nuggets): Despite not being a regular member of the rotation, Nnaji has shown he is a capable backup option to Nikola Jokic when he&rsquo;s on the floor. While an extension isn&rsquo;t in the cards, the Nuggets should look to retain him.
Payton Pritchard (Boston Celtics): Boston would probably love to keep Pritchard on a team-friendly deal, as he has been a reliable insurance option for them since coming into the league. The former Oregon guard will more than likely want to test the free-agency market to see if he can possibly find a path to more playing time elsewhere.
LIKELY TO NOT RECEIVE A QUALIFYING OFFER, BECOME AN UNRESTRICTED FREE AGENT NEXT SUMMER
Killian Hayes (Detroit Pistons): Hayes has not lived up to his top-10 pick billing and has fallen out of Pistons general manager Troy Weaver&rsquo;s long-term outlook. Detroit could extend him a qualifying offer next summer, but he likely won&rsquo;t receive much interest on the open market.
Kira Lewis Jr. (New Orleans Pelicans): Lewis has been relegated to a reserve while suffering through multiple injuries through his first three years in the NBA. The Pelicans have made it known league-wide that he is available for trade.
Chuma Okeke (Orlando Magic): Okeke has struggled with his all-around game for the better part of the last two years and is unlikely to be retained by Orlando going forward.
Malachi Flynn (Toronto Raptors): Flynn hasn&rsquo;t taken advantage of the many opportunities he&rsquo;s had to be a part of the Raptors&rsquo; rotation as the backup point guard. He may see some run this year, but the Raptors may have seen enough to move on this summer.
THE TYRESE MAXEY WILD CARD
Tyrese Maxey (Philadelphia 76ers): Maxey is the wild card of the rookie-extension candidates, as Sixers general manager Daryl Morey has said that the team will hold off on extending the 22-year-old shooting guard in order to maintain trade and cap flexibility going into next summer. Maxey has blossomed into a core member of the 76ers going forward and would likely receive close to, if not the full, max rookie extension. With no end in sight to the James Harden debacle, the Sixers may want to secure their young prize before their situation could turn worse.

Blake Stern takes a look at which players are most likely to receive a rookie-scale extension prior to the October 23 deadline.

Checking in on the NBA's rookie-scale extension candidates

Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James is entering Year 21 in the NBA, becoming just the sixth player in league history to play 21 seasons &ndash; joining Vince Carter, Kevin Garnett, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Willis and Robert Parish. Carter currently holds the record for most seasons played with 22. 
With James still performing at an unprecedented level for someone his age, coupled with recent reports of his desire to still play several more years and his public goal of playing with his McDonald's All-American son, Bronny James, he certainly seems like a lock to tie, if not break, Carter&rsquo;s record.&nbsp;
James broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar&rsquo;s all-time scoring record earlier this year in February, adding a major accolade to his G.O.A.T. argument. With the seasons-played record in sight, let&rsquo;s take a look at how &ldquo;The King&rdquo; has accumulated arguably the greatest legacy in NBA history over the last two decades.
The Cleveland Cavaliers drafted the kid from Akron with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2003 NBA Draft. James was the talk of the country at the time, being dubbed "The Chosen One&rdquo; and dawning the cover of Sports Illustrated at just 18 years old. With the weight of the world on his shoulders, basketball fans waited in anticipation to see if James could possibly live up to the expectations.
The young phenom did not waste any time. Debuting against the Sacramento Kings, James would go on to score 25 points while adding 9 assists, 6 rebounds and 4 steals. The King would not slow down, averaging 20.9 points, 5.9 assists and 5.5 rebounds in his first NBA season.
LeBron would spend the next six seasons in Cleveland, winning back-to-back MVP awards in his last two seasons with the team, while reaching the playoffs five times and the NBA Finals once in 2007. With no championship after seven seasons with the Cavs, the two-time MVP became a free agent in the summer of 2010 and infamously decided to &ldquo;take his talents to South Beach,&rdquo; joining forces with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh to form the &ldquo;Big Three&rdquo; on the Miami Heat.&nbsp;
The decision by James, which happened to be made on live television on an ESPN special dubbed &ldquo;The Decision," sparked outrage amongst Cavaliers fans. Videos spread online of fans burning the once-hometown-hero&rsquo;s jersey, rooting for his failure in Miami. While James was used to feeling pressure, this was different; James was receiving backlash from a fanbase that once loved him, and a growing population of people were actively rooting against him. This brewing tension had fans waiting in anticipation, this time to see if LeBron could overcome the weight of the world once again.&nbsp;
In LeBron&rsquo;s quest to do the impossible again, a trip to Cleveland brought The King back to the scene of his crime in a game against the Cavaliers in December of 2010. The fans in then-named Quicken Loans Arena brought their all that night, booing LeBron from the moment he was introduced and whenever he touched the ball on offense. However, this just seemed to add more fuel to the fire for James, as he went on to score 38 points en route to a 118-90 blowout of his former team.&nbsp;
This marked a new era for James, and he would embrace his role as the &ldquo;villain&rdquo; of the NBA. Fan perception was one thing, but with James&rsquo; new team came a new energy. Now, he was a proven veteran and he was coming into his own as a player, adapting this almost meticulous style and pace of play alongside his new All-Star-caliber teammates in Wade and Bosh. James would go on to win back-to-back MVP awards again in 2012 and 2013, and the trio would prove to be a problem for the league, with the Heat even going on a 27-game win streak in 2013. During his time in Miami, James would evolve as a player, bulking up and playing more minutes down low at power forward and even center.
The bonafide &ldquo;super-team&rdquo; would spend four seasons together, reaching the NBA Finals in all four. Winning back-to-back championships in 2012 and 2013, with LeBron winning Finals MVP of both, the stars' decision to team-up was a success and ushered in a new era of player movement and empowerment.
The kid from Akron would then shock the world in the summer of 2014, with James departing the Heat and returning home to rejoin the Cavaliers. The two-time champion had some unfinished business and was determined to bring a championship to his city.&nbsp;
LeBron brought his adapted and seasoned style to his former team. His impact extended into the front office, as he now had significantly more say in roster decisions. He wasted little time and used his newfound influence to encourage the Cavs to trade their No. 1 overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, Andrew Wiggins, for a proven star: Kevin Love. Suddenly, James was part of another Big Three, this time with rising star Kyrie Irving and Love.
In Year 1 of LeBron&rsquo;s return home, he led the Cavs back to the NBA Finals, where they faced off against the Golden State Warriors, led by league MVP Stephen Curry. While LeBron led Cleveland to a 2-1 series lead over Golden State, Irving and Love both went down with injuries. This proved to be too much for LeBron to handle, and the Warriors would defeat the Cavaliers in six games. James failed in his mission, but the wait would prove to be worthwhile the following season.
The 2016 season would see a rematch of the Cavaliers and Warriors in the NBA Finals. Curry was coming off of his second-straight MVP award &ndash; becoming the first unanimous MVP in history &ndash; and the Warriors achieved an NBA-record 73 wins that season. The odds were stacked against LeBron and the Cavs, and it only got worse when the Warriors took a 3-1 series lead. Teams in the NBA Finals were 0-32 when facing a 3-1 series deficit. Once again, LeBron was trying to do the impossible.&nbsp;
Once again, The King responded.&nbsp;
Dropping 41 points in both Game 5 and Game 6, James led the way in tying the series at 3-3. In Game 7, the Cavaliers would go on the road and defeat the Warriors, becoming the first team in NBA history to hoist the Larry O'Brien trophy after falling behind 3-1. This was a storybook ending, and James became emotional during his postgame interview, shouting, &ldquo;Cleveland! This is for you!&rdquo;&nbsp;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-theme="dark">
"CLEVELAND, THIS IS FOR YOU!" That line still sends chills down our spine as LeBron James and the Cavs overcame a 3-1 deficit to claim their first ever NBA championship on this day in 2016 👑🏆<a href="https://t.co/WzMtg5kj5Z">pic.twitter.com/WzMtg5kj5Z</a>
&mdash; ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) <a href="https://twitter.com/ClutchPoints/status/1670774843518664705?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 19, 2023</a></blockquote>

<script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>

The three-time champion would spend two more seasons in Cleveland, reaching the NBA Finals both seasons, where the Cavs would ultimately lose to the Kevin-Durant-led Warriors. When James decided to leave Cleveland in 2018, his second departure was well-received, with fans thanking him for bringing a championship to their city. The next chapter of James' career would take place in Los Angeles with arguably the most storied franchise in the NBA, the Lakers.
James&rsquo; first year under the bright lights of Los Angeles was less than ideal, as injuries plagued the roster and the Lakers' young core didn't seem ready to compete at a high level. That would quickly be forgotten, as the Lakers would trade three of those core players (Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram and Josh Hart) and the No. 4 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft to the New Orleans Pelicans in exchange for superstar Anthony Davis, whom LeBron asked the organization to acquire.&nbsp;
That trade would kick off the LeBron-AD era in Los Angeles. The duo would win a championship in their first year together in 2020, with James adding a fourth championship and Finals MVP to his resume. The team has had some misfortune since, as they haven't been back to the Finals and they even missed the play-in tournament in 2022. While injuries have bothered LeBron in recent years, the four-time MVP has yet to slow down, leading the Lakers to the Western Conference Finals last season. While the Lakers were ultimately swept by the eventual-champion Denver Nuggets, their postseason run was impressive.
Now, we arrive at the present day. As James enters his 21st NBA season, he has 19 All-NBA selections, 19 All-Star selections, 10 NBA Finals appearances, four championships, four Finals MVPs and four regular-season MVPs. After surpassing expectation after expectation throughout his career, LeBron will be a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer when he walks away from the game. However, he's not done playing just yet, as he hopes to play with his son and win at least one more championship before he retires.
LeBron&rsquo;s current contract has a player option for next season, so this could potentially be his final year with the Lakers (if he decides to opt out next summer). With LeBron still performing at a superstar level and <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/which-nba-teams-are-under-the-most-pressure-entering-202324-season" target="_blank" rel="noopener">facing pressure to lead his team to a title</a>, all eyes will be on The King yet again this season.

As LeBron James becomes just the sixth player in NBA history to play 21 seasons, Jack Maguire looks back on his legendary career.

Revisiting LeBron James' legendary NBA career as he enters Year 21

With the NBA&rsquo;s 2023 free-agency period pretty much wrapped up, why not take a look at how projecting next year's free-agent market? Obviously, a lot can change between now and then, but let&rsquo;s examine each team&rsquo;s cap situation and how much cap room they project to have next summer.&nbsp;
Next year&rsquo;s free-agency class could feature some big names, including Kawhi Leonard, Pascal Siakam, Tyrese Maxey (restricted), Paul George, LeBron James, James Harden, Jrue Holiday, OG Anunoby and DeMar DeRozan.&nbsp;
For the purposes of this exercise, I&rsquo;m going to separate teams into four spending-power tiers: Cap Space Teams, Non-Tax MLE Teams, Luxury Tax Teams and Second Apron Teams. Also, let's assume that the salary cap will be set at $149,623,000 and the luxury tax will come in at $181,823,000, the maximum 10% jump from this upcoming season set under the new CBA.
CAP SPACE TEAMS
Teams in this tier are currently projected to have cap space next summer. They have spending access to their cap space, Bird Rights, the Room Exception (projected at $8,495,000) and the Veteran Minimum Exception.
San Antonio Spurs ($77,195,776 under the cap) If Victor Wembanyama is 70% as good as he&rsquo;s hyped up to be entering this season, one would figure that the Spurs will spend big or at least make a meaningful impact on the free-agent market next summer. They project to have an enormous amount of cap space, so it&rsquo;s very possible we&rsquo;ll see San Antonio take on some more bad contracts in trades to give them even more draft capital. Also, they&rsquo;ll want to retain Devin Vassell, who will be a restricted free agent next offseason once the Spurs extend his qualifying offer.
Philadelphia 76ers ($73,034,842 under the cap) The Sixers are perhaps the most interesting team in terms of their 2024 offseason outlook. By letting Tyrese Maxey hit restricted free agency next summer rather than extending him this year, Philadelphia gave themselves serious cap flexibility. Tobias Harris and James Harden both have expiring contracts, so the Sixers will have to use their cap space to replace their production. A Harden trade would obviously change their projected cap room, but it remains to be seen what they&rsquo;ll get back for the former MVP and how much it&rsquo;ll impact their books.
Toronto Raptors ($60,339,034 under the cap) After losing Fred VanVleet, the Raptors are walking a tightrope when it comes to whether they&rsquo;ll compete or rebuild. They face some tough decisions. Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby are both set to hit free agency next summer, so Toronto needs to decide whether they want to extend or trade their best players. Not to mention, Precious Achiuwa and Gary Trent Jr. also need new contracts.
Orlando Magic ($58,010,944 under the cap) Orlando has a lot of options for next summer, but the Magic may start with retaining many of their own players. Franz Wagner will likely receive a big contract extension, while Markelle Fultz and Cole Anthony will be up for new contracts. Given that Orlando has a logjam in their backcourt &ndash; with Fultz, Anthony, Jalen Suggs and Anthony Black &ndash; it&rsquo;ll be interesting to see what they do with Fultz and Anthony. The Magic will still have plenty of room to add quality talent for yearly average values over the NTMLE.
Detroit Pistons ($57,781,166 under the cap) Detroit may approach the 2024 offseason similar to how Houston approached this summer, as a young team hoping to use its massive cap space on good veterans in order to take bigger steps toward playoff contention. With that said, the first priority for the team will be agreeing to a contract extension with Cade Cunningham.
Utah Jazz ($50,315,319 under the cap) The Jazz find themselves in a unique position where they could go in two directions. After committing a three-year deal to Jordan Clarkson, they can use their cap space to give 2023 Most Improved Player Lauri Markkanen a contract extension. If they want to have significant cap space for next summer instead, they can hold off on giving Markkanen an extension until free agency is settled.
Washington Wizards ($47,123,801 under the cap) Despite their cap space next year, don&rsquo;t expect Washington to be a big player in 2024 free agency. In the beginning stages of a rebuild, the Wizards will probably keep their sights on collecting more draft capital. They do have an interesting decision coming up with recent trade acquisition Tyus Jones, whom they&rsquo;ll likely want to keep long-term.&nbsp;
Charlotte Hornets ($41,300,515 under the cap)&nbsp; They may lose some 2024 cap space if they eventually re-sign PJ Washington this offseason, but watch out for Charlotte to be one of the many small-market teams with money to spend next summer. With LaMelo Ball in the first year of his max contract extension, Charlotte may cash in on a marquee player to keep their young star happy.
Brooklyn Nets ($33,048,185 under the cap) The Nets do have the potential to have significant cap space next summer if they choose not to re-sign most of their own free agents. However, the Nets will more than likely focus on exploring the trade market and retaining big man Nic Claxton before reaching next year&rsquo;s free agency. Spencer Dinwiddie and Royce O&rsquo;Neale will also hit free agency next offseason.
Indiana Pacers ($20,488,005 under the cap) Indiana could get to an even higher number in cap space if they decline Bruce Brown&rsquo;s $23 million team option next season. If Brown has a good year, the Pacers would likely keep him on a long-term deal that would consume a good chunk of their space. Other impending free agents they might like to keep include Obi Toppin, Aaron Nesmith and Jalen Smith.
Oklahoma City Thunder ($10,264,814 under the cap) The Thunder will likely continue to utilize the strategy of taking on short-term, bad-money contracts in exchange for draft capital. As they inch closer to contention, they will be looking at some big-money extensions for many of their young pieces, including one for Josh Giddey next year.&nbsp;
NON-TAX MLE TEAMS
Teams in this tier are currently projected to be over the salary cap but under the luxury tax. They have spending access to Bird Rights, the Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception (projected at $13,644,000), the Bi-Annual Exception (projected at $4,968,000) unless used in 2023-24, and the Veteran Minimum Exception.
Chicago Bulls ($19,465,689 under the cap) The Bulls could potentially operate as a cap-space team if they elect to let DeMar DeRozan and Patrick Williams walk in free agency, but that seems unlikely. In addition, the Bulls could potentially create more space if Lonzo Ball&rsquo;s knee injury is considered career-ending by an NBA/NBPA-appointed physician. (Ball would still be paid, it just wouldn&rsquo;t count against the cap).&nbsp;
Sacramento Kings ($210,669 under the cap) The Kings used up most of their cap space by signing Domantas Sabonis to a big four-year extension that ties him with the team through 2028. As long as they are competitive, they will likely pursue quality pieces with their Non-Tax MLE to support Sabonis and De&rsquo;Aaron Fox. They will also likely try to keep Malik Monk and look at extension options for Davion Mitchell.
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New Orleans Pelicans ($487,911 over the cap) The Pelicans are fairly set with their core of CJ McCollum, Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram under contract through 2025. Ingram and McCollum are both extension-eligible this offseason, but the Pelicans may wait on dishing out extensions to maintain flexibility under the tax. New Orleans must also monitor Jonas Valanciunas&rsquo; free agency and a possible extension for Trey Murphy III.&nbsp;
Atlanta Hawks ($1,658,172 over the cap) Similar to the Kings, the Hawks wiped away their cap space when they signed Dejounte Murray and De&rsquo;Andre Hunter to four-year, $120 million and four-year, $90 million extensions, respectively. Already pushing past the salary cap, the Hawks may face a money crunch as they broach the luxury tax line. Retaining restricted free agents Onyeka Okongwu and Saddiq Bey next offseason may be tricky.
Los Angeles Clippers ($5,018,261 over the cap) The Clippers are in an interesting spot with George and Leonard both needing new deals, which they will likely get despite their inability to stay on the floor. Many veterans with big salaries will come off the books next year, like Marcus Morris, Nic Batum and Robert Covington. The question is whether the Clippers will continue to commit significant capital to a roster that hasn&rsquo;t met its lofty expectations.
Miami Heat ($7,751,630 over the cap) The Miami Heat are in a holding pattern with their roster as they engage in a Mexican standoff with the Blazers on a Damian Lillard trade, which could see them skyrocket into the deep tax. Outside of the Dame situation, Jimmy Butler will likely look for another big extension this offseason, which will pay him max money deep into his late 30s. They will also have to contend with potentially losing Caleb Martin, who has a player option for 2024-25.
Houston Rockets ($8,734,919 over the cap) The biggest spenders of this past offseason, the Rockets made big moves for Fred VanVleet and Dillon Brooks. Houston could get back into the cap-space tier again if they choose to part ways with Kevin Porter Jr. and his non-guaranteed $15.9 million salary. Jalen Green and Alperen Sengun will also be up for extensions.&nbsp;
Cleveland Cavaliers ($11,399,749 over the cap) The Cavs are pretty set going into the 2023-24 season and beyond with two max guys (Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell) and key guys on fairly big deals (Jarrett Allen, Caris LeVert and Max Strus). They will likely give Evan Mobley a big extension next offseason, which could push them into the luxury tax in the near future. For next offseason, their only notable free agent is Isaac Okoro.
New York Knicks ($11,400,861 over the cap) This morning, the Knicks inked Josh Hart to a four-year contract extension that pushed them over the cap for 2024-25. Their main concerns for next summer are Immanuel Quickley and Isaiah Hartenstein, who are both up for new contracts. They will likely be able to avoid the tax by declining their team option on Evan Fournier or trading his expiring contract for another expiring deal.
Dallas Mavericks ($13,566,153 over the cap) The Mavericks are not likely to seek pathways to cap space next summer after doubling down on their trade for Kyrie Irving by re-signing him to a three-year, $120 million deal. They should look to retain Josh Green, who will be a restricted free agent. Luka Doncic&rsquo;s happiness looms over all of the Mavs&rsquo; moves, as ESPN&rsquo;s Tim McMahon <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/mavs-fear-luka-doncic-may-request-trade-unless-they-build-contender">reported in April</a> that the Mavericks are worried about Doncic potentially seeking a trade elsewhere as soon as next year.
Los Angeles Lakers ($15,380,636 over the cap) The Lakers had a pathway to almost two max slots in the unlikely scenario that they decided to pivot from the LeBron-AD era. However, that option is out the window with them inking Davis to a three-year supermax extension that will keep him with the team through 2028. LeBron James&rsquo; decision to stay with the team or leave will ultimately dictate how the Lakers approach spending next offseason.
Portland Trail Blazers ($20,567,876 over the cap) Portland is in the midst of turning the page to a new era as they look to accommodate franchise cornerstone Damian Lillard&rsquo;s trade request. If they do end up trading Lillard, expect their cap numbers to come down slightly, but not enough to get any meaningful space. Whether Lillard is traded for the Miami package or something else, Portland shouldn&rsquo;t be a major player in free agency for a while.&nbsp;
LUXURY TAX TEAMS
Teams in this tier are currently projected to be over the salary cap and luxury tax. They have spending access to Bird Rights, the Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception (projected at $5,500,000), and the Veteran Minimum Exception.
Minnesota Timberwolves ($14,474,085 under the tax) The Timberwolves have paid the luxury tax only once since 2007. They should be a tax team once again, with Karl-Anthony Towns' supermax extension and Anthony Edwards' max extension kicking in. In addition, Minnesota will need to use significant capital to keep players like Jaden McDaniels, Mike Conley and Kyle Anderson, all of whom will be free agents in 2024.
Golden State Warriors ($9,696,462 under the tax) While the Warriors are currently under the tax, they are likely going to re-sign 2024 free agent Klay Thompson to a long-term deal at a lower number or at least use his Bird Rights to acquire another piece at a similar number. Golden State can cut some costs by releasing Chris Paul after the season, as his $30 million salary for 2024-25 is non-guaranteed.
Milwaukee Bucks ($6,142,529 under the tax) The Bucks re-signed Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez to big-money deals, committing to the players who won them the 2021 title. Another one of those players, Jrue Holiday, is set to reach free agency and will likely demand max money. In addition, Giannis Antetokounmpo becomes eligible for a supermax extension of up to three years in October and can sign a four-year supermax extension next offseason.
Denver Nuggets ($6,732,627 over the tax) The defending champs have their core of Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon locked in through the 2025 offseason. They&rsquo;ve already lost Bruce Brown and Jeff Green this summer and will be forced to work around the edges with Kentavious Caldwell-Pope potentially heading for free agency next summer.
Boston Celtics ($7,306,800 over the tax) The trade for Kristaps Porzingis pushed the Celtics into the luxury tax for the first time since 2018, and that was before they signed Jaylen Brown to a five-year supermax extension. With Jayson Tatum&rsquo;s own supermax extension on the horizon next year, the Celtics figure to be a tax team, and potentially a second apron team, for the foreseeable future.
SECOND APRON TEAMS
Teams in this tier are currently projected to be over the salary cap, luxury tax and second luxury tax apron ($17.5 million over the tax). They have spending access to just Bird Rights and the Veteran Minimum Exception. The second apron was introduced in the new CBA and prevents teams from using the Taxpayer MLE, trading first-round picks seven years away, signing buyout free agents and taking back more salary than they send out in trades among other restrictions.
Memphis Grizzlies ($13,829,477 over the tax) For the first time under owner Robert Pera, the Grizzlies will be paying the luxury tax. While Memphis probably won&rsquo;t reach the second apron, they are not likely to have enough spare capital to use their Tax MLE and be able to fill out their roster without going over it. Their core of Ja Morant, Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr. are locked up to big money, long-term deals that will keep Memphis among the league's biggest spenders for likely the next decade-plus.
Phoenix Suns ($27,039,607 over the tax) Phoenix is by far the most limited team when it comes to spending, and they will be for the next few seasons after trading for Bradley Beal&rsquo;s behemoth contract. With four max contracts, including two supermax contracts, the Suns have blown through the second apron. Like this past offseason, the supporting cast around their core four will be mostly minimum-salary contracts.

How much cap room is your favorite NBA team projected to have next summer? Blake Stern breaks down where all 30 teams stand.

Which NBA teams project to have the most cap space in 2024?

Today, the NBA and FIBA announced 80 of the top high-school-age prospects from across Africa who will participate in the 19th edition of Basketball Without Borders (BWB) Africa, which will be held July 28-31 at the American International School of Johannesburg (AISJ) in South Africa.
BWB Africa 2023 will bring together 80 boys and girls from more than 25 African countries &ndash; including 19 NBA Academy Africa and NBA Academy Women&rsquo;s Camp Africa 2022 prospects &ndash; to learn directly from current and former NBA, WNBA and FIBA players, legends and coaches and compete alongside their peers from across the continent.&nbsp;
The campers will be coached by two-time NBA All-Star Bam Adebayo (Miami Heat; U.S.; ties to Nigeria), 2022 NBA All-Star Darius Garland (Cleveland Cavaliers; U.S.), 2022 NBA champion Jonathan Kuminga (Golden State Warriors; Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Jalen Suggs (Orlando Magic; U.S.).
Five current and former NBA head coaches will also serve as BWB Africa 2023 coaches: Cavaliers head coach J.B. Bickerstaff; two-time NBA Coach of the Year, Nigeria Men&rsquo;s National Team head coach and Sacramento Kings head coach Mike Brown; 2018 NBA Coach of the Year Dwane Casey (most recently with the Detroit Pistons); Los Angeles Lakers head coach Darvin Ham; and veteran NBA coach Dave Joerger (most recently with the Philadelphia 76ers).
Several former NBA and WNBA players will also serve as BWB Africa 2023 coaches, including 2015 FIBA AfroBasket champion Olumide Oyedeji (Nigeria), 2011 NBA champion Ian Mahinmi (France; ties Benin), former NBA player and Basketball Africa League Head of League Operations Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje (Cameroon), former NBA player Tacko Fall (Senegal), 2003 WNBA champion Astou Ndiaye (Senegal), two-time WNBA champion Taj McWilliams-Franklin, four-time WNBA champion Sheryl Swoopes and Mozambique basketball legend Clarisse Machanguana.&nbsp;
Toronto Raptors Vice-Chairman, Team President and Alternate NBA Governor Masai Ujiri; New Orleans Pelicans Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations David Griffin; and Portland Trail Blazers Assistant General Manager Mike Schmitz will serve as camp directors, while David Crewe and Frank Adams (Phoenix Suns) will serve as the camp&rsquo;s athletic trainers.
The players and coaches will lead the campers through a variety of activities, including movement efficiency drills, offensive and defensive skill stations, three-point contests, 5-on-5 games, and life skills and leadership development sessions.&nbsp;&nbsp;A ceremony on the final day of the camp will award the Kim Bohuny Camp MVP, the Patrick Baumann Sportsmanship Award, the B.J. Johnson Most Improved Player Award, the Three-Point Champion and the Defensive MVP to the boys and girls who distinguish themselves on the court and as leaders.
As part of the camp, NBA players and coaches will also participate in several community outreach initiatives around Johannesburg, including a hospital visit and a Her Time to Play seminar for the female campers on July 28, and a court unveiling in the Alexandra Township on Saturday, July 29.&nbsp; In addition, BWB Africa 2023 coaches will lead a development clinic for local coaches at AISJ on July 30.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Also on July 29, select&nbsp;NBA players&nbsp;will visit the NBA Store at Sandton City Mall in Johannesburg and engage with fans.
BWB Africa 2023 will be supported by Nike, a global partner of BWB since 2002, which will outfit participants with Nike apparel and footwear, and Gatorade, which will keep players and coaches hydrated throughout the camp.
BWB has reached more than 4,100 participants from 136 countries and territories since 2001, with 112 former campers advancing to the NBA or WNBA.&nbsp; The NBA and FIBA have staged 70 BWB camps in 47 cities across 32 countries on six continents.
The following is a complete list of players participating in the 19th&nbsp;BWB Africa camp (rosters subject to change):
&nbsp;
<table style="width: 447px;" width="447">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width: 403px;" colspan="2">
GIRLS
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Name
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Country
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Ines Bellahmer
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Algeria
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Filomena Luis
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Angola
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Guigma Sadia
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Burkina Faso
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Gisele Kipo*
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Cameroon
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Hannah Dibadjou
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Cameroon
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Salma Khedr*
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Egypt
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Leila El Sanadily
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Egypt
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Aisha Hassan
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Egypt
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Lucie Mounganga
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Gabon
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Fatoumata Sylla
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Guinea
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Roseline Ooko
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Kenya
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Harena Randriamasimanana
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Madagascar
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Fitahiana Ratsimason
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Madagascar
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Joanie Rakotonanahary
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Madagascar
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Fatoumata Samake*
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Mali
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Oumou Soumare
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Mali
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Aya El Kallali*
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Morocco
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Albertina Matsinhe*
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Mozambique
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Bata Lurdes*
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Mozambique
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Shanaya Matusse*
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Mozambique
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Joy Biribebe
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Nigeria
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Benitha Ngarambe
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Rwanda
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Jane Dusabe
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Rwanda
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Fatou Sima
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Senegal
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Marie Diouf
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Senegal
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Ndickou Matar Diop*
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Senegal
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Tacko Sy
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Senegal
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Sheriffa Rahman
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Sierra Leone
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Onnetse Molokwame
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
South Africa
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Luhle Ndaba
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
South Africa
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Reneilwe Motebele
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
South Africa
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Susan Peter
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
South Sudan
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Asunta Ring
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
South Sudan
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Nawasa Lazaro
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Tanzania
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Ibouanga Moussounda
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Togo
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Arwa Ghorbel*
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Tunisia
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Eya Nasri
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Tunisia
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Afef Bengoula
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Tunisia
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Christine Namyalo
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Uganda
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 191px;">
Immaculate Adongpiny
</td>
<td style="width: 212px;">
Uganda
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
*Participated in NBA Academy Women&rsquo;s Camp Africa 2022
&nbsp;
<table width="447">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width: 418.75px;" colspan="2" width="447">
BOYS
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Name
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Country
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Aginaldo Neto*
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Angola
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Manuel Camboma*
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Angola
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Inacio Anatoli Da Silva
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Angola
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Claudino Capangaa
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Angola
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Sansao Wika
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Angola
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Philippe Ntungicimpaye
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Burundi
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Arnold Eyadi Kenfack
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Cameroon
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Hermann Bel Gassina
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Cameroon
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Chris Naguidebe
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Central African Republic
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Tahir Doungous*
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Chad
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Zie Cheikh Conde
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
C&ocirc;te d&rsquo;Ivoire
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Tarek Khairy
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Egypt
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Ahmed Nedale
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Egypt
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Karim El Gizawi
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Egypt
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Courage Agbekpornu
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Ghana
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Kiggundu Austin Omondi
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Kenya
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Chouhaybou Keita
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Mali
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Mahamadou Konate
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Mali
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Hamza Bechchar
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Morocco
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Bolaji Oderinlo
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Nigeria
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Sultan Baruwa
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Nigeria
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Ibrahim Dan-Mutum
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Nigeria
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Jonah Precious
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Nigeria
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Ezekiel Obe*
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Nigeria
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Andre Bonazebi
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Republic of Congo
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Jude Fred Nkouka Silaho
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Republic of Congo
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Khadim Mboup*
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Senegal
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Assane Mandian*
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Senegal
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Yakhya Diop*
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Senegal
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Amar Diop*
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Senegal
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Mouhamed Camara
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Senegal
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Siyanda Radebe
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
South Africa
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Gilchrist Storm
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
South Africa
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Khaman Maluach*
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
South Sudan
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Moses Marial Mandiria
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
South Sudan
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Bol Wieu Mou Thet
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
South Sudan
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Lual Deng Lual Aguek
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
South Sudan
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Rayen Rouissi
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Tunisia
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Amen Hammi
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Tunisia
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 197.167px;" width="208">
Liberty Fusire*
</td>
<td style="width: 221.583px;" width="239">
Zimbabwe
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
*NBA Academy Africa prospect

Bam Adebayo, Darius Garland, Jonathan Kuminga and Jalen Suggs will coach 80 top high-school-age prospects from across Africa.

Adebayo, Garland, Kuminga, Suggs to coach prospects at BWB Africa 2023

It&rsquo;s the easiest call of the&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/nba-draft-2023-wembanyama-b3449d1a5f7a7de5906bb1979ffb2a26">NBA draft</a>: The San Antonio Spurs won.
That&rsquo;s not to say other teams didn&rsquo;t do very well on Thursday, when 58 players were selected as the league&rsquo;s newest members. But the Spurs being able to take generational French talent Victor Wembanyama puts them at the head of the class.
Some of the teams that also did well: NBA champion Denver, Golden State, Toronto &mdash; even with just one pick &mdash; and Orlando, which might now be closer to returning to the postseason mix.
A breakdown of which teams had Excellent drafts, those that had Good drafts and others that will have to Wait and See:
<h2 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h2 Component-p-0-2-71">EXCELLENT</h2>
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">DALLAS MAVERICKS</h3>
Picks: Dereck Lively II (12, via trade); Olivier-Maxence Prosper (24, via trade).
Dallas got the big man it wanted and created opportunity by moving Davis Bertans. Hard to argue that it wasn&rsquo;t a good night. And now free agency awaits. Prosper is another player with big potential and was extremely hard to guard at Marquette.
Picks: Julian Strawther (29), Jalen Pickett (32, will be acquired via trade), Hunter Tyson (37),
Pickett should have gone in the first round. He&rsquo;s that good, and the NBA champions just got another do-it-all guy who will also serve as insurance should Bruce Brown leave in free agency.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">DETROIT PISTONS</h3>
Picks: Ausar Thompson (5), Marcus Sasser (25, via trade), James Nnaji (31)
No matter what, the Pistons were going to get better and deeper on Thursday night. Thompson is incredibly athletic (even by NBA standards) and plays defense with a ton of energy.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS</h3>
Picks: Brandin Podziemski (19), Trayce Jackson-Davis (57, via trade)
Play to your strength, and the Warriors got another shooter to add to the mix with Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. Podziemski could add something right away, and came to Golden State on the same day that the Warriors swung a deal for Chris Paul by sending Jordan Poole to Washington.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">HOUSTON ROCKETS</h3>
Picks: Amen Thompson (4), Cam Whitmore (20)
Thompson is a great move and gives Detroit another great option as it builds. If Whitmore is healthy, then Houston got an absolute steal by getting the Villanova forward at No. 20.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER</h3>
Picks: Cason Wallace (10, via trade), Keyontae Johnson (50)
Wallace was great for Kentucky in his lone college season and played perhaps his best game in the Wildcats&rsquo; finale in the NCAA tournament. He can score; he didn&rsquo;t look to score quite often enough at times in college.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">ORLANDO MAGIC</h3>
Picks: Anthony Black (6), Jett Howard (11)
Paolo Banchero got a couple more shooters to help him out, and the young and talented Magic got more young talent. An excellent night again and it&rsquo;s time to start thinking about Orlando as a team that should make a run at the play-in &mdash; at minimum.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">SAN ANTONIO SPURS</h3>
Picks: Victor Wembanyama (1), Sidy Cissoko (44).
Their grade was secured at the very moment that the last ping-pong ball appeared at the lottery last month. Wembanyama was a no-brainer, and now it&rsquo;s up to the Spurs to start the real work &mdash; get him into the gym, see how he fits, and figure out what the plan is going forward.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">TORONTO RAPTORS</h3>
Pick: Gradey Dick (13)
Dick showed up to the draft in a red-and-black jacket &mdash; a nod to Dorothy from &ldquo;The Wizard of Oz&rdquo; and his Kansas roots. The color scheme will work in Toronto as well. Dick is a pure shooter, and no team can have too many of those. The jury&rsquo;s still out on what the Raptors will be this coming season, but this kid will be a rotation piece.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">UTAH JAZZ</h3>
Picks: Taylor Hendricks (9), Keyonte George (16), Brice Sensabaugh (28)
Hendricks is what an NBA big pretty much is now; a power forward who can also defend centers. George was the Big 12 rookie of the year at Baylor and is a proven scorer. He&rsquo;s good from the line, has 3-point potential and can get to the rim. There&rsquo;s some work to do, but he&rsquo;s a serious prospect.
<h2 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h2 Component-p-0-2-71">GOOD</h2>
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">BROOKLYN NETS</h3>
Picks: Noah Clowney (21), Dariq Whitehead (22), Jalen Wilson (51)
Clowney is an athletic big from Alabama whose game is still a bit unfinished. Whitehead has enormous potential and was highly recruited by Duke, but foot issues are a concern. Wilson was the Big 12 player of the year at Kansas. The Nets likely didn&rsquo;t choose three elite programs accidentally. Lot to like here.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">CHARLOTTE HORNETS</h3>
Picks: Brandon Miller (2), Nick Smith Jr. (27), Amari Bailey (41).
Miller made sense over Scoot Henderson because the Hornets have a point guard already. But Henderson might be the more NBA-ready player.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">INDIANA PACERS</h3>
Picks: Jarace Walker (8, via trade), Ben Sheppard (26), Julian Strawther (29), Mojave King (47, via trade), Isaiah Wong (55)
Walker plays hard on both ends, and this is rare to say, but he might play harder on defense than he does on offense. And getting Wong &mdash; the ACC player of the year &mdash; so late is a steal.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS</h3>
Picks: Kobe Brown (30), Jordan Miller (48)
Brown is a strong player, addicted to rebounding, and probably needs to improve considerably on the offensive end. Miller did a little of everything for the Miami Hurricanes in their run to the Final Four.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">LOS ANGELES LAKERS</h3>
Picks: Jalen Hood-Schifino (17), Maxwell Lewis (40, via trade).
Hood-Schifino got NBA coaching in college last season; Indiana is coached by Mike Woodson. He&rsquo;s a winner; his high school teams won, his Indiana team went to the NCAA Tournament and he&rsquo;ll obviously benefit from time with LeBron James.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">MIAMI HEAT</h3>
Pick: Jaime Jaquez Jr. (18)
A four-year college player whose game got more complete each year, Jaquez has a notorious work ethic that should fit in quite well with the Eastern Conference champions.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">NEW ORLEANS PELICANS</h3>
Pick: Jordan Hawkins (14)
Hawkins was a big part of UConn&rsquo;s team that won the national title last spring, earning his way onto the All-Tournament team. New Orleans got a winner.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS</h3>
Picks: Scoot Henderson (3), Kris Murray (23), Rayan Rupert (43).
Henderson has shown that he&rsquo;s NBA-ready. The Blazers drafted well. But really, the only question now is whether Damian Lillard is happy or not. Murray is the twin brother of Sacramento&rsquo;s Keegan Murray and had a big season for Iowa &mdash; averaging just over 20 points per game.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">WASHINGTON WIZARDS</h3>
Picks: Bilal Coulibaly (7, via trade), Tristan Vukcevic (42)
The Wizards are starting over, and on the day they also agreed to acquire Jordan Poole from Golden State they just happened to get a French player. (No, not that one.) But Coulibaly is highly touted by No. 1 pick Victor Wembanyama, and that&rsquo;s enough of an endorsement for us.
<h2 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h2 Component-p-0-2-71">WAIT AND SEE</h2>
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">ATLANTA HAWKS</h3>
Picks: Kobe Bufkin (15), Mouhamed Gueye (39, via trade), Seth Lundy (46)
Bufkin had a great second half of the season at Michigan, and left-handers always provide defenses with an extra challenge. The best way to describe his game is this: He doesn&rsquo;t do much wrong. Very solid, can help the Hawks in a lot of ways.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">BOSTON CELTICS</h3>
Picks: James Njaji (31, via trade), Jordan Walsh (38, via trade)
Still only 18, Njaji started playing the game about seven years ago and is not even close to reaching his potential yet. Big prospect.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">CHICAGO BULLS</h3>
Pick: Julian Phillips (35, via trade)
The Bulls had to forfeit what would have been their pick because of free-agency violations last summer, and swung a deal with Boston to land the Tennessee wing.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">CLEVELAND CAVALIERS</h3>
Pick: Emoni Bates (49)
He was touted as a star since basically middle school, had more than his share of promising moments in college, and now has to really prove himself.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES</h3>
Picks: Gregory Jackson II (45), Tarik Biberovic (56)
Prospects. They&rsquo;re not expected to provide any real help anytime soon.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">MILWAUKEE BUCKS</h3>
Picks: Andre Jackson (36, via trade), Chris Livingston (58)
Jackson was a big part of UConn&rsquo;s national championship. He&rsquo;s only going to benefit from being around Giannis Antetokounmpo every day.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES</h3>
Picks: Leonard Miller (33, via trade), Jaylen Clark (53)
Miller had a lot of big moments playing with Scoot Henderson and the G League Ignite this past season. Athleticism is tough to ignore.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">NEW YORK KNICKS</h3>
No picks.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">PHILADELPHIA 76ERS</h3>
No picks.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">PHOENIX SUNS</h3>
Pick: Toumani Camara (52)
Given the trades that they&rsquo;re making, this might be one of their last picks for quite some time. There&rsquo;s nothing wrong with not valuing the draft, but giving up on it entirely is a dangerous game to play too often.
<h3 class="Component-root-0-2-81 h3 Component-p-0-2-71">SACRAMENTO KINGS</h3>
Picks: Colby Jones (34, via trade), Jalen Slawson (54)
Jones has skills the Kings crave; great shooter, great passing and great vision. A young Kevin Huerter-type in those regards.

Which teams came away from the 2023 NBA Draft as big winners? Check out the AP's draft report cards.

NBA draft report cards: Spurs, Rockets among teams that hit it big

On Tuesday afternoon, the NBA announced the 78 players who are expected to attend the 2023 NBA Draft Combine, which will take place at the Wintrust Arena and Marriott Marquis in Chicago from May 15-21.
Players will have interviews with NBA teams and participate in five-on-five games as well as shooting and strength-and-agility drills. Coverage of the 2023 NBA Draft Combine will begin May 17 on ESPN2 from 2-6 p.m. ET and continues May 18 from 4-8 p.m. ET on ESPN2.
The NBA Draft Combine will also be available on the ESPN App. Strength-and-agility drills and shooting drills will be broadcast live on the NBA App on May 15 from 3-5 p.m. ET.
Additionally, a select number of standout players from the <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/nba-g-league-announces-45-draft-prospects-competing-in-g-league-elite-camp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2023 NBA G League Elite Camp</a>, which takes place May 13-14 at Wintrust Arena, will be invited to participate in the NBA Draft Combine.
Unfortunately, projected No. 1 pick Victor Wembanyama won't be in attendance at the 2023 NBA Draft Combine as he has yet to finish his season overseas with Metropolitans 92.
Below is a list of expected attendees for the 2023 NBA Draft Combine:
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Trey Alexander (Creighton)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Seth Lundy (Penn State)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Amari Bailey (UCLA)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Kevin McCullar (Kansas)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Emoni Bates (Eastern Michigan)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Mike Miles Jr. (TCU)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Reece Beekman (Virginia)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Brandon Miller (Alabama)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Anthony Black (Arkansas)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Jordan Miller (Miami)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Adem Bona (UCLA)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Leonard Miller (G League Ignite)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Kobe Brown (Missouri)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Judah Mintz (Syracuse)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Kobe Bufkin (Michigan)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Dillon Mitchell (Texas)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Toumani Camara (Dayton)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Omari Moore (San Jose State)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Sidy Cissoko (G League Ignite)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Kris Murray (Iowa)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Jaylen Clark (UCLA)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Grant Nelson (North Dakota State)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Noah Clowney (Alabama)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
James Nnaji (Barcelona [Spain] )
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Ricky Council IV (Arkansas)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Julian Phillips (Tennessee)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Gradey Dick (Kansas)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Jalen Pickett (Penn State)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Nikola Djurisic (Mega [Serbia] )
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Brandin Podziemski (Santa Clara)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Zach Edey (Purdue)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Olivier-Maxence Prosper (Marquette)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Adam Flagler (Baylor)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Rayan Rupert (New Zealand Breakers [Oceania] )
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Keyonte George (Baylor)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Adama Sanogo (Connecticut)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Mouhamed Gueye (Washington State)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Marcus Sasser (Houston)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Coleman Hawkins (Illinois)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Brice Sensabaugh (Ohio State)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Jordan Hawkins (Connecticut)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Terrence Shannon Jr. (Illinois)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Scoot Henderson (G League Ignite)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Ben Sheppard (Belmont)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Taylor Hendricks (UCF)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Jalen Slawson (Furman)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
DaRon Holmes II (Dayton)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Nick Smith Jr. (Arkansas)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Jalen Hood-Schifino (Indiana)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Terquavion Smith (North Carolina State)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Jett Howard (Michigan)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Julian Strawther (Gonzaga)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Andre Jackson Jr. (Connecticut)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Amen Thompson (Overtime Elite)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
GG Jackson II (South Carolina)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Ausar Thompson (Overtime Elite)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Trayce Jackson-Davis (Indiana)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Drew Timme (Gonzaga)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Jaime Jaquez Jr. (UCLA)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Oscar Tshiebwe (Kentucky)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Keyontae Johnson (Kansas State)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Azuolas Tubelis (Arizona)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Colby Jones (Xavier)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Tristan Vukcevic (Partizan [Serbia] )
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Ryan Kalkbrenner (Creighton)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Jarace Walker (Houston)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Arthur Kaluma (Creighton)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Cason Wallace (Kentucky)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Mojave King (G League Ignite)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Jordan Walsh (Arkansas)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Bobi Klintman (Wake Forest)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Dariq Whitehead (Duke)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Maxwell Lewis (Pepperdine)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Cam Whitmore (Villanova)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Dereck Lively II (Duke)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Jalen Wilson (Kansas)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="312">
Chris Livingston (Kentucky)
</td>
<td valign="top" width="354">
Isaiah Wong (Miami)
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

The NBA announced the 78 players who are expected to attend the 2023 NBA Draft Combine.

NBA announces 78 Draft Combine participants, but no Victor Wembanyama

LOS ANGELES (AP) &mdash; Anthony Davis had 25 points and 13 rebounds, a slow-starting LeBron James finished with 21 points, eight assists and eight rebounds, and the Los Angeles Lakers took a 2-1 lead in their second-round playoff series with a 127-97 victory over the Golden State Warriors in Game 3 on Saturday night.
D&rsquo;Angelo Russell hit five 3-pointers while scoring 21 points for the seventh-seeded Lakers, who remained unbeaten at home in the postseason with a strong defensive effort against the reigning NBA champions.
James didn&rsquo;t take a shot in the first quarter for the first time in his NBA-record 275 playoff appearances, but he warmed up in time to lead several runs in the second and third quarters while Los Angeles pulled away.
Stephen Curry scored 23 points and Andrew Wiggins had 16 in a collective stinker for the Warriors, who committed 19 turnovers and never mounted a response to the Lakers on either end in the second half. Golden State went 13 for 44 on 3-pointers &mdash; making just 10 while the game was still competitive &mdash; after hitting 21 in each of the series&rsquo; first two games in San Francisco.
Game 4 is Monday night in Los Angeles.
Davis had an impressive bounce-back game under both baskets after contributing minimally in Game 2, blocking four shots and leading the Lakers&rsquo; latest strong defensive effort. Los Angeles has built its 16-5 run since March 17 on defense, and the Warriors couldn&rsquo;t hit enough shots from the perimeter to counteract their disadvantages in size and athleticism.
Klay Thompson had 15 points and seven rebounds for the Warriors, but the rest of the roster beyond their top three scorers struggled mightily, combining for just 18 points before coach Steve Kerr pulled his starters with 9:11 to play. Draymond Green had two points in 23 minutes while playing with foul trouble.
The Warriors were held under 100 points for only the fifth time in 92 games this season.
The rivals split two games in San Francisco to open the series, with the Warriors earning a 27-point blowout victory in Game 2 after dropping the opener.
But this much-anticipated playoff rematch between generational superstars James and Curry has featured more garbage time than memorable thrills in the past two games. After Lakers coach Darvin Ham sat down his stars before the fourth quarter of Game 2, Kerr pulled the plug while facing a 26-point deficit early in the fourth quarter of Game 3.
James began Game 3 making a clear effort to be a playmaker, but he didn&rsquo;t even take his first shot until 8:02 remained in the first half. He hit a free throw for his first point with 6:32 left, and he subsequently led a rally that pushed the Lakers in front to stay.
JaMychal Green stayed in the Warriors&rsquo; starting lineup even with Kevon Looney available to play in Game 3. Looney missed Game 2 with an illness.
FIGHT ON
James&rsquo; son, Bronny, announced his decision&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/bronny-james-lebron-usc-cad1708433f0af166e241e2001426363">to play at the University of Southern California</a>&nbsp;about two hours before tipoff. The 18-year-old was among the top uncommitted recruits in the nation, and he chose to stay close to home with a loaded Trojans team coming off its third straight NCAA Tournament appearance. Bronny James, USC hoops coach Andy Enfield and Trojans football coach Lincoln Riley all attended Game 3.
TIP-INS
Warriors: The Los Angeles-born Thompson grew up a Lakers fan in Orange County, and this series is his first chance to play against the 17-time NBA champion franchise in the postseason. His father, Mychal, is the Lakers&rsquo; radio color commentator, and his brother, Trayce, plays for the Dodgers. ... Andre Iguodala has increased his workload and should return to practice next week, Kerr said. The veteran has been out since March 13 after having surgery on his left wrist. He isn&rsquo;t likely to play in this series, but could return later in the postseason. ... Moses Moody got a flagrant foul in the second quarter for tripping Davis while lying on the ground after Davis blocked his shot.
Lakers: James passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for fifth place on the NBA&rsquo;s career playoff rebounding list. ... Backup center Mo Bamba missed his third straight game with a left ankle injury. ... Another celebrity-laden sellout crowd gathered for the Lakers&rsquo; longest playoff run in their home arena since 2012. Fans near courtside included Michael B. Jordan, Kim Kardashian, Woody Harrelson, Don Cheadle, Dustin Hoffman, Nia Long, Adele, Andy Garcia, Kevin Hart and quarterback Bryce Young, the Pasadena native and No. 1 overall pick by Carolina in last month&rsquo;s NFL draft.

The Lakers took a 2-1 lead in their second-round playoff series with a 127-97 victory over the Warriors in Game 3 on Saturday night.

LeBron James, Lakers rout Warriors 127-97, take 2-1 series lead

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) &mdash; After yet another big basket, Klay Thompson scurried toward the fans sitting courtside opposite the Warriors bench and raised his arms in the air to ignite an entire arena behind him. It didn&rsquo;t take much the way his shots were falling.
He has been waiting his entire life to shine against his father&rsquo;s Los Angeles Lakers on the big stage.
Thompson scored 30 points with eight 3-pointers, Golden State limited Anthony Davis while allowing LeBron James 23 points, and the defending champion Warriors evened their Western Conference semifinal with the Lakers at one game apiece with a 127-100 win Thursday night.
&ldquo;I was just trying to get the crowd going,&rdquo; Thompson said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s always fun when you shoot the ball well, it&rsquo;s even better when you couple that win a win.&rdquo;
Stephen Curry added 20 points and 12 assists as Splash Brother Thompson got hot to help Golden State make 21 more 3-pointers &mdash; giving the Warriors an NBA record for most in the first two games of a playoff series at 42. James&rsquo; Cavaliers hit 40 against Atlanta in the 2016 second round.
&ldquo;They made their adjustments. We knew they were going to do that, that&rsquo;s what a championship team does,&rdquo; James said. &ldquo;They held serve on their home court tonight.&rdquo;
Coach Steve Kerr switched things up and inserted JaMychal Green into the starting lineup for Kevon Looney, who had a career-high 23 rebounds in Game 1 but has been dealing with an illness. Kerr aimed to give a different look with scoring options and more free-throw chances by going hard with a physical presence against Davis in the paint &mdash; where Golden State got thoroughly outplayed in a 117-112 loss in the opener.
Thompson&rsquo;s basket with 7:48 left in the third gave Golden State its biggest lead at 82-64 and the Warriors rolled from there.
&ldquo;Klay got it going and our defense was kind of fueling our offense,&rdquo; Kerr said.
The Warriors had more fast-break points and points in the paint. JaMychal Green matched his playoff career high with 15 points, while Draymond Green contributed 11 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists after insisting he had to get more aggressive.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been waiting on this moment, just wanted to show that I could help,&rdquo; JaMychal Green said. &ldquo;They always tell me to stay ready, my time will come.&rdquo;
The best-of-seven series shifts to Los Angeles for Game 3 on Saturday. Back home in Southern California, Thompson said he would play in the memory of &ldquo;my biggest inspiration&rdquo; Kobe Bryant and daughter, Gigi.
&ldquo;I have so much respect for just the opportunity ahead for me,&rdquo; Thompson said.
James shot 6 for 8 in the first with a pair of 3s for 14 points as the Lakers led 33-26. He retrieved a loose ball and let it fly for a pretty 3 with 7:47 before halftime but the Warriors were too much.
Davis followed up his brilliant Game 1 performance &mdash; 30 points, 23 rebounds, five assists and four blocked shots and 11-for-19 shooting &mdash; with 11 points while shooting 5 for 11, seven rebounds, four assists and three blocks.
&ldquo;We played with more force,&rdquo; Draymond Green said.
Golden State outscored the Lakers 84-47 over the second and third quarters &mdash; recording two 40-point quarters in the same playoff game for the first time in franchise history.
&ldquo;It was hard for us to guard four shooters,&rdquo; Lakers forward Rui Hachimura said. &ldquo;Defensively they were more aggressive I feel like. They had all the loose balls and the rebounds and everything.&rdquo;
Looney received huge roars as he came off the bench for his first action with 3:41 left in the first. He grabbed eight rebounds and scored six points playing just less than 12 minutes &mdash; and the Warriors still outboarded the Lakers 55-40 without its best rebounder.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;re capable of playing a lot of different ways, I&rsquo;m capable of playing a lot of different ways,&rdquo; Curry said.
Kerr was hardly worried ahead of Game 2, pointing to how Golden State lost Game 1 of the NBA Finals at home to Boston last year before winning it all.
The Warriors also rallied from a 2-0 deficit in their first-round series to beat Sacramento, the first defending champion to do so.
&ldquo;You could tell, they came out just ready to try to secure a game,&rdquo; Lakers coach Darvin Ham said, &ldquo;and again not go back to our place down 0-2.&rdquo;
KLAY&rsquo;S DAY
Thompson shot 11 for 18 and 8 of 11 from deep. His 19 points in the first half were his most in a postseason contest since he scored 21 in Game 6 against the Rockets in 2019.
KEY SEQUENCE
The Warriors challenged an offensive foul call on Andrew Wiggins with James defending at the 2:50 mark of the second quarter. The call was overturned and a block assessed to James, and a Lakers assistant received a technical during the review process &mdash; and the Warriors converted all three free throws to lead 60-50 before Thompson&rsquo;s 3 the next time down.
TIP-INS
Lakers: James was -27 through three quarters. The only time he had a worse plus-minus through three in a playoff game was Game 1 of a second-round series against the Pistons in 2006. ... In a big change from Game 1, the Lakers didn&rsquo;t take their first free throws until 1:03 before halftime and their four attempts matched their second-fewest in a first half this season.
Warriors: Moses Moody added 10 points and seven rebounds off the bench and Gary Payton II seven points and five boards as Golden State controlled the glass all game. ... JaMychal Green earned his first playoff start since April 26, 2019, for the Clippers against the Warriors in Game 6 of the first round. &ldquo;Two hours before game time Loon came down pretty ill,&rdquo; Kerr said. ... Golden State improved to 20-6 in Game 2s dating to the 2014-15 title run.

Klay Thompson scored 30 points, and the Warriors evened their series with the Lakers at 1-1 with a 127-100 win on Thursday night.

Klay Thompson scores 30, Warriors adjust to beat Lakers 127-100

Stephen Curry scored 36 points, Kevon Looney matched his career high with 20 rebounds to go with nine assists, and the Golden State Warriors got right back in their first-round playoff series by thumping the Sacramento Kings 114-97 in Game 3 on Thursday night to pull within 2-1.
As suspended star Draymond Green watched from home, the defending champions dominated without him as they have done so many times before. The fiery forward was suspended without pay for stepping on the chest of Domantas Sabonis in the fourth quarter of Monday's Game 2 at Golden 1 Center. The Warriors also were without key defensive stopper Gary Payton II after the guard became ill Wednesday.
Curry shot 12 for 25 with six 3s while Andrew Wiggins added 20 points and seven rebounds for the Warriors, who never trailed and will now try to even the best-of-seven series in Game 4 on Sunday back on their home court at Chase Center.
Sabonis, who grabbed Green's foot during the play in question, was booed at every chance. The big man underwent tests that revealed a bruised sternum but was able to practice Wednesday and cleared to play. He had 14 rebounds by halftime and 16 total to go with 15 points. But Golden State's smothering interior defense led to some spectacular plays on offense.
De&rsquo;Aaron Fox was 5 for 14 in the first half for 12 points but finished with 26 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists for the Kings. Fox scored 62 in the first two games.
Jordan Poole &mdash; playing on a tender left ankle &mdash; started in Green&rsquo;s place and had 16 points and five rebounds, while the Warriors also counted on contributions from Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody and Donte DiVincenzo.
Looney, who led the NBA in offensive rebounds and played in his 218th straight game, corralled a key board from the offensive glass that led to Curry's 3 to beat the halftime buzzer and make it a double-digit Warriors lead at 53-41.
Harrison Barnes added 17 points against his old team for Sacramento, whose fans were told to leave those noisy cowbells at home because they're banned at Chase Center. Warriors fans were raucous in their own right sporting yellow &ldquo;Gold Blooded&rdquo; t-shirts and pounding Thunderstix.
Leading into Game 3, Golden State coach Steve Kerr shared with the team his favorite John Wooden quote of all time: &ldquo;Be quick, but don&rsquo;t hurry.&rdquo; That&rsquo;s a mantra he challenged the Warriors to use to take better shots and be more careful with the ball to limit turnovers.
He felt the Warriors had been in a hurry and committing unforced turnovers, rushed to make a play.
They seemed like their old selves in this one.
NBA Coach of the Year Mike Brown, who received a shipment of new Vans sneakers, warned of what might happen if his team let down even in the slightest: &ldquo;If we&rsquo;re overconfident we&rsquo;re going to get our behinds handed to us because these guys are champions.&rdquo;
Curry and Co. made sure of that.
E-40 IS BACK
Rapper E-40 returned courtside for Game 3 fashionably late and fashionable.
The hip-hop star whose real name is Earl Stevens alleged &ldquo;racial bias&rdquo; after being kicked out of Game 1 at Sacramento's Golden 1 Center. He and the Kings put out a joint statement Wednesday explaining there was a &lsquo;miscommunication&rsquo; and said it was an &ldquo;unfortunate misunderstanding&rdquo; between both parties.
&ldquo;We're OK, can't complain,&rdquo; he said Thursday of being satisfied with the Kings' response.
Curry and E-40 shared a celebratory embrace shortly after the final buzzer as Curry made his way to the tunnel.
TIP-INS
Kings: The Kings were outrebounded 60-53. ... Sacramento shot 11 for 46 on 3s. ... The Kings made it to the free-throw line just eight times in the initial two quarters and 23 for the game.
Warriors: Wiggins had a memorable second-quarter sequence with a block then 3-pointer moments later. ... Moody had a three-point play and dunk over a sizzling 38-second stretch late in the third putting Golden State up 76-63 and finished with 13 points. ... In a quiet outing, Klay Thompson had 13 points on 5-for-15 shooting but hit two timely shots down the stretch.

The Golden State Warriors got right back in their first-round playoff series by thumping the Sacramento Kings 114-97 in Game 3.

Curry scores 36 points, Warriors beat Kings 114-97 without Green

Here&rsquo;s a rarity: All five teams from one division are going to the NBA playoffs.
And they pulled that off in a year where a division champion almost didn&rsquo;t get there.
All five teams from the Pacific Division &mdash; Sacramento, Phoenix, the Los Angeles Clippers, Golden State and the Los Angeles Lakers &mdash; have made the playoffs, which start Saturday.
But Miami, the champion of the Southeast Division, almost missed out. The Heat got there Friday night by closing on a 15-1 run to beat Chicago 102-91 in the final Eastern Conference play-in game.
Had the Heat lost, it would have been the first time in NBA history that a division winner wasn&rsquo;t going to the playoffs.
On the other end of the spectrum, the whole-division-goes feat had happened only two other times since the NBA went to the six-division, five-teams-in-each format starting with the 2004-05 season.
The Central Division did it in 2006, and the Southwest Division pulled it off in 2015. It almost happened in the Northwest Division in 2018 when Denver missed the playoffs by a game. And the Atlantic Division had a chance to send all its teams this year if Toronto gotten out of the play-in tournament.
PLAY IN TO PLAY ON
The play-in tournament provided a path for Miami, Minnesota, the Los Angeles Lakers and Atlanta to make the playoffs.
And now, they&rsquo;ll try to go from playing in to playing on.
No team has managed that yet.
Granted, there&rsquo;s only been three previous versions of a play-in tournament, but no team has gone from the extra round in between the regular season and playoffs and gotten an actual postseason series win.
In 2020, Portland (which beat Memphis in a one-game play-in round inside the restart bubble) lost 4-1 to the top-seeded Lakers.
In 2021, the Lakers (4-2 to Phoenix), Memphis (4-1 to Utah), Boston (4-1 to Brooklyn) and Washington (4-1 to Philadelphia) were all ousted in Round 1.
And last year, Minnesota (4-2 to Memphis), New Orleans (4-2 to Phoenix), Atlanta (4-1 to Miami) and Brooklyn (4-0 to Boston) also lost their opening series after qualifying through the play-in.
2 TO 1
Golden State did something unusual last season. It finished second in the Pacific Division &mdash; and first in the NBA.
That&rsquo;s a serious break from the norm.
From 2012 through 2021, every team to make the NBA Finals did so after winning a division championship. The 2011 Dallas Mavericks had been the most recent team not to win its division but make the finals; they won the title that season.
The Warriors did it last season, also winning the title.
This season&rsquo;s division champions: Boston, Milwaukee, Miami, Denver, Sacramento and Memphis. History suggests that two of those six teams would be the wise picks for those forecasting who&rsquo;ll make the finals.
SEASON OF COMEBACKS
Playoffs might not have looked likely for a bunch of teams in the early going of the season.
Philadelphia started 0-3, Sacramento started 0-4, Brooklyn was 1-5, Golden State was 3-7, the Los Angeles Clippers opened 2-4, Minnesota was 5-8, Miami was 7-11 &mdash; and the Los Angeles Lakers were 2-10, a level of bad start that few teams have been able to overcome.
The Lakers are just the 15th team in NBA history to start 0-5 and make the postseason. And only four teams were worse than 2-10 after 12 games and still made the playoffs. Last season&rsquo;s New Orleans Pelicans started 1-11 and got there, as did the 1967-68 Chicago Bulls and 1984-85 Cleveland Cavaliers.
But the undisputed bad-start-and-made-playoffs-anyway kings are the 1996-97 Phoenix Suns. They started 0-13, wound up finishing 40-42, held a 2-1 series lead over top-seeded Seattle in the best-of-five opening round, then fell in five games.
WINS MILESTONE
Golden State teammates Klay Thompson and Draymond Green have both appeared in 102 playoff victories.
That&rsquo;s tied for 25th-best all-time, and they could keep climbing the charts this spring.
They&rsquo;re currently two wins behind Danny Green; three behind Dwyane Wade and Dennis Johnson; five behind Bill Russell, Robert Parish and Warriors teammate Andre Iguodala; and six behind No. 18 John Havlicek.
If the Warriors win another title and Thompson and Green appear in all 16 victories, they&rsquo;d then have 118 apiece &mdash; one fewer than Michael Jordan.
The Los Angeles Lakers&rsquo; LeBron James enters these playoffs as the career leader in postseason wins, with 174. Phoenix&rsquo;s Kevin Durant needs five to get to 100, and Warriors guard Stephen Curry has 93.
ON THE ROAD
Going &ldquo;on the road&rdquo; in these playoffs will be a relative term in some cases.
By driving distance, some of them are pretty close. Only 85 miles or so separates the arenas used by Golden State and Sacramento, and it&rsquo;s about 100 miles between the arenas in Philadelphia and Brooklyn.
Phoenix and the Los Angeles Clippers play 375 miles apart, while New York and Cleveland are separated by 450 miles, which is still no more than about an hour by air. The rest of the matchups are a bit longer &mdash; it&rsquo;s 850 miles or so between Minnesota and Denver, 1,100 between Boston and Atlanta, almost 1,500 between Miami and Milwaukee and just over 1,800 between Memphis and the Los Angeles Lakers&rsquo; home floor.
THE WAIT IS OVER
Sacramento&rsquo;s last playoff game was May 5, 2006. That was 12 Kings coaches ago.
A look at some of the other numbers:
&mdash; The Kings played 1,358 games in that span.
&mdash; They used 184 different players.
&mdash; They scored 142,294 points, with DeMarcus Cousins having the most in that span with 9,894.
&mdash; They went 515-843.
&mdash; There will have been 1,384 playoff games in the league between Sacramento&rsquo;s last playoff game and by the time the Kings and Golden State tip off in Game 1 on Saturday. All 29 other teams played at least 11 playoff games in that span; Boston has the most with 201, and the Celtics and Miami have a league-high 108 playoff wins apiece over that stretch.
INSIDE THE STANDINGS
If the 16 playoff teams had their own league this season, with only the games against one another counting, then the Boston Celtics would be feeling pretty confident right about now.
The Celtics had the best record against fellow playoff qualifiers this season, going 27-15. That just edged out Denver, which went 26-15 against playoff-bound teams during the regular season.
Boston&rsquo;s average point differential against playoff-bound teams per game is also better than any other postseason club. The Celtics outscored playoff teams, on average, by 5.6 points per game.
The rest of the records by playoff qualifiers against one another during the regular season: Milwaukee 26-16, Philadelphia 26-16, Minnesota 22-20, Memphis 21-20, New York 22-21, Miami 21-21, Phoenix 21-23, Sacramento 19-24, Golden State 19-24, Cleveland 18-23, the Los Angeles Clippers 18-24, Brooklyn 18-24, the Los Angeles Lakers 17-25, and Atlanta 16-26.
WARRIORS&rsquo; ROAD WOES
Golden State has won a road game in 27 consecutive playoff series, an NBA record and obviously a major reason why the Warriors have four of the last eight championships.
They&rsquo;ll need to rekindle that road magic.
The Warriors &mdash; who don&rsquo;t have home-court advantage in Round 1 against Sacramento, so they&rsquo;ll need at least one road win to have a chance in the series &mdash; went 3-19 against playoff teams away from home this season.
The last time any playoff team was that bad on the road during the regular season against other eventual playoff qualifiers was 2004. Denver was 2-20 entering those playoffs in road games against fellow postseason clubs that season, and Miami was 3-19.
PLAYOFF POOL
The NBA&rsquo;s postseason playoff pool is up nearly $10 million from last year. This year, the 16 playoff teams will divide up $26,969,000.
Every team is assured of at least $402,493 for making the playoffs. The payouts increase considerably as teams advance, and the teams with the best six records in each conference get more money as well.
Milwaukee has already clinched $1,860,950 from the pool &mdash; $777,777 for having the best record in the NBA and another $680,680 for having the best record in the Eastern Conference. If the Bucks win the title, their share of the pool would soar to $7,907,335.
Last year&rsquo;s pool was $17,317,334.

The NBA Playoffs tip off on Saturday, so here's everything you need to know.

What to know entering the NBA playoffs, which start Saturday

After monitoring the NBA awards races all season, Nekias Duncan shares his final selections for DPOY, ROY, MIP, 6MOY and more.

Nekias Duncan's 2022-23 NBA award selections: DPOY, 6MOY, MIP, more

Some moments from the 2022-23 NBA regular season:
Oct. 18: Boston defeats Philadelphia and Golden State beats the Los Angeles Lakers on opening night. <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/golden-state-warriors-nba-sports-stephen-curry-e246e86804a28295efea3e00d33dc510" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Warriors received their championship rings</a> from last season in a ceremony preceding their game.
Oct. 20: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-lakers-san-antonio-spurs-miami-heat-nba-sports-8e45a1092f25e28f0672a83d317a9a68" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NBA referee Tony Brown, 55, dies of pancreatic cancer.</a> He worked more than 1,100 games in a two-decade career.
Nov. 4: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/brooklyn-nets-nba-sports-kyrie-irving-racial-injustice-972e41eed3debbd9a548433c78227f05" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nike suspends its relationship with Kyrie Irving</a> and canceled plans to release his next signature shoe, part of the massive fallout caused by the Brooklyn Nets&rsquo; guard tweeting a link to a film containing antisemitic material. Nike and Irving eventually part ways; Irving eventually apologizes and returns to the Nets.
Nov. 5: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://twitter.com/NBA/status/1589042762686795777?s=20&amp;t=nk9Tw0T3tQEq6Mw4vOqrsg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sacramento&rsquo;s De&rsquo;Aaron Fox</a> hits from just inside the midcourt stripe at the buzzer of overtime, giving the Kings a 126-123 win in Orlando.
Nov. 8: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/miami-heat-nba-sports-breonna-taylor-fc0f38a2c59da07f90833ae479e66cc0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">To commemorate Election Day,</a> the NBA plays no games. The league encourages its teams and fans to spend the day participating in civic engagement.
Nov. 11: The arena where the Miami Heat play starts the process of getting a new name, after the <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/ftx-miami-heat-arena-name-change-b3f47e4fb5bb0f102560fa6956997bdb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapses.</a> FTX was in the early stages of a 19-year, $135 million naming rights deal with Miami-Dade County.
Nov. 13: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/philadelphia-76ers-utah-jazz-nba-sports-joel-embiid-bef34587365fd8e8668f6024ab73d05a" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Philadelphia&rsquo;s Joel Embiid scores a career-best 59</a> points in a win over Utah. He adds 11 rebounds, eight assists and seven blocked shots.
Nov. 28: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-lakers-indiana-pacers-nba-sports-b6e1415dd4d8fa0fac2a10c8477da348" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Andrew Nembhard hits a 3-pointer at the buzzer</a> and Indiana stuns the Los Angeles Lakers 116-115. The Pacers trailed by 17 with 9:27 remaining; it was the biggest fourth-quarter comeback in the NBA this season.
Dec. 13: The NBA announces a rebranding of its MVP award, revealing a new trophy and a new name &mdash; <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/chicago-bulls-charlotte-hornets-nba-sports-david-stern-de67e49f0255ef10f140365636110ae4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Michael Jordan Trophy.</a>
Dec. 17: In Mexico City, <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/san-antonio-spurs-miami-heat-nba-sports-duncan-robinson-074cecb1060491994c22a42efa8670a6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Miami defeated San Antonio 111-101.</a> It was the NBA&rsquo;s first game in Mexico City since 2019.
Dec. 20: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/cleveland-cavaliers-phoenix-suns-college-football-nba-sports-f455a8e3b437a07aa4684c7dd3adb16b" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mortgage billionaire Mat Ishbia</a> strikes a deal to purchase embattled Robert Sarver&rsquo;s share of the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury in a deal that values the franchise at $4 billion.
Dec. 25: Philadelphia tops New York, Dallas beats the Los Angeles Lakers, Boston beats Milwaukee, Golden State tops Memphis and Denver edges Phoenix in the NBA&rsquo;s Christmas quintupleheader.
Dec. 27: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/new-york-knicks-dallas-mavericks-sports-basketball-luka-doncic-ed7d9ce55160d04e2c206f6a8b742cdd" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dallas&rsquo; Luka Doncic has a 60-point triple-double</a> in the Mavericks&rsquo; 126-121 win over New York. He added 21 rebounds and 10 assists in the first 60-20-10 game in NBA history.
Jan. 2: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/kobe-bryant-chicago-bulls-los-angeles-lakers-cleveland-cavaliers-utah-jazz-ef2ccddb44dd42fa14ebed5f8344c5a2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cleveland&rsquo;s Donovan Mitchell scores 71 points</a> in the Cavaliers&rsquo; 145-134 overtime win over Chicago. Mitchell was 22 of 34 from the field, 7 of 15 on 3-pointers and 20 for 25 from the foul line. He also had 11 assists, marking the first time anyone had more than 70 points and 10 assists in an NBA game.
Jan. 10: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/miami-heat-oklahoma-city-thunder-nba-sports-basketball-18113c7918466a8d6a41714b963403cb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Miami goes 40 for 40 from the foul line</a> in a one-point win over Oklahoma City. The 40-for-40 breaks the previous NBA record of 39-for-39 by Utah in 1982.
Jan. 13: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/chicago-bulls-atlanta-hawks-san-antonio-spurs-nba-sports-e05988d6e1537c605aad5ea8a14d4887" target="_blank" rel="noopener">At the Alamodome in San Antonio,</a> the Spurs sell an NBA-record 68,323 tickets for a game against Golden State.
Jan. 19: With presumed 2023 No. 1 draft pick Victor Wembanyama sitting courtside, Zach LaVine scores 30 points and the <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/chicago-bulls-nba-sports-jaden-ivey-hamidou-diallo-3770db44edb9a08e1ad116ecad45109f" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chicago Bulls ease past the Detroit Pistons 126-108</a> in Paris. France was the seventh different country to host an NBA practice or game this season.
Feb. 6: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-lakers-new-york-knicks-dallas-mavericks-clippers-nba-ea90e45174274a917654448db9554dfc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Brooklyn trades Kyrie Irving to Dallas,</a> ending his up-and-down stint with the Nets that was more memorable for off-the-court challenges than actual play.
Feb. 7: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/lebron-james-nba-scoring-record-cd0df2a355eaf80c6d534cbb16d44ca9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LeBron James makes a 14-foot jumper late in the third quarter to break Kareem Abdul-Jabbar&rsquo;s career NBA scoring record.</a> Abdul-Jabbar held the mark since 1984 and was in Los Angeles to watch James&rsquo; record-breaker.
Feb. 9: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/brooklyn-nets-phoenix-suns-nba-sports-basketball-3932b34f477549895cce131490bec86d" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Brooklyn trades Kevin Durant to Phoenix,</a> a blockbuster on NBA trade-deadline day.
Feb. 16: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/boston-celtics-nba-sports-basketball-ime-udoka-151efe3c319c986b770437cd25794339" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Boston removes the interim title from 34-year-old coach Joe Mazzulla,</a> the former assistant who took over the Celtics in September after now-former coach Ime Udoka was suspended by the team for having an inappropriate relationship with a woman in the organization.
Feb. 18: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/milwaukee-bucks-sports-nba-all-star-game-walker-kessler-collin-sexton-6a2ea26147bafb0f80ea77620cacf2e9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Philadelphia&rsquo;s Mac McClung puts on a scintillating show</a> to win the dunk contest at All-Star weekend. Portland&rsquo;s Damian Lillard wins the 3-point contest and Utah players Jordan Clarkson, Walker Kessler and Collin Sexton combined to win the Skills Challenge.
Feb. 19: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/nba-sports-lebron-james-kyrie-irving-giannis-antetokounmpo-2cf83e2e57350687e68ba89a6deb2707" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Boston&rsquo;s Jayson Tatum scores a record 55 points</a> and Team Giannis tops Team LeBron 184-175 to win the All-Star Game in Salt Lake City.
Feb. 24: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/los-angeles-clippers-sacramento-kings-nba-sports-malik-monk-4047cea9a226d5fd135de97c65d0d054" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sacramento defeats the Los Angeles Clippers 176-175.</a> The 351 combined points are the second-most in NBA history, behind only Detroit&rsquo;s 186-184 win over Denver on Dec. 13, 1983.
Feb. 26: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/houston-rockets-portland-trail-blazers-nba-sports-damian-lillard-1e1a83642e942d51d91ee014b5b7947c" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Portland&rsquo;s Damian Lillard scores 71 points</a> in the Trail Blazers&rsquo; 131-114 win over Houston. Lillard made 22 of 38 shots from the field, 13 of 22 from 3-point range and all 14 of his free throws. He also led Portland in assists, with six.
Feb. 27: <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/utah-jazz-atlanta-hawks-nba-sports-playoffs-264bcc009ce664a640b5c903e35f1656" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Atlanta introduces Quin Snyder</a> as its new coach, after firing Nate McMillan about a week earlier.
March 4: Memphis guard Ja Morant live-streams himself holding a gun while inside a Denver-area strip club. He quickly announces he was taking &ldquo;some time away to get help&rdquo; and ultimately was <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/ja-morant-suspended-nba-gun-video-8cc82061f6465f96d6c5d0806d92d7d0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suspended for eight games by the NBA</a> for his personal conduct.
March 17 and 19: A tale of two comebacks. San Antonio blew a 29-point lead on March 17 and lost to Memphis 126-120; two nights later, the Spurs rallied from a 24-point second-half deficit and beat Atlanta 126-118. It was the biggest second-half comeback for the Spurs under coach Gregg Popovich.
March 29: Jrue Holiday has 51 points, eight assists and eight rebounds, while Giannis Antetokounmpo adds 38 points, 17 rebounds and 12 assists, and Milwaukee tops Indiana 149-136. <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://twitter.com/Bucks/status/1641271779380559872?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">It&rsquo;s the first time in NBA history two teammates</a> have had at least 38 points, eight assists and eight rebounds in the same game.
April 1: In the early morning hours, <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/nba-labor-players-0cf524b13e459eeb5853dad9a455e0e0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association strike a handshake deal</a> on what, if approved by owners and players, will be a seven-year Collective Bargaining Agreement that will take effect in July and ensure labor peace in the league until at least 2029.
April 7: Dallas sits several regulars, including Kyrie Irving, and plays Luka Doncic for only about a quarter in a loss to Chicago. The loss eliminated the Mavericks from postseason contention and the team&rsquo;s motivation for losing catches the eye of the NBA, <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/mavericks-playoffs-nba-investigation-tanking-7ac5f76590adafd9df1c7c590a78d346" target="_blank" rel="noopener">which opens an investigation the next day.</a>
April 9: Udonis Haslem scores 24 points in his final regular season game, as his 20-year career with the Miami Heat draws to an end. <a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/magic-heat-haslem-finale-f8e560c77aa5c36a20dbb12ebb58fca5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">At 42, he&rsquo;s nearly two years older</a> than anyone else to have scored at least 24 points in an NBA game.

Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press revisits the notable moments from the 2022-23 NBA season.

Season of NBA moments: LeBron, Lillard, Mitchell and more

The Milwaukee Bucks clinched the top seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs Wednesday, but they had to do so without Giannis Antetokounmpo on the second night of a back-to-back.
No problem &mdash; Bobby Portis exploded for 27 points and 13 rebounds, Jrue Holiday racked up 20 points and 15 assists, and Brook Lopez tossed in 26 points to handle the Chicago Bulls. One neat postgame statistic from ESPN's Kane Pitman caught my eye:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-theme="dark">
Brook Lopez now has 26 games with 20+ points this season. He had 26 games with 20+ points across his first four regular seasons in Milwaukee. He will be a DPOY finalist but his scoring has wound back the clock during his age 35 season.
&mdash; Kane Pitman (@KanePitman) <a href="https://twitter.com/KanePitman/status/1643788843479621635?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 6, 2023</a></blockquote>

<script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>

Lopez is putting up 15.9 points per game, his highest since his All-Star days with the Brooklyn Nets, at the most efficient scoring clip of his career. He's helped the Bucks retake the top of the conference while remaining square in the middle of the Defensive Player of the Year race.
The award's front-runner, Jaren Jackson Jr., has also quietly ascended on the offensive end. Jackson is averaging a career-high 18.3 points per game (20.9 since the All-Star break) with a career-best 58.5% two-point shooting clip. He dropped 40 in Wednesday's overtime loss to the Pelicans and has helped the Grizzlies go 12-4 since March 9.&nbsp;
While the two bigs are duking it out for DPOY, their steps forward as scorers have put each team in the championship conversation.
Starting with Lopez, his output this season hasn't come with increased touches. A cursory glance through PBP Stats' tracking data shows the 35-year-old is hovering at similar rates in touches and volume touch time relative to his entire Milwaukee tenure. His low 16.7% usage rate follows the same trend. But Lopez has received a significant green light; his mark of 11.5 field goal attempts per game is the most in the last six years.
Those extra shots have been distributed relatively evenly across different spots on the floor, but Lopez's paint presence is perhaps the most notable change. Here's a look at his impact of scoring inside since joining the Bucks in 2018, using data from PBP Stats (scroll right to view full table on mobile):
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%; height: 154px;" border="1">
<tbody>
<tr style="height: 44px;">
<td style="width: 10.2766%; height: 44px;">Year</td>
<td style="width: 15.2376%; height: 44px;">Touches/100 poss.</td>
<td style="width: 18.501%; height: 44px;">Paint touches/100 poss.</td>
<td style="width: 16.4124%; height: 44px;">Paint touches FG% </td>
<td style="width: 15.1069%; height: 44px;">At-Rim FGA/game</td>
<td style="width: 13.5403%; height: 44px;">At-Rim FG%</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 22px;">
<td style="width: 10.2766%; height: 22px;">2018-19</td>
<td style="width: 15.2376%; height: 22px;">59.6</td>
<td style="width: 18.501%; height: 22px;">2.8</td>
<td style="width: 16.4124%; height: 22px;">65.3%</td>
<td style="width: 15.1069%; height: 22px;">1.8</td>
<td style="width: 13.5403%; height: 22px;">75.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 22px;">
<td style="width: 10.2766%; height: 22px;">2019-20</td>
<td style="width: 15.2376%; height: 22px;">57.5</td>
<td style="width: 18.501%; height: 22px;">5.2</td>
<td style="width: 16.4124%; height: 22px;">61.7%</td>
<td style="width: 15.1069%; height: 22px;">2.5</td>
<td style="width: 13.5403%; height: 22px;">66.9%</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 22px;">
<td style="width: 10.2766%; height: 22px;">2020-21</td>
<td style="width: 15.2376%; height: 22px;">49.4</td>
<td style="width: 18.501%; height: 22px;">7.0</td>
<td style="width: 16.4124%; height: 22px;">70.3%</td>
<td style="width: 15.1069%; height: 22px;">2.7</td>
<td style="width: 13.5403%; height: 22px;">74.4%</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 22px;">
<td style="width: 10.2766%; height: 22px;">2021-22*</td>
<td style="width: 15.2376%; height: 22px;">51.3</td>
<td style="width: 18.501%; height: 22px;">9.7</td>
<td style="width: 16.4124%; height: 22px;">62.8%</td>
<td style="width: 15.1069%; height: 22px;">3.4</td>
<td style="width: 13.5403%; height: 22px;">77.3%</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 22px;">
<td style="width: 10.2766%; height: 22px;">2022-23</td>
<td style="width: 15.2376%; height: 22px;">54.2</td>
<td style="width: 18.501%; height: 22px;">9.1</td>
<td style="width: 16.4124%; height: 22px;">71.2%</td>
<td style="width: 15.1069%; height: 22px;">3.6</td>
<td style="width: 13.5403%; height: 22px;">74.7%</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
*Note that Lopez played just 13 games in 2021-22 due to injury.
Lopez's current paint diet builds off of his abbreviated 2021-22 campaign, and this time, he's consistently converting on his greatest volume as a Buck. In addition to the strong marks at the rim, Lopez is also hitting a blistering 56% of his short-mid-range shots, per Cleaning the Glass.
The 35-year-old scored his 26 points on Wednesday despite a quiet 0-for-2 night from distance. He made 10 of 17 attempts inside the arc. Some were confident driving layups where he powered through Nikola Vucevic and Andre Drummond. But this play highlights how his roll (heyo!) is changing:
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0px; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.250%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; overflow: hidden;" src="https://streamable.com/e/1z89r7" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" data-mce-fragment="1"></iframe></div>
With the amount of drop coverage in today's NBA, plus the different downhill playmakers Milwaukee employs, Lopez has windows available as a roller. Here he stays in the passing lane during Joe Ingles' drive, seals off Derrick Jones Jr. and finishes the layup.&nbsp;
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0px; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.250%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; overflow: hidden;" src="https://streamable.com/e/2nevnr" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" data-mce-fragment="1"></iframe></div>
This earlier bucket was the second of two near-identical makes in a row. Chicago sets its drop early in the action, but Vucevic is tighter on Holiday given the guard's threat to pull up. The window is open quicker for a short-roll pass that Holiday easily makes. Lopez then knocks down the soft-touch floater that the smaller DeMar DeRozan can't really contest.
According to play-type data from Synergy, Lopez is spending 21.2% of his possessions this season as a roll man. That's the highest frequency of his Bucks career, and it's steadily increased in each subsequent year from 14.1% in 2018-19. "Roll man" in Synergy terms can also include pick-and-pop plays, where Lopez often thrives, but he's also adding more classic rolls.
Tack on a career-high 37.4% clip from beyond the arc, and Lopez has found the pockets for him to excel within Milwaukee's offense without taking on a significantly larger workload.
<div class="mceNonEditable"><spike>&nbsp;</spike></div>
Lopez is making teams pay for how they defend guys like Holiday and Antetokounmpo. His buckets still mostly come via assists. Jackson, meanwhile, is stepping up as a self-creator.&nbsp;
The 23-year-old has cleared the 60% True Shooting mark for the first time in his five-year career. Yet, he's not shooting threes particularly well (34.4%) and his volume of attempts is down (4.5 per game). Jackson has instead boosted his two-point percentage to a career-best 58.5%. He can attribute that spike to a consistent assertion of getting to the basket.&nbsp;
According to PBP Stats, more than 40% of Jackson's total shots this year have been self-created twos within 10 feet of the basket. His 53.2% conversion rate on those looks is a whopping nine percentage points better than last season. Jackson's overall 67% clip at the rim is a serious bounce-back from a dreadful 2021-22, and his 47% mark in the short-mid-range area is another career high.
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0px; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.250%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; overflow: hidden;" src="https://streamable.com/e/2nevnr" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" data-mce-fragment="1"></iframe></div>
In his monster 40-point outing, Jackson showed off how he's leveraging his length and strength with confidence. He posted up Larry Nance Jr. twice for scores, and was unfazed even when plowing into Nance on the above drive. Jackson still had the balance to turn the moment into a floater. There are also these Giannis-esque moments with Jackson where he uses his long strides and length to glide past defenders. The overall quick decision-making has elevated his attacks.
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The lanky forward has traded in some perimeter looks for more aggressive attacks. In fact, Jackson ranks third in points per drive (0.94) among 180 high-volume drivers this season. He's scoring at a decent 50.5% clip and drawing fouls on 18% of his drives, which also ranks third.
Jackson didn't shoot particularly well (13-for-28) en route to his 40-burger on Wednesday, but did draw nine fouls and made 11 of 12 free throws.
Perhaps the most surprising stat: Jackson is one of 100 NBA players who have logged 50 or more isolation possessions this season, per Synergy. He's drawn shooting fouls on a whopping 32.1% of those possessions; that is the highest in the eight-year history of Synergy's play-type tracking.
With his foul-drawing and reliable free-throw shooting, Jackson has created a floor-raiser with his length and athleticism against opposing bigs. As his scoring efficiency comes along, he's looking more and more like a matchup nightmare.
THE OUTLIERS (a.k.a. other random interesting numbers I found in the void):
<ul>
<li>Two extremely important concepts in today's NBA: Creating and preventing advantages. From SIS Hoops:</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-theme="dark">
In the stretch run of the MVP race, Joel Embiid has stepped up his advantage creation to separate himself as the favorite for the award. <a href="https://t.co/6lThkqTKVC">pic.twitter.com/6lThkqTKVC</a>
&mdash; SIS Hoops (@SIS_Hoops) <a href="https://twitter.com/SIS_Hoops/status/1644003730205843458?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 6, 2023</a></blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Post-NCAA men's tournament reflection. FAU baby!
<script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-theme="dark">
Take good shots ✅ Force tough shots ✅ Win more games ✅ <a href="https://t.co/xHczgYjpfo">pic.twitter.com/xHczgYjpfo</a>
&mdash; Todd Whitehead (@CrumpledJumper) <a href="https://twitter.com/CrumpledJumper/status/1643379899129040897?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 4, 2023</a></blockquote>

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<ul>
<li>A few league-wide notes I saw as this season is wrapping up:</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-theme="dark">
Some NBA leaguewide trends as we approach the end of the season 🧵 - The NBA is shooting a base 47.5% from the field, which is its highest since 1989-90 - eFG% is 54.5%, which is the highest ever - 114.8 offensive rating is a massive all-time high, 2nd place is 112.3 (2020-21)
&mdash; Ethan Fuller (@ethman43) <a href="https://twitter.com/ethman43/status/1644020710753333249?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 6, 2023</a></blockquote>

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Jackson and Lopez are leading the Defensive Player of the Year race, but have also made important offensive strides.

NBA Stats Notebook: Lauding Jaren Jackson Jr. and Brook Lopez's offense

ATLANTA (AP) &mdash; Trae Young made two free throws with 1.8 seconds remaining in overtime to give Atlanta the lead and the Hawks beat the Dallas Mavericks 132-130 on Sunday night to keep pace in the Eastern Conference play-in race.
Young was fouled by Kyrie Irving, who scored 41 points, with the game tied at 130. Following Young&rsquo;s free throws, Luke Doncic, who scored 22 points, missed a last-second 3-pointer.
The Hawks (39-39) moved back into eighth place in the play-in race. Toronto and Chicago put pressure on the Hawks with wins before Atlanta&rsquo;s game. The Hawks have the tiebreaker advantage over Toronto.
The Hawks entered the game only a half-game ahead of the 10th-place Bulls for the final play-in spot in the Eastern Conference.
Dallas (37-42) remained 11th in the Western Conference, one spot out of the play-in.
Irving&rsquo;s mid-range jumper with 37 seconds remaining in regulation tied the game at 121. Saddiq Bey&rsquo;s layup gave the lead back to Atlanta.
Christian Wood was fouled by John Collins and made one free throw before missing the second with 1.2 seconds remaining. With 0.4 seconds remaining, Atlanta&rsquo;s Clint Capela fouled JaVale McGee near the basket as McGee reached for Doncic&rsquo;s inbound pass. McGee missed the first free throw and made the second to tie the game at 123 and force overtime.
John Collins&rsquo; 3-pointer, followed by Clint Capela&rsquo;s jam, gave Atlanta an 84-74 lead midway through the third period. The Hawks stretched the advantage to 15 points at 91-76, but Dallas used a 15-3 run to close the deficit to 94-91 entering the final period.
Hawks small forward De&rsquo;Andre Hunter missed his second consecutive game after an MRI on Saturday revealed a bone bruise and muscle strain in his left knee.
Hawks coach Quin Snyder said Hunter is &ldquo;a unique player and very important ... for his ability to take a defensive matchup.&rdquo; Snyder said before the game Hunter would have been valuable in the matchups against the Mavericks, where the presence of small forward Tim Hardaway Jr. makes it more difficult to devote extra defensive attention to Doncic and Irving.
TIP-INS
Mavericks: Coach Jason Kidd made a pregame plea for improved contributions from his bench &ldquo;on both ends.&rdquo; It was part of his emphasis on improved overall defensive play. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s effort. It&rsquo;s grit,&rdquo; Kidd said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s what you want to do as much as energy.&rdquo; Kidd complained the Mavs&rsquo; defense was &ldquo;nonexistent&rdquo; in a 129-122 loss at Miami on Saturday night. ... Christian Wood had 18 points and 11 rebounds.
Hawks: Saddiq Bey had 13 points as the fill-in starter for Hunter. ... Capela had 14 points and 11 rebounds.
UP NEXT
Mavericks: Begin streak of three straight home games to finish regular season when they host Sacramento on Wednesday night.
Hawks: At Chicago on Tuesday night.

The Atlanta Hawks beat the Dallas Mavericks 132-130 on Sunday night to keep pace in the Eastern Conference play-in race.