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

thanks, that's the right price

that's definitely better than the intro price i got in january. people trying to sell email newsletters lately has made the athletic (and, like, actual magazines) feel cheap to me.

i signed for the atheltic a bit ago, and im pretty impressed with how much shit they can publish thats actually interesting

thanks for the heads up, mookie. I am now an Athletic subscriber for the first time. Already appreciating Jared Weiss' explanation of the Gordon Hayward sign n' trade

10. Nikola Jokic

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0:17
Jokic hook shot sends Nuggets to next roundNikola Jokic hits a clutch turn-around hook shot on Rudy Gobert to lift the Nuggets to the Game 7 win vs. the Jazz
Denver Nuggets | C

Previous rank: 7

2020-21 projected RPM: 4.3*

A sluggish start to the season was a distant memory when Jokic showed up trim for the seeding games and helped lead the Nuggets to their first conference finals since 2009. Along the way, Jokic showed how he helps his team in multiple ways. Against the Utah Jazz, who wanted to make him a scorer, Jokic averaged 26.3 points. That was down to 24.4 against the LA Clippers, but Jokic dominated the glass (13.4 rebounds) and averaged 6.6 assists. Though foul trouble limited Jokic against the eventual champion Lakers, he still made 58% of his 2-point attempts in an efficient series.

*Real plus-minus (RPM) is a player's estimated on-court impact on team performance, measured in net point differential per 100 offensive and defensive possessions.

More: What sets Nikola Jokic apart from other superstars

9. James Harden

Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images
Houston Rockets | SG

Previous rank: 4

2020-21 projected RPM: 6.8

Harden tumbled five spots in the rankings after back-to-back top-four finishes, and it's tough to say how much that reflects his uncertain future in Houston after a short training-camp holdout and a trade request. During the regular season, there's no doubt Harden has been far more valuable than ninth in the league, finishing in the top three in MVP voting five of the past six seasons. Clearly, our panel put more weight on Harden's uneven postseason performances. Still, the Rockets will rightly expect a prime package of players and picks if and when they trade Harden.

More: Teams that can make real offers for Harden

8. Stephen Curry

Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Golden State Warriors | PG

Previous rank: 6

2020-21 projected RPM: 6.0

This is the lowest Curry has ranked since breaking out as a star in the 2013 postseason. The issue is availability, as a broken bone in Curry's right hand limited him to five games last season and he missed a combined 44 games the previous two campaigns. If he can stay healthy, we'll find out the floor for a Curry-led offense lacking a second plus scorer after Klay Thompson's Achilles injury ended his season before it began. Without Thompson and Kevin Durant, the Warriors will be more dependent on Curry for shot creation than ever before.

More: Curry relishes opportunity to start "at ground zero again"

7. Damian Lillard

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2:43
Lillard goes off for 61 points vs. MavsIn his second straight game scoring more than 50 points, Damian Lillard racks up 61 points and eight assists as he leads the Trail Blazers to a 134-131 victory in a wild game against the Mavericks.
Portland Trail Blazers | PG

Previous rank: 9

2020-21 projected RPM: 3.4

Lillard's scoring prowess salvaged what looked like a season lost to injuries for the Blazers. He put together one of the great stretches in NBA history in late January into February, averaging 48.8 points and 8.2 3-pointers per game on 57% shooting as Portland knocked off four playoff teams. Lillard was nearly as good in the bubble, winning Player of the Seeding Games for his 37.6 points and 9.6 assists as the Blazers claimed the eighth seed. With a healthier roster fortified this offseason, Portland hopes not to rely so heavily on Lillard again in 2020-21, but he has proved capable of carrying the load.

More: Lillard named NBA bubble MVP

6. Kevin Durant

Nicole Sweet-USA TODAY Sports
Brooklyn Nets | PF

Previous rank: NR (injured)

2020-21 projected RPM: 2.4

Just how good Durant is 18 months after suffering an Achilles rupture during his final game with the Warriors is one of this season's swing questions. Players coming off the same injury have been noticeably less effective than projected upon their return, and KD was already likely to experience some decline in his early 30s. At the same time, when last we saw Durant fully healthy in the first two rounds of the 2019 playoffs, he was making a case as the league's most dominant individual force, and reports from players who have played with him during rehab have been encouraging.

More: Durant "ready for anything" in Nets' new smallball lineups

5. Kawhi Leonard

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One-finger block! Kawhi comes up with clutch denial on Murray's dunk attemptJamal Murray attacks the basket, but Kawhi Leonard rises to the occasion to stuff the dunk using his middle finger.
LA Clippers | SF

Previous rank: 2

2020-21 projected RPM: 4.1

Leonard's first season in Los Angeles (and the Orlando bubble) didn't have the same kind of storybook ending as 2019 in Toronto. The Clippers, trendy picks to win the title, were shocked in the second round after holding a 3-1 series lead on the Nuggets. Leonard was complicit, as he shot 6-of-22 in the deciding Game 7. Still, Leonard is primed to outperform his No. 5 ranking. He finished fifth in MVP voting despite his load -- whoops, injury -- management and finished second on a per-game basis in my wins above replacement player (WARP) metric in the playoffs.

More: Leonard ready to "get back after it" following playoff loss

4. Luka Doncic

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Doncic nails game winner as time expires in overtimeLuka Doncic drills a fadeaway 3-pointer as time expires to win the game for the Mavericks and tie the series vs. the Clippers 2-2.
Dallas Mavericks | PG

Previous rank: 16

2020-21 projected RPM: 3.4

The next great superstar served notice to the league in his second season, becoming the youngest player ever to earn All-NBA First Team honors based on age as of opening night. Doncic impressed in his playoff debut versus the LA Clippers, knocking down a 28-foot, step-back winner in overtime and averaging 31.0 points, 9.8 rebounds and 8.7 assists in the six-game series. Next for Doncic: Leading the Mavs to a series win for the first time since their 2011 championship. Based on what we've seen from Doncic, that's a matter of when, not if.

More: How Luka compares to the all-time NBA greats

3. Giannis Antetokounmpo

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2:18
Giannis' rise is a product of David Stern's global NBA visionOn this special episode of The Woj Pod, Adrian Wojnarowski talks about Giannis Antetokounmpo's rise to NBA superstardom.
Milwaukee Bucks | PF

Previous rank: 1

2020-21 projected RPM: 7.5

There's a reason much of the league spent this offseason hoarding cap space in preparation for Giannis' possible unrestricted free agency next summer. He has nothing left to prove in the regular season after winning back-to-back MVPs and Defensive Player of the Year before age 26, all while leading the Bucks to the NBA's best record in both seasons. Yet Giannis wasn't having the same impact against the Miami Heat in the playoffs before an ankle reinjury ended his series prematurely. To return to No. 1, Antetokounmpo must improve his scoring against defenses designed to keep him out of the paint.

Listen: "The Giannis Draft" on the Woj Pod

2. Anthony Davis

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2:34
The best of Anthony Davis' title run in the playoff bubbleTake a look back at the best highlights from Anthony Davis' title run with the Lakers in the bubble.
Los Angeles Lakers | PF

Previous rank: 5

2020-21 projected RPM: 4.0

For the first time in the 10-year history of NBArank, teammates finished 1-2. It's a testament to how well AD played in the Lakers' championship run that he created debate about who should win Finals MVP. It was Davis who hit the biggest shot of the playoffs, a 3-pointer to win Game 2 of the Western Conference finals. And the Lakers played better with Davis alone on the court in the postseason (plus-5.0 points per 100 possessions, via NBA Advanced Stats) than with LeBron James alone (plus-0.5) -- a reversal from the regular season.

More: What it took for Anthony Davis to get to this moment

1. LeBron James

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LeBron's most memorable playoff bubble momentsCheck out the best moments from LeBron James' championship run with the Lakers in the bubble.
Los Angeles Lakers | SF

Previous rank: 3

2020-21 projected RPM: 6.1

To quote "The Wire," "The King stay the King." After controversially relinquishing the No. 1 spot to Giannis in the wake of his injury-marred first season in Los Angeles, LeBron reclaimed the NBArank throne he has held nine of the past 10 years by winning his fourth title and Finals MVP at age 35. James continues to evolve, leading the league in assists while ceding some scoring to Davis. With the short turnaround before opening night, it's unlikely James will match last season's 67 (of 71) games played. Come playoff time, however, there's still nobody you'd rather start your team with than LeBron.

ty :)

I'd quibble with placing Doncic ahead of Lillard, Curry and Harden. That seems based as much on promise as delivery. He's clearly top ten, tho.

yah lillard ahead of curry is smh

doncic was top 5 last year, he'll probably be the best player in the league this year. hard to argue with any of the enties in the top 8 really, exact position aside

sorry forgot the rankings lol, harden clearly better player than lillard imo, put him in the top 8 and lillard/jokic rounding out the top 10 seems right

not sure about ad being #2, the +/- stats noted above are janky and hes a permanent second option

yeah its recency bias+championship glow+LA bias

https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/30453357/nba-five-most-intriguing-players-2020-21-including-kevin-durant

*praying hands emoji*

I get more mad every day about espn putting lowe behind a paywall in the middle of a pandemic

i let mine lapse dont want to pay the mouse

theres a ton of video clips in here so the formatting will probably be whack

It's time for one NBA preseason tradition: My six most intriguing players of the season, only there are five here. Blame the supercompressed offseason. As always, we steer away from rookies and sophomores.

Lauri Markkanen and Wendell Carter Jr., Chicago Bulls

Carter and Markkanen felt a connection the first time they took the court together in practice. They linked up on high-lows, and they had an innate sense in screening actions for who should roll and who should pop.

It translated to games right away:

Markkanen's gravity as a pick-and-pop threat unlocked rim runs for Carter.

They reversed rolls, with Markkanen slipping to the rim -- and Carter feeding him:

They looked like a foundational frontcourt for the modern NBA. With Kris Dunn gone, they are now two of three players remaining from the Jimmy Butler trade return -- Markkanen directly, Carter via the high pick the rebuilding Bulls got the following season.

"We clicked before we put in plays or anything," Carter told ESPN. "And then I hit the rookie wall, and we kept getting injured. So there were just glimpses. It was hard to keep the chemistry going."

Carter went out for that 2018-19 season six weeks after Markkanen's return from an early-season injury. He missed 22 games last season; Markkanen missed 15. They have played only about 1,300 minutes together.

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Last season was a disappointment for both. One exception: Carter's defense, which has to be really good to cover for Markkanen and Chicago's perimeter leakage.

Carter is fast and mobile, with a knack for verticality and a hellacious second jump in rebounding scrums. (Markkanen is tall for power forward, and he put up solid rebounding numbers in his first two seasons. Chicago protected the glass at a top-10 level with Markkanen and Carter on the floor.)

Carter did not look out of his depth trapping pick-and-rolls in the idiosyncratic, ultra-aggressive scheme favored by now-former Bulls coach Jim Boylen.

Billy Donovan, Boylen's replacement, said the Bulls will toggle schemes but skew more conservative. Carter is excited to see what he can do as a rim protector setting up shop below the foul line.

"It's going to make me even better," he said.

Carter was already Chicago's best defender. Get him engaged on offense and he could be Chicago's best player.

Carter carries a reputation as a capable midrange shooter, but he went gun-shy as Boylen discouraged midrangers. Carter barely looked at the rim. Opponents stopped guarding him.

For better or worse, that's over. Carter went 1-of-9 from deep in two preseason games. He took 29 3s last season.

"Trust and believe, you are gonna see jump-shooting Wendell," Carter said. "My confidence is through the roof."

And 3-point shooting Wendell? "For sure. You'll see him too," Carter said.

Last season, Carter served mostly as a screen-and-dive option. He can dart behind slower defenders, cram lobs, and toss passes on the move.

That setup -- plus Boylen's aversion to long 2s -- marginalized Markkanen into a role as standstill floor-spacer. Markkanen hopes Donovan resurrects sets in which he works in tandem with Carter.

"When you are involved, that's a good feeling," Markkanen told ESPN. "It's important for us to mix it up."

Good NBA defenses demand variety.

"We have to explore all those things," Donovan said.

During Markkanen's best stretch -- February 2019, when he averaged 26 points on 49% shooting -- Boylen made Markkanen the centerpiece of unpredictable screening actions similar to ones the Cleveland Cavaliers and Minnesota Timberwolves have used for Kevin Love.

Markkanen played with ferocity, pumping-and-driving and hunting dunks:

He flew off pindowns from Carter, and ran some big-big pick-and-rolls with him -- daring lumbering centers to switch onto him.

That February 2019 Markkanen was confident and (briefly) healthy. A left ankle injury hobbled him much of last season; Markkanen played with a brace, and could not push off his left leg with power, he said. He couldn't get past slow centers off the dribble.

Now healthy, it is on Markkanen to prove he deserves more touches. It starts with living up to his billing as a shooter. He has hit 35.6% on 3s -- average. He does not inspire enough frantic closeouts or extra rotations that leave the defense naked elsewhere.

He has been almost unbelievably bad from midrange: 30% last season, never above 39% on long 2s. Among 260 players who attempted at least 300 shots last season, only 28 underperformed their expected effective field-goal percentage -- based on the location of each shot and the nearest defender -- by a larger margin than Markkanen, per Second Spectrum data.

Markkanen can beat defenders off the bounce only if they fear his jumper enough to press him. If they give any cushion, he dribbles into walls.

He has not been able to exploit guards on switches, a must for any screen-setter with his skill set. The Bulls have scored less than 0.85 points per possession in each of the past two seasons when Markkanen shoots out of the post or dishes to a teammate who fires -- bottom-25 numbers leaguewide, per Second Spectrum.

Markkanen sometimes struggles to shove guards backward. His dribble can get high and loose -- prey for swiping defenders:

Carter's presence mucks up the lane, at times. On most switches last season, Markkanen slunk toward the corner.

What makes all this so frustrating is that Markkanen has shown flashes of a mean streak:

He is willing to initiate contact, but not forceful enough to finish through it yet.

He should have the chops to shoot over smaller guards, which would in turn force them to pressure him -- and open up his off-the-dribble game.

Practicing full-contact post-ups was difficult amid a pandemic, but Markkanen spent the offseason honing footwork and ballhandling. "With someone like Dirk [Nowitzki], you couldn't switch on him because he'd punish you," Markkenen said. "That's the goal."

Markkanen worked afternoons with a private skills trainer in a gym so small Markkanen did not have room to shoot corner 3s.

They drilled basic ballhandling, including with two balls. The trainer would toss the ball off the backboard, and have Markkanen rebound and push it up the floor on a one-man fast break.

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Hovering over everything is Chicago's lack of guard playmaking. Like most bigs, Markkanen and Carter need to catch the ball with some small advantage. They rely on guards to provide it by puncturing the defense, and kicking to them on target and on time.

Chicago's lead ball handlers are scattershot, and the Bulls did not address the issue in the draft or free agency. Zach LaVine is a scorer first. So is Coby White, who appears to have snatched the starting point guard job. Opponents duck picks against Tomas Satoransky, allowing defenders to stay home on Markkanen and Carter.

Chemistry on the pick-and-roll has come slowly. Chicago's guards sometimes look off mismatches in the post to chase their own.

"It has been a work in progress getting on the same page with the guards," Markkanen said.

On defense, Markkanen needs more reps chasing stretch power forwards. (Carter might be better at that, but the Bulls want him around the basket.) If Markkanen straggles, he might not have a consistent position on defense -- a problem for him given the Bulls just drafted Patrick Williams, who projects as at least a part-time power forward.

The Bulls have played Markkanen at center, but it's unclear if those alignments can survive on defense. That setup did not work with Thaddeus Young at power forward; smart teams stuck their centers on Young and kept faster power forwards on Markkanen, vaporizing the speed advantage that is the entire point of slotting him at center.

The Bulls will revisit that lineup with Otto Porter Jr. at power forward, Donovan said. "It could be a come-from-behind lineup," the coach indicated.

At this point, Carter and Markkanen are just eager to play together again. And they want to win, to point the Bulls somewhere after half a decade of aimlessness. They have always been team-first guys, even in moments of internal drama. During Boylen's first speech as coach in December 2018, Carter stood and told Boylen -- and by extension, the team -- "Whatever you need, coach, I'll do it," multiple witnesses recalled.

If Markkanen and Carter click, the Bulls have some direction. If they don't, they could wander the wilderness.

"It's a big, big year for us," Markkanen said.

Marvin Bagley III, Sacramento Kings

Bagley knows he will always be tied to Luka Doncic.

"You see it, you hear it, but I pay it no mind," Bagley said. "I'm not here to please anyone outside the team. I'm here to help the team win. I'm here to help this organization get to places it has never been."

The Kings have one cornerstone in De'Aaron Fox, whose presence as lead ball handler contributed to the decision to pick Bagley over Doncic, Vlade Divac, the Kings' former general manager, told ESPN last year. Whether Fox becomes an occasional All-Star or perennial All-NBA candidate will be one determining factor in how far these Kings go.

Bagley is the other. He is still something of a mystery after playing just 13 games last season due to a foot injury.

He was slated as a starter before contracting the coronavirus prior to camp, Luke Walton, the team's coach, told ESPN. Walton would not say whether Bagley would have started at center or power forward. (He started Sacramento's preseason game Tuesday next to Richaun Holmes.)

The hope is that Bagley can play either position depending on matchups and health.

"For now, it's kind of, 'Who cares. Let's get him on the court,'" Walton said.

Bagley has proved he can inflict damage as the center of a spread pick-and-roll attack, with Fox and three shooters around him. Bagley is fast and bouncy, with a nasty streak. He seems to relish dislodging defenders with forearms to the gut, and then dunking them into oblivion:

Bagley can face up and roast centers in open space, and doesn't need a right hand to do it:

He is a terror on the offensive glass. He tosses rivals aside with swim moves like a defensive lineman. He can jump twice in the same time it takes some centers to get up and down once.

The next steps are spraying passes on the move and abusing switches; Bagley has been unsteady in the post, prone to traveling violations.

The larger challenge at center comes in anchoring the defense. Bagley is agile enough to switch onto most guards, but that leaves the Kings vulnerable to mismatches and small around the glass. Drop him back and Bagley becomes responsible for making more reads and quarterbacking the defense.

Walton intends to use both schemes. "We'll keep him back in coverage, but to me, that's more challenging for him than switching," Walton said.

Walton is confident Bagley can defend power forwards of all stripes, and he will have him switch even more at that position. Bagley struggled as a rookie chasing stretchier 4s around the arc, but he hasn't had much game time to adapt.

His role on offense at that position is murkier. Holmes and Hassan Whiteside are paint-bound dive guys. Sacramento tried to have the best of both worlds last season by signing Dewayne Dedmon as a center who could shoot 3s, clearing the lane for Bagley, but the experiment went bust.

Defenses are not worried about Bagley spotting up as a power forward. He is 34-of-118 (28.8%) on 3s. Opponents ignore him. He can fade out of plays:

The Kings are optimistic Bagley's jumper will come with time. He has shot well on long 2s, and went 25-of-31 at the line last season.

Bagley has ambitions on offense beyond rim running and spot shooting. "I feel like I can do more," he said, "but I'll do whatever the team needs."

During his pre-draft workout with the Kings, Dave Joerger, their former coach, tested Bagley's ballhandling by having him dribble up and down the court -- sometimes with two balls -- and execute moves at full speed when Joerger called them out: Through the legs! Crossover!

"It was the weirdest workout I've been a part of, but it was fun," Bagley said. Divac talked about Bagley playing small forward.

Walton will let Bagley stretch himself -- eventually.

"You have to do other things first to help the team," Walton said. "Then we can look at expanding some of the other stuff."

Bagley is going to score a lot. He might sniff 20 points per game this season if he stays healthy and gets enough minutes. He is a prodigious talent. Honing the other parts of his game is the only way he can take Sacramento to new places, and render Doncic a minor part of his story.

Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images
Kevin Durant, Brooklyn Nets

The league didn't lose a normal superstar when Durant ruptured his Achilles tendon during the 2019 NBA Finals.

Durant is a historic giant. He was just 30 years old during those Finals, and had already amassed almost 23,000 regular-season points (31st in NBA history). He was one basket away from tying Tony Parker for 10th in postseason points. With good health, Durant appeared likely to pass Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant on the all-time scoring list -- leaving him at No. 4, behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, and LeBron James. With pristine health and unusual longevity -- not an unreasonable expectation for a 7-foot sniper -- Durant might have challenged Abdul-Jabbar's record.

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By the end of this season, he could become the seventh player to compile 22,000 points, 6,500 rebounds, 3,000 assists, and 1,000 each of steals and blocks. (The other six, per Basketball-Reference: Abdul-Jabbar, Malone, Nowitzki, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, and Hakeem Olajuwon.)

Unlike five of those six, Durant is an annual threat to crack the 50-40-90 shooting club. He made it once, and barely missed several times. (His career shooting line: 49-38-88, which is just ridiculous.)

He was on track to finish as one of the 10 greatest players ever, with a possibility of breaching even loftier territory.

If Durant is back and the Nets avoid chemistry landmines, they can contend for the title. Durant is that powerful a two-way force.

The Nets have not found that third star to flank Kyrie Irving and Durant, but the upside is the sort of depth that should be unusually valuable during a perilous season. Lineups with Durant at center -- a look coach Steve Nash has vowed to use -- will test that depth and Brooklyn's culture.

Joe Harris should be a regular third wheel alongside Brooklyn's two stars. He is a solid, multipositional defender, and one of the best shooters alive. There are at least seven reasonable candidates for two remaining Durant-at-center spots: Spencer Dinwiddie, Caris LeVert, Landry Shamet, Taurean Prince, Jeff Green, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, and Bruce Brown.

Dinwiddie and LeVert are the best pure talents, but the group featuring both would be small and might bleed points and offensive rebounds. (Defense will make or break the Nets as a real contender.)

Irving, Dinwiddie, and LeVert played only 67 minutes together last season, and Nash has talked of LeVert accepting a Manu Ginobili-like sixth man role.

Brooklyn could go bigger with both Prince and Green -- the latter coming off an encouraging stint in precisely this role with the Houston Rockets -- but that might alienate two crafty ball handlers in LeVert and Dinwiddie hungering for larger roles.

Brown looms as a potential wild card, if his 41% mark on corner 3s last season sustains -- and his hideous 26% hit rate on above-the-break 3s improves. Luwawu-Cabarrot jacked from deep with bravado last season.

DeAndre Jordan and Jarrett Allen might do so well rampaging through open space for dunks and barricading the rim that Nash won't need the small-ball card much.

We're up to 12 rotation guys, and have not mentioned Nicolas Claxton, Rodions Kurucs, Tyler Johnson, or Reggie Perry -- the 57th pick in the draft who has drawn positive reviews, and a likely candidate for a two-way spot.

These guys are super deep. Depth is handy, but star power wins on the biggest stages. Peak Durant would tie everything together.

Zach Collins, Portland Trail Blazers

We've seen it before: Intriguing young guy on win-now team suffers injury after injury, and inexorably falls out of the team's planning. It might not be something anyone says out loud. There might be no loss of trust or affection. There is just a general, almost tangible sense of, We can't wait anymore.

It is a testament to Collins' work ethic, likability, and potential that the same plotline has not befallen him after he lost last season to shoulder surgery and then ankle surgery. Other teams have called, assuming Collins is Portland's main trade chip. Portland's veterans are fine waiting longer -- waiting to see if Collins becomes the rare 7-footer who shoots 3s and protects the rim.

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"You get that respect from veterans by how you compete -- by not backing down," Terry Stotts, Portland's coach, told ESPN. "Zach is fearless. He wants to win. He's got some s--- to him."

The Blazers have to wait about a month for Collins' return. In the meantime, Portland acquired or re-signed five players capable of taking his minutes at power forward (Robert Covington, Derrick Jones Jr., Carmelo Anthony) or center (Enes Kanter, Harry Giles III). There is a scenario in which those guys thrive, Collins' struggles early, and the season -- Collins' pivotal fourth campaign, sending him into restricted free agency, barring an extension before Monday -- slips away.

The happy flip side: Collins roars upon returning, reclaims the starting power forward spot next to Jusuf Nurkic, and snags a chunk of minutes as a stretch center. Collins played well in both roles in the 2019 Western Conference semifinals against the Denver Nuggets, a seven-game slugfest that served as his coming-out party.

"In the biggest moments, I showed up," Collins told ESPN. "That was huge for my confidence."

That version of Collins raises the present team's ceiling and changes Portland's broader trajectory. A Covington-Collins-Nurkic frontcourt could stabilize Portland's leaky defense, allowing them to play ultra-big without sacrificing skill.

That hinges on Collins doing enough damage from the perimeter on offense. At power forward, he has to spot up around Nurkic pick-and-rolls. Collins is a career 32% shooter from deep on low volume. He has been bricky from the corners. Instead of standing in those corners, Collins sometimes lingers in the dead zone along the baseline -- short of 3-point range, but too far away to catch and dunk.

"He has to be one or the other -- a corner 3-point shooter, or one power dribble from the rim," Stotts said.

Collins believes he can be a 40% 3-point shooter. If he fails, it will not be for a lack of practice. Collins' father, Mike, coached him from a young age, and instilled an intense competitive drive. On visits to Portland's practice facility, he assured Blazers coaches Collins would keep improving, telling them, "I raised a monster" and "I raised a machine," according to Collins and others.

If Collins performs below expectations in shooting drills, he often insists on starting again -- over objections of coaches tasked with monitoring his workload.

The job description of Portland's power forwards goes beyond shooting. They have to make quick drive and pass decisions when Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum kick them the ball. Collins has shown flashes -- an explosive pump-and-go, an occasional floater -- but only flashes. He prefers the more predictable job description of Portland's centers: screen, roll, make plays in the paint.

"I like [center] a little more," Collins said. "You're involved more. It's more clear-cut."

Collins has a nascent post-up game against switches, and has been productive taking guards to the block, per Second Spectrum.

He should be able to defend both power forwards and centers, though true-blue wings sliding to power forward might give him issues -- as they do most bigs. Collins has quick feet and a churning motor. Stotts in the Florida bubble trusted Collins to switch onto Ja Morant, LeVert, and other quick scoring guards. Collins held his own, though he can bite on pump fakes and get handsy when he is worried a guard might scoot by him; Collins fouls a lot.

"I've watched a lot of film on that with our coaches," he said. "They have given me ways to get around it, so that if I touch someone, it's not as obvious."

Switching can take him away from the basket, where Collins has emerged as a fearsome -- if foul-prone -- deterrent. He blocked 15 shots in just 145 minutes in that Denver series, and he has held opposing shooters to a low field goal percentage around the basket, per NBA.com.

Collins might be able to leverage that skill more often at center. He has bulked up enough so that brutes can't bully him as easily. Still: There is a hard ceiling on available center minutes as long as Nurkic -- just 26, and extension-eligible -- remains in Portland.

But the actualized version of Collins is flexible enough to help Portland at multiple positions. If the Blazers get that guy this season, they will be a problem.

ty!

Bagley said. "I'm not here to please anyone outside the team. I'm here to help the team win. I'm here to help this organization get to places it has never been."

The Kings have been an NBA team since 1945 (as the Rochester Royals) and won an NBA championship that year, so Marvin has a pretty high opinion of himself.

pretty please :)

https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/30523584/eight-nba-tiers-rating-all-30-teams-top-bottom

Seconded. Dear god this thread gonna get busy with the mouse putting every writer worth a damn behind the paywall.

try https://www.espn.com.au/espn/story/_/id/30573008/eight-nba-tiers-rating-all-30-teams-top-bottom

cheers mate

lol. can you just do that with every article??

lol! thanks

lol incredible

that rules thx micah!

idk if it always works, normally i just read whats posted here

i thought lowes piece was ass btw - its a very difficult season to predict but i still think he did it poorly

really? his tiers basically made sense to me.

plz sir just a crumb of content https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/30626423/nba-teams-going-need-james-harden-trade-soon

1) boston celtics

rude

soooo you can read all espn insider stories via espn.com.au if you use a vpn pointed at australia

i have a vpn but u cld prob use a free proxy website too

Behind the scenes of the failed Lloyd Pierce era, and why the Hawks were eager for a new voice

The Athletic NBA Staff 2h ago 18
— Reported via Chris Kirschner, Sam Amick and David Aldridge

Seven months after the pandemic had brought the Atlanta Hawks’ season to an unwelcome end, it was time for a Southern California reunion to bring them all back together again.

Coach Lloyd Pierce and all the Hawks returnees would meet for team-bonding time, with all sorts of activities planned that he hoped would aid their chemistry heading into a season they all knew would be pressure-packed. There was pick-up basketball against other NBA players, a boxing class where they squared off against one another and group dinners where topics included, among other things, the upcoming election.

But the real headliner event took place when Pierce and Trae Young met privately to discuss their upcoming third year together. At that point, anyone and everyone around the Hawks organization was well aware the relationship between these two key figures was strained.

If the Hawks were going to make the playoffs this season and contend, if they were going to avoid delays to accomplishing their shared goals, they would have to make this pairing work. Sources say they ended the trip on good terms and had a better understanding of how they each could make this work for the long term.

But in the end — after old tensions between Pierce and Young resurfaced, other players grew frustrated with Pierce’s style and owner Tony Ressler’s desperate desire to make the playoffs added so much pressure to the situation — it was not to be. Those plans Pierce and Young had hatched in Southern California officially fell short Monday when the underperforming Hawks (14-20) announced that Pierce had been relieved of his duties.

Hawks president Travis Schlenk, who had worked with Pierce a decade before while they were with the Golden State Warriors, made it clear in the team’s statement that the move was made with the hopes of righting their ship.

“We have high expectations for our team on the court and we believe by making this change now that we can have a strong second half of the season,” Schlenk said.

The 44-year-old coach, who was in the last guaranteed year of his contract and who had spoken so openly just last week in an interview with The Athletic about the likelihood that he would be let go, will be replaced by an interim coach in Nate McMillan who had been serving as Pierce’s lead assistant. And the primary reason for it all, sources say, is that several players — from Young on down — were eager to hear a new voice.

As this season progressed, the goodwill that Pierce and Young had re-established would dissipate, and the friction between them would return. It became apparent that Young and Pierce were not going to be a match that was sustainable for long-term success.

But Young was hardly alone here. Sources say player support beyond Young was dwindling at the end, with several sharing their desire for a change with management recently. Still, the difficult dynamic between Young and Pierce was an undeniable factor in Pierce’s downfall and a tone-setter of sorts for the group at large.

(Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)
Pierce took the tough love approach with Young from Day 1, opting to push him hard as a way of maximizing his celebrated talent. But Young, who had inspired so much hype during his time coming up in (and at) Oklahoma, often pushed back against Pierce’s style. John Collins could relate.

Pierce made a public comment two seasons ago about not running plays for Collins, and it rubbed the Hawks big man the wrong way. Collins went to Pierce about his issue with the statement, but Pierce, sources say, turned around and called Collins’ approach selfish in wanting to have a more defined role on the team. Over time, the residue from these types of situations remained.

Cam Reddish was among those, sources said, who also had an issue with Pierce’s coaching. Sources said Reddish felt like he was being “picked on” behind the scenes when it came to mistakes the second-year player made. There are a few players on the Hawks’ roster who feel like Reddish’s potential is higher than anyone on the roster but that Pierce’s input was stunting his development.

The hope is Reddish, taken 10th overall by Atlanta in 2019, can soar with a new voice. At the least, though, there will be no more excuses for him to improve after his clashes with Pierce. It also couldn’t have helped that two of the players known to be disenfranchised with Pierce — Young and Reddish — were the ones acquired when Atlanta made the controversial trade with Dallas in exchange for Luka Doncic in June 2018.

The lack of trust in Pierce, from numerous players, started in his first season. For The Athletic’s anonymous NBA player poll in April 2019, when one Hawks player was asked which coach in the NBA would you not want to play for, he responded with, “Are we allowed to say the one we play for?”

The lack of faith in Pierce from the players quickly eroded last year, with several on the team feeling like they could not approach him without leaving the conversation feeling like they weren’t being heard. Because of that, players would turn to assistant coach Chris Jent in the hopes that he could be the one to relay any comments or concerns to Pierce on their behalf.

There wasn’t a specific event that led to Pierce losing the locker room but rather a collection of small moments that built up since his first season in Atlanta and finally combusted in the team’s first season with expectations under him.

“There’s no telling when he lost it,” one source close to the team said. “He didn’t have support from many people. It came down to him not being able to manage egos. That’s what did him in, especially these young guys. It’s tough.”

Interestingly, away from the team, Pierce’s comments about Young’s game raised eyebrows around the league.

During a league office Competition Committee call on Dec. 30, Pierce was among a couple of members who spoke out about the way certain players are able to draw fouls and, at times, bait officials into making foul calls. Multiple sources said he spoke about how he “hates” the shots Young takes at times and the fouls he’s able to draw on them. It was perceived as an interesting comment for several people on the call because Pierce’s star player has seemingly taken advantage of drawing fouls and getting to the foul line. But it was made in the broader picture of how players are drawing fouls by manipulating their bodies.

As far as on-court decisions go, players routinely criticized Pierce’s in-game management strategy over the past three seasons. One of the most notable moments of last season came in a December 2019 game in Miami. The Hawks led by six in the final minute when Pierce substituted Young out for DeAndre’ Bembry for defensive purposes. After Miami cut Atlanta’s lead down to three, Pierce failed to call a timeout to reinsert Young on offense. Bembry ended up getting his shot blocked, the Heat tied the game and it eventually went into overtime where the Hawks lost.

Just a few weeks after that Miami game, in Cleveland, Young was frustrated once again with a decision Pierce made in a late-game situation. Pierce had Young inbound the ball with the hope that he’d get it right back to put up a clean shot attempt at the end of the game. Instead, the Cavaliers denied him a good look, and the Hawks lost. After the game, Young was asked if he preferred being the inbounds passer, and he tersely responded with, “It’s not anybody else’s way, but the coach’s way.”

Players routinely felt Pierce didn’t take accountability for mistakes they viewed were his own. Last season as the team went through its final year of a complete rebuild, Pierce would frequently say the team lacked energy and effort, but it would be defiantly rebuffed by the team when asked about his claims afterward.

This season was much of the same, as players felt like Pierce didn’t take any blame for the team blowing 11 games this season where they held a fourth-quarter lead. When some of the players approached Pierce a few weeks ago with the request to have more off-ball movement and free flowing in the offense in late-game situations instead of stagnation, they, once again, felt unheard.

Over the past few weeks, players started to wonder if Pierce had resigned to the inevitability of his situation and was going to go out his way. As the same story played out in end-of-game situations, sources say Hawks owner Ressler grew incensed with his team losing winnable games in the same manner.

The Hawks’ offseason that was widely seen as a success clearly added pressure to Pierce’s situation. In his fourth year as the head of the Hawks’ front office, Schlenk landed Rajon Rondo (two years, $15 million), Danilo Gallinari (three years, $61 million), Bogdan Bogdanovic (four years, $72 million), Kris Dunn (two years, $10 million) and Solomon Hill (one year, $2.17 million). In turn, there was rare hype around the Hawks again — especially when they started the season 4-1 and had the league’s second-best offense early on.

But the harsh truth about Pierce’s dismissal is that he never truly had a chance to coach this group, as the injuries changed everything about the challenge that awaited them.

Rondo has missed 16 games this season with knee, ankle and back injuries. When he has played, the Hawks have been 14.9 points worse with him on the floor, per Cleaning the Glass.
Dunn has missed the entire season for the Hawks. He originally was diagnosed with right knee cartilage disruption, and as he worked his way back, Dunn had a setback and needed right ankle surgery to remove loose cartilage.
Bogdanovic has missed 25 games with an avulsion fracture in his knee. He has been able to practice lately and should return soon.
Gallinari missed 10 games due to an ankle sprain. Since coming back from the injury, he has not looked like himself and has been a consistent target for opposing teams to attack while he’s been on defense.
First-round pick Onyeka Okongwu entered his rookie year with a stress fracture causing him to be behind from the outset.
Yet amid all of that roster uncertainty, this part of the Hawks’ landscape hadn’t changed: Ressler is known to have made it abundantly clear that he expected meaningful growth from this group, and it appears no amount of unforeseen setbacks was about to change his view on that front.

“As we said at the beginning of the season, our goal was to have progress this year and to move forward,” Schlenk said in a news conference discussing Pierce’s dismissal. “We just felt like it wasn’t happening as quickly as we wanted it to. These are not easy decisions. These are real-life decisions that affect multiple families, and they’re not easy. We felt like, for the organization, it was the best thing to do moving forward.”

Anyone who had been close to the Hawks’ situation these past few seasons and saw the struggles of this campaign could sense this was coming, perhaps no one more than Pierce himself. Just last week, in an interview with The Athletic’s Jeff Schultz, he was uniquely candid in assessing his own situation.

“Travis is going to fire me one day,” Pierce said. “And do you know what I’m going to say? The guy gave me a great opportunity in life. Do you think I’m going to be pissed? He’s damn near my best friend.”

Those personal dynamics were on display at the end of their partnership, when Schlenk struck a somber tone in his Zoom call to discuss the decision with reporters.

“I don’t know if you guys in your jobs ever have to let people go; I’ve been unfortunate (enough) to be in a position to have to fire people in the past, and I can tell you it’s an extremely difficult thing,” said Schlenk, who was hired in May 2017 after spending the previous 12 years with Golden State.

“You’re not talking about one person. You’re talking about their family (as well). And in a situation where you’re talking about coaches, you’re talking about their assistant coaches, their video staff. A decision like this, I certainly don’t take lightly. I’ve been in the NBA for a long time and fortunately have been in a position to be able to do this, and these are decisions I don’t take lightly at all. These decisions affect families and multiple families.”

Pierce leaves Atlanta with a 63-120 record, the 11th-worst record by winning percentage in NBA history with a minimum of 175 games coached. An argument can certainly be made that Pierce wasn’t given enough time to show what he can do as a head coach.

His first season in Atlanta was meant to be all about playing the young players as much as possible, allowing them to play through their mistakes and hoping to end up with a high draft pick in the lottery.

The Hawks entered last season still in rebuild mode, as the talent from his first season didn’t improve. Evan Turner was the team’s backup point guard entering the season, and they had a center rotation of Alex Len, Damian Jones and then-rookie Bruno Fernando.

By the time the Hawks reached the unexpected end of their 2019-20 campaign, with a 20-47 record on March 11 that would stand for good after the NBA decided not to invite the Hawks (or seven other teams) to the Orlando bubble, sources say Pierce’s job security was already extremely tenuous, in large part, because of the locker room’s distrust in him. When Pierce publicly declared last March that the Hawks would be in the playoffs this season, it caught everyone inside the front office by surprise.

Whenever Schlenk was asked about it on multiple occasions over the course of the next few months, he would always be sure to downplay Pierce’s guarantee. If not for a multitude of non-basketball factors, from the pandemic that had forced the premature end to their season to the emergence of the social justice movement in which Pierce was so involved, sources with knowledge of the Hawks’ plans say he may have been fired at that point.

But Pierce had become a vocal leader on the social justice front during a time when the spotlight had turned in that meaningful direction, and it’s clear the bigger-than-basketball element won out when it came to the Hawks’ calculus. Pierce had been lauded for his role on the Coaches Association’s committee on racial justice and reform, with the combination of his voice and the Atlanta backdrop proving powerful. From Ressler on down, there was an understanding that not only did the season being cut short take valuable time away from Pierce and his team, but his work off the court deserved to be part of the equation too.

The Hawks have taken a conscious effort in ingratiating themselves within the fabric of the community in trying to create long-lasting change, and Pierce was at the heart of it. Pierce was the first coach in the league to get his team to use its arena as a polling place, and State Farm Arena turned into the largest polling location in the state of Georgia’s history. According to a Hawks team source, 40,000 people voted at the arena for the November election.

What’s more, it mattered a great deal that Young’s father, Ray, had even supported Pierce publicly on social media by lauding the work he had done in the social justice space.

“Talking to my peers, seeing their leadership off court has been inspiring, (including) Lloyd’s leadership with the NBA coaches committee,” Utah Jazz coach Quin Snyder said in July.

Pierce’s reputation among his peers was evident after he was fired, with San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich, Dallas’ Rick Carlisle, Philadelphia’s Doc Rivers and New Orleans’ Stan Van Gundy among those voicing their support.

Still, the ground beneath him entering this season had been extremely shaky. The fact that the Hawks had not picked up his team option for the 2021-22 season was evidence enough that he was in trouble.

In an interview with The Athletic before the start of the season, when Ressler was asked what his confidence level was in Pierce and Schlenk as a duo, the team’s owner said he needed to see more out of them before being sure they were the ones who would lead the team to a title one day.

“All I can say is I think Travis and Lloyd are a superb team so far, but please understand let’s win a bit,” Ressler said. “We really do believe that last year’s season was difficult for so many reasons, including the fact that it stopped early just when we started playing good basketball. Please hear me, 20-47 in a 67-game season is not something to write home about. I think we do have a good roster. We’ve done some good things, not just on the court but in coaching and in our front office.

“I feel great about where we are starting the season. I don’t get into the press stuff too much because I would rather let the players, coaches and GM talk about what we’re doing from a basketball perspective because they should know more and are closer to it, but I look forward to talking to you guys whether it’s at the midseason point or end of season. We should be so much better, and it’s going to be painfully obvious. We’ll see.”

Thirty-four games into the season, the improvement hadn’t come. They are currently 11th in the Eastern Conference — unacceptable by the organization’s standards considering only the top 10 teams will take part in the league’s new play-in tournament. As Schlenk pointed out in his news conference, there’s plenty of time to move up in the East standings as well (they’re just 3.5 games back of the fourth seed).

“We have a ton of basketball to play, and we’re still right there,” Schlenk said. “It’s not like we’re 10 games out of the playoffs or anything like that. We’re a couple of games out, so if you have one good week, you’re right back into it.”

There’s optimism that a new voice will make all the difference, that this difficult decision to dismiss Pierce will ultimately prove to be worth it. McMillan is a proven commodity, having been a head coach for a combined 16 seasons in Seattle, Portland and Indiana (661-588; nine playoff appearances; and a 17-36 postseason mark). And last but certainly not least, Young is known to be fond of McMillan’s style.

“My focus is really on the Hawks and trying to assist Coach on what he’s trying to do here and after the season, we’ll see what happens,” McMillan, who went 2-1 while serving as acting head coach while Pierce was away to attend the birth of his second child, said on Feb. 16. “I signed on knowing what I would be coming in to and knowing what I needed to do as far as joining Coach Pierce’s staff as an assistant. This is the role I wanted. We’re going to try to turn this thing around.”

Now he’ll try turning it around as the man in charge and as the voice the Hawks hope can lead them into the playoffs.

— The Athletic’s Shams Charania also contributed to the reporting for this story.

feels like a team with bad vibes they shd trade collins to the spurs

Jemele Hill in the Atlantic:

The night that sports began shutting down was the night that the United States began shutting down. On March 11, 2020, an announcer at the Oklahoma City Thunder’s home arena told fans just before tip-off that the evening’s game had been postponed. Within an hour, the visiting Utah Jazz revealed that a player—soon identified as the center Rudy Gobert—had tested positive for COVID-19, and the NBA also declared that it was indefinitely suspending the season. Suddenly, Americans were forced to accept that the coronavirus pandemic was going to completely disrupt everyday life.

Although the NBA eventually resumed its season by creating a playoff bubble, and other professional and college leagues figured out a way to return in some form, the sports world is still struggling for normalcy nearly a year after widespread shutdowns began and fans turned their attention to matters of life and death.

As the pandemic dragged on, the leagues, universities, pro franchises, and other entities that profit from a multibillion-dollar sports economy made a push for games to return. But these efforts also reflected a working assumption that the mere presence of sports would provide comfort, and perhaps a welcome distraction, for people who wanted to escape the horrors of the pandemic, at least momentarily.

But the ratings for some of the biggest sporting events in the past year show that the public’s emotional connection to sports during a tumultuous time has been grossly overestimated. In practically every sport, the number of television viewers nosedived in 2020, despite the fact that more people than usual were stuck at home. Compared with the previous year, ratings were down 51 percent for the NBA Finals, 61 percent for the NHL finals, and 45 percent for tennis’s U.S. Open. Not even the Kentucky Derby was safe: Ratings dropped 49 percent from the previous year. The 8.3 million viewers represented the derby’s lowest TV audience ever.

The NFL has long been immune to ratings pressures, but not this year. The NFL couldn’t have asked for a better story line for the Super Bowl earlier this month. The game pitted Tom Brady, the celebrated Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback seeking his seventh Super Bowl win at age 43, against Patrick Mahomes, the brilliant young Kansas City Chiefs star who has become the new face of pro football. The game should have been a ratings bonanza. Instead, the Super Bowl drew its lowest ratings in 15 years.

Not even Brady and Mahomes could overcome some daunting underlying trends. In recent years, sports programming has had to compete harder for fans’ attention. Streaming platforms such as Netflix and Hulu have exploded in popularity as more Americans are severing ties with their cable and satellite companies. That shift has accelerated during the pandemic. In 2020, streaming services saw a 50 percent hike in viewership from the previous year. Even before the pandemic, cord-cutting had become a real challenge to sports-network giants such as ESPN, which currently has 83 million subscribers. Ten years ago, ESPN had just over 100 million subscribers.

Plenty of evidence suggests that sports broadcasts aren’t resonating as well with Generation Z—Americans born after 1996—as they did with previous generations. According to a recent poll, only 53 percent of Gen Zers identify as sports fans. And more troubling for networks that have invested heavily in live sports, Gen Zers are half as likely as Millennials to watch live sports regularly, and twice as likely to never watch.

Exacerbating those trends, the pandemic has made sports unusually tough to follow. The normal sports calendar was wildly reshuffled. The NBA Finals, which are usually played in June, began in October. Normally in April, pro golf’s storied Masters Tournament was moved to November. In college football, well more than 100 games were canceled or postponed as many colleges and universities struggled to deal with the virus. During some weeks of the NFL season, games were played on Tuesdays or Wednesdays because positive COVID-19 tests by players and staff had delayed games scheduled for the previous weekend. In late November, the Denver Broncos actually had to play their game against the New Orleans Saints without any quarterbacks on the roster because of COVID-19 protocols. (To fill the position, Denver tapped a wide receiver from its practice squad.) The NCAA men’s March Madness tournament will take place this year, but inside a bubble in Indianapolis, and with a limited number of fans.

Even though the sports world did provide several moments of reprieve for the nation—for example, ESPN’s highly successful documentary series on Michael Jordan—it ultimately could not make fans forget certain harsh realities. Even if some fans were able to compartmentalize the pandemic’s heavy toll, the sports-viewing experience only reminded fans of just how abnormal things were. The pageantry and traditions in sports largely were missing. The Augusta National Golf Club’s “Amen Corner” had no roaring crowd during the Masters. When Green Bay Packers players scored touchdowns at Lambeau Field, they did the famous “Lambeau leap” into empty stands—if they did it at all. The new normal for fans is watching games with manufactured crowd noise and virtual or cardboard fans in the stands.

The overriding lesson from the past year is that too much money was at stake for pro and college sports not to forge ahead—no matter how awkward, hypocritical, and exploitative the attempt might be. On March 7, the NBA will hold its All-Star Game festivities in Atlanta, despite serious objections by players, including the superstar LeBron James. The dynamic showcase event is usually stretched out over the course of a weekend, but this year the All-Star Game, slam-dunk contest, skills competition, and three-point-shooting contest will be shoehorned into one day. The bad optics are difficult to ignore. When the NBA announced plans for the event, Georgia had one of the worst COVID-19 death rates in the nation. And even though the league has instituted strict health and safety protocols for its All-Star events—which include requiring participating players and their guests to travel by private transportation—the league clearly believes that trying to create some version of All-Star Weekend is worth potentially exposing its best players. Not to mention that the presence of this event is complicating the jobs of Atlanta officials. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has already pleaded with basketball fans not to travel to her city for the event and for party promoters not to host All-Star-related events. But considering the state’s lenient COVID-19 restrictions, Bottoms’s pleas may be totally ignored.

Since that fateful night in Oklahoma City last March, the sports world hasn’t been the escape that some fans desperately needed it to be. It has simply mirrored the chaos the entire country has experienced. During a deadly pandemic, a lot of people just couldn’t bring themselves to enjoy the distraction that sports traditionally provide.

Anthony Mason fought the X-Man, and the Knicks of the ’90s were made: ‘Neither one backed down’

The ’90s Knicks thrived on being badasses. A team of some of the toughest, most physically intimidating players in the NBA. They were the spiritual successors to the Bad Boys Pistons; the team Michael Jordan saw whenever he looked over his shoulder.

Patrick Ewing was the future Hall of Famer at the center, but Charles Oakley, Xavier McDaniel and Anthony Mason were more than just the muscle. Together, they brought the Knicks back to relevance and provided their adoring fan base a new golden generation. The Knicks never won a ring — thanks, Michael! — but they won plenty of games and represented the soul of New York City.

Pat Riley, another Hall of Famer, was the mastermind. He left behind Los Angeles and his Showtime roots to put together the roster he thought could defeat, and beat up, the rest of the league. Gone was the Hollywood glitz and glamour; now he wanted Schenectady toughness.

David Stern was unhappy with it. And he was ignored.

While those Knicks starred at Madison Square Garden, they were forged during a brutal week of training camp at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. That’s where Riley laid out his grand plan, and where a fight broke out that no one who was there can forget.

Xavier McDaniel. Anthony Mason. Two titans, 460 pounds of man between them, colliding on location, inside a stuffy, small college gym.

Twelve players, coaches, executives, doctors and agents from the 1991 Knicks agreed to share their memories of Riley’s first New York camp with The Athletic, and explain how a scrap between two giants set the franchise on its way to a decade of rugged glory.

McDaniel: I was thinking more or less like “Showtime” when I was going to be playing for Pat Riley and the Knicks. I was thinking, “Shit, I’m going to be getting on the break, being like Worthy, and Mark Jackson’s going to be kicking it out to me.”

Greg Anthony, the Knicks’ No. 1 pick in 1991, now an analyst for Turner Sports and NBA TV: Hell, yeah! That’s literally what they told me when they drafted me.

Dave Checketts, who took over as Knicks team president in March 1991: I knew Pat for Showtime and we were not giving him Magic Johnson and Michael Cooper and these guys that could change ends of the floor so quickly. We were giving him a very tough, physical team and he knew it.

Ewing, who is now the coach at Georgetown: He already told us from day one he wanted us to be the most physical, the most conditioned, the hardest working team ever. One of the things he talked about is he’s from Schenectady — a blue collar town — and he wanted us to be blue collar Knicks.

Carlton McKinney, Mason’s roommate that season: Everything was intense. Practice was intense. He was looking for a specific type of player.

McDaniel: Pat Riley showed a video (before camp began) and on the video it had me and Oakley fighting (when McDaniel played for the SuperSonics and Oakley was already a Knick). I’m sitting there like, “Oh shit.”

Mark Jackson, an All-Star for the Knicks in 1990, now an analyst for ABC/ESPN: I don’t think it was a better way to end a meeting, than like that. It was a perfect message to the perfect group of folks he was trying to deliver the message to. And we all got up like, “OK, let’s go do this.”

McDaniel: After the video, Pat Riley said, “Now we fight together.”

Ewing: (Riley) knows what buttons to push to get the most out of you.

Anthony: You could hate him for it.

Brian Quinnett, who would be traded during the season: All I remember is being so sore I could barely walk from the hotel to the gym. Riley practices were no joke.

Jackson: They’d have the windows covered. Nobody in there, in the building. It was just us, practicing, really with no motivation other than to get better and to prepare ourselves.

Tim McCormick, whose last pro season was 1991-92: It was all about a culture of accountability. We’re going to play through pain.

McKinney: He’d fine you if guys went to the lane and just laid it up.

Quinnett: Riley had a rule that we gave up no easy layups. If you could get there, you had to foul — and hard. Intimidation.

Dr. Norman Scott, Knicks team physician for 27 years: The papers around New York had built it up too. It was no surprise. Anyone who followed the Knicks closely knew there was going to be combustion at training camp.

Anthony: The environment was so tense that it tended to always break out in fights or pushing and shoving matches.

McDaniel: It was like putting 10 lions in and there’s a baby gazelle, so only the strong survive.

Scott: It was going to be a war in Charleston, and indeed it was just a question which day the explosion between X-Man, Oak and Mase was going to take place.

Riley and Checketts traded for McDaniel on Oct. 1, 1991, right before camp. Mason, meanwhile, was from New York and had tiny tastes of the NBA with Denver and New Jersey. The Knicks scouted him in the now-defunct United States Basketball League.

Riley: (Mason) had been overlooked in the draft. Simply being from New York and also having an opportunity to work out for the Knicks, I just think this was an opportunity of his lifetime to really make it.

Don Cronson, Mason’s former agent: Mason was the new kid on the block and wanted to establish himself and was looking at everybody.

Riley: He didn’t care who was in front of him.

McDaniel: (Riley) said he “didn’t want the Xavier McDaniel from the Phoenix Suns. He played soft. I want the Xavier McDaniel that played when he was playing for the Seattle Supersonics. I want that guy to play.”

Anthony: X had always been like a bully in terms of, he wanted to impose his will on you. And that was a part of his game.

Ewing: X was the type of guy who wasn’t going to back down.

Jeff Van Gundy, an assistant coach on that team and now an ABC/ESPN analyst: Mason and Xavier McDaniel went at it, in a full-blown fight, like five minutes into the first practice.

Scott: It was the second day.

Ewing: I think it was right before we had a water break. They just got into it. They were talking so much trash to each other.

Riley: I just remember the two of them looking at one another like warriors. They just looked at each other like, “OK, something is going to happen.” Our very first competitive rebounding drill — the block-out drill — about 10 minutes into practice after we warmed them up, and we went right to defense and rebounding. Sure enough, the two of them squared off.

McDaniel: I didn’t think he liked the shit I was talking to him. I was like, “Get that shit out of here.” I was blocking his shot. And he sucker-punched me. From then on, it was on.

McKinney: Neither one backed down. If we’d let it go they’d still be at it.

McDaniel: I was just trying to get at him. And Pat Riley and them was like, “No,” and I was like, “No, fuck that. Nobody’s gonna punch me and get a-fucking-way with it.” You know?

Van Gundy: We had the guards, and then (assistant coach) Paul Silas and coach Riley were at the other end with the bigs. Because the guards go through rebounding drills at about 80 percent and everybody’s trying to stay out of harm’s way, our end was pretty just OK, right? But when we were doing our stuff, you could hear the grunts and groans and physical contact at the other end. And you felt it even though you weren’t seeing it.

McDaniel: I backed up and started chasing him. I just chased him. He’s trying to get out the way and I’m trying to get at him. They went in the locker room and I was trying to get in the locker room. Patrick was grabbing me, and I’m forearming Patrick. “I’ll see him outside.” He was like, “Calm down.” And I was like, “No, fuck that. I don’t want to hear that shit.”

Van Gundy: He did chase him; Mason was backpedaling, but Mason didn’t run to the locker room. Would you if you were Mason?

Riley: It was from one bleacher to the next trying to break them apart. It was very hard.

McDaniel: I was still mad. They tried to get me to let it go. I said, “No. No.” But then they started like I could possibly be suspended, and I’m like, “OK, motherfucker hits you, none of that matters?” This is in the meeting. I was just like, “No, I’m not letting this go.” They just said, “Hey, we’ve got to let this go, we’ve got to move on from it.” That I couldn’t be disruptive in practice and do I agree to let it go? I said, “Yes.” I let it go, we shook on it and we just went back.

Riley: When it was over with, they looked at each other, “OK, we’re done with that.” It’s like, “I marked my territory and you marked yours.”

McDaniel: We actually, we became pretty good friends after that.

McKinney: There was no tension after (the fight), that’s why I think it was orchestrated. (Riley) was trying to find out where your breaking point was.

Scott: Pat was the master of getting the most out of players. He knew probably when the trade was made (for McDaniel) this was going to be an issue. There’s not much that ever escaped him. I would suspect he was just waiting for this, put the right alignment of the teams so they’re head to head. Once it happened it was sort of like, “OK, the volcano erupted” and it was going to settle down.

Checketts: When I saw the look on Pat’s face, when I walked up to Pat after practice, he was charged up. He wasn’t the least bit unnerved. He thought we were going to have a team to be reckoned with right from the beginning. He was very happy.

Van Gundy: That first rebounding drill and subsequent physical altercation (between McDaniel and Mason), I think, spoke to who we were going to be.

But, wait, X-Man, did you ever actually punch Mason back?

McDaniel: No. He punched me and that was pretty much the whole basics of the fight, but I was trying to get at him.

The Knicks won 51 games in Riley’s first season, a 12-game improvement over the previous season. It would be a decade before New York failed to at least reach the conference semifinals, and twice the Knicks made it to the Finals. Once, in 1994, it was under Riley. But whether it was Riley or Van Gundy coaching the team, the Knicks always played the same way — the way Riley first showed them in that initial training camp.

Jackson: The Knicks are still trying to get that back.

Scott: One game during the season, pre-game, (Oakley came in and) he said, “Hey, I think I broke my hand.” I looked at it and there was no question it was broken. A first-year medical student would have figured it out. I said, “We’ll get an X-ray, Oak, but you’re out for tonight.” He said, “No, I’m playing. We’ll get an X-ray after the game.” He played the whole time. Bones were moving.

McCormick: If you were going to be a part of this team you had to retaliate, you had to show some toughness. Every day Oakley just kept hitting me over and over and over. I was getting very tired of it. One day in practice I got frustrated and I swung my arm around and hit him right in the mouth and split his lip. Guys grabbed him quick and it probably saved me from having a fight that I would not have wanted to be in. As they dragged him off, he had to go to the doctor and get stitches and he gave me a look like, “Tomorrow, you die.”

I didn’t sleep well that night. I kept thinking about when I first saw Charles. The next day he walked into the locker room and he saw me and he started walking right over to me. So I stood up like, “OK, here we go.” He said, “Have you seen the new Stallone movie?” I thought this is strange because he’s never talked to me before. That was like the first conversation we ever had. We started talking about it. I realized that until I stood up to him he didn’t respect me.

Checketts: I thought it really hurt us on the referee side of things and it put me very much at odds with David Stern. He thought we had changed the game and slowed it down and had this tough, physical confrontation style of defense. David was all about the good of the game. I knew that other owners were giving him a bad time about our team, about the way we played, and saying things like we were going to ruin basketball.

Van Gundy: The funny part about the next year, the theme, from a business standpoint, they would draw a lane, like a court, and then have the outline of dead bodies in the lane. That’s how physical we were. Come into the paint and pay the ultimate price. Now it got rejected, but it always stood out to me that there was a source of basketball truth into that.

P.S. McDaniel only played one season in New York. He paid $275,000 to buy out the final year of his contract but hoped the Knicks would re-sign him. They didn’t. He played five more NBA seasons. Mason went on to a solid NBA career, playing 10 more seasons (four more in New York), including an All-Star campaign with Miami in 2001.

Mason died in February 2015 from a reported heart attack. He and McDaniel had indeed become friends, spending time together while Mason played for the Hornets and McDaniel was retired, living in South Carolina.

McDaniel: I was just like, “Wow” — someone that I’ve known for quite a while and just kind of shocking. My ex called me because his ex and my ex are good friends, and so I got a call from her saying that Anthony Mason had passed. And then right after she called me, a couple hours later, it was all over the news. You just feel for the family. You ain’t thinking about the arguments you might have gotten into. You’re just making sure the family is OK.

SHORTLY AFTER DRAFTING him No. 25 in 2014, Houston Rockets officials took Clint Capela to a Houston Astros baseball game -- their usual initiation for draftees.

Capela had just turned 20, and was sensitive about his ability to communicate in English. He grew up in foster care in Switzerland before moving to France as a teenager to pursue basketball.

He had no idea what was going on in the game. Houston staffers explained balls and strikes. Just as Capela was getting it, one pitcher whipped the ball to first base -- a pick-off move. Why suddenly throw to a new place?

"It was boring," Capela says. "How long is the game? You don't even see a time."

The Rockets drafted Capela with the idea of stashing him overseas, sources say. They were conserving cap space to pursue Chris Bosh in the event LeBron James left the Miami Heat. Houston was hot on Bruno Caboclo, selected five spots before Capela, and even considered -- very briefly -- drafting Shabazz Napier to appeal to James after he had tweeted his affection for Napier, sources say.

Capela wanted the NBA right away. He spent almost his entire rookie season with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers in what is now the G League. The Vipers were a laboratory for Houston's analytics experiments. They played fast and launched record numbers of 3s -- potentially awkward for a paint-bound big man. In brief call-ups, Capela missed his first 19 NBA shots -- field goals and free throws.

"It was hard," he says. "Just to live by myself and try to get better at English. I was always looking for someone to speak French with, but in Houston there is not much of that."

Capela carried a notebook everywhere. Coaches spotted him writing in it: English phrases, basketball terminology, life advice. "You could see him learning every day," says Nevada Smith, then the Vipers' coach. Capela still has that notebook.

Capela understood the Rockets, with James Harden and Dwight Howard, were in win-now mode. "How can I be valuable now?" he wondered. He found the simplest answer: "I like to run."

And so it was that some 340 miles southeast of Houston, playing for the Vipers, Capela tried to beat his man down the floor every possession. He would screen and roll, screen and roll. He never demanded the ball, or any play calls.

Houston promoted him late in the season. Capela appeared in every playoff game as the Rockets fell to the Golden State Warriors in the 2015 conference finals. "It was a lot to take in," Capela says.

Capela started 35 games next season, sometimes next to Howard, and tried to serve as peacemaker between Howard and Harden as their relationship deteriorated. Some within the Rockets wondered if Howard was intentionally whiffing on picks for Harden or not setting as many as Harden wanted, sources say. Harden at one point asked the coaching staff if he could come off the bench to play more with Capela, sources said. (Those sources assumed Harden was being facetious, and really prodding the Rockets to start Capela alone.)

"I could kind of get them together," Capela says. "We were able to speak and laugh together. When I was around both of them, there were no issues with us talking."

But at 21, he had limited locker room heft. Capela often found himself the target of scoldings from veterans. One coach suggested Capela playfully defend himself by declaring he would not rebound until everyone relented.

With the Atlanta Hawks, he is suddenly an old head. Nate McMillan, Atlanta's coach, leans on Capela for scheduling advice -- when the team might need an off day, or a light film session.

Once shy in English, Capela is now a communicator -- in part to make sure the kind of animosity that festered in Houston never enters the Hawks' bloodstream. There have long been rumblings about tension between star guard Trae Young and big man John Collins, but the team and both principals insist they are exaggerated.

"In Houston, communication was a problem," Capela says. "They either didn't want to say something, or didn't know how. What I take from that is just go and say it. If you express yourself the right way and you are polite, it should work every time. Let's try to enjoy the grind."

Capela now shouts orders as the anchor of Atlanta's defense. "The communication has surprised me," Bogdan Bogdanovic says. "You really hear him." He has even started a regular Monopoly game at hotels with Danilo Gallinari, Solomon Hill, and members of the training staff -- physical board and everything.

Capela is producing at career-best levels: 15 points on almost 60% shooting, and a league-best 14.5 rebounds. He is No. 1 in both offensive and defensive rebounding rate, and a bulwark defending the basket. Capela ranks fourth in blocks, and keeps his rejections inbounds so the Hawks can retrieve them. Amid injuries, Capela has been Atlanta's constant.

"I don't think anyone expected [the Hawks] to be where we are, and Clint is probably the No. 1 reason," McMillan says.

Teammates say Capela should factor more into Defensive Player of the Year chatter. "Other guys talk about winning it, and even if they are deserving, I don't think that's the best way to do it," Bogdanovic says. "Clint doesn't talk, so he doesn't get enough credit."

The Hawks have allowed six fewer points per 100 possessions with Capela on the floor. Opponents have shot just 52% at the rim with Capela nearby -- a tick stingier than Joel Embiid, and only a little behind Rudy Gobert. Capela ranks second -- trailing Gobert -- in ESPN's defensive adjusted plus-minus.

Gaudy numbers are landing Capela on the national radar. To him, nothing has changed. He still runs, and runs, and demands none of the trappings.

"It's like, 'I've always been good and you all are just noticing,'" he says.

In just 30.3 minutes per game, Capela is averaging 15.3 points and career highs in rebounds (14.4) and blocks (2.1). "I don't think anyone expected [the Hawks] to be where we are," says head coach Nate McMillan. "And Clint is probably the No. 1 reason." AP Photo/Matt Slocum
BACK-TO-BACK postseason losses to the Warriors left the Rockets worried Capela would always struggle against lineups with Draymond Green at center, sources say. The Rockets lost confidence in Capela's ability to switch onto Golden State's guards, though Capela's self-belief in that facet never wavered.

Capela hadn't shown the post game to punish switching defenses that often prevail in the playoffs. He'd averaged less than an assist per game. Rim-running centers were going out of style; how much of Capela's production could Houston find for cheap?

By 2019, Harden had shifted away from the pick-and-roll and toward isolations. That left Capela hanging around the rim, waiting for lobs.

It spoke to Harden's methodological nature. He prefers to survey the floor with a clear view, and shift the chess pieces around as he likes. A pick-and-roll invited unpredictability. A big man could trap, hang back, switch.

The introduction of Russell Westbrook last season cramped Houston's spacing. The Rockets jettisoned Capela, and went all-in on small ball. Capela had been dealing with a plantar fascia injury and a bone bruise in his heel when the Rockets sent the then-six-year vet to Houston. The trade stung.

"I was surprised, but I also felt the team was going downhill," Capela says. "I was scared I would never find a vibe like that again -- a winning team, in the playoffs every year."

The Hawks wanted a center to fortify their defense. They discussed Andre Drummond and Steven Adams, sources say. They thought elements of Capela's pick-and-roll partnership with Harden would translate to Young's game.

That would also mean an adjustment for Collins, Young's main screen-and-dive partner. Collins was on board with the trade, and invited the challenge of rounding out his perimeter game.

"Getting better players means you have to improve your game or take a step back," Collins says. "I didn't want to take a step back."

The injury and pandemic delayed chemistry building. Capela was diligent doing what rehab he could from home, team officials say. When Atlanta's performance staff could see Capela in person again, they put him through arduous drills -- including an exercise in which Capela had to traverse a sandbox using only his toes to grip the sand and drag himself forward. It is a method of rebuilding foot strength. It took Capela 10 minutes to cover a distance that required one or two normal strides.

In lockdown, Young and Capela spoke often. When the Hawks reconvened in September for their own bubble -- and then later for informal workouts -- Young and Capela hit it off. "They have basically become best friends," McMillan says.

"We have a real connection," Young says.

Young often chit-chats with opposing bigs in games, talking trash and dissecting pick-and-roll coverages. Upon hearing about the Capela trade, Young remembered their fun in-game jabs going both ways -- Young bragging about a floater that crested out of Capela's reach, Capela swatting Young's layup and boasting.

They developed a rhythm on the pick-and-roll, Capela feeling out the differences between Harden and Young.

"James is slow, processing," Capela says. "He can take his time. Trae is more of a speed guy with lots of touch."

Harden rarely attempted floaters. Young takes more than anyone.

CAPELA REALIZED THAT the combination of Young's speed and the tendency of defenses to trap him exposed offensive rebounding opportunities. Once Capela's man doubles Young, Capela zips into inside position -- and holds it until the ball hits the rim. Young launches so fast, Capela can root out rebounding territory without worrying about three-second calls.

"Sometimes I shoot the floater just because I know his man will contest," Young says. "If it doesn't go in, it's going to Clint. He's a beast."

Capela has become one of the league's best at one-handed tip-ins -- a skill he says he didn't prioritize until this season. Capela noticed how often he was fighting off defenders with one hand, and figured he might as well use the other for tips. He is uncanny tipping lefty. He has gotten much stronger in recent years -- Capela is part of Atlanta's regular postgame lifting group -- and is unusually mobile and well-balanced for a player his size, coaches say.

He remains a premiere lob-catcher -- a natural fit alongside Young. John Lucas, the longtime Houston Rockets assistant, often had Capela practice alley-ooping tennis balls, Capela says. He has also made great strides on non-dunk finishes in traffic.

Diving to the rim can be thankless; for every alley-oop, there might be dozens of possessions on which you don't touch the ball. The same is true for running the floor, and few bigs run harder than Capela. He has scored 13 baskets within 24 seconds of blocking an opponent's shot -- most in the league, per Elias Sports Bureau research.

But fans may not notice when those rim runs suck in the defense, and unlock open 3s for teammates.

"I am going to outwork you the whole game," Capela says. "Maybe it doesn't look that nice. Maybe it's not on social media. But it's efficient."

Anyone inflicting that much damage around the rim gets hacked, and free throw shooting has been Capela's bugaboo. His contract contains a $500,000 bonus if he hits at least 65% on foul shots, per league sources; he is at 57%, and has cracked 60% just once.

During Capela's first summer league in Las Vegas, they had him arrive at the gym at 6 a.m. and stay until he hit 500 free throws. At first, it took two hours. "Tough mornings," Capela says. He got it down to 45 minutes.

Capela's set shot can list left; the Rockets tried everything to correct it. Houston coaches sometimes sat Capela in a folding chair at the foul line with a hula hoop hanging above his head -- parallel to the floor -- and attached to a pole behind the chair. Capela had to release the ball through the hoop without banging into it. They sometimes had a coach stand behind Capela holding a ruler -- and asked Capela to shoot free throws without hitting it.

The Rockets scrapped shootarounds under Mike D'Antoni, but Capela showed up every game-day morning anyway. Lucas let Capela leave right away if he hit six free straight free throws.

Atlanta will trade some iffy free throw shooting for Capela's ferocious defense, which should earn some All-Defense consideration -- an uphill battle, with Gobert and either Embiid or Bam Adebayo favored for the two center slots.

For a bouncy dunker, it is notable how rarely Capela jumps on defense until it is time to chase a rebound. He crouches in his stance against the pick-and-roll, arms spread so wide he effectively guards two players at once. He locks eyes with the ball-handler, betraying nothing. That ball handler wants Capela to move first -- flinch, jump, lurch. He won't. That uncertainty unnerves all but the very best.

"I'm in your head," Capela says. "'Is he jumping or not?'"

If that ball handler settles for a floater, Capela may not even contest it. That judiciousness leaves him in ideal rebounding position. It makes up for Capela's eschewing textbook boxouts. He prefers to leap and pursue rebounds, but he can't do that if he's already airborne chasing blocks. Atlanta's defensive rebounding rate craters when Capela rests.

"In my first year, I was jumping all over the place," Capela says. "I learned you can't do that. If I jump and miss, [the other team] is ready to put it back in."

That does not mean Capela is a reluctant shot-blocker -- just a choosy one. He has a knack for verticality, and risks posterization to meet dunkers at the apex.

That left Capela on the wrong end of perhaps the dunk of the year -- Miles Bridges' epic throwdown that sent Capela stumbling toward the baseline. When he saw that, Smith, Capela's coach in Rio Grande, thought about something he used to tell Capela: "Guys who play hard will get dunked on. Guys who don't play hard won't, but they won't make it, either."

"I wonder if he remembers that," Smith says.

Capela plays like it. No one noticed, but Bridges' dunk materialized only after Capela erased a Terry Rozier drive at the rim -- leading to a second-chance scramble for the Charlotte Hornets.

"I'm not thinking, 'I want to look nice' or 'I want to make a nice move,'" Capela says. "I'm thinking about dominating the paint."

great piece. capela's right about baseball

ILH board description used to reflect that wisdom

"I'm thinking about dominating the paint" is a phrase i promise to get into my next job interview

can someone post z@ch l0we's awards columns :)

https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/31440899/nikola-jokic-joel-embiid-rudy-gobert-draymond-green-lowe-selects-2021-nba-award-winners
https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/31458931/all-nba-all-defense-all-rookie-zach-lowe-names-2021-award-winners

google australia free web proxy
paste in the espn url except with .au after the .com like espn.com.au
you are an insider now

Inside the Mavericks front office, Mark Cuban’s shadow GM is causing a rift with Luka Doncic
Tim Cato and Sam Amick 34m ago 50

In early February, during the second quarter of a home game against the Golden State Warriors, Luka Doncic carelessly turned over the ball and received feedback from a Dallas Mavericks employee he didn’t care for: Haralabos Voulgaris, a well-known sports gambler hired by team owner Mark Cuban in 2018.

Voulgaris, sitting with an open laptop in his typical courtside seat across from the Mavericks’ bench, motioned downward with his hands, which Doncic specifically interpreted as Voulgaris telling him to calm down, multiple team and league sources tell The Athletic. Doncic snapped back, telling Voulgaris, according to one source’s recollection, “Don’t fucking tell me to calm down.” The same sources say Voulgaris later professed that his motion wasn’t solely directed at Doncic, but regardless of intent, it only worsened an already inflamed relationship between the two.

Doncic, multiple league sources say, intends to sign the supermax extension — which he will be eligible for once named to this season’s All-NBA team — with Dallas, worth more than $200 million over five seasons after his rookie contract expires next summer. “I think you know the answer,” he said, smiling, when asked whether he would at last week’s exit interview. But a high-level power broker within the league says the Mavericks recognize that there’s urgency to build a contending team around Doncic after losing in the first round in each of the past two seasons. The clock is ticking.

Internally, there are concerns the front office’s dysfunction has hurt its ability to do so — and that poor relationships Doncic has with key members of the franchise, including Voulgaris, could impact his current desire to remain in Dallas long-term. The team’s most recent postseason defeat against the LA Clippers served as a direct indictment on the roster constructed around him. Can Mavericks management remedy that in time? Or, as some team sources fear, will they pay the price for the dysfunctional dynamics that exist in some corners of the organization?

Dallas announced Voulgaris’ hiring in the fall of 2018 with a title — director of quantitative research and development — that vastly understated his actual role. Multiple league and team sources tell The Athletic that Voulgaris has been the most influential voice within the Mavericks front office since joining the team, either initiating or approving virtually every transaction made over the past two seasons. Those same sources add that Voulgaris has frequently gone as far as scripting the starting lineups and rotations for longtime head coach Rick Carlisle.

That influence has spanned Doncic’s three seasons in Dallas. While he had been drafted prior to Voulgaris’ arrival — Donnie Nelson, the team’s longtime president of basketball operations, was the driving force behind trading up to acquire the Slovenian wunderkind, a process he described in detail to The Athletic last year — Cuban had sought out Voulgaris’ basketball advice in the years before putting him on the team’s payroll. As one team source says, “Mark Cuban is the most powerful person in the organization, but whoever he’s listening to is second.” Cuban was won over by Voulgaris’ vision: an analytics-driven spread pick-and-roll offense with Doncic as the focal point which he has tried implementing in the past seasons.

It’s unclear when the Cuban and Voulgaris relationship began, but their coming together is perhaps unsurprising given Cuban’s origin as a self-made tech billionaire whose first major purchase was the Mavericks. Voulgaris has never been shy about his desire to run a team. In an ESPN feature from 2013, Voulgaris is quoted as saying, “The whole process (of becoming a highly successful gambler) has led me to believe that I’d be able to put together a better team than almost any general manager in the league. If not maybe all.”

The way Voulgaris tells it — the ESPN feature is the only notable reporting ever focused on him, and he declined an interview request from The Athletic shortly after being hired — he began gambling on the NBA in the late 1990s and had made millions by the early 2000s. His success, he says, came in part from an instinctual reading of certain coaches. It finally failed him during the 2003-04 season, causing him to lose much of his gambling wealth and step away temporarily, only returning once he’d developed an analytics model that brought back his old edge. He says he did exactly that, his new model beating the odds at a rate higher than five percent. In 2009, he gave up gambling again to consult for an unnamed NBA franchise. The advisory role lasted one season; he returned to his previous life afterward and began publicly promoting himself. In the coming years, he became a well-known presence in the basketball world.

Voulgaris spent a limited amount of time around the Mavericks during his first season of employment, attending about one-quarter of the team’s games. He attended fewer games the following season, but his imprint on the team’s roster grew substantially that offseason. It was Voulgaris who initiated the team’s acquisitions of Seth Curry and Delon Wright, with multiple sources telling The Athletic that Voulgaris believed Wright should start next to Doncic. “He was the only person that believed that,” one team source says. Wright did start the season opener before being moved to a full-time bench role the following game, barely playing in the team’s first-round defeat in the 2020 postseason. He was traded that offseason.

Because Voulgaris’ influence was greater than his official role, those within the front office — and executives around the league who interacted with them — were often confused about who actually held power. “We had two general managers,” a team source says. Nelson remained the team’s president of basketball operations, a role he has held since 2005, and other executives and agents continued largely communicating with him or Cuban regarding personnel matters. Nelson continued to spearhead major moves, including trades for Kristaps Porzingis and Tim Hardaway Jr. in 2019, Josh Richardson in 2020 and J.J. Redick in 2021. But team sources say Voulgaris was supportive of the transactions — or explicitly approved them.

Multiple league and team sources point to the 2020 draft as a particularly egregious example of Voulgaris’ power, an evening one source described as “embarrassing.” Most members of the scouting department joined the team’s war room remotely through Zoom and were surprised when Voulgaris, attending in person, didn’t consult them for either of the team’s first two selections (Josh Green and Tyrell Terry) despite disagreements they held with at least one of the players he picked.

“What did (he) sell to Mark to make him believe (he) can do this?” asks one source with an intimate knowledge of the situation. “Nobody knows.”

It marked another throughline of Voulgaris’ tenure with the Mavericks: that his personality and decision making has steadily irritated and exasperated the team’s front office employees and players over the course of the three seasons he’s been employed. “He doesn’t know how to talk to people,” that same source says.

That’s best exemplified by Dallas’ franchise player disliking him. Doncic’s strained relationship with Voulgaris predated their incident in February, multiple sources say. It wasn’t the only incident, either. This season, Voulgaris attended his first game in mid January, frequently appearing courtside at home and also traveling with them on the road in the months that followed. In mid-April, during the final minute of a home defeat to the New York Knicks, Voulgaris was seen on the game’s broadcast footage standing up and leaving with about 45 seconds remaining. While the Mavericks were trailing by 10 points at the time, they cut the deficit to six and extended the game seven more possessions before eventually losing.

Doncic noticed Voulgaris’ early departure. In the locker room after the game, multiple league and team sources say he told teammates he viewed Voulgaris leaving before the game’s conclusion as him quitting on them. Voulgaris would not attend another game the rest of the year.

Multiple team sources confirm Voulgaris remained involved in the team’s gameplans and in-game adjustments in a remote role. But Voulgaris, who earlier this season appeared likelier than not to wrest further control over the front office and perhaps even drive out Nelson entirely, now heads into a summer with his contract set to expire and uncertainty surrounding his future.

When reached for comment on Monday, Cuban defended Voulgaris’ involvement. “I really like what Bob brings to the table. He does a great job of supporting Rick and the front office with unique data insights.”

Cuban added: “Bob has a great grasp of AI and the opportunities it create for gaining an advantage. Which is important to me. But he isn’t any more influential than any other data source on the team.”

Voulgaris declined to comment for this story when reached on Sunday.

Doncic’s relationship with his head coach, Rick Carlisle, has been publicly scrutinized since joining his team. It’s expected Carlisle will return next season, multiple league sources say, something Cuban publicly voiced support for last week shortly after the first round defeat.

“Let me tell you how I look at coaching,” he told ESPN. “You don’t make a change to make a change. Unless you have someone that you know is much, much, much better, the grass is rarely greener on the other side.”

Multiple sources were surprised to see Cuban’s prompt backing of Carlisle, however, even though Cuban’s support for Carlisle has hardly wavered over the past decade. During the season, it was believed Carlisle’s future could be reconsidered following the season, partly due to a belief Doncic had tuned him out.

“It was very much up in the air,” one source with intimate knowledge of the situation said.

Sources say some players have been frustrated with Carlisle after they lost playing time despite doing exactly what they felt he had asked of them, and for stiff rotation patterns, the latter of which they viewed — correctly, team sources confirm — as being dictated directly to him by Voulgaris. Early on, Doncic also disliked Carlisle’s timeouts and frequent calling of plays.

But Carlisle, who’s “adaptable as a motherfucker,” as one league source put it, began to modify his coaching style as a way of relieving some of the pressure from this sensitive situation. Beyond Carlisle’s obvious coaching acumen, he has always been able and willing to, in essence, read the room when it came to which personal battles he could win and which ones he couldn’t. This was no different.

Doncic’s greatness, so evident so early on, clearly compelled Carlisle to consider the changing hoops politics at hand. Since being hired in May of 2008, Carlisle has had his fair share of friction with key players, in large part because of his well-known tendency to be controlling. But Rajon Rondo, this was not.

In truth, it was far closer to the difficult dynamic that he’d successfully navigated with then-point guard Jason Kidd en route to winning the franchise’s first and only title in 2011. It took an intervention of sorts to get through that friction back then, when then-Mavericks assistant coaches Tim Grgurich, Dwane Casey and Terry Stotts stepped in to tell Carlisle that he needed to loosen the reins on Kidd. In the end, of course, it was a wise and necessary move.

The championship took Carlisle’s credibility to another level in those coming years. He was, with good reason, virtually untouchable when it came to the job insecurities that most coaches face. Such is life when you reach the NBA’s mountaintop for a franchise that has never been there before.

But as Doncic started to look more and more like a modern-day Dirk Nowitzki these past three seasons — the kind of once-in-a-generation player who the Mavericks could build around for the next two decades — the landscape that surrounded Carlisle began to change. And Carlisle, quite clearly, decided to change along with it.

“You can’t win against the next Nowitzki,” one source said.

Doncic has a healthy relationship with the Mavericks organization at large. League sources say he angled to be drafted by the team in 2018, and he has been particularly complimentary of his relationship with Nowitzki, whose final season coincided with Doncic’s first. Those feelings could change if the team’s postseason struggles continue, as the Mavericks haven’t advanced past the first round since their 2011 championship run. It’s not that Doncic’s situation with the team is at a critical inflection point right now. Multiple team sources simply fear that it’s heading that direction.

Those concerns mostly center on Cuban and the decisions he makes regarding who he trusts and imbues with power. Sometimes, it’s examples like Voulgaris, a sports gambler with no league experience being given near total control of the team’s roster. Other times, it’s the relationships he doesn’t sever: The Mavericks’ front office has come to be known around the league for its long-existing power structure that, Voulgaris aside, has barely changed.

Doncic has provided the Mavericks a chance to return to prominence. He’s a generational star the team was fortunate to draft, seamlessly taking the mantle from the franchise player before him. But after beginning another offseason sooner than hoped for, the focus falls upon the organization around him: on how the dynamic that existed over the past seasons was allowed to operate in such a haphazard manner, and whether it can be fixed before it’s too late.

the only notable thing in there to me is that doncic doesn’t like voulgaris. the rest of the stuff — bob’s influence in the front office in particular and his butting heads with colleagues, seems run of the mill for an NBA franchise

On the Miami Heat, reloading again with Kyle Lowry and P.J. Tucker -- how they keep doing this, and what they look like for next season: https://t.co/7Fm8AW1s97

— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) August 3, 2021

anyone have espn+ ?

IT'S FITTING THAT the Miami Heat's latest all-in reload involved sending out Goran Dragic in their mammoth sign-and-trade for Kyle Lowry -- the first major domino of this NBA free-agency period.

It was Miami's flipping two first-round picks to acquire Dragic (on an expiring contract) at the 2015 trade deadline that set off the first round of fearful snickering among rivals -- clucking that Pat Riley was mortgaging the team's future because that future would belong to his successor. The clucking was always laced with anxiety: Somehow, the Heat -- slick, beachy, with a friendly tax regime -- would climb out of whatever hole Riley dug.

Three years later, it appeared as if the Heat might be buried without a shovel. Chris Bosh's blood clot issues upended the promising 2015-16 Heat featuring Bosh, Dwyane Wade and Dragic. The Heat struck out on Kevin Durant in 2016 and then Gordon Hayward the next offseason, and responded by re-signing their own free agents to huge deals: Hassan Whiteside, Tyler Johnson, Kelly Olynyk, James Johnson, Dion Waiters.

As the calendar flipped to 2018, they all looked like cap-clogging overpays whose contracts would be hard to move. Justise Winslow, the manna-from-heaven pick that represented Miami's salvation, was injured and developing unevenly. Their quiver of first-round picks was half empty.

When I spent a week in Miami that January, those in and around the franchise were as uncertain about their path forward as I had ever seen or heard them. They were determined, hopeful, but unsure. On the Lowe Post podcast last year, Dan Le Batard, who knows Riley well, recalled strolling Heat headquarters around that time with Riley and passing walls adorned with photos of Waiters and Whiteside. "He, like, snorts in disdain," Le Batard said, "and he just blurted, 'Our so-called leaders.' And I'm like, 'Oof. This is not a good place for these people to be.'"

Two years later, they were in the Finals -- one of the greatest short-term turnarounds ever executed from an on-paper position of weakness. The Heat nailed late lottery picks (Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro) that usually yield league-average players at best; turned undrafted guys into starters and key contributors (the newly ultra-wealthy Duncan Robinson, Kendrick Nunn, Derrick Jones Jr.); and swapped one second-round hit (Josh Richardson) into the best star that was realistically available to them -- Jimmy Butler, about to sign a mega-extension that will take him into his mid-30s, sources said.

They caught some breaks, as any team does amid a successful retool. The Butler situation with the Philadelphia 76ers went haywire. Teams passed on Adebayo and Herro in favor of worse players. The Heat got off a lot of those bad contracts with minimal pain thanks to injuries and desperation in trading partners, and the Memphis Grizzlies' lust for Winslow -- with the Heat sending out James Johnson and Waiters in that deal, and somehow netting Solomon Hill, Andre Iguodala, and Jae Crowder.

Crowder was the last puzzle piece that made sense of the 2020 Heat: the small-ball power forward with enough size, toughness, and 3-point shooting to unlock Adebayo-at-center lineups that had two-way balance. The Heat in 2020 demurred on one last trade for Danilo Gallinari, wary of committing too much future cap space over too many years -- and wagering Crowder and Iguodala would perform.

The same shielding of cap space cost them Crowder, who signed a long-term deal with the Phoenix Suns after Miami's Finals run. The Heat last season never found a replacement, toggling between imperfect solutions. Makeshift lineups were either too small, with Butler at power forward and multiple below-average perimeter defenders, or lacking in shooting.

AP Photo/Lynne Sladky
ONCE THE HEAT finalized their deal for Lowry on Monday, the biggest remaining question about their roster -- perhaps aside from depth -- was whom Erik Spoelstra would start at power forward. Could they find another Crowder? (The other big question following Lowry's signing -- bigger than the game of point guard roulette going around the league -- was this: What is Philadelphia's backup plan after missing out on Lowry for the second time in four months? Are they just going to stand pat and wait out the Ben Simmons market?)

Candidates flew off the board: JaMychal Green, Jeff Green, Nicolas Batum, others.

And then Miami capped its day with a bombshell: stealing P.J. Tucker -- switchable, mean, still trucking along -- from the postseason starting five of the NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks.

Those Bucks, of course, obliterated the Heat in the first-round of the 2021 playoffs with an emphatic, avenging sweep. That humiliation was catnip to skeptics who dismissed Miami's 2020 Finals appearance as the fluky product of the bubble and the restarted pandemic season from hell.

There is some truth to the notion that Miami was well-suited to the isolated, all-basketball-all-the-time setting of the Orlando, Florida, bubble. But three of the final four teams from Orlando trudged through unremarkable seasons, with the fourth -- the Denver Nuggets -- slumping away once injuries destroyed its guard rotation. (They were exhausted too.) The Heat in 2020 were the only postseason team to take more than one game from the champion Los Angeles Lakers. They would have a hard time reaching the Finals again, but that didn't mean they weren't good or deserving.

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But the Heat recognized the status quo wasn't good enough, with Milwaukee having proven itself on the biggest stage and the Brooklyn Nets looming as title favorites entering the 2021-22 season. And so they did their best to rekindle the magic of 2020.

Tucker is a downgrade from Crowder. He is five years older, and starting to show his age. Tucker only launches from the corners, and his mark on those shorter 3s dropped to 34.7% last season -- and 31.4% during a postseason in which he was a total non-threat. The spacing will look cramped at times with Butler, Tucker, and Adebayo on the floor.

Crowder might be the league's streakiest shooter, prone to some ugly backboard bonks, but he is willing to chuck from anywhere and hits at about the same accuracy from the corners and the wings. He's nimbler than Tucker with the ball, quicker as an extra-pass guy.

But Tucker showed in hounding Durant in the second round of the playoffs that he still has much to give on defense when the stakes are high. A well-timed hot streak from the corners could swing a playoff series. No one remembers you shooting 31% on corner 3s for the season if you go 6-of-10 in the right pair of playoff games.

The Heat hope the upgrade from Dragic to Lowry compensates for any drop-off from Crowder to Tucker. Miami was able to pull this sign-and-trade because it coaxed Dragic back last offseason on a two-year, $37 million deal with a team option in Year 2 -- an overpayment in annual salary in exchange for flexibility. The Heat struck the same agreement with Iguodala.

HOW CAN MIAMI keep doing this? Some of it lies in its inherent advantages -- the lack of a state income tax in Florida, and the attractiveness of living in Miami. But it goes beyond that. Players who thrive there grow to love the franchise. Even having been cast aside, Dragic adores the Heat, sources said. Serious veterans appreciate Riley's commitment to winning.

"We never once spoke about Miami as a city," Butler's agent, Bernie Lee, told me last year in explaining Butler's desire to be there. "Obviously it's an amazing place with amazing people, but Jimmy wasn't going there for the beach. Since he's gotten there, I think we have gone out to eat less than 10 times and one of them was the Super Bowl. We didn't even talk about the tax advantages. The only questions he asked were of the background of the people involved and how they would build out the team."

A healthy Lowry is almost a perfect fit next to Butler and Adebayo. He is a more accurate and prolific 3-point shooter than Dragic, and a much stronger defender. Lineups featuring any two of Dragic, Robinson, and Herro had two spots for predatory opposing offenses to pick at. Lowry vaporizes one of those spots. A closing five of Lowry, Robinson, Butler, Tucker, and Adebayo is formidable. Against some opponents, it will be safe to exchange Herro for Tucker.

There is so much improvisational creativity to Lowry's game -- so much more than rote high pick-and-rolls. He can do plenty of that, of course; the Lowry-Adebayo dance will be an important part of Miami's arsenal, and perhaps a bulwark when Butler rests.

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Lowry bobs and weaves in the midrange, cutting randomly, working an impromptu give-and-go, setting unexpected screens, sneaking in for offensive rebounds. Butler and Adebayo live in that space from 20 feet and in. The Lowry/Butler/Adebayo trio overflows with ad-libbing IQ. All three are good to great passers. Adebayo is emerging as a very good midrange shooter. His bully-ball game against switches is coming. Butler is reliable from midrange, in part because of his ability to draw fouls and double-teams.

Cleverness and versatility in tight confines can overcome so-so spacing. Miami's offense is going to sing in the dead zone of the midrange. Robinson's ability to attract two defenders will often give Miami's three stars a head start, some territorial advantage, when the ball reaches them in the midrange. Robinson has grown as a one- and two-dribble pick-and-roll ball handler, and his handoff game with Adebayo is lethal in pulling two defenders toward the arc -- opening easy slip passes.

Lowry is a nasty screener, and he will set ball screens for anyone and everyone: Butler, Robinson, Adebayo -- whatever presents the most danger to the opponent. The diversity of the Heat's offense -- how they seem to run multiple systems within the same possession -- is hard for opponents to adjust to. It's just a little different -- unpredictable, always moving, hard to grasp. Lowry amplifies all of that.

THERE ARE LOTS of questions before putting Miami on the level of Brooklyn and Milwaukee. Lowry is 35, and dropped off a hair last season. Maybe it was the inevitable malaise of playing in Tampa Bay instead of Toronto, and for a team that never recovered from a huge bout with the virus in the middle of the season. Small guards don't tend to age well, but Lowry fits some of the characteristics of one we might expect to buck that trend: smart, stout physically, ace shooter, and someone who didn't pile up as much wear and tear as a reserve early in his career.

Still: Lowry's age places this nucleus on a short, urgent timetable. They have to win immediately. Even minor slippage from Lowry torpedoes that plan.

They are also somewhat shallow. They re-signed Dewayne Dedmon, Gabe Vincent, and Max Strus late Monday, and might be too close to the hard cap -- triggered by acquiring Lowry via sign-and-trade -- now to retain Kendrick Nunn.

The Heat had talks with Bobby Portis, sources said, and the Portis-Adebayo frontcourt would have offered an intriguing combination of shooting and size. Portis would have been Miami's new and probably superior version of Meyers Leonard and Olynyk -- center-ish bigs the Heat paired with Adebayo (another center) because Adebayo can defend anyone, allowing Spoelstra to hide weaker tag-team partners.

Portis re-signed with the Bucks instead. Precious Achiuwa, a promising second-year player, is headed to Toronto as part of the Lowry trade. KZ Okpala is perpetually almost ready.

The Heat will find a player or two on the minimum. (They have no other choice at this point.) Herro disappointed in his sophomore season after rollicking through the bubble, but he's just 21. Development is not linear. A leap in Year 3 is possible.

The Bucks just won the title, and the Nets looked as if they were going to roll there before James Harden and Kyrie Irving got injured. Losing Tucker to the Heat hurts Milwaukee, but you probably can't put the Heat higher than No. 3 in the East at this moment -- and both the Atlanta Hawks and Sixers would have something to say about that.

But the Heat are better today than they were 24 hours ago, and they didn't give up all that much to revamp their team. If things go right, they'll have a puncher's chance in the East. What they really surrendered was future cap flexibility in committing big long-term money to Lowry and Butler as they age.

Did you expect anything less from Riley? If you get Butler and reach the Finals, this is what you do. And history suggests that if the hole gets deep, Riley will find a golden shovel.

Just getting ahead of the inevitable request:

Let’s be honest. This past NBA season missed one thing: Klay Thompson.

So The Athletic called up a dozen of Thompson’s teammates, former teammates and coaches and asked for their best stories.

Matt Barnes, guard: We had just won the Western Conference Finals. Everyone was enjoying everything, talking and eating and having a drink. And here’s Klay with two 9-year-olds at his locker, teaching them how to make paper airplanes and flying them across the locker room.

Jarrett Jack, guard: Only Klay, man. Only Klay.

Steve Kerr, coach: When I got the job, first thing I did was I called every player. Klay wasn’t responding to me. So I called Bob (Myers) and said, “Bob, I’m really worried that Klay, maybe he’s angry about the coaching change. He won’t call me back.” Bob just started laughing. He just said, “Welcome to Klay’s world.”

Marreese Speights, forward: We’d go to a city and he’d just hop off the bus and go to a CVS or Walgreens with a thousand people outside.

Barnes: That’s the randomness of Klay.

Lachlan Penfold, head of physical performance: All he wanted to do was shoot hoops and play with his dog.

Speights: He’d talk about his dog all the time. Or the Bahamas.

Jerry DeGregorio, assistant coach: It’s impossible to know him and not love him.

Festus Ezeli, center: Because Klay is very, very … pure.

Barnes: Klay is just Klay. He’s like a national treasure.

James Michael McAdoo, forward: Shaun Livingston would always say: “Never change, Klay.”

Jack: We’re in Atlanta and we wanted to hang out at a nightclub. We’re all there, texting Klay, and he’s like, “Where are you guys at?” I’m like, “Yo, we’re over here.” He’s like, “Cool, I’m about to meet you guys.” So Klay comes, but when he walks in, he walks in by himself. I’m like, “Yo, man, how did you get here?” He’s like, “Yeah, man, I was hanging out at this bar, some people asked me where I was going, they said they were going to the same place, so, shit, I just hopped in the cab and split a cab with them.” I’m like, “What people?” He’s like, “That couple over there.” And it was like two married, middle-aged White people.

Speights: We were all in Miami one trip. So we all go to dinner and then everybody goes their separate ways. We all come back to the hotel, and some kind of way, Klay’s in the room. He comes out and his whole eye (is bruised). So it’s like: “Klay, what happened? We just got back. How did you do that?”

Ezeli: Sometimes he’s a little air-headed.

Speights: So we looked at him and were like, “Klay, what happened? Somebody beat you up or something?” He’s like, “Nah, I tripped over the dresser and hit my head on it.”

Ezeli: Never change was both good and bad.

McAdoo: In the preseason we would go to San Diego. We would always stay at ridiculous hotels. One time I went out to the beach. Took my towel and went out there and was just taking in the sunset. So I’m just laying down there, and out of nowhere I see Klay down there by the water, just walking, by himself. Just going for a nice healthy walk right along the shore.

Barnes: He’s unapologetically him.

Mike Brown, assistant coach: I know the manager of one of those restaurants over there on the water. The Ramp. Klay and I were talking and he was like, “Mike, you know anywhere I could dock my boat?” I’m like, “Yeah, I know the manager of The Ramp.” He asked if I could connect them. I was like, “Sure,” but I was still in the process of that.

Benjamin Giler, general manager of The Ramp: Klay was kind of sneaking around. He’s this big tall guy, hella athletic. And he was kind of just walking around, and we were like, “Klay?” And he was like, “Well, yeah, it’s me.” He was like, “Who do I talk to about getting a spot? This would be great for me if I could just go to games from here.”

Brown: Literally the next practice, Klay comes up: “Oh, hey, Mike, appreciate it!” I’m like, “For what?” He’s like, “Yeah, yeah, I parked my boat there.” He parked his boat there without asking.

Jason Thompson, center: I was going to San Jose with Klay, and I wasn’t sure if we wanted to drive up there and follow each other. He’s like, “Nah, man, let me know where you’re at and I’ll come get you and we’ll go together.” So then he was like, “Yo, I’m here.” I’m living in an apartment complex where they have valet, so he pulls up and I’m like, “Yo, where you at?” At this time, I think he had just signed his second deal. I didn’t know what car he drove. He’s like, “Yo, bro, I didn’t drive, I’m in an Uber.” So I’m looking for like a black car and a Prius is just chilling in the front. I’m like, “That’s probably one of the neighbors.” He sticks his head out and is like, “Yo, bro. You ready?”

Speights: He don’t care about no Uber Black or none of that.

Charles Jenkins, guard: Our rookie year, we used to go out quite a bit. Just in the Bay. My brother was there, and my brother is a big party guy. So there was one time, I was just starting the car and my brother had to run back upstairs to get a change of shirt or something. I just remember him running back out full speed like, “Fuck driving, Klay’s gonna take us. Klay’s going, too.” I was like, “Whatever.” I went to the front of the building and Klay was in a stretch limo.

Nate Robinson, guard: This one time, me, Klay, Brandon Rush, we all had like telepathic powers. The club was so loud, and I looked at Klay and I looked at Brandon Rush and it was like we could hear each other’s thoughts without speaking. It was so hot in the club. I just looked at Klay, and he just looked at me, and we just got up. “Aight.” And we just got up and went outside. It was like we all connected at one time, and we all felt it.

Chris DeMarco, assistant coach: We had a road practice, got back to the hotel and he wanted to take a lap because it was New York City. He wanted to walk around, grab something to eat. We went to lunch and then on the way back, a reporter stopped us as we were walking by and asked us if we wanted to do an interview on scaffolding. I was in the middle of saying “No, we don’t live here,” and Klay just goes, “Yes.”

Kevon Looney, forward: He did the interview like he was just some local citizen.

DeMarco: He just sat there and was giving thoughtful answers on the subject.

David West, forward (from Instagram Live): The night he had 60, Klay had missed shootaround.

McAdoo: Like, he overslept.

West: He probably said like five words the whole day before that game. Then just came out, let off, and didn’t do no dribbling.

Scott Machado, guard: He scored 60 when he only dribbled the ball 14 times.

DeGregorio: He had the ball in his hands a total of 90 seconds that game. Think about it.

West: That was the craziest — all he did was catch and shoot the ball. He didn’t make no moves.

McAdoo: That was one of those moments where Shaun was like, “Never change, Klay.”

Penfold: He doesn’t give a fuck about anything, except basketball and his dog, basically.

Ezeli: Klay and Rocco. Wow.

McAdoo: Rocco was always with him.

Ezeli: When I got drafted and started hanging out with Klay was when he first got Rocco. He would always want to spend time with the dog. He didn’t even really like hanging out with people. I’d be like, “What are you doing?” He’d be like, “Hanging out with Rocco.” I thought it was (a person) at first before I met the dog. I was like, “For real?”

McAdoo: He’d be like, “Yeah, I took Rocco down to Ocean Beach and let him run around.” I always used to get a kick out of that because I have labradors. Rocco is not a Labrador. He’s a bulldog. He’s not really a beach dog. But he’d still take him.

DeGregorio: Klay’s first contract, they were negotiating, and in the middle he had to leave. He was like, “Guys, I have to go home now, I got to go home and feed my dog.”

Looney: We were in the playoffs. I think we were about to go to the conference finals. Rocco just walked into the locker room. He went into the shower while everybody was showering, just walking around.

McAdoo: It was nothing for Rocco to show up at the practice facility.

Looney: I’m like, “We just let dogs just come into the locker room, walking around, chilling, wandering into the showers during the playoffs?” I remember (Anderson) Varejao telling me, “Hey, nowhere else in the NBA could this happen. Only Klay.”

Jenkins: Random times, he would just follow through. I would be at his house and we’d be playing video games or fucking around and listening to music, and he would randomly just shoot without a ball.

Speights: There’s a reason he has so much success.

Jenkins: One time we were outside of a nightclub, just waiting for someone to come let us in, and he was doing like form shooting.

DeGregorio: His rookie season, there was a game where Klay took too many 3s for Monta Ellis’s liking. During the next timeout, I remember Monta Ellis just ripped into this rookie: “You’re taking too many shots. Pass the ball. You’re just a rook.” That type of deal. I remember watching Klay the whole time, and he never flinched. He never wavered. The very next offensive possession, ball swings, goes to Klay. He takes the first shot and makes a 3. I’m thinking, “This kid is an ice-cold killer.”

Ezeli: One game, I think we were up three with about 15 seconds left and somebody threw the ball to Klay. At this point, you just hold the ball, right? As soon as it touches his hands, Klay shoots it. I can’t remember if he made it or not, but I remember his conversation with Draymond afterwards. Draymond was like, “Yo, what were you doing?! Why would you shoot that?” And Klay said, “Dog, they pay me to shoot the ball.”

DeGregorio: I remember our interns used to call him Dexter, you know, the serial killer. He was unflappable.

Ezeli: The first 10 games of that season, I remember Klay struggling. Like, he couldn’t throw it in the ocean. He was shooting so poorly at the start of that season, one game he shot it so bad and he was so angry at the end of that game that he left the arena.

Jack: I’m usually one of the last people out of the locker room, and I look and Klay’s clothes are still hanging in the locker.

Jenkins: I was just hearing, “Klay’s gone.” I was like, “How?” I think he left before Coach got there.

Jack: So the next day, when I come in, I talked to the equipment guy. He’s like, “You won’t believe this shit. Remember when I asked you where Klay was and asked you about his uniform? So apparently Klay was so mad, or so frustrated, that he left the arena and drove home in his jersey.”

Ezeli: Like, his whole jersey and everything.

Jack: So now, mind you, this is early Klay so there’s a bunch of guys that live in the same building. I’m like, “Man, when y’all got home, bro, did you see him?” They’re like, “Man, Klay was on the elevator, game jersey, game shorts, game shoes.”

Joe Boylan, assistant coach: I remember thinking: “That’s awesome. I’m glad he cares so much.”

Shaun Livingston, guard: We were toward the end of that first (title) season. We’ve already made the playoffs. We may have already clinched seeding. There is nothing really on the line. I think we were out in Phoenix or somewhere. We end up winning, but Klay missed the game. It might’ve been the first game all season he missed. He was out due to injury. So we’re all huddled up postgame in the locker room and he stops us and says, “Guys, I just want to apologize for not suiting up tonight. My bad. I take great pride in not missing any games.” I remember looking at Steph. I remember looking at Andre. Those were our captains. I’m like, “Is this dude serious?”

Ezeli: He held himself accountable so much. Nobody ever needed to tell Klay what he needed to do.

McAdoo: If there was a guy on our team that had previously played for the other team, Klay would always say, “They didn’t want you!”

Brown: If we’re about to play the Cavaliers … “They didn’t want ya, Mike B!”

McAdoo: Literally every time, everyone would laugh.

Kerr: He does his homework, too. He knows every single guys’ connection to every team. One time we were in Denver and we get done going through the scouting report and he goes, “They didn’t want you, Mike Brown!” Mike was a video coordinator in Denver under Bernie Bickerstaff in the late ’90s, mid-90s. Mike was like, “Wait, what? How’d you know that?” I think he goes through the game notes.

Zaza Pachulia, center: We play cards on the plane. I always enjoyed his reaction when he gets busted. I had a pretty cool moment where he had to write a check for me to pay off. … That’s why he’s special. Who can imagine Klay Thompson writing a check? He pulled out his checkbook and wrote it right in front of me.

Ezeli: The other day, he got really into the conversation about like the history of trade, like something where he was like, “Oh, yeah in Japan and Germany…”

Barnes: His randomness is what makes him great.

Ezeli: He just started spouting off history. I’m like, “Dude, what?!? Why do you even know this?”

DeGregorio: The beauty of him: He understands what he likes, he understands who he is, and he doesn’t waver from it.

Kerr: He really, really cares about people and the team and the world around him.

Ezeli: That’s just Klay. Never change.

haha i was just gonna post that in the basketblolz thread

Nate Robinson, guard: This one time, me, Klay, Brandon Rush, we all had like telepathic powers.

Penfold: He doesn’t give a fuck about anything, except basketball and his dog, basically.

the cab-splitting story is so good lol