Happy New Year! It's Friday, and this week we examine a slick new partnership for LeBron James and the Lakers, a surprising Sixth Man of the Year candidate in Cleveland, weak taunting techs and delightful chemistry in Memphis.
1. Steven Adams and the Bane Train
Some commentators have wondered why the Memphis Grizzlies -- No. 4 in the West with a bullet -- seemingly downgraded by flipping Jonas Valanciunas (and Eric Bledsoe) to the Pelicans for Steven Adams.
The motivation for Memphis had little to do with their current team: In exchange for absorbing Adams' salary, the Grizz moved up seven spots in the draft (and selected Ziaire Williams); snagged an extra first-round pick; and got out of extension talks with Valanciunas.
Leave all that aside. Adams is playing really well! He's averaging 8 points, 11 rebounds, and 3.2 dimes on 58% shooting since Dec. 2. He leads the league in offensive rebounding rate; the Grizz are the league's No. 1 offensive rebounding team. With Adams on the floor, their defensive rebounding rate would also rank No. 1; that number falls to league-worst levels when he rests.
Pretty much every Memphis frontcourt tandem featuring Adams has worked. The Grizz are plus-7 per 100 possessions with Adams on the floor, and about even when he sits.
Almost half of Adams' assists have gone to Desmond Bane. They have delightful chemistry. Bane fools defenders by sprinting hard toward an Adams handoff, stopping short, and slipping backdoor.
That is a gorgeous, slower-moving backdoor-style cut down the middle into Bane's pogo-stick jumper -- a nice bit of wink-wink improvisation.
Bane's emergence is part of the payoff from the Valanciunas-Adams swap. Valanciunas deserved and received tons of post touches. Memphis wanted to redistribute more offense to Bane, Jaren Jackson Jr., and others within a modern spread pick-and-roll offense. They wagered that system would help Ja Morant take another leap. (Umm, yeah.)
Adams is a brick wall screener. He requires zero post touches. He is the plant you don't have to water. You don't get this Bane with Valanciunas in Adams' spot.
Adams can bulldoze inside if defenses blitz Morant -- leaving smaller players blockading the paint:
Too many bigs stick with Plan A there -- kick it out. Adams is wired that way, but realizes, Oh, wait, I'm enormous. Let me place the ball in the basket.
Morant is a superstar. Jackson has made huge strides on defense, but he's been up and down overall. The Grizz are not where they are without Bane and Adams.
2. The Kevin Love revival
It's time to start discussing Love as a Sixth Man of the Year candidate.
Over his last 10 games, Love is averaging 21.4 points and 8.6 rebounds in only 25 minutes -- and shooting 49%, including a scorching 48% on 3s. The Cavs have outscored opponents by almost 7 points per 100 possessions with Love on the floor. He has fit well in traditional two-big lineups and within Cleveland's triple-big jumbo groups.
Various advanced metrics rank Love among the top 15 per-minute players in the league! That may overstate things. Love is sludgy on defense, and doesn't provide any rim protection.
But those numbers are catching something. Love is at least in the right place on defense. He talks, and inhales rebounds.
He's more than a standstill shooter on offense. Love has always been a good passer and screener -- keeping the machine moving in subtle ways. One such subtlety is rarely turning the ball over. We notice turnovers, but we are not very good at noticing the absence of them.
He can still smash mismatches on the block; he has been one of the dozen or so most efficient post-up players in the league this season, per Second Spectrum.
Peak Minnesota Love engineered all kinds of funky ways to dribble, run, and pivot into 3-pointers -- fake handoffs, sprinting off pindowns, even running pick-and-roll. He's recycling those old hits:
The Cavs have even dabbled in Love-Evan Mobley pick-and-rolls.
This is an awesome plot twist. Love became the NBA's John Travolta-looking-around meme as the 2016 champion Cavaliers disintegrated -- leaving Love as the leftover veteran amid a rebuild, with a contract too big for Cleveland to trade. In down moments, Love did not hide his frustration.
This usually ends with a buyout, or something more unpleasant. Instead, Love is having a ball and playing well on a good team.
3. Here come the weird, gigantic, fascinating Toronto Raptors?
Are the Raptors secretly becoming the most interesting team in the league? They're whole again, and up to 18-17 -- tied with Cleveland in the loss column for the No. 6 spot in the East.
Nick Nurse has dispensed with centers in the starting lineup, opening with Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, and Scottie Barnes next to the Gary Trent Jr./Fred VanVleet guard duo. That group is super switchable after VanVleet, and he's stronger than you think.
The Raps of late have started second and fourth quarters with this bad boy: Barnes, Anunoby, Siakam, Chris Boucher, and Precious Achiuwa. For years, fans have wondered if the future of basketball is five 6-8 dudes wrecking stuff. Hi, it's happening right now in Toronto.
It's one thing to be switchable, quite another to be switchable and huge. Offenses know how to counter switches. Those actions -- slipped screens, well-timed cuts -- open tiny passing windows before the defense completes its switch. To be a good switching team, you need help defenders fast, smart, and long enough to flash into those windows -- and then rotate back outside:
There are just arms, everywhere. Arms, arms, arms. Toronto is No. 2 in forcing turnovers, and I expect a climb up the overall defense rankings if they keep this team intact.
Switchability is helpful in transition defense, and the Raptors need to be airtight there because they bombard the offensive glass. With so many like-sized guys, they don't have to worry about finding the "right" matchups.
Nurse plays with defensive matchups in ways that help Toronto's offense. He often uses Siakam on opposing guards, leaving Barnes or Anunoby defending centers. If Toronto gets a stop, Siakam can drag that mismatch to the other end -- posting up for buckets, or sucking in help that unlocks trail 3s. (Siakam is back playing at his All-NBA level from two seasons ago.) Barnes and Anunoby can exploit those same size advantages.
Switching everything on defense doesn't help as much if the opponent can do the same against your offense. The Raptors have enough good one-on-one players to combat that.
I don't know if Masai Ujiri built toward this vision on purpose, or if it kind of cascaded from one decision to another, but I'm intrigued.
4. The sad Raptor
As the Raptors prepared to inbound in the second quarter Sunday, a repetitive thudding noise pierced Toronto's mostly empty arena -- cleared of fans under virus-related rules. The sound emanated from off camera -- a metronomic bum, bum, bum. It sounded like ... applause? But who was clapping? And why were they only clapping -- and not yelling, or shouting encouragement? Why were they so enthusiastic at such a ho-hum moment?
The camera zoomed out, revealing the source: the Raptor mascot, kneeling alone in the corner -- a showman without an audience.
What a sad symbol of these sad times.
Later in the game, the Raptor donned a dress suit and sat with Toronto's broadcast duo of Matt Devlin and Jack Armstrong. He scrawled a note, telling Devlin and Armstrong he loved them. It was a cry for help -- the scribbles of a beloved entertainer robbed of his purpose.
5. Kevon Looney, making the next play
Golden State's coaches warned me years ago: I was wrong to underestimate Looney. I could tell he was a solid screener and ball mover. I noticed how he held his own switching onto guards.
But he's undersized. He can't shoot. He's a blah finisher; Looney takes so long loading his jump that defenders who should be out of the play -- probably because they were off chasing Stephen Curry -- recover to disrupt him at the rim.
Looney has shoved all those doubts aside since getting healthy last season and supplanting James Wiseman as Golden State's starting center.
He's a solid defender with the smarts to play Golden State's read-and-react offense. By the time the ball finds Looney, Golden State's stars have usually pried open some spatial advantage -- catapulting Looney into a 4-on-3 or 3-on-2 underneath the defense. Looney's job is to maintain that advantage, and perhaps widen it. That sounds easy. Sometimes it is. That is the gift of playing alongside Curry.
Part of Curry's value is how he enables Golden State's front office more flexibility in signing the players around him. Looney and Green are bulwarks of Golden State's league-best defense. Most teams can't accommodate two non-shooters. They choose between offense and defense.
Curry's roving gravity elongates defenses in every direction. If Curry can be anywhere, anytime, you can't ignore any other Warrior; in a blink, Looney and Green morph from non-threats into screeners for the greatest shooter ever. (Green is also a historically great passer.)
It's not a coincidence Gary Payton II, maybe the best defensive guard alive, has gotten his first sustained chance in Golden State. (This is one reason I was optimistic relative to consensus about a potential Ben Simmons fit. Those talks never got deep, sources said, and I'd be very surprised if they reappeared in any serious way during this season; you don't rearrange a juggernaut midstream to plop in maybe the league's most unusual player.)
Even when crowds smother Looney, he knows where everyone is -- the cutter; the shooter behind the cutter; the next shooter in the chain:
Unclutter the lane, and Looney has been friskier finishing out of pick-and-rolls with Curry:
Golden State is plus-24 in 92 minutes when Looney and Curry play without Green. Looney dishes about three assists per 36 minutes -- hefty for a low-usage center.
Wiseman will have to wrench the starting job from Looney, and that may take a while. Looney will be an unrestricted free agent, and re-signing him will cost the Warriors multiples of his salary in tax payments. It's probably worth it.
6. Marvin Bagley III, caught in between
Bagley has had nice moments since Alvin Gentry reinserted him into Sacramento's rotation. He's shooting well from floater range, rebounding at a career-best rate, and trying to do the right things. The Kings have been slightly better with Bagley on the floor, which is a polite way of saying they have been less bad than their usual level of bad.
But on a roster overstuffed with centers, Bagley has played almost exclusively at power forward -- a position that has never suited him at either end. (Unfortunately, center doesn't seem to suit him on defense, either.)
Bagley has never been comfortable chasing stretch power forwards on defense. He doesn't have a consistent role on offense alongside any of (deep breath) Damion Jones, Alex Len, Tristan Thompson, and Richaun Holmes. He has to stand around and chuck 3s. Bagley is jacking a career-high 4.1 triples per 36 minutes, but hitting just 23% of them. Defenses ignore him.
Bagley sometimes loiters in no man's land along the baseline -- inside the 3-point line, but way outside of dunk range:
His defender can help in the paint without fear of conceding any profitable shot:
If you hang in that dead zone, you have to be a really explosive cutter who knows precisely when to slice inside for dunks and offensive boards. (Brandon Clarke of the Grizzlies is awesome at that.)
Bagley is a restricted free agent this summer. It's unclear what he's still doing in Sacramento. He has always seemed best as a stretch center on a roster that allows for lots of switching on defense; perhaps he'll get to play that role somewhere next season.
7. Bobby Portis, on the move
Portis has been on a two-year heater in Milwaukee. He's shooting 45% from deep as a Buck, and jacking a career-high 5.6 3s per 36 minutes this season. He's getting more aggressive hunting 3s on the move:
That's so smart. Portis spots up around that Jrue Holiday-Giannis Antetokounmpo pick-and-roll, and then roasts Robin Lopez. R.J. Hampton ditches George Hill to cut off Portis' drive; Portis dishes to Hill.
Most shooters might continue to the opposite corner, or hang near the dunker spot. Portis catches the defense off guard with a U-turn.
That's an unusual cross-court diagonal cut against a zone defense. It works because Portis cuts at almost full speed. That decelerating moonwalk -- while staying inbounds -- is damn near Ray Allen-against-the-Spurs-level shooting art.
Portis is a solid rebounder, and has improved on defense. The Bucks often have Portis blitzing pick-and-rolls -- a shift away from their bedrock dropback defense. Portis is mobile enough to trap and recover.
He still takes a decent chunk of long 2s, but he's making almost half of them.
The Portis-Antetokounmpo pairing that became a more central part of Milwaukee's rotation during their title run -- outside of their second-round series against the Brooklyn Nets, when the Bucks benched Portis -- is mauling opponents.
When you have three huge salaries, you have to nail signings on the margins. It's hard to get more bang for the buck than Milwaukee has squeezed from Portis. He will almost certainly decline his player option to hit free agency, but I'll be shocked if the Bucks don't pay up to keep him.
8. LeBron James and Malik Monk, helping each other
One cool NBA thing is when James develops profound trust in some unknown journeyman.
It happened with Alex Caruso, and it's happening again with Monk in a pick-and-roll partnership that works regardless of who has the ball and who sets the screen.
The wing-point guard pick-and-roll has long been a key postseason weapon -- the mismatch-generator when all else fails. James and Kyrie Irving formed perhaps the best-ever such tag team. There is no real answer for any James two-man game with a smaller guard who can shoot, dribble, and pass. Monk can't do those things on Irving's level, but he's good enough to work with James -- the superstar who amplifies everyone around him.
Going under James' screens for Monk is dicey. Chase Monk over the pick, and you turn James into the league's most dangerous rim-runner. James can pop for 3s too. The Lakers have been smart clearing one side of the floor when Monk is the ball handler; Monk did well out of that action in Charlotte.
Switch, and you're toast; James beasts little guys in the post -- or rains 3s over them. Rearrange your lineups, and James goes mismatch-hunting elsewhere.
It's tempting to suggest ducking Monk's picks for James when they reverse roles, but that's easier in theory than it is on the floor. James is a good jump-shooter. He's still a menace going downhill; if he beats you to the other side of Monk's pick by an inch, it's over.
Double James, and Monk can flare for 3s or slip into space.
He punishes aggressive rotations with passes or drives.
The Lakers have scored 1.37 points per chance whenever Monk screens for James -- third among 499 duos who have run at least 40 pick-and-rolls, per Second Spectrum. The photo negative -- James screening for Monk -- ranks 16th among those 499 combos: 1.22 points per chance.
More Monk-James was a natural outgrowth of the Lakers playing without any big man. What happens when Anthony Davis returns? Davis is the Lakers' primary screen-setter. If he's not doing that, he might hang around the paint -- mucking up James' path to the rim. Postseason offenses will target Monk on the other end.
Regardless, there will be room for the James-Monk dance. The Lakers' minimum-signing spree hasn't yielded what the team hoped -- getting zero from Kent Bazemore is a disaster -- but Monk has been tremendous.
9. The majesty of Jarred Vanderbilt's rebounding
If I could wish shooting range -- like any range at all -- upon one player, I might choose Vanderbilt, who is electric to watch in almost every sense beyond scoring. He is a straight-up majestic rebounder. He's tied with Rudy Gobert for No. 7 in offensive rebounding rate, and the Minnesota Timberwolves crumble on the defensive glass when Vanderbilt rests.
He flies from nowhere to snatch rebounds out of the sky. If he overruns the ball, he reaches back and snares it.
He's a nimble multidimensional defender -- a power forward who might defend star guards if it suits Minnesota. Vanderbilt is coming along as a passer.
The Wolves can absorb one non-shooter in their starting five. Minnesota's three perimeter starters -- Patrick Beverley, D'Angelo Russell, and Anthony Edwards -- merit at least token respect from deep. Karl-Anthony Towns is probably already the greatest 3-point-shooting center ever.
That lineup is plus-141 in 142 minutes. You read that correctly. That might be my favorite stat of the season. It's unthinkable. That group has outscored opponents by 50.5 points per 100 possessions -- the best such figure by miles.
I mean, what? Maybe that should be the franchise slogan: The Minnesota Timberwolves: I mean, what?
10. Weak taunting technicals
You've seen Jalen Smith's from-the-heavens thunderbolt on Mason Plumlee's skull. In the aftermath, Smith glared at the remains of Plumlee's soul, screamed, and flexed in triumph. The referees whistled Smith for a taunting technical.
(Smith's emergence is getting interesting. When the Suns declined Smith's $4.7 million option, it appeared an organizational catastrophe because a contender had bonked a precious lottery pick when it could have taken Tyrese Haliburton or Devin Vassell. What if it ends up a catastrophe for the opposite reason: Smith developing right as he heads into unrestricted free agency?)
Proposal: Anyone who completes a dunk that has at least a 50% chance of ending up their best career highlight gets to yell and gesture without fear of a technical.
Two caveats:
1. There is some profanity line -- call it the Cassell Line. Anything over the Cassell Line, you get T'd up. There is no specific enumeration of what constitutes crossing the Cassell Line; you know it when you see it.
2. No violence.
Unless Cody Martin said something incredibly foul and specific about someone in Goga Bitadze's family, rescind the technical he got here. This is a 6-5 second-round pick detonating on a giant.
The league's counter would be that you never know when taunting might trigger the next Malice in the Palace. I get that, but it's hard to have a reasonable discussion when the stock response is, "Well, the worst-case scenario might happen." Sure, there is some non-zero chance of post-dunk braggadocio unleashing a brawl. Does that mean we penalize all good-natured fun?