Brian Windhorst and a team of ESPN's Insiders sort out life and the news from in and around the NBA world, including rookie Jabari Smith Jr.'s development with the Houston Rockets, a surprising star's future with the Los Angeles Lakers and how one tweak could impact season-ending awards races.
Editor's note: A line in today's story about Rockets coach Stephen Silas breaking down in tears after a game this season was inaccurate. Silas got emotional at a news conference in 2021. ... A stat for Jabari Smith Jr. has been corrected; he's averaging 14.6 points per game on 47% shooting over his past 17 games.
If Jabari Smith Jr. could walk into the visitors locker room inside Atlanta's State Farm Arena on Oct. 19 -- opening night for the Rockets and Smith's NBA debut -- and give himself advice from the future, it would be some version of "Calm down!"
"Just not get too hard on yourself, because I feel like that was my big thing. I was real, real tough critic and I get down on myself a lot," Smith, now 73 games into his career with some fresh rookie-season scars, told ESPN.
"I would tell myself just to have fun, enjoy it and stay of course."
Like most rookies, the Rockets' 19-year-old forward thought he knew what to expect at the next level. And, like most rookies, his first few weeks were a total crash course.
"This league is so different from college," Smith said, raising his hands and spreading them for emphasis. "It's a whole different game."
Smith was limited early by ankle and wrist injuries. He was bullied while playing power forward at 220 pounds as a target for bruising veterans. And, perhaps most important, a player known for his sweet shooting could not find the bottom of the net.
The rebuilding Rockets started the season 2-12 and Smith shot 35% his first month. He struggled on catch-and-shoot chances (35% over his first 35 games). He struggled on pull-ups (37% over that span). He struggled on drives (39%). (Thanks to his 6-foot-11 frame, Smith did fare better on shots from the paint, hitting 53%.)
As the son of a former NBA player who grew up as a top prospect and had just recorded a well-received freshman season at Auburn, struggling had not been a part of Smith's basketball life.
"Things come so fast when you're a rookie," Rockets coach Stephen Silas said. "There's a lot of expectations around and you're just trying to survive."
Magnifying Smith's growing pains was the terrific start by fellow rookie Paolo Banchero, whom Smith will probably be linked to for the foreseeable future as they are players the Orlando Magic debated taking with the No. 1 overall pick until draft day.
"Was I feeling the pressure of the expectations? Definitely," Smith said. "That's my nature."
But since the All-Star break in February, Smith has emerged as a calmer, steadier player.
The talent that had him regarded by many as the best prospect in the 2022 draft has been on display. He's averaging 14.6 points per game on 47% shooting over his past 17 games.
Smith's definitive moment came two weeks ago, when he drilled a 3-pointer with less than a second remaining to give the Rockets a victory against the New Orleans Pelicans. As the team celebrated around him, some of the edge of the season's rough start melted away a bit.
It was a rare bright spot in a first season that has been light on wins. Houston lost 18 of 19 games at one point and 11 straight games during another stretch. One of the team's then veterans, Eric Gordon, said in January "there's no improvement" when summing up the state of the Rockets -- not ideal for a young player trying to find positivity in early struggles.
The Rockets coaches worked with Smith on having better balance on his shot. He worked out alone with his dad, who played four years in the NBA in the early 2000s.
But basically, people around the Rockets say, he just calmed down as he found his bearings.
One of the youngest players in the league, Smith was overwhelmed physically and mentally. It probably didn't help that he was playing on a very young team with young lead guards, Kevin Porter Jr. and Jalen Green, who aren't as experienced in getting fellow young players the ball in comfort spots.
"I'm just trying to play free. Pressure can affect you and I've been trying not to put as much pressure on myself," Smith said. "Coming to a team that needs your help and you, and you want to help them and when you feel like you're not doing that, you can get down on yourself. So I've just been focusing on having fun."
The Rockets have had some positive moments in the past month, going through a 5-3 stretch in March.
Silas has noticed Smith being more vocal in practice, notably in the wake of Golden State Warriors veteran Draymond Green giving a frank assessment about how the Rockets badly needed veterans to back up the coaching staff.
"He was the one [saying] 'Come on guys, let's lock in. We're only going to do a couple things. Let's stay, let's lock in, stay together.' And then when we would mess something up, he'd be like 'No, let's do it again,'" Silas said.
"So he's starting to understand the NBA game. He's making a few shots, but his leadership is starting to kind of creep into our team as well. ... If we have a 19-year-old who's that mature and can get to the point where he is a leader of this group with his game and his personality, then we really got something."
The Rockets will soon be off to the NBA draft lottery with a good chance at another top-three pick. And the team is harboring big plans for free agency, with potentially more than $60 million in salary-cap space and the intent to be aggressive, perhaps chasing former star James Harden.
But for now, this has turned into an improvement season for Smith, and that could end up being important.
"Things are slowing down for me," Smith said. "It's starting to come together."
Front-office insider Bobby Marks examines how a 2005 rule change could cost the Lakers next season:
How 'Arenas rule' is impacting Austin Reaves' future with L.A.
The last time Gilbert Arenas was on the court in the NBA was 2012 as a member of the Memphis Grizzlies.
Eleven years later, the three-time All-Star will play a role in the Lakers' 2023 offseason.
No, Arenas is not planning a comeback, but his name is synonymous with an obscure rule that should keep Reaves, a restricted free agent, in a Lakers uniform but potentially at a significant cost.
But first, let's rewind to 2003.
Arenas was drafted in the 2001 second round by Golden State, signed a two-year, $924,000 contract (yes that was the total), won NBA Most Improved Player in 2002-03 and later entered the 2003 offseason as a restricted free agent.
However, because Golden State was over the salary cap and Arenas signed a two-year contract in 2001, the Warriors were not allowed to match an offer sheet that exceeded the $4.9 million Early Bird exception in the first season.
Arenas would sign a six-year, $66 million offer sheet with the Washington Wizards.
Realizing that teams over the salary cap were disadvantaged in retaining their own Early Bird restricted free agents, the NBA addressed this rule in the 2005 CBA.
The "Arenas rule" now prevents teams from offering a first-year salary in an offer sheet that exceeds the non-tax midlevel exception (a projected $11.4 million in 2023-24) even if they have cap space.
If this rule had been in place in 2003, the Warriors could have matched Arenas' offer sheet because the $4.9 million Early Bird exception was greater than the $4.6 million tax midlevel.
This leads us to the future of Reaves in L.A.
The Lakers have Early Bird rights on Reaves, who had his two-way contract converted to a two-year deal as a rookie in 2021.
Los Angeles can offer a contract with a first-year salary of up to $11.9 million (105% of the average player salary from the 2022-23 season). If Reaves signs an Early Bird deal, it will have to be for at least two years, not including any option years. The maximum he could be signed for is four years, $53.3 million.
Here's where things could get interesting in a potential Reaves sweepstakes: A team with cap space could backload a multiyear offer, giving him a significant raise in the third and fourth years.
This scenario played out in 2016, when the Brooklyn Nets signed Tyler Johnson to a four-year, $50 million offer sheet. Johnson's $5.6 million and $5.9 million salary (the non-tax midlevel in Year 1) in the first two seasons increased to $19.2 million in the third and fourth years.
One example of such a deal for Reaves -- from a team that had $20 million in cap space -- would look like this:
2023-24 -- $11.38 million (non-tax midlevel)
2024-25 -- $11.95 million
2025-26 -- $28.35 million
2026-27 -- $28.35 million
Total -- $80 million
Average -- $20 million (cap space available)
Because cap space is used, a team such as the Detroit Pistons is allowed to average the contract over the four seasons.
Los Angeles would have the right to match the offer sheet but would not be permitted to average out his contract because it is over the salary cap, setting up Reaves to be one of the highest-paid shooting guards starting in 2025.
NBA senior writer Kevin Pelton offers his perspective on the idea of a games-played requirement:
What a minimum games rule could mean for All-NBA voting
When ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported in February that the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association were delaying the opt-out date to continue negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement, one of the highlighted topics for further discussion was "finding mechanisms to incentivize top players participating in more regular-season games."
One option: Adding a games-played requirement for NBA awards.
A minimum games total would likely have the biggest impact on All-NBA teams, given their combination of size (15 players, as compared to one winner for other marquee awards) and importance. As covered in last week's Hoop Collective column, All-NBA nods help determine player eligibility for supermax contracts.
Let's say the NBA settles on the same minimum number of games (58 over a typical 82-game schedule) used to determine eligibility for per-game stats leaderboards. That would have knocked out 16 All-NBA selections since a third team was added in 1988-89. Predictably, a high percentage of them come from the past half-decade: Six of the 16 come from the past five seasons, including three (Kevin Durant, LeBron James and Ja Morant) from 2021-22 alone.
A lower bar might have less impact. Just four All-NBA picks have played fewer than the equivalent of 50 games over an 82-game schedule, none of them since 2006-07. (And one of those, Elgin Baylor in 1961-62, missed time because of his obligation to the U.S. Army Reserves.)
Although the league's intention to encourage players to prioritize regular-season availability is understandable, the unintended consequences of a minimum games played total could be regrettable.
Almost by definition, the players who make All-NBA while playing fewer than 58 games tend to be the league's brightest stars: Besides Durant and James, the latter three times in the past four seasons, other disqualified players would include Stephen Curry in 2017-18, Shaquille O'Neal twice, Hakeem Olajuwon and Scottie Pippen.
There's an obvious explanation for this observation. Value is a combination of productivity and time on the court -- the latter better measured, as in advanced stats, by minutes rather than games. Only the most productive players can overcome seasons shortened by injury, still responsible for the vast majority of games missed, to make All-NBA.
Adding a minimum number of games played, then, would surely reduce the talent level of future All-NBA teams as compared to letting voters make the call on whether players have missed too much time.
That's a risk the league is apparently willing to take.