The NBA’s All-Star weekend is a time for relaxation and reflection — for most of the league, anyway.
But those of us who attended the festivities in Los Angeles didn’t have much time for deeper analysis or dissection until a few days after it had all come to an end. As such, I present the five questions that seemed worthy of being front and center as we embark on the back-end of this controversy-ridden season.
Are the Clippers about to get sunk?
A true story from Sunday afternoon inside the $2 billion house that Steve Ballmer built (Intuit Dome): I’m using one of the many urinals that the LA Clippers owner is so proud of — there are more than 1,400 toilets in all, if you hadn’t heard — when his booming voice comes through the speakers with a mildly uncomfortable message for those of us in the men’s room.
“We love No. 2!” Ballmer bellowed as he addressed the All-Star game crowd before tipoff.
Get your mind out of the gutter: He was talking about Kawhi Leonard.
Yet with everything that has transpired in Clippers land these past five months, from the early September Pablo Torre podcast that detailed salary cap circumvention allegations surrounding Leonard to the league launching its investigation a few days later until now, the kumbaya vibe between this owner and this star player was quite a sight to see. Especially considering what might come next.
In the weeks leading up to Ballmer’s big bash, there was a significant upswing in league-wide speculation that the NBA’s hammer is likely to fall on the Clippers. This was a noticeable shift from earlier in the season, when so many seemed to believe that the Leonard/Aspiration scandal might come and go without any substantive punishment being handed down.
There’s still no official resolution on this front; NBA commissioner Adam Silver indicated on Saturday that the results weren’t yet in from the investigation.
“I haven’t come to any decisions whatsoever yet on the Clippers’ matter,” he told reporters during his media availability. “As you know, the league office is not directly running the investigation. That’s being overseen by a law firm, Wachtell, in New York. From everything I’ve been told, the Clippers have been fully cooperative. But as I said, I’m not involved day-to-day in the investigation.
”I think, as I’ve said before, it’s enormously complex. You have a company in bankruptcy (Aspiration, which gave Leonard a no-show endorsement deal that was allegedly facilitated by the Clippers). You have thousands of documents, multiple witnesses that have been needed to be interviewed. I will say, just in case anyone is wondering, the fact that All-Star is here this weekend has had no impact on the timeline of the investigation. Our charge to the Wachtell law firm is (to) do the work and then come back and make recommendations to the league office, and that’s where things now stand.”
That last part about the timing of it all is worth unpacking, as there has been chatter among rival teams for months now that the league was delaying its announcement for the sake of salvaging All-Star Weekend. Yet until the ruling comes, the Clippers’ every move will continue to be analyzed by league folks and fans alike.
Did they give president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank a lucrative and lengthy extension months ago as a preemptive battening of the hatches? Was the Ivica Zubac deal with the Indiana Pacers perhaps motivated by the desire to secure first-round draft picks in case the Clippers have to forfeit draft picks? Did James Harden want to get out of Dodge, err, Inglewood (and off to the Cleveland Cavaliers) in part because of the chaos that might be coming around the bend? This is the sort of stuff that has been bandied about for some time now, and which will be interesting to revisit when clarity finally comes.
As for the actual basketball, the Clippers have done a remarkable job turning things around despite all the distractions (I didn’t even mention the unflattering Chris Paul exile). Since Dec. 20 — when they were an embarrassing 6-21 — they’ve won 20 of 27 games while posting a net rating of 5.6 that is seventh in the league. It remains unclear when newcomer Darius Garland (who came to the Clippers from Cleveland) will make his debut, as he’s continuing to recover from the left toe injury that required surgery in the offseason (he hasn’t played since Jan. 14). Our Law Murray reported on Wednesday that Garland isn’t expected to play until March.
Can the Bucks convince Giannis to stay?
Not that Giannis Antetokounmpo is hurting for sponsorships, but he may want to pitch Denny’s on a deal with the way he keeps explaining his Milwaukee Bucks mess in recent months.
First, it was the eggs analogy from our conversation back in early January, when he had this to say about the potential for him wanting to play for a team other than the Bucks.
“Just because I like my eggs scrambled today, I don’t have the opportunity to eat my eggs sunny-side up tomorrow?” he said. “We’re human, right? So it’s the same thing in basketball.”
Then came his sit-down interview with ESPN’s Malika Andrews that aired over the weekend, when he chose a different food to describe these tricky dynamics and, more specifically, his desire to win a second championship.
“When you’ve had a bite of a really good steak, you know, and all of a sudden you go somewhere else or time goes by and … the big steak sits in front of you, and it’s not good — and you know how that (first) steak (tastes) — you want that steak again,” he said.
At this point, a “Greek Freak” dish — steak and eggs with some protein on the side by way of Greek yogurt — makes too much sense.
Take all of the food framing away, though, and the obvious takeaway here is that Antetokounmpo will remain noncommittal about his future until one of two things happens: 1) He’s traded in the offseason; or 2) He signs the massive extension that he’s eligible for on Oct. 1. As I wrote after the Feb. 5 trade deadline came and went without Antetokounmpo relocating, it’s clear that the Bucks are still trying to come up with a plan, yet again, to convince him to stay.
So … how might the second half of Milwaukee’s season factor in? It would (obviously) behoove the Bucks to paint a very promising picture for the future. Except for one massive problem: There is no indication, as currently constructed, that this group is capable of doing just that.
While Antetokounmpo is likely to return soon from the right calf injury that has kept him out since Jan. 23, his presence alone hasn’t been enough to keep the Bucks in contention. They’re just 15-15 when he plays, with Antetokounmpo averaging 28 points, 10 rebounds and 5.6 assists in just 29 minutes per game. Overall, Milwaukee (23-30) is coming out of the break tied for 11th place in the Eastern Conference (1.5 games behind the Atlanta Hawks for the final Play-In spot).
To see Antetokounmpo embrace the All-Star spotlight like he did over the weekend was to wonder how much the nonstop hype surrounding him might impact his market a few months from now. Take the Los Angeles Lakers, for example, who are known to be planning an all-out pursuit of the Bucks’ big man in the summer.
Even if they ultimately fall short of landing him, that sort of well-publicized pressure typically signals to other suitors that they’d better be prepared to come with serious offers. And while there was so much focus on the core four teams (the Miami Heat, Golden State Warriors, Minnesota Timberwolves, and New York Knicks) heading into the deadline, it wasn’t hard to find team executives at All-Star weekend who expect that list of possible destinations to grow significantly next time around.
Will the tanking ever end?
How’s this for irony?
On the Wednesday before All-Star weekend, likely top-three pick AJ Dybantsa and his father, Ace, left the Sacramento Kings-Utah Jazz game they were attending in Salt Lake City early, in part, because the game itself was so bad. Behold the sad state of tanking in the Association today …
As Silver made abundantly clear during his Saturday media session, and by way of the fines he levied on the Jazz and Pacers just two days before, the league is exploring ways to end this unbecoming practice once and for all. Again.
“There is talk about every possible remedy now to stop this behavior,” Silver said when asked if the prospect of taking draft picks away from teams was on the table.
Yet even before the commissioner’s tough talk, the penalties alone had inspired an uptick in conversation among league executives about how tanking might be fixed. As our Joe Vardon reported, one of the 10 potential solutions that was discussed in meetings among league officials last week was “the outright abolition of the rookie draft.” The flattening of the lottery odds, which was instituted back in 2019, surely hasn’t worked.
To the surprise of no one who has monitored this issue, the “draft wheel” idea that Boston Celtics assistant general manager Mike Zarren first proposed back in 2013 has re-entered the conversation as well. In that system, teams would rotate picks over the course of 30 years in a semi-random way. As reported by Grantland at the time, “every team would be guaranteed one top-six pick every five seasons, and at least one top-12 pick in every four-year span,” and “the team that gets the No. 1 pick in the very first year of this proposed system would draft in the following slots over the system’s first six seasons: first, 30th, 19th, 18th, seventh, sixth.”
The solution won’t happen overnight, though, and the unwelcome reality is that the home stretch of this season will feature approximately a third of the league hoping to lose. And if Dybantsa’s view of it all in Utah was any sort of sign, even the prospects they’re all chasing appear to disapprove.
Did Steven Adams’ season-ending injury dash Houston’s championship dreams?
Can KD and the Rockets rebound (quite literally)?
You know what’s a much bigger deal for the Houston Rockets than Kevin Durant’s latest social media situation? The loss of big man Steven Adams.
Since the 32-year-old went down with a season-ending ankle injury against the New Orleans Pelicans on Jan. 18, the Rockets’ profile as title contenders has plummeted. Take a glance at the before and after …
• Through Jan. 18 (25-15, with Adams playing in 32 games): Fourth in net rating (6.5), fourth in offensive rating (119.1), and eighth in defensive rating (112.6). Houston’s rebound percentage (55.7), which played a pivotal part on both ends, was tops in the league.
• Since Jan. 18 (8-5, with Adams out): Fourteenth in net rating (0.4), 25th in offensive rating (110.7), ninth in defensive rating (110.3). Houston’s rebound percentage (52) dipped to fifth.
Between the loss of point guard Fred VanVleet (torn ACL) in the preseason and now Adams, the Rockets’ offseason plan that had so much promise is suddenly in peril. When general manager Rafael Stone recently met with reporters, he mused, “Is this just not our year?”
Adding an all-time great like Durant was supposed to be the missing piece to the championship puzzle. His incredible ability to create his own shot was the very thing the Rockets were missing in last year’s first-round playoff loss to the Warriors. When Durant and the Rockets agreed to a two-year, $90 million extension in October, his player option for the 2027-28 season meant that time was of the essence.
Durant has been one of the healthiest (50 of 53 games played) and productive (25.8 points, 5.3 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game) Rockets. But if Houston can’t find a way to fix this mini-freefall, then this season will be an opportunity lost for all involved. No matter what Durant may or may not have said on one of his burner accounts.
Is the end near for LeBron?
What if this is it for LeBron James? And what if, contrary to what so many assumed would be the case, he doesn’t take the retirement victory lap and instead heads off into the sunset this summer with little fanfare?
These are the questions so many people have been asking around the NBA for so many months now — including those closest to him. As the Lakers star insisted to the masses on Saturday, he still doesn’t know what his basketball future holds beyond this season.
“Yeah, I mean, I want to live,” said James, who is earning $52.6 million this season and will be a free agent this offseason. “When I know, you guys will know. I don’t know. I have no idea. I just want to live. That’s all.”
The dynamics between James and the Lakers surely have impacted his calculus, as his declining place in their program was clear last summer when he wasn’t offered an extension. As such, this decision goes far beyond the question of whether he wants to continue playing.
There’s the matter of where he might want to play, with all sorts of recent speculation within the league about a return to Cleveland being a viable option. Perhaps even more importantly, there’s the question of how much money he’ll demand.
If James is willing to take a serious pay cut, then the options would expand. But if he insists on staying at a maximum-salary level, or anything close to it, then the lack of a market for that sort of money could be the final factor in his exit.
The wild part of it all is that no one is questioning whether the 41-year-old James can still play at an absurdly high level. Not a high level for his age, but for any age. He’s one of just five players averaging at least 22 points, seven assists and five rebounds, with three of those considered serious MVP candidates (Nikola Jokić, Cade Cunningham and Luka Dončić). The other is Hawks All-Star Jalen Johnson.
It’s hard to imagine James walking away when he clearly has so much game left, but the potential for complications in his search for one last chapter is real enough that you can almost see it.