Lowe: What to make of the unusual Lakers-Warriors-LeBron bombshell

Maybe they are finding that consistency now. The last third of the season will tell us. Never slam the door totally shut on these respective cores.

The playoffs always inform the offseason. Everything I've heard for five years suggests James would prefer to finish his career as a Laker. Is that absolute? Who knows. There could be some breaking point at which the Lakers fall so far that James begins to look elsewhere. But the Lakers have one title and a conference finals appearance over the past four seasons. They will be able to trade three first-round picks this summer, and league sources expect them to search for a difference-making perimeter talent. That does not mean the Warriors will give up their pursuit of James.

The playoffs start in two months.

2. The push and pull of Anthony Edwards in crunch time

The Minnesota Timberwolves experience appears to involve only super-encouraging wins or disturbing, fall-from-ahead losses. That is mostly a good thing? The former have outnumbered the latter by a lot, after all. In the past three weeks, the Wolves have notched statement wins over the Oklahoma City Thunder, Milwaukee Bucks (without Damian Lillard and Khris Middleton) and Clippers -- running the Clips out of Crypto.com Arena on Monday in a showdown for the top seed in the West. The Wolves were the first team to beat both the Boston Celtics and the Denver Nuggets.

That recent Clippers win seemed massive -- catharsis for Rudy Gobert, proof of concept for the supersized Wolves. The Clippers went super small in hopes of spreading the Wolves thin, forcing Gobert to guard in space and daring Gobert to post up smaller defenders. That strategy broke the Utah Jazz in the 2021 playoffs.

The Wolves smashed it to smithereens. Gobert inhaled offensive rebounds. He sealed and scored in the post, even dunking on Leonard's head in one of those flashbulb moments you bookmark. And it turns out Gobert has an easier time defending the perimeter when most of his teammates bring size and defense, which was not the case in Utah.

But every loss seems to induce a crunch-time crisis and internal reckoning. The Wolves rank 27th in points per possession in fourth quarters and 20th in crunch-time situations. In tight spots, their offense often stalls after one action -- four guys watching Anthony Edwards dribble into a tough midranger.

Some of that is on the coaches. What plays are being called? Why aren't the players executing them beyond step one? Some of it is on the guys around Edwards. Someone cut! Set a random screen!

But some is on Edwards, who is prone at times to tunnel vision. This killed Minnesota during its most recent loss, an overtime gag job against the Chicago Bulls.

Ping it to Mike Conley here, and Conley can attack that diagonal to initiate some swing-swing sequence leading to an easier shot.

In the muck of the game, it is very hard to know when to kick out and when a bulldozer like Edwards should just go for it. But this ball has to go to either Conley or Karl-Anthony Towns.

Edwards has made strides as a playmaker. He can drill tough daggers. He will win a playoff game with two step-back jumpers, and all this will seem like nonsense hand-wringing for 24 hours.

But the next test is right around the corner, and the tests get harder the further you advance.

3. A key Charlotte Hornets role player showing signs of life

It has been a sneaky good couple weeks for one of the NBA's woebegone franchises. The Hornets' new ownership group -- Rick Schnall and Gabe Plotkin -- is modernizing every corner of the organization.

A deep rebuild is underway, including a search for a new front office leader as Mitch Kupchak transitions to an advisory role. The Hornets turned Gordon Hayward on an expiring contract into two decent second-round picks and a young combo guard worth another shot in Tre Mann. (Mann has been outstanding as a sort of co-point guard in Charlotte.) They maxed out P.J. Washington's trade value by swapping him for Grant Williams -- a multipositional 3-and-D type they could re-trade one day -- and a lightly protected 2027 first-round pick from the Dallas Mavericks.

Brandon Miller is a star in the making. LaMelo Ball and Mark Williams will be back at some point. More lottery help is coming.

The Hornets have also won three straight and preceded the trade deadline with competitive losses to the Lakers and Toronto Raptors. One unheralded reason for their sudden competency: Cody Martin is healthy, playing real minutes and starting to resemble the jack-of-all-trades role player he was in 2020-21 and 2021-22 -- when Charlotte was play-in-level competitive.

Martin letting fly from deep when his defenders go under screens is not something I expected in 2024. Martin is 8-of-17 on pull-up 3s this season. He had made just 14 his entire career. He's shooting 34% on a career-high four 3s per 36 minutes. That's not great, but it's progress.

Scoring isn't Martin's main job anyway. He's a solid defender and secondary ball handler who keeps the machine moving with extra passes and smart cuts. He's dishing almost five dimes per 36 minutes, easily a career high.

Charlotte has Martin under contract for two more seasons at about $8 million per year -- with the final season non-guaranteed. If Martin keeps playing well, he could fetch more draft picks via trade someday. He's also a handy guy to have around younger players -- smart, selfless and tough.

4. Ben Simmons and Nic Claxton, together

You can't blame the Brooklyn Nets for trying after trades and injuries thinned their wing rotation, but it's time to close the book on Simmons and Claxton playing real minutes together. There is no space to operate with two total non-shooters clogging the paint:

There are isolated possessions in which Simmons and Claxton exchange nifty interior passes, and you trick yourself into thinking it might work -- that Brooklyn can squeeze enough offense from these lineups to stretch them out and see what they might do on defense. Those are exceptions. The rule is aimless bumper cars offense.

The Nets are minus-34 in 69 minutes with Claxton and Simmons on the floor. They have scored 97 points per 100 possessions in that sample -- 10 points below the Memphis Grizzlies' league-worst offense, and even die-hards have trouble naming two-thirds of the Grizzlies' current rotation.

With Cam Johnson back, the Simmons-Claxton pairing should be strictly situational -- something to bust out for one stop in crunch time or when foul trouble decimates the rotation. If that requires benching one of Simmons and Day'Ron Sharpe, with the other serving as Claxton's backup, so be it. There is no long game here, though the Nets would like to re-sign Claxton -- an ace defender and dangerous rim-runner -- this offseason, per league sources.

Simmons wants no part of the ball in the paint because he appears petrified of getting fouled. Upon approaching the foul line, Simmons plays in horizontals -- sideline to sideline. He is 6-of-14 from the line, and four of those attempts came when the Boston Celtics went Hack-a-Ben on Tuesday. Nothing matters -- no muscly Instagram posts, braggadocious quotes, or fancy dribble handoffs -- until Simmons sheds his free throw aversion.

5. Devin Vassell's left hand

Vassell's game has not changed much in the ways he and others within the San Antonio Spurs might have hoped before this season -- Vassell's fourth. He's still a high-volume midrange scorer who doesn't get to the rim or the line much. He's averaging 3.6 assists, same as last season. He has recorded dimes on only 7.4% of his drives, per Second Spectrum -- 189th among 222 players with at least 200 drives. His defense isn't where it should be.

But Vassell has made a big leap in his finishing from close range when he gets there. Vassell is shooting 72% in the restricted area and a massive 52% from floater range -- both career highs.

A major driver of that has been Vassell's growing comfort finishing with his left hand. It gives him access to more dribble moves and a wider array of finishing angles:

Vassell drives right, crosses back left, cradles the ball to keep it safe and then lofts that looping lefty scoop shot over Jonas Valanciunas -- and on the way down.

That's gorgeous. The way Vassell is already moving forward when the ball arrives -- like a sprinter crouched at the starting block -- is very Spursy. He plants above the dotted line, contorts around Giannis Antetokounmpo and stretches that left arm beyond Antetokounmpo's (very large) shot-blocking radius. Being able to finish with either arm at full extension almost has the effect of making Vassell taller.

A lot of people gawked when Vassell signed a five-year, $146 million extension. He was unproven and played in just 38 games last season. But that was a fair contract the day Vassell signed it, and the bet here is that it ages well from the Spurs' perspective.

6. Harrison Barnes' pump fake

Barnes is averaging 12 points, his lowest number since his final season with the Warriors. The Sacramento Kings appear headed for the play-in tournament after exploding into the No. 3 seed last season. That feels like a disappointment, and the Kings are probably not as good as their 31-23 record; they are only plus-26 for the season.

Barnes and Kevin Huerter are becoming symbols of what itchy fans might view as organizational complacency. Both are on midsized contracts that are perfect trade fodder. Barnes is almost 32 -- beyond the Domantas Sabonis/De'Aaron Fox/Keegan Murray timeline. Huerter has never quite recovered from shooting 20.5% on 3s in last season's playoffs.

It's no secret the Kings have investigated changes -- both in free agency last summer (when they ultimately re-signed Barnes) and ahead of the recent trade deadline. They had separate discussions with the Toronto Raptors about both OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam but could not find a deal. The Kings did not have the expendable blue-chip young player the Raptors craved in at least one of their trades -- eventually Immanuel Quickley -- and were not prepared to sacrifice bundles of picks and cap flexibility for an almost-30 so-so shooter in Siakam who might not have wanted to go there, per league sources.

So they did nothing. And now they are backsliding.

And that's fine. The medium-term trend lines still point up. The core is young. Progress isn't always linear. Some teams above Sacramento this season got better and healthier. Some of them might get worse, older and less healthy next season. There will be other trades.

The worst thing the Kings could have done was overspend in some heedless rush to exceed last season's outcome.

Barnes is solid -- a fine placeholder. He's shooting 40% on 3s and 59% on 2s, and provides sturdy defense. Like all cagey players on the other side of 30, Barnes keeps honing new ways to outsmart springier opponents -- including a killer high-rise pump fake:

That thing is convincing. Barnes varies the cadence of it depending on the situation -- and what chance he has to draw contact. He might wait for the air traffic to clear, or jump into his shot while the guy he just faked out is still descending.

Barnes can shorten the fake too:

Josh Giddey bites on that hiccupy half-pump. Once Barnes sees Giddey in the air, he hops right into a quick-shot jump hook.

7. Kelly Oubre Jr.'s off-ball defense

We all need things we can count on, and that's why I love Oubre. You can always count on him being exactly who he is. Oubre is on the floor to play snarling on-ball defense, talk trash and hit audacious leaning buckets. He does all those things fairly well, though his shot selection can dial up past 11 on some nights.

He won't pass much; Oubre averages one assist per game. It is really hard for a perimeter player to record so few assists. Oubre is one of only 18 players to have logged at least 10,000 career minutes and assist on 6% or fewer of their teams' baskets while on the floor, per Basketball-Reference. Most of those 18 players were big men -- interior finishers.

Oubre knows his strengths. He wants the ball, and he wants to shoot it. That spills over to his defense. He is tenacious guarding the ball, but he cannot take his eyes off it when his guy doesn't have it -- making him vulnerable to losing shooters and cutters.

This bleeds into transition defense. Cam Johnson snuck behind Oubre twice in the same game trailing fast breaks while Oubre stared at the action in the middle:

Oubre is a nice backup on a good team, and capable spot starter. He averaged 20 points last season! Teams accept the good with the bad. Oubre has been a godsend for the injury-riddled Philadelphia 76ers. But these weak spots are on the scouting report, and teams pay closer attention to those scouting reports in the playoffs.

8. The Johnny Davis pick will linger for a long time

The Washington Wizards are almost a year into their long-awaited teardown, and their new front office did nice work nabbing a 2024 first-round pick for Daniel Gafford.

The respective returns for Bradley Beal and Kristaps Porzingis are underwhelming in comparison, but the Wizards were in trade jail with both deals last summer; Beal held a no-trade clause, Porzingis a dicey player option. Time will tell on Washington's decision to hang on to Kyle Kuzma and Tyus Jones, but those are probably no-harm, no-foul choices.

Washington also traded up for Bilal Coulibaly at No. 7 in the last draft, and he looks like a player. Corey Kispert is a nice rotation guy. Deni Avdija is leveling way up. He has 113 points over Washington's past four games on 40-of-65 shooting, and is playing with new confidence and physicality.

The real gems, of course, should be Washington's own picks in the next two drafts. But even as you look forward, remember that the impact of past decisions ripples into the present. Taking Davis at No. 10 in 2022 ahead of several good players -- Jalen Williams, Jalen Duren, Mark Williams and Tari Eason were among the following seven picks -- looks like a devastating whiff.

Davis has played more minutes for the Wizards' G League team than for the big club -- 676 to 606. Only 183 of those 606 NBA minutes have come this season. When Davis has appeared outside of garbage time, he just hasn't looked like an NBA player:

Davis stands in no-man's land -- in the corner but inside the arc -- and tries a tentative floater. He has hit only 39% overall -- and 29% on 3s -- in the G League.

Davis is better at basketball than almost any of us will ever be at anything, but the damage of that 2022 draft will linger.

9. The Thunder's City Edition jerseys

A decade ago, the Thunder had the league's dullest art. Perhaps that was to be expected for a young franchise carving out its identity. But over the past five years, the Thunder have pumped out interesting and attractive alternate looks -- some of which (including snazzy orange jerseys) have made their semi-permanent rotation.

There have been some B's, a few A-minuses and a couple of masterpieces. This year's City Edition look is more on the B level, but count me as a fan.

The court is a sleek updating of the Thunder's normal floor. The central logo -- still pretty generic -- looks bolder and more interesting rendered in monochrome. The orange state maps are mini masterstrokes. Critics might point out that the color scheme resembles Oklahoma State University, but that works for the Thunder. College sports are huge in Oklahoma, and the Thunder take pride in creating a college-style atmosphere.

The accompanying jerseys are a little busier, but only if you look closely to see that mashup of old and new Thunder art:

From even 10 feet away, it comes off as subtle. The orange is almost dark enough to hint at the famous red soil of Oklahoma -- a motif the Thunder have hit in other jerseys.

P.S. Jalen Williams is a star and looks like a potential future superstar.