Bears

DENVER (AP) &mdash; At times, the Denver Nuggets were easy &ndash; sometimes, too easy &ndash; to love, with their rainbow uniforms, their rumpled grumposaurus of a coach and a defense-optional game plan that kept the scoreboard clicking into the 120s and 130s night after night.
At other times, loving them was more difficult, say, during those 50, 60 and 70-loss seasons in the &rsquo;90s that installed a revolving door on the coach&rsquo;s office, or even during a decade-long resurgence in the 2000s when they were led by a fickle superstar who ultimately bailed for New York City.
And even now, with the Nuggets the top seed in the Western Conference, Denver has yet to be mistaken for much beyond an NBA novelty. Such is life in a league driven by superstars who are on a first-name basis with fans &mdash; Magic, Michael, LeBron and Steph &mdash; but never by a team that doesn&rsquo;t win titles, doesn&rsquo;t even play for them, and doesn&rsquo;t get much love even when&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/nba-mvp-jokic-embiid-antetokounmpo-award-finalists-befc47525340c68c47b50cf5ddcfdee5">the two-maybe-three-time MVP</a>&nbsp;is on its roster.
And yet, as any Denver fan of a certain age will tell you, there is something special about the Nuggets. While Denver may obsess over the Broncos, love the Avalanche and tolerate the Rockies, only one team really placed this dusty old cowtown on the map. That&rsquo;s the basketball franchise the NBA plucked from the dying ABA in 1976 to officially turn Denver into not just a major-league city, but a winning one.
&ldquo;There was always a sense of pride that that was the other professional sports franchise in town,&rdquo; said Ron Zappolo, the longtime Denver sports and news anchor, in recalling a long stretch when Denver&rsquo;s big-league teams were the Broncos and the Nuggets. &ldquo;And they never took a back seat to too much. And, yeah, they weren&rsquo;t champions, but they won a ton of games in the &rsquo;80s, and they made it entertaining for everybody.&rsquo;&rdquo;
Their welcome to the NBA came a year before the Broncos &mdash; still B-listers at best and seven years from landing John Elway &mdash; made their first Super Bowl. Denver&rsquo;s biggest sports star at that time: a gap-toothed undersized center with an awkward-but-effective head fake named Dan Issel.
Issel, Bobby Jones and the Skywalker, David Thompson, lost to the Blazers and Bill Walton in the conference semifinals that season. Ever since, part of the price of loving the Nuggets is that the fun always ends early. The Nuggets have been to the playoffs 29 times in their 47 years in the league. They have never played in the NBA Finals.
The player who could change that is Nikola Jokic, a 6-foot-11 force of nature from Serbia who finished 0.2 assists short of averaging a triple-double this season &ndash; something only guards Russell Westbrook and Oscar Robertson have done.
Yet, the national debate this season centers around whether the Lakers, Warriors or Denver&rsquo;s next opponent, the Suns, will win the West. Those discussions feel more like a rite of passage than a true insult in Denver.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been here since the &rsquo;70s, and there&rsquo;s always been a national feeling that what happens in Denver, it&rsquo;s in the Rocky Mountain time zone out there, it&rsquo;s kind of quirky, it&rsquo;s kind of crazy, but, ehhh,&rdquo; Zappolo said.
By 1980, Doug Moe had returned to Denver to take Larry Brown&rsquo;s spot on the sideline. He, along with high-scoring Alex English and Kiki Vandeweghe, made the Nuggets eminently watchable. They averaged more than 120 points a game for five straight seasons. They traded in their &rsquo;70s logo &mdash; a gold-digging mountain man named Maxie Miner &mdash; for those multi-colored rainbow threads with the outline of the Denver skyline. Today, those are among America&rsquo;s favorite throwback unis.
Moe was worth watching all by himself &mdash; a coach whose wry basketball brilliance was on par with his need of a good dry cleaner for his sports coats and a bar of soap for his mouth. Ten years into the gig, he popped champagne at the news conference on the day he was fired. He is still the team&rsquo;s most successful coach, with 432 wins.
What his team could never overcome was the unfortunate fate of sharing the Western Conference with the Lakers. The best Denver team of that era was the 1984-85 squad that fell 4-1 to Magic and Showtime in the conference finals.
Moe&rsquo;s firing led to the indignities of irrelevance that, it could be argued, have bled into today.
There were 12 coaches over the next 14 years. Twice, Issel manned the bench. The first time, Dikembe Mutombo helped the Nuggets rally from 0-2 against Seattle to become the first 8 seed to beat a 1.
George Karl, like Moe and Brown before him a product of the Dean Smith-North Carolina motion system, coached the Nuggets from 2005-13 and made the playoffs every year, including in 2009. That season, they lost to the Lakers and Kobe Bryant in Denver&rsquo;s third trip to the West finals.
Karl&rsquo;s tenure was marked by an uneasy alliance with Carmelo Anthony -- with Kenyon Martin, Chauncey Billups and even Allen Iverson making appearances in attempts to get the Nuggets over the hump. That group made news, but not the finals, and &rsquo;Melo eventually forced his way to the Knicks.
What put the Nuggets in the headlines again is a second-round draft pick whose selection barely registered across basketball or in Denver.
Title or no, the selection of Jokic &mdash; a two-time league MVP and a finalist for a third award &mdash; already&nbsp;<a class="paragraph-link" href="https://apnews.com/article/denver-nuggets-nba-sports-nikola-jokic-6b7dc34c311b6810ec67c76ee2208c2d">goes down as one of the best personnel moves in the history of the league</a>. Still, the Nuggets have won five and lost four playoff series since Jokic started taking the Nuggets to the playoffs in 2019.
So, as Denver prepares for Kevin Durant and Phoenix, some Colorado natives might be bracing for the worst. Few, however, will turn their backs completely.
&ldquo;There has always been a soft spot for this team,&rdquo; Zappolo said.
And if, after all these years, there really is gold at the end of all those rainbows, a real Nuggets fan would have to see it to believe it.

The top-seeded Denver Nuggets are flying under the radar, but that's nothing new.

Nuggets searching for NBA gold at the end of the rainbows

Nekias Duncan thoroughly breaks down all five teams in the Northwest Division ahead of the 2022-23 season.

2022-23 NBA Season Preview: Northwest Division

NBA Media Day is typically a wellspring of optimism and excitement for teams across the Association. But in Boston, Celtics players have simply been trying to collect their bearings.
Ime Udoka's sudden one-year suspension as the team's head coach has rocked the organization and sent unprecedented questions toward a roster trying to rebound from falling two wins short of an NBA title. While Monday's press conference still included on-court questions, most of the dialogue revolved around Udoka, interim head coach Joe Mazzulla and the players' ability to even process this past week.&nbsp;
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Here's what we did learn about the Celtics' muddled circumstances, plus some unanswered questions that will hopefully be answered before the season:
WHAT DO THE PLAYERS KNOW ABOUT IME UDOKA'S MISCONDUCT?
Based on their answers, very little.
Jayson Tatum said he found out about Udoka's suspension on Twitter. Grant Williams said he learned "same as everyone else." <a href="https://theathletic.com/3617945/2022/09/22/celtics-ime-udoka-discipline/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Shams Charania of&nbsp;The Athletic</a>&nbsp;reported that members of the Celtics franchise first learned of Ime Udoka's relationship with another woman in the organization in July.
Marcus Smart said that Udoka visited him and other players in Los Angeles over the summer, and he noticed nothing unusual about the suspended head coach.
"I think that's why (the news is) so off-guard for us, because everything just seemed so normal," Smart said.
Since the announcement, the players have obviously met and had conversations. But several indicated that, as of Monday, the players don't know much more information than the public. Tatum has not spoken with Udoka since the suspension.
"It's been hell for us, caught by surprise. Nobody really knows anything. So we're just in the wind just like everybody else. So the last couple of days, as far as this, have been confusing," Smart said.
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"It's been hell for us... these last couple days for us have been confusing." Marcus Smart reacts to Ime Udoka's suspension, and Joe Mazzulla stepping in as interim head coach <a href="https://t.co/IwD4YJCDco">pic.twitter.com/IwD4YJCDco</a>
&mdash; Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBCSCeltics/status/1574455058460282880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 26, 2022</a></blockquote>

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"I wish we had more details," Jaylen Brown said. "From what we know, it's hard to make a decision based upon whether it's consensual or not in the workplace or whatever is going on &mdash; which we've known has happened before in the workplace &mdash; but I guess there's more to it possibly, which we don't know. I don't know. I don't have all the details; [they're] not being shared with me. So it's hard to really comment on something that you're not filled in with all the details. So I don't really have a feeling or comment on my emotions about it because I don't have the details."
Celtics players generally seemed to understand that legal and privacy reasons have slowed the information process. That doesn't mean it's easy being left in the dark on the full story.
"If you read the statement, and if you watched the press conference [Friday], obviously, apparently there's a lot of things that they can't, can't speak about," Tatum said. "So I think I'm kind of in the same boat, as &mdash; I don't know. So it's hard for me to answer if things were handled the right way [or] if they weren't because I guess for a lot of reasons, I don't know all the details."
Added Smart: "We don't know what the organization knows. So it's kind of hard to say that &mdash; we don't know what they know, so we don't know what they are supposed to tell us or what we're supposed to know. And I think this is where this is at and why it is what it is, because literally, no one knows anything. We're still waiting just like everybody else. As a player, you would like it to be known, but at the same time, that's none of our business. It's their lives. It's the people involved, it's between them, you know, and we should respect their privacy and we understand, just like we want our privacy respected. So, although, as a player, you would like to know, like I said, it's it's not an obligation."
DOES JOE MAZZULLA HAVE THE BACKING OF THE PLAYERS?
Like <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/breakingnews/celtics-udoka-suspended-for-multiple-policy-violations" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Brad Stevens and Wyc Grousbeck did on Friday,</a> the players gave positive reviews of Mazzulla. The 34-year-old was hired as an assistant on the C's staff in 2019, and is a holdover from the Stevens coaching era.
"He knows and understands us as players. He's built relationships with us. So we love Joe; we're excited to be able to work with him in this opportunity that he has," Smart said.
Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser have both played under Mazzulla when he was at the helm of the Summer League Celtics.
"I think he's gonna be an unbelievable coach," Pritchard said. "He's intelligent, he knows the game and I think he is the right amount of, like, pushing players, but also understanding [them]."
"I think he is a hard-nosed type of coach," Hauser added. "He kind of says it how it is, but he also really cares about you as a person &mdash; not only a basketball player, but he really cares about the off-the-floor stuff. I'm excited for Joe, and I can't wait to see how he takes advantage of this opportunity."
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Malcolm Brogdon certainly didn't expect this past week to happen when he <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/nba-malcolm-brogdon-qa-fit-boston-celtics-basketball-without-borders-africa-camp-egypt-jayson-tatum-jaylen-brown-danilo-gallinari-ime-udoka" target="_blank" rel="noopener">joined Boston as a high-profile trade acquisition</a>. Brogdon said the Indiana Pacers gave him a few options for trade destinations, and he picked Boston because, "I want to win."
In his short time knowing Mazzulla, Brogdon has admired his discipline. Mazzulla often lifts weights with Brogdon early in the morning. One time he approached Brogdon, who was doing a breathing exercise, and started explaining the theories behind different techniques. Brogdon has also heard of Mazzulla's reputation for putting together quality opponent scouts.
"He's a guy that is so detail-oriented; I am like-minded with people that are detail-oriented, that care about the small things, the little things that get you through the day," Brogdon said.
WHAT WILL MAZZULLA CHANGE FROM UDOKA'S SYSTEM?
Of course, the Celtics have all the on-court pieces to replicate and even improve upon last season. Mazzulla does not want to drastically change course from Boston's success under Udoka.&nbsp;
"It's about carrying on the identity of our players," Mazzulla said. "We had our struggles early last season, but at our best, we knew what our identity was. It was our defense, it was our buy-in from a defensive standpoint, and then it was sharing the ball and moving quickly on the offensive end. So as much as we can stick to the things that we were great at last year, and then find small areas to improve in, is the right way to go."
The Celtics' coaching staff now has two openings with Udoka's suspension and Will Hardy's departure for the Utah Jazz head coaching gig. Mazzulla has not thought about replacements yet and would work with Stevens on filling out the bench. He believes the foundation of existing relationships should help the Celtics build solid chemistry early in the season.
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Joe Mazzulla talks about the strong endorsement he received from Brad Stevens for interim head coach <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Celtics?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Celtics</a> <a href="https://t.co/hCuynuUdoR">pic.twitter.com/hCuynuUdoR</a>
&mdash; Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBCSCeltics/status/1574435350465990657?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 26, 2022</a></blockquote>

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WHAT HAPPENS TO THE CENTER ROTATION WITH ROBERT WILLIAMS III OUT?
Amidst the off-court bombshell, the Celtics also announced that Robert Williams III will miss 8-to-12 weeks as he recovers from arthroscopic knee surgery. This puts additional strain on an already-thin big rotation for a Boston team that sent Daniel Theis out in the trade for Brogdon this summer.
Luke Kornet could step into major minutes. The 7-foot-2 center spent most of last season with the Maine Celtics in the NBA G League, but has four seasons of experience at the top level. Kornet said that with the door for minutes certainly open, his mindset naturally changes, but not his approach to the game.
"There definitely is a bit of a switch in that, but in terms of still being a basketball player and conditioning and [wondering] how am I going to help this team do the best they can &mdash; a lot of those things stay the same. But there's some change," Kornet said.
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A larger burden falls on Al Horford, now age-36 and older than his head coach, to shoulder some of the two-way responsibilities Rob Williams wields.
"For me, I have to step up a little more, Grant's gonna have to step up a little more, Luke, whichever one of our bigs, we just have to step up and do a little more," Horford said. "Even some of our guys, whether it's you know, [Tatum] playing more at the 4 or whatever it may be, I'm not sure about all that. But we all just have to do more until he gets back."
Williams, meanwhile, will start a road to recovery that began as he battled knee injuries throughout last spring's playoffs. Despite eventually needing surgery, he doesn't regret playing through the injury to compete in the NBA Finals.
"I'm playing the Finals, you know what I'm saying?" Williams said. "You win some you lose some, but I don't regret my decision at all. I was 24 years old, my dream was to play in the Finals, dawg. I can't regret that sh**."
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
What is the extent of Udoka's misconduct? &mdash; Ultimately, the players and public need more details as to the forces behind a year-long suspension and potential firing. Grousbeck said Friday that Udoka committed multiple violations of multiple team policies, suggesting the punishment came down for much more than the singular act of being in a workplace relationship. While the woman's privacy must be respected, there must be some level of clarity on the wrongdoing.
What has Mazzulla done to atone for his past arrests?&nbsp;&mdash; Mazzulla answered two questions relating to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/celtics/2022/09/22/joe-mazzulla-boston-celtics-new-coach-ime-udoka-suspension/8087114001/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">multiple arrests between 2008 and 2009</a>, including a domestic violence charge in '09. Here were his quotes:&nbsp;&nbsp;
"Listen, I've made mistakes. I'm not perfect. I've hurt people, and I've had to use the situations I put myself in as a younger man, I've had to use to learn from and to become a better person," Mazzulla said. "And that's what I've tried to focus on is: 'How can I recreate my identity as a person? How can I rely on my faith? And how can I just have a positive impact on the people around me?' And I've always had good people around me...
"...I can't talk about specifics of [the incidents]. But what I can talk about is: I'm not the same person that I was, and I think as you grow as a person, you're constantly having to build an identity, and you know, I didn't have an identity at a certain point in my life for whatever reason. And I think it's [about]: 'How can I develop an identity? How can I find a foundation which for me, is my faith, and then, how can I impact people positively around me? And that's something that I really learned throughout my life.'"
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&ldquo;That made him who he is today&hellip; I&rsquo;ll be the first to tell you, I believe in him.&rdquo; Brad Stevens on Joe Mazzulla after being asked about Mazzulla&rsquo;s domestic battery charges from his college days. <a href="https://twitter.com/ABC6?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@abc6</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/bleedgreen?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#bleedgreen</a> <a href="https://t.co/s5ia1rYvnY">pic.twitter.com/s5ia1rYvnY</a>
&mdash; Ian Steele (@IanSteeleABC6) <a href="https://twitter.com/IanSteeleABC6/status/1573338669007704064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 23, 2022</a></blockquote>

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Mazzulla did not dodge any questions and he did acknowledge his past wrongdoing. But he also did not explain what led to his behavior, what in his faith prompted the change and how he has shown other people he has progressed.
Player and front-office endorsements are not enough in an NBA that has hired at least two other coaches with domestic-violence and sexual-assault histories in the last year-and-change &mdash; not to mention the recent reminders of troubling workplace environments in Boston and Phoenix. We need more assurance that this behavior does not have a tolerable place in the league.
How will Mazzulla manage his starters in the early goings of the regular season? &mdash; Among the many, many questions Mazzulla will face as he acclimates to the head-coaching gig is the impending usage for Tatum, Brown and others. Tatum played through a fractured wrist down the stretch of the postseason (he said he feels good on Monday).
Can Mazzulla give the high-usage players more rest to hopefully prepare them for another deep playoff run? Or will the Celtics have to go all-out just to stay on top of a stacked Eastern Conference?
ADDITIONAL NOTES
<ul>
<li>Brown's name popped up in trade rumors surrounding Kevin Durant this offseason, and the 25-year-old said he discussed those rumors with members of the Celtics, but did not elaborate.</li>
</ul>
"I've talked to my teammates, I talked to ownership, the organization, etc. I'll keep those conversations between us," Brown said. "All I can say is now that I'm here, I'm ready to play basketball. I'm in great shape, probably the best shape of my life. So I'm excited to start the journey."
<ul>
<li>With Brogdon bolstering a stellar guard rotation, his addition leaves room to wonder about Pritchard's playing time. Pritchard is embracing the competition for minutes in training camp.</li>
</ul>
"Obviously, we have a lot of tremendous players. But I don't go through all summer and all year working on my game to just ride the bench," Pritchard said. "So for me, I'm just looking forward to the opportunity to go out there and compete, and earn minutes and see where that lies. Ultimately, we just want the team success though."
<ul>
<li>Grant Williams will soon be eligible for a contract extension, but said he hasn't let that distract him. &nbsp;</li>
</ul>
"When it comes to that, I just let my agents and everybody handle it, because if you become too overwhelmed or concerned with it, that's when you start focusing on your play or you start doing things that aren't necessarily characteristic of yourself," Williams said. "For me, my number one focus and goal is allowing and helping this team to win a championship. Everything else takes care of itself."

Celtics players addressed the upcoming season and head coaching change on Monday at Media Day.

2022 Boston Celtics Media Day Notebook: What did we learn?

Over Alex Caruso's six seasons as a professional basketball player, he has navigated through a shifting landscape of teams, roles and expectations.
His career began as an undrafted rookie with the Oklahoma City Blue. Then, he burst into the Hollywood spotlight with the Los Angeles Lakers and played a significant role while winning his first NBA championship. And after earning a lucrative contract from the Chicago Bulls, Caruso has now taken on the responsibility of major minutes on a retooled playoff contender in the Windy City.&nbsp;
Injuries, plus the physical and mental toll of playing in the league, can jostle a player out of a rhythm. When Caruso needs to recalibrate, he often hones in on a different type of shot.
"Golf is the great analogy for anything in life to be honest," Caruso told Basketball News. "[Because of] how much stress there is on that and how much mental fortitude you have to have &mdash; patience, [and] the ability to take in a bunch of information and create or formulate a game plan and try and act on it. But the thing for golf, for me, is just really to get away. It's kind of one of my only hobbies."
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Caruso's second sport is well-documented. He's&nbsp;<a href="https://uproxx.com/dimemag/alex-caruso-bulls-interview-fashion-style-golf/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">played with his father at Pebble Beach</a>, and he competed in the American Century Championship this summer. Caruso says that, like developing a swing in golf, basketball is all about muscle memory and disciplined repetition. When your shot is off &mdash; just like in golf &mdash; sometimes you just have to lean on what works for you.
"Something that I realized, through golf swings sometimes, is if I'm poking the ball or I'm slicing it too much, getting back to the basics and just having more of a feel sometimes [works]. I apply that to my basketball games," Caruso said. "If I feel like I'm forcing something too much or things aren't going my way, I just try to get back to the basics [and] get back to what feels right. My natural abilities got me to a really good spot in life and with this game, so that's something I always kind of fall back on."
Like with his golf game, Caruso believes the Bulls have to rediscover what "feels right."
Chicago is running back a largely similar roster from their first season of an overhaul in 2021-22. Given their late-year fade, sixth-place finish in the Eastern Conference and quiet first-round exit from the playoffs, the Bulls may appear to be sitting on their hands on the surface. However, Caruso emphasized that when Chicago was healthy and locked in, as they were in the first stages of last season, the roster had palpable success.
The Bulls were on top of the East standings for 47 days, second only to the Miami Heat, and held the first seed as late as Feb. 25. They had the NBA's 10th-ranked defense through the end of the 2021 calendar year; that fell to 22nd by the end of the regular season. To Caruso, a return to the top means reemphasizing the details of what had the Bulls clicking last winter.
"Obviously, we had a little bit of bad luck with injuries last year. That doesn't help," Caruso said. "I think in the beginning of the year, we were first in the East, we had a great Defensive Rating [and the] offense was doing everything they needed to do as far as moving the ball, creating open shots. And then, through a little bit of adversity in the year, we dropped a little bit of discipline in certain areas of the game.
"I think that's something that, if you're trying to win &mdash; and win in the postseason &mdash; those are things that you got to be consistent at."
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Javonte Green and Derrick Jones Jr. are back, Patrick Williams has a full summer after an injury-riddled second season, and Andre Drummond is joining the fold to back up Nikola Vucevic. Caruso says those guys all make a defensive difference, and even leading scorers DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine represent an athletic presence. But when everyone's healthy, the first line of defense comes from two ex-Laker teammates in Caruso and Lonzo Ball.&nbsp;
Caruso averaged a career-high 1.7 steals per game in his first year as a Bull. Had he played enough games, he likely would have warranted All-Defensive consideration. He deflected the ball 3.4 times per game in 2021-22, tied for fourth-most among all NBA players. Chicago was 8.5 points stingier per 100 defensive possessions with Caruso on the floor too &mdash; a differential in the 96th percentile of all players, per Cleaning the Glass.
The now-veteran guard has this remarkable, innate ability to visualize a tree of outcomes on any defensive possession. He describes his defense like he's accounting for a multiverse, then whittling down the possibilities until he reaches the branch he wants. The <a href="https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/bulls/bulls-alex-caruso-details-how-defense-fuels-his-game" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pacing of the shot clock</a>, the rhythm of an opponent's dribble and the locations of his teammates (as he alluded to in the below video) all help Caruso wade through uncertainty.
<iframe title="Alex Caruso Breaks Down How to Guard The NBA&rsquo;s Best Scorers" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RyA_wTOzza4" width="100%" height="325" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
"[In the] professional game, the more information you can have and understand before a play takes place, the better chance you have of a successful stop, or offensive possession, whatever it is," Caruso explained. "The court is so big and the three-point line's so far away. And, nowadays, everybody's playing pace-and-space offense where they're trying to spread everybody out and take advantage of 1-on-1 matchups.
"For me, it's just about creating advantages for myself. These guys are already so good; if I try to play them 1-on-1, just head-up, I could play the best defense of my life and they still might score. So for me, it's just trying to create advantages as much as I can. The best advantage you have on defense is your teammates, so I try to use them as much as possible, whether they're even aware of it or not."
Pesky screen navigation had become a tool for defenses to gunk up today's pick-and-roll-happy attacks. Caruso excels as a screen irritant, using patience and precision to read a ball-handler's choices. He revels in the finer points of defending screens and, after six seasons as a pro, has built up an encyclopedia of tricks and tendencies.
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"[It takes] a little bit of anticipation [and] being able to control the ball-handler," Caruso said. "If he has a chance to reject you, and you try to get skinny and get over the top of the screen, then it's just going to increase that 2-on-1 advantage that they're trying to get with the pick-and-roll. It's just about anticipating, but then, trying to be like a defensive back in the NFL. I'm trying to mirror what they're doing. I'm not trying to necessarily beat them to the spot. I just want to make sure that I'm in their hip pocket, moving as they're moving.
"Then, once we get to the point of the screen, I just connect to their body &mdash; hip-to-hip, chest-to-chest &mdash; and just try to get skinny and get through the screen. So, it comes with a lot of practice too. For years, I've been fighting over ball-screens trying to get better at it, and it's been useful for me."
Of course, the second challenge is literally getting through that screen, set by some of the league's most imposing physical obstacles. Caruso quickly lists Steven Adams and Jonas Valanciunas, two notorious bruisers, among the league's toughest screen-setters.
His third choice &mdash; after some thought &mdash; is Draymond Green.
"Just because he sets illegal screens and they let him get away with it," said a smirking Caruso, who concedes that he, too, tries to push referees' tolerance.
"On defense, I probably foul a little more than I should, but the refs can't call a foul every single time," Caruso added. "So it's like &mdash; Draymond's gonna get Steph [Curry] open eventually. He's gonna run into you and the refs aren't going to call it. So just his ability to be physical and get guys open is pretty good."
Caruso reunited with Ball last season, and the two immediately clicked. Ball was similarly effective when healthy and placed just behind Caruso with 3.2 deflections per game. In the 460 minutes the duo played together, it outscored opponents by 9.5 points per 100 possessions.&nbsp;
Ball is currently recovering from a torn meniscus and his return date <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/bulls-optimistic-on-lonzo-balls-injured-knee" target="_blank" rel="noopener">is still up in the air.</a>&nbsp;But Caruso can't wait to have him back on the floor, saying that they "see a lot of the same stuff on the court." After two years apart, Caruso believes Ball has rediscovered his own strengths and seems more comfortable as a pro.
"I think he started playing his game a little more, and I think he might have tried to fit into a role a little bit in L.A . &mdash; and you kind of have to when you have superstar players around you for that last year like he did," Caruso said. "I think he got the chance in New Orleans to play his game the same way he's played from high school, to college, to get into the pros.
"There's a reason he was the No. 2 overall pick and got to where he was. He's an elite player at the stuff that he does, and I think he's doing things that he does best. He's able to do those with us and the Bulls. I'm excited for him to come back and have a good year."
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While Caruso and Ball battled injuries, Ayo Dosunmu stepped into the fray as a rookie second-round pick and flashed defensive promise. The Bulls hope to further bolster the backcourt stoppage with Dalen Terry, their No. 18 overall selection from this year's draft. Caruso recognizes that learning defense in a trial-by-fire environment can be challenging, and he was impressed with how Dosunmu handled the burden.
"Ayo was, basically all last year, just playing off the feel," Caruso said of his young teammate. "Your first year in the league, you don't understand concepts really. You don't understand coverages. You're seeing guys play, and you're playing against guys for the first time. You're seeing their best moves for the first time; they're probably going to beat you most of the time. So for him to be able to compete the way he did last year on defense is a great sign for a guy in his first year."
That's the lesson Caruso is learning, and teaching, as he grapples with the pro lifestyle. There's no textbook answer to playing defense in the NBA, winning at the highest level or even maintaining a consistent golf game. Sometimes it all comes down to building a knowledge base and feeling out the right path.
Learning what "feels right" can also be an experimental process. Caruso's mastery of the on-court intricacies has already set him apart as a defender. Those nitty-gritty details are also helping him learn how to evolve his nutrition habits and stay best attuned to the wear-and-tear of the NBA schedule.
Caruso is currently teaming up with ZENB, a plant-based food brand centered in Chicago, and is competing in a cooking competition against former LA Sparks guard Te'a Cooper. The pair will make four dishes out of plant-based alternative foods, and Caruso has been taking careful notes from chef Monti Carlo.
"It's just a fun experience to learn from Chef Monti, who's been in cooking shows herself and has experience, and to just learn some, tricks and trades and figure out some stuff to help myself to be a better cook in the future," Caruso said.&nbsp;
The 28-year-old averaged 28.0 minutes per game last season, by far a career-high. Caruso's hard-nosed aggression is a signature strength; he's also in the thick of action that can (and did) result in injuries. In 2021-22, he fractured his wrist and missed six weeks, and also missed games due to a foot sprain, concussion and minor hamstring and back issues.
Caruso says he currently feels fine physically, and has gotten in some productive workouts this offseason. But his minute uptick has also forced him to reflect on his habits &mdash; be it an increased focus on recovery with massages, cold tubs and lift sessions or altering his diet. Caruso has looked at shifting toward more plant-based foods with inspiration from ZENB. He's also staying regimented with his four meals per day, and, over time, has learned to carefully monitor his hydration.
"Hydration, I think, is one of the things that I overlooked a lot as a young professional," Caruso said. "It's something now that I've realized, when I get the right sugars and salts back into my body through sports drinks [and] electrolyte packets, as well as water, I just have better sleep, [and] I have better workouts the next day... I'm already a slim guy as it is, so for me to be able to maintain weight through an 82-game-plus season, it's something that I've really tried to hone in on and perfect for myself."
In the grand scheme of the NBA, these minute details might seem insignificant. But they've helped Caruso blossom from an undrafted rookie into a defensive fulcrum, and they'll help him and Chicago reach the next tier of contention.
"It's just little things... that I've had to tweak," Caruso said. "Experience is the best teacher, so it's stuff that I've learned from and can hopefully take and put into my regimen moving forward."

Ethan Fuller chats with Alex Caruso about his strategy behind defending NBA players, his thoughts on the Bulls, nutrition and more.

Alex Caruso is nailing down the details with the Chicago Bulls

Civil Rights attorney Lee Merritt discusses the power and influence the NBA has, and can continue to have &mdash; if the NBA continues using its platform, voices and resources to fight for justice.&nbsp;
Lee Merritt is one of the attorneys for Ahmaud Arbery&rsquo;s family &mdash; a 25-year-old black man who was murdered while on a run near Brunswick, in Glynn County, Georgia. A verdict of life imprisonment was just announced in the case, in which three men were convicted of murdering Arbery. While Lee Merritt is definitely relieved about the verdict, we discuss the long road ahead to achieve justice and equality for all. Merritt is running for attorney general in Texas and I would love to see the NBA duplicate what the WNBA did, when they threw their support behind Raphael Warnock, an Atlanta-area pastor who was running as a Democrat at the time for (and would eventually win) one of Georgia&rsquo;s seats in the U.S. Senate.&nbsp;
This was a great discussion.
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Etan Thomas: So this time last year, I interviewed a group of WNBA players, [including] Renee Montgomery and Elizabeth Williams, who both played for the Atlanta Dream at the time, [as well as] Tierra Ruffin-Pratt, Angel McCoughtry &mdash; and Eric Garner's daughter, Emerald. And <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/wnba-nba-kelly-loeffler-atlanta-dream-renee-montgomery-elizabeth-williams-swin-cash-etan-thomas-activism-black-lives-matter-activist-movement-vote-warnock-shirts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">we discussed what the WNBA did to galvanize support for Raphael Warnock, and ultimately get him in office and Kelly Loeffler out of office</a>. And it was really amazing. Because for one, Raphael Warnock was polling at 9% before the WNBA got involved. And he won &mdash; in Georgia, of all places.&nbsp;
So I want to see how we can galvanize the NBA to duplicate that with you, as you're running for attorney general in the state of Texas. So that's why I reached out to you to have this interview with you. I've been following you for a long time and I'm a big fan of the work that you do. And so, I'm going to send this interview to the NBA, to the <a href="https://www.thesocialchangefund.org">NBA Social Change Fund</a>.
Which, for those that aren't familiar, it was birthed out of the Bubble season. After the NBA players went on strike, after Jacob Blake was shot multiple times in broad daylight, in front of his children. The NBA Social Change Fund was formed by Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade, and is aimed to support critical issues in the black community.
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So that's why after speaking to Allisa Charles-Findley, who is Botham Jean's sister &mdash; and I actually interviewed her for my new book, &ldquo;<a href="http://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/police-brutality-and-white-supremacy-the-fight-against-american-traditions/">Police Brutality and White Supremacy: The Fight Against American Traditions.</a>&rdquo;
She was one of the people I interviewed, along with Atatiana Jefferson's family, who I know that you work with as well &mdash; so we came up with the idea of conducting this interview with you, to try to galvanize that support from the NBA. Some people are like, "Alright, you usually do basketball stuff. Why are you interviewing a politician right now?" But that's the reason why. So thank you for taking this time.
Lee Merritt: "Sure, I really appreciate that. During most of my career, I've enjoyed the support of the National Basketball Association. I can recall in 2017, a young man named <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/courts/2018/08/29/jordan-edwards-made-the-case-against-roy-oliver-unlike-any-murder-trial-dallas-had-ever-seen/">Jordan Edwards </a>was slain in Balch Springs, Texas.&nbsp;
"It was in the middle of the NBA playoffs &mdash; and Steve Kerr, who had suffered family tragedy as well, identified with that family, reached out, invited them to the playoff games [and] got his brothers to take their mind off of it for a bit.
"I actually used to coach basketball myself. I was a coach down at South Atlanta High School. I coached Derrick Favors, I coached against Cousins and Walls* when they were high school students. And I enjoy a relationship with them today, continuing to give back to the community of Atlanta.
"And yeah, the names that you mentioned that you work with, Chris Paul has supported the work and the families I represent. Dwyane Wade and his wife, Gabrielle Union, [have] been major, major supporters over the course of my career.
"And, just as I transition away from representing one family at a time and start talking about representing larger groups of people and going towards policies, I certainly think the NBA can play a major role &mdash; in not only the success of the campaign, but championing some of those issues that we're fighting for on a case-by-case basis, and taking it to one of the biggest states in the country and really impacting national policy."
Etan: So, let me ask you to review some of the cases that you've worked with before, and the people that you've represented. We could start off with Ahmaud Arbery.
Merritt: "Sure. I came to represent the Ahmaud Arbery family before the video was released of his brutal slaying in South Georgia. Many [...] will recall that he was a South Georgia jogger. On February 23, 2020, he was targeted by three white men who have now been each <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/jury-reaches-verdict-ahmaud-arbery-death-case/story?id=81353504">convicted of murder</a>, and are facing life sentences in the state of Georgia, as well as federal hate crime charges.
"I've also represented... Unfortunately, the list of families that I've represented is quite extensive. I represent over 67 families who have suffered misuse of force, that lost a loved one, as a result of the deadliest police culture in the world. Some of the names that your viewers may have heard of.
"You mentioned [...] <a href="https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/crime/article236198028.html">Atatiana Jefferson</a>.&nbsp;
"Of course, that case is ongoing. <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/death-innocent-man-timeline-wrong-apartment-murder-trial/story?id=65938727">Botham Jean</a>, who was an accountant eating a bowl of ice cream in his own apartment complex.&nbsp;
"<a href="https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-illinois-police-shooting-guard-20181112-story.html">Jemel Roberson</a> was a security guard in Chicago. Had just stopped a mass shooting, and was shot in the back by a police officer who must have mistook him for a gunman.&nbsp;
"<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/13/us/california-attorney-general-sean-monterrosa-shooting/index.html">Sean Monterrosa</a> in California.
"But the bulk of my work has been in Texas. I represent <a href="https://foxsanantonio.com/news/local/damian-daniels-family-responds-to-no-indictment-for-deputy-that-killed-him">Damian Daniels</a>, a veteran shot to death in his home.&nbsp;
"<a href="https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Family-of-woman-killed-by-Baytown-officer-13872709.php">Pamela Turner</a> in the Houston area.&nbsp;
"And like I said, we could probably spend the rest of this podcast going through the list of names."
Etan: Wow! So now you're running for attorney general in Texas. And for those that don't know, what exactly are the responsibilities of an attorney general?
Merritt: "The attorney general of Texas, and an attorney general in any state, is the legal voice for the people. They're supposed to serve as the spokesperson for what justice is in a municipality. And so we've seen it, in cases like Breonna Taylor, where we had a really bad attorney general interfere with accountability in that case, in the form of Daniel Cameron. We've seen the opposite end of that spectrum with Keith Ellison and the work that he's done in Minnesota. Prosecuting the officers responsible for the death of George Floyd and, most recently, Daunte Wright.
"But even beyond the criminal justice aspect, the attorney general&rsquo;s office, particularly in the state of Texas, impacts virtually every aspect of Texas life. So property taxes, school protection. And we've heard a lot recently in the news about the CRT [Critical Race Theory] scam, where they're trying to erase entire portions of our history in the name of not getting anyone upset.
"From the border crisis, to really economic empowerment in our schools. There's so many businesses that are attempting to get off the ground, but don't have access to the kind of governmental loans and support that our white counterparts do.
"All of those things run through the attorney general's office. It's a very, very influential office. More or less the second-in-command in the state of Texas."
Etan: Now, Ken Paxton, [is] who you would be running against, and who is the current attorney general &mdash; and has been since 2015. I want to talk about the stark differences between the two of you, because it's really night and day.
But I want to start off with this, because the Jan. 6 insurrection [anniversary] is upon us. And you know, I'm looking at him, looking at the footage, and I see him at a rally right before the insurrection, almost like leading the charge. Explain to me, let's start off with there, about the stark differences between you and Ken Paxton.
Merritt: "Well, there is a clear contrast. You know, Texas was in the national news because of [its] unique voter suppression laws. They passed some laws that would make it more difficult for the black and brown people in the state, people with disabilities and marginalized communities to vote.
"It was so upsetting that certain members of the Texas legislature left the state and went to DC &mdash; refused to participate in that session in order to fight for voting rights. Now, I was present with them. I thought that was a fight worth standing with people for, providing both legal advice and strategies, working with the labor community and others to take on voting issues in Texas.
"By contrast, the last sort of infamous trip of the attorney general, the current attorney general, to our nation's capital was on Jan. 6. And we don't know exactly what he did there, because he has not participated in an ongoing investigation in terms of his potential criminal liability for helping to incite a riot.
"But he was very publicly on camera, encouraging the soon-to-be riders and insurrectionists that the election was stolen, that they had a responsibility to fight. And he invoked the name of Texas when he did it. He said, "You all should fight, because Texans fight." And he laid out that he had fought to overturn the results of the free and fair election. And yeah, that's our top legal position in the state, advocating for the overthrow of our government."
---------------
We then went on to discuss particular differences between him and Ken Paxton such as his position on education, police reform, border, gun training before owning a gun, and we cleared up the misconceptions on CRT, being anti-police vs. anti-police brutality, Second Amendment rights, etc.
---------------
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Etan: So let's go to the NBA, and how important it is for the NBA to continue to promote, to continue to use their platforms, to be able to &mdash; I mean, this is the thing. It's important to do that part. But now we have to take it a step further.
And I think the NBA has been doing a great job of promoting, raising awareness. You saw it all especially during the Bubble season, after the entire country was promoting and demonstrating and protesting what happened with George Floyd, what happened with Breonna Taylor [and] Ahmaud Arbery.
You saw John Wall and Bradley Beal here in D.C. leading protests. You saw all the Ball brothers, you saw Russell Westbrook in L.A. You saw Jaylen Brown and Enes Kanter Freedom too, in Boston &mdash; of course everything that LeBron was always doing.
But now it's like, it needs to be a step further, like the next step. And I think that you, with what you are trying to implement in Texas as the attorney general, is that next step. Because you have to be able to have someone in place that's on the right side of wanting to be able to create something that functions properly. So just talk about that, how this is like the next step that should happen. Along with [...] raising awareness and protesting and everything like that.
Merritt: "Yeah. I can recall, we were in the middle of the NBA playoffs when Jacob Blake was repeatedly shot in his back by a Milwaukee police officer. And I was watching the game, and Chris Paul had just gone off, sort of a historic performance.
"And <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxcNbbyg0ZI">they interviewed him</a> right after the game. And they said, 'You know, Chris, you were playing...' I think he was playing his old team, the Houston Rockets. He was with the Oklahoma City Thunder [...], where Derrick Favors is currently.
"And they said, 'Tell us about this performance against your old team. You had a chance to really show them that you still got it.' And he said, 'Yeah, I don't really care about that. That's cool. And that's what I'm paid to do. But a law enforcement officer in my community has just shot someone in their back several times. He was unarmed and nonviolent. Let's talk about that.'
"I think it's on the players to stand up like Chris Paul did, and like you said, like people have done, in a systemic way across the National Basketball Association &mdash; where the pundits and the media might tell you, 'Could you just shut up and dribble.' We've heard that refrain before.
"It's important for the players to say, "No, actually I won't. This is my community. What's going on in our community, it's urgent. It's a crisis. It's not something that we want to put off for a later conversation or for the offseason. But where it happens, I'm going to stand up to it. And I will get involved in elections. And I will use my resources and time and attention to shine a light on these issues that must be addressed."
Etan: You know, it's interesting. In my book, &ldquo;<a href="http://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/we-matter-athletes-and-activism/">We Matter: Athletes and Activism</a>&rdquo; I interviewed Jahvaris Fulton, who is Trayvon Martin's brother. And in the interview, he told me how &mdash; and when he said this, it kind of threw me,&nbsp; because I didn't expect him to say it &mdash; he said that if it weren't for NBA players and celebrities and everybody like that, talking about his brother, he didn't think that anybody would know his name. And I was like, "Wow, that's kind of strong. Why do you say that?"
So then he explained to me how, when Trayvon Martin was first killed, his family was trying to get the local news people to cover it and they didn't want to cover it. They said, "Okay, another young black man was killed. That's not newsworthy."
And I was like, "That's what they told you?" He said, "Yeah," he was like, "We don't have no evidence. We don't have no video of it. Just your word saying that he [was] killed, that's not newsworthy." And he gave a shout-out to Roland Martin and some of the black news people, who were covering it. But he said, "But no local news people wanted to cover it."
So then he said, "But then, LeBron James started talking about it. And Dwyane Wade started talking about it. And then the entire Miami Heat team posed in the hoodies." So then he said, "So then you had everybody like, 'Okay, what is this that LeBron James is discussing? And why is Dwyane Wade feeling so passionate about this, and talking about his kids, and about this case?' Then everybody started to gravitate towards it and cover it and everything like that."
But he said [...] before, they couldn't get anybody to cover it. And that's just... It's unfortunate that it is that way, because people should have a regard for human life anyway, without an athlete having to speak about it. However, the athlete speaking about it is what drew the attention &mdash; and that just shows where athletes have to continue to do that, continue to use your voice and your platform to be able to speak to these causes.
And also to take it a step further by having laws being changed, and people who are in positions to fight for laws being changed, like [you are]. You know what I mean? And running for attorney general &mdash; [who] are in positions to actually implement some things so these things don't just continue to keep happening.
Merritt: "Yeah. I can remember in 2016, we saw two high-profile officer-involved shootings back-to-back, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. It was the same weekend, and it was almost like a dark cloud being hanged over impacted communities. And if you and I saw each other on the street, we would make eye contact and say, 'You know, man, this is becoming too much.'
"Dallas had a protest &mdash; I was living in Dallas at the time. And they had a protest downtown, where we marched and we discussed what happened, and started to talk about organizing police reform. And at the end of that protest, a vigilante named Micah Xavier Johnson, targeted law enforcement officers and shot five police officers and a couple of civilians as well. And you could imagine the national outcry about Black Lives Matter, and how they put law enforcement lives at risk.
"And everyone began to ignore the fact that people were there for protesting peacefully about police violence &mdash; that was back-to-back and overwhelming. And while it was a tragedy for our entire community that law enforcement officers were targeted by Mr. Johnson, there was also an ongoing crisis in our community, that was the reason that all those people had gathered and made targets of themselves.
"And it was Dwyane Wade. LeBron was still, I think, in 2016, with the Miami Heat. So it was Wade and LeBron who came forward at the ESPY Awards that weekend and re-centered the conversation. And said, 'That's terrible what happened in Dallas, and we back the blue. We stand for the law enforcement officers.'
&ldquo;But understand that our community is also under attack. And it's two sides of the same coin. We don't tolerate violence directed at law enforcement officers. And we cannot continue to tolerate violence directed at our community.
And it saved the national conversation so that we could get back to what had brought us all there in the first place. And so, yeah, members of the NBA have the opportunity, in [the] state of Texas, but [also] throughout the country, the voices of the NBA are critically important to that."
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Etan Thomas is joined by Lee Merritt on "The Rematch" to discuss social justice and the NBA's role in societal change.

Lee Merritt: The NBA could impact public policy and elections

Dave Bing is a lot of things. He&rsquo;s a Hall of Famer, a former mayor of Detroit and, most recently, a member of the <a href="https://www.nba.com/75" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NBA&rsquo;s 75th Anniversary Team</a>. But maybe more important than all of that, he&rsquo;s an old-timer.&nbsp;
And this final designation matters because, in our rapidly changing basketball civilization, old-timers offer the key to the gateway that connects the game&rsquo;s past with its present. Their sage wisdom enables us to predict the future by searching through its history.&nbsp;
But old-timers need not always be taken at their word. Still mere mortals, after all, an old-timer&rsquo;s opinion is simply a description of a potential outcome, not a certain one.
So when <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nba/pistons/2021/12/13/detroit-pistons-cade-cunningham-dave-bing/6490085001/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dave Bing forecasts</a> that No. 1 overall pick Cade Cunningham will be an All-Star-caliber player, but not someone you can build your team around, we need not mindlessly graduate his opinion into fact. Instead, we must use his proclamation to spark our own intellectual curiosity.
That&rsquo;s why I have teamed up with Bryce Simon of <a href="https://www.detroitbadboys.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Detroit Bad Boys</a>, who has closely witnessed every possession of Cunningham&rsquo;s young career, to take a look under the hood at the Pistons&rsquo; potential franchise cornerstone. Let&rsquo;s see if the old-timer is right, or if maybe, just maybe, Cunningham is a superstar in the making.
Offense
We&rsquo;ll start with the bread and butter of his offensive game &ndash; the pick-and-roll. The number of possessions he spends as a pick-and-roll ball-handler rivals the likes of James Harden and Tyrese Haliburton (per NBA.com). For the season, he is currently averaging <a href="https://www.nba.com/stats/players/passing/?sort=POTENTIAL_AST&amp;dir=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">10.4 potential assists per game</a> and leading all rookies in Ben Taylor&rsquo;s <a href="https://backpicks.com/metrics/box-creation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Box Creation</a> model (creating six open shots for teammates per 100 possessions).
What stands out the most is his patience and poise in these spots. He hardly ever seems hurried or intimidated. In Bryce&rsquo;s film breakdown (see below), you see examples of Cunningham taking his time to force help defenders to make a decision before he attacks the lane, changing speeds to throw off his man&rsquo;s calibration and holding defenders with his eyes before catapulting skip passes to the other side of the court.
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Despite moments of excellence, Cunningham&rsquo;s overall numbers are underwhelming. He ranks in the 20th percentile in pick-and-roll efficiency. This is due, in part, to his subpar rim finishing numbers (<a href="https://cleaningtheglass.com/stats/player/4864#tab-shooting_accuracy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">16th percentile</a> for his position). However, I chalk most of his struggles up to his team&rsquo;s lack of a lob threat (Beef Stew sits in the <a href="https://cleaningtheglass.com/stats/player/4760#tab-shooting_accuracy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">23rd percentile</a> as a rim finisher) and consistent outside shooting (<a href="https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/DET/2022.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">31.2% three-point shooting</a>). It's hard to feast when the cupboard is so bare!
It&rsquo;s also worth pointing out that his own shooting numbers are beginning to stabilize after a horrid slump (he&rsquo;s shooting 40.4% in December after starting out shooting 27.4% in October and November), which means his pick-and-roll stats should only improve as his shooting causes him to command more gravity.
When he&rsquo;s not operating in the pick-and-roll, his decision-making is swift and effective, evidenced by time of possession numbers that <a href="https://www.nba.com/stats/players/touches/?sort=TIME_OF_POSS&amp;dir=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mirror Steph Curry's</a>&nbsp;&ndash; a player renowned for playing an egalitarian brand of basketball.&nbsp;
Bryce points out that Cade has a knack for always finding the easy pass whenever he draws two to the ball, and connecting power plays on an unbalanced floor.
The fact that he doesn't need to incessantly dribble the air out of the basketball gives his employers a great deal of roster flexibility with the type of players they can put around him, further increasing his long-term championship equity.
The most immediately remediable flaw in Cunningham's offensive game is his high turnover percentage, where he grades in the <a href="https://cleaningtheglass.com/stats/player/4864#tab-offensive_overview" target="_blank" rel="noopener">5th percentile</a> for his position. Usually, high turnover rates for playmakers are okay if it is in the service of attempting high-risk, high-reward passes that break defenses. But film study reveals that most of his turnovers aren't a product of his creative juices at work.
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In the video, Bryce points out that many of Cunningham's errors are lackadaisical and can be corrected by learning to properly appraise the length, athleticism and anticipation skills of NBA-level players.&nbsp;
Some of his turnovers come from his "situational" strength. I call it situational because he does have some functional strength that he uses to overpower off-balance defenders. But when a defender has their feet set, Cunningham struggles to displace them and can cough up the ball because of his low tolerance for contact.
Despite the high turnover percentage, poor rim finishing and inconsistency with contact, I think the command, playmaking and overall decisiveness that he&rsquo;s flashed thus far gives him upside as a potential top option on a top-10 offense. That is, if he can remain around that 40% mark as a three-point shooter.&nbsp;
I think, ideally, you would want to place him in an ecosystem analogous to the one DeMar DeRozan inhabits in Chicago, where he can act as a scoring/playmaking hybrid, flanked by a steadying secondary creator (like Lonzo Ball) and an elite scoring machine (like Zach LaVine).
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Defense
On defense, Cunningham&rsquo;s on-ball effectiveness is largely matchup specific. Against larger, slower opponents, he does a great job at establishing a solid base and staying in front of his man. Against the Knicks (see video below), we even see him exchange body shots with a heavyweight bruiser like Julius Randle.&nbsp;
When Cunningham&rsquo;s confident he can stay with the ball-handler, he&rsquo;s able to deploy his length and great hands to crowd them and force turnovers. He&rsquo;s in the <a href="https://cleaningtheglass.com/stats/player/4864#tab-defense_rebounding" target="_blank" rel="noopener">83rd percentile</a> in steals and, unlike most wings, a large chunk of the turnovers he forces come on-ball rather than solely by playing the passing lanes.
His limitations spearheading a defense's point of attack are prevalent when he&rsquo;s matched up with smaller, faster guards. In their rematch against the Lakers, even a partially cooked Russell Westbrook had the rookie swallowing his dust.&nbsp;
Cunningham's most salient characteristic as a defender may be his below-average motor. He&rsquo;s got an athletic frame and covers a lot of ground with his strides, which makes him perfect for scrambling on defense. But his problem is that his battery isn&rsquo;t durable enough for him to utilize those tools for an entire marathon game.&nbsp;
This observation is largely anecdotal, but I've noticed Cunningham typically starts games making timely rotations, disrupting passing lanes and closing out on shooters out on the perimeter (although sometimes tending to sell out and get blown by). However, as the game progresses, his presence on that side of the ball fades and he morphs into the young guy at the rec center aesthetically grabbing his shorts (it looks cool, for some reason) &mdash; waiting for the action to come to him.
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As the old adage goes, &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not you when you&rsquo;re tired,&rdquo; and when Cunningham's tired, it leads to mental lapses like missed rotations and easy backdoor cuts.
Lastly, we&rsquo;d be remiss not to mention his juice as a rim protector. He&rsquo;s by no means a traditional paint guardian. Whenever he&rsquo;s forced to contest shots straight up, you see the lack of vertical pop that is also the cause for the poor rim-finishing percentages mentioned earlier. His real value comes when he can attack the ball from the weak side, where he can load up his jump by hopping into it before launching himself into the air.
In only his rookie season, Cunningham has already demonstrated the ability to be a key cog in a middle-of-the-pack defense in Detroit (an impressive feat for a 5-28 team). Looking forward, he&rsquo;s probably not a perennial All-Defensive-team guy. But it's not outlandish to believe that if he improves his motor &mdash; or at the very least learns to manage it &mdash; he could be the third-best defender in the closing lineup of a top-10 defense. In that scenario, a GM's best bet would be to pair him with a feisty point of attack defender who can handle faster guards (Killian Hayes seems prime to fill that role). Another idea: a rim protector that can erase Cunningham's errors when he gambles for steals or sells out on closeouts.
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Conclusion
When it comes to projecting future superstars, a player who possesses the aptitude to become the top offensive option and top three defensive contributor on a great team deserves more than just an obligatory brief mention.&nbsp;
Star wings like Jayson Tatum, Toronto-era Kawhi Leonard, and Golden State-era Kevin Durant have earned All-NBA nods in the past few years, filling similar roles for their teams. I'm not saying Cade Cunningham is one of those guys, nor am I saying he will ever definitely develop into that caliber of player. I'm saying that Dave Bing, the old-timer, should give the young buck a little more credit. And I'm saying that when the Pistons selected him with their first No. 1 overall pick in half a century, they may very well have introduced a superstar to the Motor City.
Bryce Simon contributed to this piece.

Mat Issa and Bryce Simon give their analysis of Cade Cunningham's game on both ends of the floor, and how he may develop for Detroit.

Is Cade Cunningham a franchise player the Pistons can build around?

LOS ANGELES (AP) — LeBron James scored 30 points, Russell Westbrook added 24 points and 11 assists, and the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Boston Celtics 117-102 on Tuesday night in the latest chapter of the NBA's most storied rivalry.
Anthony Davis had 17 points and 16 rebounds for the Lakers, who produced one of their best recent performances in their fourth victory in six games overall. With James and Westbrook playing dominant floor games, Los Angeles made 56.5% of its shots in the first three quarters and throttled Jayson Tatum's supporting cast defensively.
Tatum scored 14 of his 34 points in an incredible first-quarter blitz for the Celtics, who dropped to 1-2 on their four-game West Coast road trip. Jaylen Brown sat out his third straight game with a strained right hamstring, and nobody else managed more than Robert Williams III's 13 points for Boston.
The Lakers got a much-needed uneventful victory in the 296th edition of the matchup between venerable franchises with a record 17 championships apiece and a record 12 NBA Finals meetings. Boston and Los Angeles split their season series 1-1 for the fifth straight campaign after the Celtics beat the Lakers last month behind Tatum's 37 points.
Westbrook staked the Lakers to a 19-point lead in the third by scoring 15 points in the quarter, and Dwight Howard's tip-in put them up 101-81 with 9:12 to play. The Lakers have lost seven games this season in which they held a double-digit lead, but Boston never applied fourth-quarter pressure in this one.
Tatum scored <a href="https://twitter.com/celtics/status/1468419887005503489">Boston’s first 14 points</a> in the first 3:49, hitting four 3-pointers among his five shots without a miss. James kept the Lakers close with 16 points in the first quarter, and <a href="https://twitter.com/Lakers/status/1468435471302684678">his assist to Westbrook</a> right before the buzzer put Los Angeles up 60-55 at halftime.
TIP-INS
Celtics: Bruno Fernando was inactive after feeling lower back spasms at their morning shootaround. ... Jabari Parker stayed at the team hotel with a non-COVID-19 illness. ... Romeo Langford played 16 minutes after missing Boston's last game with a sprained right ankle. Coach Ime Udoka said pregame his playing time would be based on pain tolerance.
Lakers: Carmelo Anthony scored nine points. He was questionable earlier in the day after he fell ill, but the designation was removed later in the day. ... Malik Monk had a show-stopping breakaway dunk among his 10 points.
SCHADENFREUDE?
Dennis Schröder struggled for the Celtics, scoring 10 points on 1-for-6 shooting before sitting out in the fourth quarter. He was also booed regularly in the first half by Lakers fans still insulted by the German guard's handling of his free agency after his sole season with Los Angeles.
Schröder turned down an $84 million, four-year contract offer from the Lakers to test the market last summer, but he was forced to settle for a $5.9 million, one-year deal with Boston after finding nothing near the Lakers' offer. Los Angeles also lost out because it traded Danny Green and a first-round pick to get Schröder.
UP NEXT
Celtics: At the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday night.
Lakers: At Memphis on Thursday night.
___
More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

LeBron James scored 30 points, and the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Boston Celtics 117-102 on Tuesday night.

Lakers handle Celtics 117-102, split rivalry for season

If there&rsquo;s one piece of advice I&rsquo;d give anybody about the Eastern Conference and the 2021 NBA playoffs, it's to not count out the Miami Heat.
I wore that Heat uniform for a couple years, won a championship under Pat Riley, and even though that was way back in 2006, nothing has changed down there.
As long as Riley is pulling the strings, the Heat are gonna have a shot. It&rsquo;s the Riley way, and Alonzo Mourning warned all of his teammates &mdash; including me &mdash; of that back in 2005.&nbsp;
&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t want that man upstairs to come down here to coach,&rdquo; he said.&nbsp;
&ldquo;If you think it&rsquo;s hell now, wait until he comes down... This won&rsquo;t be tolerated.&rdquo;
&lsquo;Zo was hot. We had a pretty rough November, losing some games to some bad teams and just having a tough time putting it together. He pulled a few of us aside in a team meeting and gave us that warning.&nbsp;
We all respected him, and he knew what he was talking about. After all, Riles was his coach for seven years.
I was new in town, so was Jason Williams, Gary Payton and Antoine Walker. We were some of the new faces the team brought in after losing in the Eastern Conference Finals the season before.
The pressure was on Stan Van Gundy to lead the team, and when we sputtered out the gate, everyone began speculating about his future -- even the players. That&rsquo;s what made &lsquo;Zo so outspoken.&nbsp;
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We thought we had some time to pull it all together, but the next thing we knew, after about 20 games, Stan and Riley were having a joint press conference. Stan announced he was stepping down.
Riles took over and led us to the championship. And although I didn&rsquo;t last too long in Miami, I learned some valuable lessons there, and I carry them with me to this day.
I played in Miami over 15 years ago, but based on what I&rsquo;ve seen and what I know, ain&rsquo;t nothing changed down there. Heading into the 2021 NBA playoffs, that&rsquo;s the exact reason why I wouldn&rsquo;t count the Heat out.&nbsp;
No matter what, with Riles leading that front office, the team will always end up with the kind of tough, gritty players it needs to excel playing that special brand of Heat basketball that he brought from New York way back in 1995.
Players who suited up for Riles are like a special little club, and I know that because, on top of playing for Riles himself, I had the opportunity to play for Doc Rivers and Byron Scott. It was obvious that they took some lessons from Riles. They were both tough guards who weren&rsquo;t afraid to challenge you, and they both had their own little fables and stories and techniques that they'd use to teach you and motivate you.
They had nothing on Coach Riley, though. I remember the very first lesson he taught us. He wasted no time.
We had one of those brutal four-game, five-night road trips. Tuesday night at the Bulls, Wednesday night at the Bucks, day off, Friday night at the 76ers and Saturday night at the Cavaliers. Stan resigned at that press conference the Monday beforehand, Riles took over and his first game as our coach would be on the first game of the trip, against Chicago.&nbsp;
We beat the Bulls, and then won against the Bucks the next night. Winning back-to-back games on the road in the NBA is tough, and after that, most coaches would reward their teams by giving them a day off, especially since we were playing four in five.
Not Riles, though. Or so we thought.
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After the Milwaukee game, we got to Philly in the late-night hours, and were told that we had a bus leaving the hotel in the morning and that we had to be ready by whatever time it was &mdash; maybe 11:00 a.m.
So we wake up in the morning, get dressed, get our ankles taped and all that. ALL OF US were grumpy and tired because, especially after winning those first two games on back-to-back nights, we felt like we earned the day off, you know?&nbsp;
Instead, we had to wake up, get dressed and head to the bus.
None of us knew what our new coach had in store for us. Remember, he&rsquo;d only been on the job officially for a few days.
After driving for a few minutes, the bus parked. We ended up at a movie theater &mdash; nobody knew what was going on.
Riles pops up and tells everyone to head into the theater and find a seat. We do, and next thing we knew, we were watching the basketball film &ldquo;Glory Road.&rdquo;
The movie was about the 1966 NCAA-champion Texas Western Miners. The team was coached by Don Haskins, and the reason why it was historically significant is because in that game, Texas Western became the first team to win the national championship with an all-Black starting lineup.
Of all teams, it was Kentucky that Texas Western beat in the championship game, and even back then, Kentucky was a powerhouse. They had an incredible starting lineup that was led by a young guard named Pat Riley.
Yeah. So that was quite the introduction to our new coach.
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Of course, back in those days, everyone knew what Riles&rsquo; reputation was. People thought of him as a drill sergeant and as a no-nonsense type of coach. If he were a high school teacher, he&rsquo;d be the teacher who walked in the classroom five minutes late and made all the students stop talking, sit up straight in their desks and face the board.
I took a few things away from Riles taking us to watch that movie. First, I knew he had connections, because we saw the film a full month before it was released in the theaters. But more important was the fact that it just let you know that he was a basketball lifer.&nbsp;
I think what he wanted us to take from seeing the film, though &mdash; and what I did take away &mdash; was that he knew what it felt like to be on the wrong side of history. Riles knew that our team was capable of succeeding like Texas Western, and that even if nobody gave us a shot, we had the power to control our own destiny. Riles told us that from the opening tip of the title game, he knew they were in trouble. He knew what it felt like to be surprised by his opponent, and wanted to do all he could to make sure that never happened to him again.
The same attitude and teachings were passed down to Doc Rivers and Byron Scott, and although I never played for Erik Spoelstra, many people refer to him as Riles&rsquo; prot&eacute;g&eacute;, so I know he&rsquo;s cut from the same cloth. That&rsquo;s why I wasn&rsquo;t surprised that the Heat won the Eastern Conference last season.&nbsp;
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And to be honest with you, I wouldn&rsquo;t be surprised if they managed to do it again. &nbsp;
The Brooklyn Nets, Philadelphia 76ers and Milwaukee Bucks are probably the teams that most people mention when they talk about the contenders, but the Heat should never be counted out. That&rsquo;s really what Riles&rsquo; legacy is, to me, anyway.&nbsp;
Talent-wise, Miami hasn&rsquo;t been considered among the top teams, but the discipline and the way they approach being prepared is always gonna put them in position to win any game. That&rsquo;s the kind of team that executes well, makes smart decisions with the ball, takes good shots and is physical with you. They&rsquo;re not the kind of team that beats themselves. Whoever they face, it&rsquo;s gonna be one of those series that&rsquo;s gonna be very physical and very exhausting.
The Los Angeles Lakers can tell you.
From the day Riles took over, it was the dawn of a new day in Miami. And almost 20 years later, even though he stopped coaching long ago, he still has his fingerprints all over that team. Toughness. Grit.
As long as Riles is in the building and can get his eyes and hands on that franchise, every player who walks through those doors in Miami quickly realizes the importance of mentally and physically being ready to play at a high level.&nbsp;
Believe me when I tell you, nobody who knows Pat Riley will ever count his team out. I know what&rsquo;s being preached down there every day, because I heard those messages.&nbsp;
The Heat are preparing to win it all, and when the 2021 playoffs come, just like they were last season, they&rsquo;re gonna be ready.

James Posey tells the story of Pat Riley taking over as head coach of the Heat in 2006 and how he has affected the franchise since.

As long as Pat Riley is in the picture, the Heat have a shot

On March 15, the NBA concluded its investigation into alleged racist comments made by Utah Jazz executive Dennis Lindsey toward former player Elijah Millsap back in 2015. The league could not prove that Lindsey made these remarks.
But Millsap elaborated on the incident, and his reaction to the league's investigation, on <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/podcasts/the-rematch" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Etan Thomas' podcast </a><a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/podcasts/the-rematch" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Rematch</a>.&nbsp;He highlighted that Lindsey's alleged remarks reinforce a narrative that coaches and executives have to control players.
Thomas asked Millsap to share what exactly went down during the exit interview. Millsap said he was defending his play during the 2014-15 season when Lindsey cut him off.
"He told me, 'If you say one more word, I&rsquo;ll cut your Black ass and send you back to Louisiana,'" Millsap alleged.&nbsp;
Head coach Quin Snyder was in the room, but did not react, according to Millsap.&nbsp;
"He said it authoritatively -- irately," Millsap said on the podcast. He added, "[Lindsey] probably felt that I was out of my position as a player, and he wanted to put me back in my place."
The league asked individuals who were in the room about the conversation. Lindsey, Snyder and Millsap were among the interviewees, but Lindsey, Snyder and others denied the allegations.&nbsp;
"I've already came up with the conclusion that nothing serious would happen to these guys if something seriously definitive showed up -- a recording or something like that," Millsap said. "I could show them my notes, but at the end of the day, what is that gonna do?"
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The 33-year-old said he had "no expectations" about a ruling when he first made the remarks public. But he is proud of himself for expressing his truth and opening up.
"This was all, honestly, [about] conquering my demons and the things that were inside me, and fighting for my inner child," he said. "And I did that. In those situations and the moment, it's tough to defend yourself because you already know what you're going up against... I thought at the moment in time, I wasn't strong enough to defend myself."
Millsap says he spoke with the NBPA and asked them to help change the tone of exit interviews, so that players are not put in his position. The league has moved on quickly from their investigation; Millsap wants to see more.&nbsp;
"This is not fun and games to me," he said. "This was a serious issue that I have to stand up to... now it's time to make sure that it doesn't happen again for future generations. Sure, other people have been through similar and maybe worse instances. But I feel like we can step in front of it right now."
On the podcast, Thomas read the following statement from the Jazz, which was released after the NBA concluded its investigation of this incident:
"As an organization, we take all matters of this nature seriously and have zero tolerance for discriminatory behavior of any kind. We appreciate the thorough process of the NBA&rsquo;s investigation and thank all parties involved for their full cooperation. The league&rsquo;s investigation was done in coordination with independent, outside counsel. We respect the league&rsquo;s process and results announced earlier today. For more than 25 years, Dennis Lindsey has been a respected basketball executive around the NBA and a leading voice on social justice within our organization and community."

Elijah Millsap alleged that Jazz executive Dennis Lindsey made a racist comment. He opens up about this and the NBA's investigation.

Elijah Millsap on Dennis Lindsey allegation: 'He wanted to put me back in my place'

The NBA trade deadline is now nine days away, and while we can safely assume that all 30 teams want to get better, we must proceed expecting two teams --the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks -- to play big roles in dictating what the market will look like.
There are lots of big men available, and anybody who tells you that Andre Drummond or Hassan Whiteside or JaVale McGee would not make a difference in an Eastern Conference playoff series has not been paying attention. Or as Gregg Popovich would say: &ldquo;Living in a phone booth.&rdquo;
Also, those who assume the Knicks (with $15.7 million in cap space) are not in win-now mode do not understand Tom Thibodeau. The guy is married to a basketball, and he is anxious to do in New York what he was unable to do in Minnesota and, to a lesser degree, in Chicago.
And then we have the Celtics, who are sitting on the largest trade exception ($28.5 million) in NBA history and are worse off that they were a year ago when they made the Eastern Conference Finals. Danny Ainge cannot stand pat and expect to get past the Nets, Sixers, Bucks or Heat.
The rumor mill will be churning between now and March 25, and every contending team in the East will be scheming to make an addition that attacks the weaknesses of Brooklyn and Philadelphia, while every Western team will try to find a way to compete with the three-point shooting of the Utah Jazz and the depth and experience of the Los Angeles Lakers.
So let&rsquo;s go through the league alphabetically and assess each team&rsquo;s needs, expectations and expendables.
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ATLANTA HAWKS: Nate McMillan is 5-0 as head coach, and the most active team in the weeks leading up to training camp remains built (if fully healthy) to advance if all of the pieces can fit together with almost zero practice time. John Collins is entering restricted free agency and is not as productive as he was a year ago, but he makes just $4.1 million. Put him in a deal with Tony Snell, though, and those combined salaries equal $16.3 million, which can get you a nice player.
BOSTON CELTICS: What made them special a year ago was the ability to get offensive production from three All-Star caliber starters: Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Gordon Hayward. But Hayward is gone, Enes Kanter is doing big things in Portland (remember how he was a game-changer for Boston in the postseason a year ago?) and Kemba Walker is shooting 38% in his 10th season. Standing pat is not an option.
BROOKLYN NETS: At some point they will need a third center to join DeAndre Jordan and Nicolas Claxton, but the buyout market or the China market (the CBA season ends before the NBA playoffs) may be the easiest way for Sean Marks to add an extra big body if they cannot get a big man whose contract fits into their $5.7 million disabled player exception. Spencer Dinwiddie is the only superfluous player on the roster, but he is out for the remainder of the season, and the Nets have no future draft picks to throw into a deal. They used them all in the Harden trade.
CHARLOTTE HORNETS: Michael Jordan&rsquo;s team is 100-1 to win the East despite having the lock for Rookie of the Year, a four-game winning streak and a roster chock full of young and hungry players who, for the most part, lack postseason experience. At a certain point, they have to realize they could have done better than Cody Zeller ($15.4 million) with the fourth pick of the 2013 draft. It might be time to sacrifice a future first-round pick or two to upgrade at center. Malik Monk has been playing well lately, otherwise, we would predict his imminent departure. The Hornets have an open roster spot and $4 million in cap room.
CHICAGO BULLS: It would be delusional of them to think they can advance beyond the first-round of the playoffs, which is why they have to consider getting a good young player from a contender in exchange for Thaddeus Young ($13.5 million), who is the leading candidate to finish a distant second to Jordan Clarkson in Sixth Man of the Year voting. &nbsp;Tomas Satoransky ($10 million this year and next year) is 29 years old and could be combined with Young to bring in a good young player. Here is an idea:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-theme="dark">
Who says no? <a href="https://t.co/Pc61DX8jQV">pic.twitter.com/Pc61DX8jQV</a>
&mdash; Chris Sheridan (@sheridanhoops) <a href="https://twitter.com/sheridanhoops/status/1371826941804883973?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2021</a></blockquote>

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

CLEVELAND CAVALIERS: Aside from the inevitable Drummond and McGee moves (best offers arrive at 2:59 p.m. on deadline day), Koby Altman will probably keep quiet after acquiring Jarrett Allen from the Nets and sending Kevin Porter Jr. to the Rockets. Kevin Love is going to be dead money for two more seasons and Cedi Osman is looking like he will be in the same category, though not quite as expensive. It&rsquo;ll be a long road back.
DALLAS MAVERICKS: They should be better than their record (20-18), but the West is tough. Dwight Powell ($11 million this season and the next two) is not worth what he is being paid and could be packaged with more future No. 1 picks (the Mavs can&rsquo;t trade their own first-round draft pick until 2025 because they owe the Knicks their 2021 and 2023 picks), if mortgaging the future is something Mark Cuban is cool with. Powell and James Johnson for Drummond works cap-wise.
DENVER NUGGETS: A rumor is out there that the Nuggets have spoken to the Magic about acquiring Aaron Gordon, and the price would include Bol Bol. They currently do not look like they have enough to come out of the West, and JaMychal Green has not been an adequate replacement for Jerami Grant. To a lesser degree than Boston, standing pat does not seem like the most prudent option. They have a $9.6 million trade exception, so expect them to make some sort of acquisition that improves the roster. They are one player away from being one player away.
DETROIT PISTONS: Troy Weaver might have already made his &ldquo;deadline deal&rdquo; in getting Hamidou Diallo from the Thunder. Wayne Ellington is superfluous, and one would think teams might like a 14-year veteran who shot 42% from three-point range with a manageable $1.6 million salary&hellip; But the Knicks couldn&rsquo;t find a taker for him a year ago.
GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS: Limbo sucks, but Klay Thompson will be back next season. In the meantime, the best they can do is hope that the Wolves&rsquo; pick is not top three and they can get another high lottery pick to put next to James Wiseman for the years ahead. Kelly Oubre Jr., Kent Bazemore, Brad Wanamaker and Marquese Chriss are all on expiring contracts. Their combined salaries total $20.6 million. The Warriors can acquire a player into Thompson&rsquo;s $9.25 million disabled player exception.
HOUSTON ROCKETS: We are seeing a flurry of Victor Oladipo trade rumors, which is strange because he was the biggest piece they got in the Harden trade. If they are disappointed in him (and his expiring $21 million contract) they must not have been watching Pacers playoffs games the past few seasons. Kevin Porter Jr. was a nice pickup, and Rafael Stone is probably on the hunt for another player who has worn out his welcome for non-basketball reasons. P.J. Tucker is headed somewhere. Dante Exum (expiring $9.6 million contract) didn&rsquo;t quite work out for a fifth overall pick, eh?
INDIANA PACERS: Acquiring Caris LaVert for Oladipo as part of the Harden trade will go in Kevin Pritchard&rsquo;s trophy case, so the question now becomes &ldquo;What next?&rdquo; aside from waiting for T.J. Warren&rsquo;s broken foot to heal. They are in 10th place, which wasn&rsquo;t exactly what they had in mind for this season. Still, Indiana has a nice mix of players in their mid-to-late 20s. Doug McDermott (expiring $7.3 million) and T.J. McConnell (expiring $3.5 million) could be a useful shooter and pest duo for a playoff team willing to give up a draft pick and a matching expiring salary. Indiana is probably better off keeping both and rolling the dice in the play-in postseason.
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LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS: They have everything they need except the Lou Williams they had gotten used to over the past three seasons. His scoring average is down almost six points. Serge Ibaka (scoring average down 4.5 points) is showing his age at 31 and has a 15% trade kicker. Both still have plenty of playoff experience, but Jerry West likes to make trades when he can find the right ones. The Clippers are an interesting team to watch at the deadline because they have an open roster spot, but they are also within a $500,000 of the hard cap, which limits their options.
LOS ANGELES LAKERS: They need nothing except for Anthony Davis to be healthy, so the Lakers are the winner of the &ldquo;Most Unlikely To Make A Trade&rdquo; award. They are option No. 1 for pretty much everybody getting a buyout after the deadline.
MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES: More than a year later, we are still trying to figure out the Justise Winslow acquisition. Taylor Jenkins&rsquo; rotation goes 10 deep, not including the team&rsquo;s highest-paid player in Gorgui Dieng -- $17.2 million. They are young and they are not a good team, yet they are still in contention for a play-in spot, so that incentivizes them to get creative.
MIAMI HEAT: The rule of thumb used to be &ldquo;Pat Riley hates making midseason trades,&rdquo; but he went out and got Andre Iguodala and Jae Crowder last season and built an NBA Finals team. So you would think they would be predisposed to tinker despite their recent run of 11 victories in 12 games. Kelly Olynyk ($12.6 million) and Moe Harkless ($3.6 million) are on expiring deals, and Avery Bradley is gathering dust. They can take on long-term money if the incoming player is worthy of it, but that would likely involve trading a starter (Olynyk). They also have a $7.5 million trade exception but owe Oklahoma City two first-round picks.
MILWAUKEE BUCKS: Veteran Bucks writer <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/podcasts/the-sheridan-show/episodes/basketballnews-com-episode-16-gery-woelfel-on-milwaukee-bucks-chances,-possible-trade,-other-east-contender">Gery Woelful said on my most recent podcast</a> that he fully expects the Bucks to try to find an upgrade from Donte DiVincenzo at shooting guard. The salaries of DiVincenzo and D.J. Wilson add up to $7.5 million, and it is hard to see Jon Horst moving anyone else on this roster. They are not last year&rsquo;s Bucks, but they theoretically have enough to get to the NBA Finals. They are very close to the hard cap and cannot trade any more picks after using so many in the Jrue Holiday acquisition.
MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES: The team is for sale, so do not expect Gersson Rosas to take on any long-term money. They have already changed coaches, and they have nothing anybody would want except for Karl Anthony-Towns, who isn&rsquo;t going anywhere. Okay, they have Ed Davis, who may be somebody&rsquo;s consolation prize as contending teams search for bigs. Nominations for the Dumpster Fire Award are now closed.
NEW ORLEANS PELICANS: Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram are not available. You can safely assume that everyone else is, and David Griffin does not need to hold anybody else up because he already did that to Horst. This was not supposed to be a throwaway season, but it is. The Pelicans would like to get J.J. Redick closer to his family, who live in Brooklyn. Exactly how close? Well, when Redick played for the Sixers, he commuted to Philadelphia. So &ldquo;close&rdquo; is a relative term. Boston is drivable from Brooklyn.
NEW YORK KNICKS: As mentioned above, they are the team to watch most closely. They can take on long-term money if the incoming player is someone who can tolerate Thibodeau&rsquo;s coaching style, and they would bring in a player on an expiring contract if they believed that player&rsquo;s Bird rights would be of value over the summer. Leon Rose is one year away from having a top-three team in the East if he plays his cards right a week from Thursday.
OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER: Sam Presti likely has George Hill, Trevor Ariza and Mike Muscala available to the highest bidders. Hill was an important piece of the Bucks last season and could help a playoff team needing a bench shooter and veteran voice in the locker room. At a certain point, Presti is going to have to package together some of the 20 extra first and second-round picks he has accumulated through trades, but that point is probably a couple of years away as the rebuild runs its course. Important: If Houston&rsquo;s pick is in the top four, the Thunder get it. Also, Presti has three trade exceptions; the largest is $27.6 million.
ORLANDO MAGIC:&nbsp; Aaron Gordon trade rumors are everywhere, which makes sense because the time to cash in on their seven-year investment is now. They need to get younger and acquire assets to build around Markelle Fultz, Nikola Vucevic and Jonathan Isaac. Their ceiling should not be the kind of first-round exits they have been producing the past two seasons, and they have not won a single playoff series since 2009-10. So, it would be shocking to see them keep Gordon, who is only 25 years old and can bring a lot in return. Gordon is a good guy who needs a change of scenery and deserves one. Same goes for Evan Fournier.
PHILADELPHIA 76ERS: They wanted James Harden and did not get him, and Doc Rivers still somehow kept Ben Simmons committed to the team. That is pretty huge, because players who know they have been shopped usually resent it. They are in first place in the East and have a roster with the proper pieces to match up with Brooklyn. Mike Scott&rsquo;s expiring $5 million deal and the Knicks&rsquo; 2021 second-round pick are Elton Brand&rsquo;s most movable trade assets, but Scott has been playing well lately. Terrence Ferguson, Vincent Poirier and Tony Bradley are on expiring contracts but would bring little in return.
PHOENIX SUNS: Acquiring Chris Paul checked the &ldquo;monster trade&rdquo; box, and the NBA&rsquo;s most overachieving team will likely abide by the &ldquo;If It Ain&rsquo;t Broke, Don&rsquo;t Fix It&rdquo; rule. That being said, if an on-the-ball defender capable of defending LeBron James is out there somewhere, you kick the tires on just about anything that does not include Devin Booker, DeAndre Ayton and Chris Paul. Ariza would seem to be a fit.
PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS: Like Dallas, they should be better than their record&hellip; and would be if C.J. McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic had not gotten injured. At full strength, they are going to be a tough out in the postseason. Gary Trent Jr. is on an expiring contract and they may fear losing him, so keep that in mind with these guys. They are sleepers.
SACRAMENTO KINGS: What they can get for Whiteside will be interesting to see, because he was killing it for the Blazers last season. Then, Nurkic returned in the bubble. Whiteside does not exactly have the best reputation around the league, which is why he played in Lebanon and China before resurrecting his career. There are also a lot of Harrison Barnes rumors out there, and like the Magic and Gordon, it may be time for the Kings to cash in on the three-year investment they made in Barnes after acquiring him from Dallas. He makes $22.2 million. Does Nemanja Bjelica have any value? Same question has to be asked of Jabari Parker.
SAN ANTONIO SPURS: The LaMarcus Aldridge era is in its final days, and you have to wonder if the Patty Mills era is, too. Derrick White is signed long-term and Dejounte Murray is damn good. The expiring contracts of Aldridge and Mills add up to $37.2 million, and if you include Rudy Gay&rsquo;s expiring deal that number becomes $51.2 million. They are 20-16, yet, as currently constituted, not good enough to do much in the postseason. R.C. Buford wins the award for the league executive most overdue to make a trade.
TORONTO RAPTORS: The name that is out there now is Kyle Lowry, who has spent nine seasons of his 16-year career playing for the team that now calls Tampa its home. Having lost five in a row and sitting in 11th place in the Leastern Conference, Masai Ujiri must determine whether it is time to turn Lowry&rsquo;s expiring $30.5 million contract into something of value. At 35 years old, Lowry can still play and, percentage wise, is hitting threes, twos and free throws better than he has over the past four seasons. But this would not be a giveaway, and a sign-and-trade in the offseason is still possible.
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/usatsi_15729880_lg.jpg" alt="" width="650" height="auto" />
UTAH JAZZ: Like Phoenix, the &ldquo;If It Ain&rsquo;t Broke , Don&rsquo;t Dix It&rdquo; rule applies. They are in first place in the West, are making threes better than anybody and have Rudy Gobert finding new and incredible ways to never, ever be mentioned in the MVP debate. None of their nine rotation players is going anywhere, and no one else on the roster has either a big contract or much trade value. Still, someone on the team could be a giveaway because the Jazz are $1.9 million over the luxury tax line. They have already traded five of their next seven second-round picks (they don&rsquo;t have one until 2025).
WASHINGTON WIZARDS: You&rsquo;ve got to feel bad for Tommy Sheppard, one of the best guys and better GMs in the league -- he was able to turn John Wall into Russell Westbrook but then lost Thomas Bryant and had his team put on ice because of COVID issues. They are now playing the busiest second-half schedule of any Eastern Conference team, and they theoretically have a puncher&rsquo;s chance against practically anyone in the conference if Westbrook keeps triple-doubling (he leads the league with 11). But they have lost four in a row and rank 12th. Robin Lopez and his expiring $7.3 million contract is their best trade asset. If they combined Lopez with Ish Smith&rsquo;s expiring contract, that totals $13.3 million.

With one week before the NBA's trade deadline, Chris Sheridan previews what could be in store for all 30 of the league's teams.

What to expect from all 30 NBA teams ahead of the Trade Deadline

The Miami Heat said Tuesday night that Meyers Leonard will be away from the team indefinitely, sharply criticizing his use of an anti-Semitic slur while playing a video game that was being livestreamed.
Leonard apologized for using the term, insisting he did not know what it meant when he used it Monday. The Heat learned of the matter Tuesday, and Leonard's future with the team is now in serious doubt.
&ldquo;The Miami Heat vehemently condemns the use of any form of hate speech,&rdquo; the team statement said. &ldquo;The words used by Meyers Leonard were wrong and we will not tolerate hateful language from anyone associated with our franchise. To hear it from a Miami Heat player is especially disappointing and hurtful to all those who work here, as well as the larger South Florida, Miami Heat and NBA communities.&rdquo;
The team also said it will cooperate with the NBA's investigation.
Leonard acknowledged that he used the term Monday while streaming. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CMN-G35DdD9/">In his apology, posted on social media</a>, he said &ldquo;my ignorance about its history and how offensive it is to the Jewish community is absolutely not an excuse and I was just wrong."
Leonard also said he was apologizing to team managing general partner Micky Arison and his family, the team's players, coaches and front office, his family and the Jewish community, among others.
&ldquo;I acknowledge and own my mistake and there's no running from something like this that is so hurtful to someone else,&rdquo; Leonard wrote.
The video began circulating widely on social media Tuesday afternoon and the fallout was almost immediate, first with online criticism and then sharp rebukes by the league, the Heat and even other organizations.
&ldquo;Unacceptable. Totally unacceptable,&rdquo; Washington coach Scott Brooks said. Brooks added that he believes the NBA &ldquo;will do the right thing and address it.&rdquo;
That seems quite possible. The NBA said it was &ldquo;in the process of gathering more information.&rdquo;
&ldquo;The NBA unequivocally condemns all forms of hate speech,&rdquo; league spokesman Mike Bass said.
Leonard, a 7-foot center in his ninth NBA season, sustained a season-ending shoulder injury in January and appeared in only three games for the Heat this year. He could become a free agent this summer; the Heat hold a team option on him for next season worth about $10 million.
<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-race-and-ethnicity-san-antonio-spurs-denver-nuggets-racial-injustice-47bae68b6ea8ff83ce86ad7c3a026591">This is the second time in recent months that Leonard has been at the center of a controversy.</a>
Most players and coaches chose to kneel last summer for the playing of the U.S. and Canadian national anthems when the NBA season resumed inside a bubble at Walt Disney World in Central Florida. Leonard stood instead, his hand over his heart, and did so with the support of Heat teammates.
&ldquo;I am a compassionate human being and I truly love all people,&rdquo; Leonard told The Associated Press at that time.
He added in that AP interview last summer, &ldquo;I will continue to use my platform, my voice and my actions to show how much I care about the African American culture and for everyone. I live my life to serve and impact others in a positive way.&rdquo;
___
More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

The Heat learned of the matter Tuesday, and Leonard's future with the team is now in serious doubt.

Heat say Meyers Leonard will be away from team after slur

Update: The Miami Heat released the following statement regarding the ongoing situation with Meyers Leonard -
"The Miami HEAT vehemently condemns the use of any form of hate speech. The words used by Meyers Leonard were wrong and we will not tolerate hateful language from anyone associated with our franchise. To hear it from a Miami HEAT player is especially disappointing and hurtful to all those who work here, as well as the larger South Florida, Miami HEAT and NBA communities.
Meyers Leonard will be away from the team indefinitely. The Miami HEAT will cooperate with the NBA while it conducts its investigation."
Original report: Meyers Leonard of the Miami Heat apologized Tuesday night for using an anti-Semitic slur while playing a video game that was being live-streamed.
Leonard acknowledged that he used the term Monday, and said he did not know what it meant at that time. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CMN-G35DdD9/">In his apology, posted on social media</a>, he said &ldquo;my ignorance about its history and how offensive it is to the Jewish community is absolutely not an excuse and I was just wrong."
Leonard also said he was apologizing to team managing general partner Micky Arison and his family, the team's players, coaches and front office, his family and the Jewish community, among others.
&ldquo;I acknowledge and own my mistake and there's no running from something like this that is so hurtful to someone else,&rdquo; Leonard wrote.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-theme="dark">
Miami Heat center Meyers Leonard releases statement apologizing for saying anti-Semitic slur on a livestream: <a href="https://t.co/AOi7ZE6nCy">pic.twitter.com/AOi7ZE6nCy</a>
&mdash; Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a href="https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1369447574101442569?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 10, 2021</a></blockquote>

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

The video began circulating widely on social media Tuesday afternoon. The Heat, who were in the final day of their All-Star break and are not formally resuming practice until Wednesday, had no immediate comment.
It is possible that Leonard may face sanctions from the NBA, which said it was &ldquo;in the process of gathering more information.&rdquo;
&ldquo;The NBA unequivocally condemns all forms of hate speech," league spokesman Mike Bass said.
Leonard, a 7-foot center in his ninth NBA season, sustained a season-ending shoulder injury in January and appeared in only three games for the Heat this year. He could become a free agent this summer; the Heat hold a team option on him for next season worth about $10 million.
<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-race-and-ethnicity-san-antonio-spurs-denver-nuggets-racial-injustice-47bae68b6ea8ff83ce86ad7c3a026591">This is the second time in recent months that Leonard has been at the center of a controversy.</a>
Most players and coaches chose to kneel last summer for the playing of the U.S. and Canadian national anthems when the NBA season resumed inside a bubble at Walt Disney World in Central Florida. Leonard stood instead, his hand over his heart, and did so with the support of Heat teammates.
&ldquo;I am a compassionate human being and I truly love all people,&rdquo; Leonard told The Associated Press at that time.
He added in that AP interview last summer, &ldquo;I will continue to use my platform, my voice and my actions to show how much I care about the African American culture and for everyone. I live my life to serve and impact others in a positive way.&rdquo;
___
More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

“I acknowledge and own my mistake and there's no running from something like this that is so hurtful to someone else,” Leonard wrote.

Heat center Meyers Leonard uses slur on video, apologizes

I&rsquo;m not sure if I could play in today&rsquo;s NBA.&nbsp;
When I watch NBA games now and see some of the calls -- and some of the non-calls that these guys complain about -- I&rsquo;m blown away. I always tell people, &ldquo;I never could&rsquo;ve played in this generation.&rdquo; I didn&rsquo;t know how to flop or how to not play defense. I never backed down from anyone and I played hard defense on every possession of every game.&nbsp;
I probably would&rsquo;ve adapted to the shooting and stuff, but as far as my style of play, this is who I am. I&rsquo;m not compromising that for nobody. People always told me that I was in the wrong generation, that I would've fit right in if I played in the &lsquo;80s or &lsquo;90s.&nbsp;
When I first got the league, I had to learn how to concede two points to my opponent (like if I picked up an early foul or was in foul trouble). I had a hard time with that; that was something I had to learn. Now, a lot of these guys don&rsquo;t seem to care very much on the defensive end. They see a certain guy coming toward the basket and they move out of the way.&nbsp;Now, refs will call a flagrant foul for something that would&rsquo;ve just been a foul 10-15 years ago. If I played in today&rsquo;s NBA, I would probably lead the league in ejections!
I witnessed this shift during the last three years of my NBA career. During my two seasons with the New York Knicks and my cup of coffee with the Milwaukee Bucks, there were a few instances where I committed (what I thought were) hard fouls, but they would walk over to the scorer&rsquo;s table and announce that it was a Flagrant 1. After that happened a few times, I remember thinking, &ldquo;Where did this come from?! Things are changing.&rdquo;&nbsp;
As my career was coming to an end, that&rsquo;s when they started emphasizing a scorer&rsquo;s &ldquo;freedom of movement&rdquo; and implementing those rules. Honestly, I understand it (to a certain degree) because you want the game to be free-flowing and you don&rsquo;t want it too gunked up. But physicality is a part of the game too.
There&rsquo;s more flopping nowadays than physical play. At times, it&rsquo;s tough to watch. These are really good players -- they have better skill sets than we did -- but they resort to trying to get a call. Every time these guys drive, they&rsquo;re looking for a call. If they get hit a certain way, they&rsquo;re looking for a flagrant. They want every play to be reviewed. When there&rsquo;s a hard foul, these guys act like they just got shot (when, in reality, the defender tapped their lip). The league has allowed it. They wanted more flow, more offense (which I get), but you shouldn&rsquo;t compromise every aspect of the game for that. Being physical should be allowed, especially in the post. That&rsquo;s part of the game.
I had to play physical in order to succeed in the NBA. Remember, I was very undersized for my position. I was playing at 6-foot-9 and 225-to-230 pounds throughout my whole career. Most guys I played against were taller than me and damn near everybody weighed more than me, so I had to beat them up. I didn&rsquo;t have a choice. I had to meet Tim Duncan early at the free-throw line and be physical, forcing him to the spots where I wanted him to go. Same thing with Kevin Garnett, Elton Brand, David West and all of the bigs that I faced. Getting switched out, I guarded Shaquille O&rsquo;Neal on the block. I don&rsquo;t stand a chance in hell against Shaq unless I&rsquo;m physical!
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/k3_lg.jpg" alt="" width="778" height="AUTO" />
I saw what David West <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/nba-rumors-david-west-andrea-bargnani-chris-bosh-blow-current-league-out-water-toronto-raptors-ryan-hollins-big-men">said recently</a> about how Andrea Bargnani would be dominant in today&rsquo;s NBA, and I totally agree. We used to beat the sh*t out of Bargnani and he wanted no part of it. In today&rsquo;s NBA, he&rsquo;d be fine. Nobody could get physical with him, so he&rsquo;d be a superstar these days. In today&rsquo;s NBA, Bargnani would be Joel Embiid.&nbsp;
A lot of Europeans are having success in today&rsquo;s NBA as stretch-4s and stretch-5s, but the reason many of those players didn&rsquo;t succeed before is because the game was too physical for them (aside from Dirk Nowitzki, who had no problem banging and getting physical for 20 years). When I was playing, you&rsquo;d see these guys with great skill sets, but they wouldn&rsquo;t succeed because they wanted no part of the physicality. They'd struggle in the NBA and go back home and star in the overseas leagues that weren&rsquo;t as physical.
I understand that it&rsquo;s important for the game to evolve. But I think there&rsquo;s a way for the game to evolve without compromising so much. Maybe I&rsquo;m naive, but I still think there&rsquo;s room for dominant traditional bigs in today&rsquo;s NBA. I know that shooting is important, but I think both things can be true.&nbsp;If another Shaquille O&rsquo;Neal showed up today with that same ability to dominate the block, are you telling me that there&rsquo;s no place for that player in today&rsquo;s NBA? That&rsquo;s really hard for me to believe. I think in the future, we&rsquo;ll see the league shift back to using big men more -- those bigs will just have a jump shot in their arsenal, too.
In today&rsquo;s NBA, there are no enforcers. You can&rsquo;t be an enforcer these days; the league won&rsquo;t allow it. You&rsquo;ll just get ejected. Also, there aren&rsquo;t really hard fouls anymore and nobody is fighting, so you don&rsquo;t need an enforcer to run in and stand up for your guys. The NBA&rsquo;s evolution made the enforcer go extinct. They simply aren&rsquo;t needed.&nbsp;
Today&rsquo;s players don&rsquo;t want to fight. They bark and get face-to-face, but they&rsquo;re all just hoping that someone comes over to break it up. I see a whole lot of guys acting tough and getting face-to-face, but never throwing any punches. A lot of these dudes have never been in a fight. They&rsquo;ve been in the spotlight since they were a kid and not many people are going to pick a fight with a dude their size. These guys don&rsquo;t want to fight because they can&rsquo;t fight. They don&rsquo;t know what they&rsquo;re doing (and they sure as hell don&rsquo;t want their first fight to be on national TV). Also, so many of today&rsquo;s players are friends, so they aren&rsquo;t about to beat each other up.
There are a few guys who seem like they can actually fight and who want the smoke. James Johnson is a maniac and he&rsquo;s a black belt! He&rsquo;s out there looking for a reason to fight! I was watching him play one time and he got into it with someone; the guy pushed him. I&rsquo;m sitting there thinking, &ldquo;Man, that&rsquo;s the wrong guy to mess with! Leave that boy alone!&rdquo; The Morris twins are the same way -- they&rsquo;re from Philly, they&rsquo;re ignorant and they&rsquo;re always looking for problems. They want a reason to fight!
I played against guys who were physical and who really wanted the smoke. Derrick Coleman didn&rsquo;t take sh*t from nobody. I faced guys like Zach Randolph, David West, Antonio Davis, Dale Davis and Kurt Thomas. They didn&rsquo;t back down and I had a lot of respect for those guys.&nbsp;
You can&rsquo;t turn a porch dog into a guard dog, and there are a lot of poodles in the NBA right now.&nbsp;
There were some guys like that back when I played, too. Kevin Garnett was a porch puppy -- a miniature chihuahua in a Dobermann&rsquo;s body. I told him to his face, &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a porch puppy. All you do is bark.&rdquo; He never wanted smoke from me. I told him straight up, &ldquo;You better take your ass back to your huddle before I get mad.&rdquo; Dahntay Jones heard it; you can ask him.
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/kg_lg.jpg" alt="" width="782" height="AUTO" />
My approach to fighting was this: I&rsquo;m not going to start something, but I&rsquo;ll definitely finish it. It&rsquo;s just like my approach to alley-oops. If you just let me be, we won&rsquo;t have a problem. But don&rsquo;t take it there because I&rsquo;ll finish it. Your mad don&rsquo;t equal my mad.&nbsp;
I would tell people on the court, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t get disrespectful." Here&rsquo;s the difference between you and me -- I don&rsquo;t mind getting suspended. Been there, done that. If you get out of line and start being disrespectful, I&rsquo;m gonna be on your ass. There were plenty of times where I pointed at a guy and told the ref, &ldquo;If he says or does one more thing, I&rsquo;m going to lose it.&rdquo; And they&rsquo;d say, &ldquo;Who, Kenyon?&rdquo; And I&rsquo;d point to the dude. And they&rsquo;d say, &ldquo;Okay, we&rsquo;ll watch him. But just let us handle it. Please.&rdquo; They knew that I was reasonable and there to hoop, but they also knew that I had no problem taking it there. 
If we&rsquo;re just playing basketball and getting physical, that's fine. When I was on the Clippers, we faced Zach Randolph and the Grizzlies in the playoffs and it was very physical, but there was mutual respect and no bad blood after each game. But if someone is being disrespectful, at the drop of a dime, I&rsquo;ll slap the sh*t out of them. Then, I&rsquo;ll deal with the three- or four-game suspension, whatever the consequence is. Years from now, I&rsquo;ll forget about those three games I missed due to suspension, but you&rsquo;re going to remember the time Kenyon Martin slapped the sh*t out of you.&nbsp;
I don&rsquo;t tolerate disrespect. And I&rsquo;m kinda fu**ing crazy.
I&rsquo;m not a big talker. I&rsquo;m not here for the lip boxing. But if someone walks up on me and I feel threatened, I&rsquo;m going to punch. Bottom line. Simple as that. If you&rsquo;re going to disrespect me and piss me off, you better not be within arm&rsquo;s reach because I&rsquo;ll start swinging. Here&rsquo;s the beauty of it: Once everyone knew that I was down to fight and didn&rsquo;t take any sh*t, I didn&rsquo;t have to fight anyone. The threat alone was enough to stop people from trying to start sh*t with me. And I would warn them too. If I am warning you, take heed. It&rsquo;s just like a rattlesnake. If you see a rattlesnake rattling, go the other way! The rattle is your warning to get out of there. If I warn you, go the other way, bruh. Because I&rsquo;m willing to take things left.
I haven&rsquo;t won every fight that I&rsquo;ve been in. I&rsquo;m not going to lie and say that I have. But unlike a lot of basketball players: I&rsquo;m always willing to go there. A lot of these dudes ain&rsquo;t.&nbsp;
Now don&rsquo;t get it twisted, I don&rsquo;t want the NBA to be a wrestling match. I played in the BIG3 and they tried to implement rules to encourage a physical style of play, but they went too far with it. Dudes were basically tackling each other. It felt like we were wrestling at times. Al Harrington was on my team and nobody could stop him, so they just tackled him. I think there&rsquo;s a happy medium between the BIG3&rsquo;s extremely physical style of play and the NBA&rsquo;s soft style of play.
Unfortunately, I think the game is only going to get softer and less physical going forward because the next generation -- the up-and-coming players -- are watching the league now and seeing this style of play and how the games are called, so they&rsquo;ll learn from that and adjust accordingly.&nbsp;
I&rsquo;m just glad this shift didn&rsquo;t happen during my playing days. I was looked at as a defender, a tough guy, an enforcer type, so who knows how my career goes if I&rsquo;m playing in this era.
<img src="https://basketballnews-media.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/images/story/body/km_lg.png" alt="" width="800" height="AUTO" />
Kenyon Martin is launching a new podcast called <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/podcasts/kenyon-martin-podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">"Neat &amp; Unfiltered"</a>&nbsp;on the <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/podcasts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Basketball News Podcast Network</a>! This is a weekly podcast that drops every Friday. The first episode drops on 11/27. Kenyon will talk hoops and be joined by high-profile guests such as athletes and entertainers. You can listen on <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/podcasts/kenyon-martin-podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BasketballNews.com</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/neat-unfiltered-with-kenyon-martin/id1541073998" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/2QPqI56BKEnTJKiH6VyLhX?si=z9eEsUyHQ42hlWgKfl6E9Q" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Spotify</a>&nbsp;or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Kenyon Martin writes about the NBA's shift away from physical play, which has basically caused enforcers to go extinct.

The death of the enforcer: How the NBA lost its physicality

Everything is different in 2020&hellip; until it isn&rsquo;t. Is it fair to say, as we all awake, that some things just never change? The sun always rises in the East, political news always riles people up and LeBron James wins big basketball games with phenomenal flair.
A year that began Jan. 1 with the death of former NBA commissioner David Stern and then brought the tragic end to Kobe Bryant&rsquo;s life on Jan. 26 is going to include a trip to the NBA Finals for the Los Angeles Lakers and the superstar we have watched in awe and bewilderment all the way to the championship round for the 10th time in his career.
We are all sitting home every night wondering when normalcy will return, and on Saturday night it did.
James was brilliant. Again. The Denver Nuggets were resilient. Again. And when clutch shots were needed to stave off a team that cheated basketball death so many times in the bubble, we all watched the old man with the gray-flecked pandemic beard knock down shot after shot after shot after shot.
The guy has been mesmerizing since he was a rookie. And he was the same way on Saturday night, especially in the fourth quarter - when he scored 16 points and made his final six buckets unassisted to finish off a virtuoso 27th career postseason triple-double, this one featuring 38 points, 16 rebounds and 10 assists. When it ended, it was both amusing and surreal to see purple and gold confetti falling from the rafters of the bubble just like what would have happened if this game was played at the Staples Center.
LeBron sat on the court, taking in the moment in front of a crowd of dozens instead of thousands.
&ldquo;I was thinking about some of my teammates who this is their first appearance to the Finals. Obviously, AD (Anthony Davis) had a lot on my thought process,&rdquo; James said. &ldquo;This is the reason why I wanted to be a teammate of his and why I brought him here. I wanted him to see things that he had not seen before in this league. To be able to come through for him meant a lot for me personally.
&ldquo;Then I started thinking about the next opponent. Boston had a few moments in my head. Miami had a few moments in my head as well. How challenging that's going to be, whoever wins that series. Then, I just started thinking about my journey as well. All that was just going through my mind as the confetti was on the floor, was coming down, landing on my shoulder and things of that nature.&rdquo;
The Finals will begin Wednesday night if the Miami Heat finish off the Boston Celtics tonight or Friday night if the Celtics force a Game 7. So, LeBron will have downtime. He will be fresh. He will be motivated. In the meantime, he will probably be political. There&rsquo;s sort of an important presidential debate on Tuesday night that is going to change the tone of civility in the United States one way or another.
No matter who comes out of the East, the Lakers are going to be prohibitive favorites to win the franchise&rsquo;s 17th championship. We would all be talking about it around the water cooler if we were living normal lives, which we are not. The new normal is not always normal, as the saying goes.
But there is another saying that is fitting today, too. The more things change, the more things stay the same.
LeBron James is a player I have covered in several American cities and several major metropolitan cities around the world. I first met him at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan when he was getting ready to be the first overall pick of the 2003 NBA Draft, and I watched with his first agent, Aaron Goodwin, as James posed for the cameras at a photoshoot and appeared uncommonly comfortable in front of a camera for an 18-year-old.
&ldquo;See that watch he&rsquo;s wearing? That&rsquo;s a $100,000 watch,&rdquo; Goodwin told me as we waited. I got to spend some alone time with him thanks to the efforts of former NBA PR executive Teri Washington, and I asked him why he seemed so comfortable in front of a camera. He told me he had only been frightened by cameras once, in his sophomore year of high school when one of his games for St. Vincent-St. Mary&rsquo;s High School in Akron, OH was being televised for the first time.
His maturity was already off the charts. I subsequently watched him up close as he endured the growing pains of being harshly introduced to the alternate basketball universe known as FIBA basketball when he first represented Team USA at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece. He was playing under Larry Brown, who refused to start him, and the Americans&rsquo; first game of that Olympic tournament was a 19-point loss to Puerto Rico. Every time Brown would put James into the game, good things happened. And then LB would yank him.
Brown was stubborn. He refused to play James more than a few minutes here and there. Losses to Lithuania and Argentina followed. LeBron left Greece with a bronze medal, and it is safe to assume it is not in his trophy case at home. More likely it&rsquo;s in his sock drawer.
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More of the same came two years later in Japan at the World Championship when the Americans lost to Greece in the semifinals. But then came the 2008 Beijing Olympics two years later, and James teamed up with Kobe for the first time on what came to be known as the Redeem Team. A very, very close gold-medal game against Spain ended with Team USA winning the gold medal. Another gold came four years later in London, and another may be forthcoming next August if the Tokyo Olympics actually happen. <a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/nba-rumors-team-usa-olympics-lebron-james-jerry-colangelo-adam-silver-schedule-conflict" target="_blank" rel="noopener">As reported on this site a couple days ago, James wants to play</a>.
But first things first. Another trip to the NBA Finals is upcoming, the ninth time in 10 years we will all watch this freak of nature cement his status as one of the greatest athletes of our time. The obstinate among us will turn their heads away, upset that the intersection of politics and sports has made athletes spokespeople for the folks in America who do not get a fair shake and must live every day in fear.
Some people will wallow in their misery and hatred and fear, and there is nothing the rest of us can do about it. Those folks live empty lives, as far as I am concerned. But they are our neighbors and our fellow citizens, and we have no choice but to tolerate their ignorance and loathing. It comes with the territory in this crazy year of 2020; and it will endure the years ahead.
But we can all take solace in the fact that James is not going anywhere anytime soon. His brilliance will be on display for at least four more games, hopefully for seven more games. He has not won the championship yet, and you can bet your bottom dollar that he will not see from Erik Spoelstra or Brad Stevens the amount of single coverage that he saw in Game 5 against Denver.
Spoelstra, in particular, has some insight into what works and what doesn&rsquo;t work when it comes to all things LeBron. Spoelstra and Pat Riley played a major part in making James what he is today, a three-time NBA champion. They probably know a thing or two about how to get into his head, and we will find those things out if the Heat are the team coming out of the East.
In the meantime, we wait.
And we wonder what type of craziness awaits us next.
And we&rsquo;re trying to get though life one day at a time, hopefully staying safe and healthy and smart and sane. We are living in a year in which fear and anger surrounds us. Incompetence and idiocy have become normalized. Nobody is quite sure what any day will bring, but not many people expect it to be anything good.
But you know what? As we all get a day older, James remains somewhat of an ageless wonder. What he did on Saturday night is what is has been doing for 16 seasons&hellip; and there will be more to come. Kobe played for 20 seasons.&nbsp; LeBron is not hanging up his sneakers until he fulfills what he has described as the goal of his life: To play in an NBA game alongside his son, Bronny.
So life has its blessings. LeBron isn&rsquo;t going away. He isn&rsquo;t going to shut up and dribble. He is stubborn and stunning and stupefying. He brings joy to those of us who are not too pigheaded to turn away. He is mesmerizing. He makes you run out of superlatives.
He has seen his jersey burned by the fans in Cleveland whom he spurned&hellip; before he returned. He was embraced in Miami much the same way LakersNation is caressing him now. He clearly has a ton of basketball left in him, and today we celebrate the joy and wonder and rapture he can bring into all of our lives, even in the toughest of times.
&ldquo;I've never said, &lsquo;OK, I want to cast myself as a superstar or whatever the case may be.&rsquo; I just want to travel my own journey, because it is my journey,&rdquo; James said. &ldquo;I've appreciated everything that's happened along the way. I mean, throughout -- the ups, the downs, the ups on the court, the downs on the court, the wins and losses&hellip; But I've been able to, I guess as Frank Sinatra would say, &lsquo;I did it my way.&rsquo; At the end of the day and at the end of my career, I just hope that I inspire enough people. At the end of the day, all you have is your respect.&rdquo;
He has earned everyone&rsquo;s. Again. Thanks, LBJ.

Chris Sheridan, who has covered LeBron James since he was drafted in 2003, marvels at James' continued dominance at 35 years old.

Damon