NBA intel: Execs, scouts on Miami's scorching start, Reaves' next deal

Making assumptions off a handful of NBA games is a fool's errand. And yet, for some teams, the evaluation process for the 2025-26 season has already begun. Whether the small sample size theater of the opening 10 days will last until April remains to be seen.

But as league coaches, scouts and executives have begun crisscrossing the country to take in games, they're reporting back.

As a result, early trends -- including an offensive refresh in Miami, a new, albeit temporary, a No. 1 option in Lakerland and the league's reaction to the scoring uptick -- dominate our weekly trip around the NBA.

The Heat's new offense is sizzling. Can Miami do what Memphis couldn't?

Windhorst: As scouts started assessing what Heat coach Erik Spoelstra had cooked up after a summer of soul searching on how to pull the Heat out of the offensive doldrums (Miami has ranked 21st, 21st and 25th over the past three seasons), they started to ponder one thing:

Doesn't this new system look like what the Memphis Grizzlies did last year?

It sure does. Spoelstra and the Heat consulted with former Grizzlies assistant Noah LaRoche, sources told ESPN, before installing a more free-flowing, motion-based system that largely eliminates pick-and-rolls.

That has led to a stunning offensive start in South Beach. The Heat are running more than any team in the league, utilizing the fewest pick-and-rolls and having gone entire quarters without Spoelstra calling a play.

"You know Spo is running the polar opposite of the system that [Heat president] Pat Riley used to run, where he called every play and each play design was exact," a league executive said. "And it makes me further appreciate and respect that the organization is about the right s---. They're about exploring and teaching in Miami."

Bontemps: Last season, as the Grizzlies also got off to a hot start running this system, there was a common misconception that this was the offense that Tuomas Iisalo had brought over to the United States after working as a head coach for several years in Germany and France.

Instead, it turned out to be Noah LaRoche's offense. And it also quickly became apparent that going away from pick-and-rolls, while very beneficial to Jaren Jackson Jr., who had his best season as a pro, was not something star point guard Ja Morant was particularly enthused about.

Those philosophical differences played out behind the scenes for most of last season, leading to the Grizzlies firing coach Taylor Jenkins, along with LaRoche, with nine games left in the regular campaign and turning the team over to Iisalo.

While that move was overshadowed by the Denver Nuggets firing coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth with just three games left in the regular season, the Grizzlies immediately pivoted to what Iisalo's preferred offense actually was: plenty of pick-and-rolls to lean into Morant's strengths.

It's a far different situation in Miami, where the roster is optimized to take advantage of an egalitarian system like this. And Spoelstra, who arguably has more job security than any coach in the league, has the freedom to experiment.

"I love it," a scout said of the new offense. "It's so different than everybody else. You don't need to have a point guard, you need ballhandling wings. It's nonstop, and it's refreshing to see. It vibes with Miami's principles, which is to play hard on defense and push the tempo."

Windhorst: It's too early to declare anything a success, but the Heat have seemed to unlock forward Jaime Jaquez Jr., who had a poor second season last year but is thriving as a multi-positional offensive weapon.

It has been a little tougher for Bam Adebayo, who has had a lot of success as a roll man and in dribble handoff action during his career, plays that have gone away. Adebayo shot less than 30% from the field in the preseason and struggled finding his shot early in the regular season. But he's been outwardly very supportive of the new model.

"Coaches love this type of system, because it's about movement and team concepts -- not the 'hunt the mismatch' style you see a lot of places," one scout said. "To make this work, you probably can't have a ball dominant star and you probably need a pretty strong coach. Well, that's what they have in Miami.

"They didn't really have that in Memphis. We'll see how it all works when [Tyler] Herro comes back [from a foot injury]."

Milwaukee and L.A. are riding with more undrafted gems -- but can the Lakers keep theirs?

Windhorst: Earlier this month, the Bucks released Chris Livingston and Tyler Smith, their second-round picks in 2023 and 2024, respectively, and it sealed a dubious streak. With the deadline for extending players on rookie contracts passing last week, the Bucks have now gone 11 consecutive draft classes without signing a pick to a second contract. The last draft pick the Bucks extended was Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was picked in 2013.

There are caveats. The Bucks have traded a bevy of picks to acquire win-now players; last year for example, they traded 2024 first-rounder AJ Johnson as part of the package for Kyle Kuzma. Between 2018-19 and 2022-23, Milwaukee won nearly 70% of its games, which meant lots of lower picks. But this unfortunate dry spell is a big reason the Bucks have struggled to replenish their roster around their two-time MVP.

Bontemps: The irony of those draft struggles is that the Bucks have had some massive wins landing players as undrafted free agents or as reclamation projects over the past few years.

The current starting backcourt, AJ Green and Ryan Rollins, is a perfect example. Green was undrafted in 2022 after a stellar career as a sharpshooting guard at Northern Iowa and has continued to make shots in the NBA, hitting 42% of his 3-pointers over his first three seasons, a track record that he parlayed into a four-year, $45 million extension this summer and a full-time starting job.

"Green is a fine fifth starter," an Eastern Conference scout, who praised Milwaukee for developing him into a key contributor, said.

Being a floor-spacing guard playing next to arguably the most devastating transition force the league has ever seen in Antetokounmpo has paid dividends, and Green is off to a blistering start, averaging more than 12 points with an absurd 59% (13-for-22) long-range clip heading into Milwaukee's game Thursday night against the Golden State Warriors.

Rollins, meanwhile, is a former second-round pick by the Warriors, who performed well in predraft analytics models coming out of Toledo and bounced from Golden State to the Washington Wizards before landing with the Bucks in February 2024.

He then showed enough promise to land a three-year, $12 million contract this summer. And he's followed that up by stepping in as the Bucks' starting point guard. In his last two games, Rollins scored 25 points (then a career-high) to beat the New York Knicks, only to put up 32 points to set a new career high, along with eight assists, in beating Golden State without Antetokounmpo Thursday night.

The scoring, though, is a bonus, as Rollins -- a 6-foot-4 guard with a 6-9 wingspan -- provides the kind of perimeter defense this Bucks team desperately needed and was expected to lack when the season started. "He's a big guard who can defend, bring the ball up and be a spot-up shooter," a Western Conference scout said.

Windhorst: The Lakers, meanwhile, picked up next year's contract option on 2024 first-rounder Dalton Knecht. But if the Lakers don't extend him next fall, they will stretch their streak of consecutive drafts without extending a first-round pick to 20 years. The last first-rounder the Lakers ended up extending was Andrew Bynum, selected in 2005.

The Lakers have won three titles in that span, so some of the traded firsts and draft misses require no apology. But the Lakers, like the Bucks, haven't taken advantage of the lifeblood of player acquisition that the draft has become. After Bynum, the next draft pick the Lakers extended wasn't until Jordan Clarkson (a second-rounder in 2014), who extended in 2016. Max Christie, a second-rounder in 2022, was extended last season before being traded in the deadline deal for Luka Doncic.

Bontemps: Much like Milwaukee, the Lakers have had some massive wins in the undrafted market. The first example was Alex Caruso, although the Lakers chose to let him leave as a free agent when they deemed his four-year, $37 million deal in 2021 to be an overpay. That's one the Lakers would love to have back.

And, like the Bucks, they've also had some success in the rehabilitation market, specifically with forward Rui Hachimura. No, the Lakers didn't draft him with the No. 9 pick in 2019, but they did acquire him in the final year of his rookie deal, and after a successful playoff run signed him to a three-year, $48 million pact that has turned into a very solid deal for a guy who has started for most of the past two seasons and to begin 2025-26.

The way the Caruso situation played out brings up an interesting question on a much grander (and more expensive) scale next summer: Could the same thing happen with Austin Reaves, who has a $14.9 million player option for next season and could become an unrestricted free agent?

Massive scoring games Sunday against the Sacramento Kings and Monday against the Portland Trail Blazers with Doncic and LeBron James sitting out is the kind of thing Reaves and his representation will be able to sell to teams next summer. Could that lead to him getting a number outside L.A.'s preferred price range as the Lakers build around Doncic?

"He's always been a very good player, but now he's in a role where he can have the ball and generate a lot of offense," a West executive of Reaves. "Someone is going to pay him a lot of money next summer."

The belief around the league is that $30 million per year is the absolute baseline for Reaves' services. (There are currently 59 NBA players making at least that much.)

Another executive theorized that with Reaves being able to get as much as four years and roughly $180 million from another team in free agency, that a five-year deal for more total dollars could be a good compromise to get a deal done to keep Reaves in L.A.

"I don't think he's going to quite keep up this pace because LeBron will take away touches," the executive said, "but he is good and the Lakers intend to keep him and he intends to stay, so my guess is it gets done."

Speaking of the Lakers, what's next for the sale of their team?

Windhorst: The Lakers sale to a group led by Mark Walter and his TWG Global firm was unanimously approved by the board of governors Thursday -- including announcing that Jeanie Buss will remain the governor of the franchise "for at least five years" following the close of the sale.

The deal, which was for a valuation in excess of $10 billion, will see Walter -- who currently controls about 27% of the Lakers -- buy about 50% of the team from the Buss family, which controlled about 66% before the transaction.

There are several reasons Buss spearheaded this family decision to sell. Namely the price, driven in part by the rival Boston Celtics selling for more than $6 billion earlier this year. There is her comfort with Walter and partner Todd Boehly, the Los Angeles Dodgers owners who bought into the Lakers in 2021 and deepened the relationship, as well as the agreement for Buss to stay on as president and governor for the next five years, which fellow owners approved Thursday.

But eyebrows across the NBA were raised recently when Puck reported that Charter Communications, the parent company of Lakers' regional sports network partner Spectrum SportsNet, was looking to sell the network. RSNs around the country have been dealing with headwinds due to cord cutting, with several NBA partners going out of business and more than a dozen others declaring bankruptcy.

Spectrum's deal with the Lakers reportedly pays them an average of $150 million through 2032, the single entity that drives the team's financial advantage over its rivals. It's roughly triple the average of the rest of the league, sources said. Last year, NBA teams received about $110 million each from the national rights deals. This year, that number is boosting to more than $140 million as part of a new 11-year, $77 billion agreement with ESPN, Amazon and NBC.

Earlier this year, the New York Knicks, who have the second-largest local media deal, accepted a 28% reduction in annual payments due to financial problems at rights holder MSG Network. The Knicks had been receiving $135 million a year before the reduction.

"With the new national media rights deal, revenue in the league is very stable. Ticket sales and sponsorships are stable," one team president said. "The instability is in local media rights. The Lakers are the most exposed because they have the most to lose. They could have their deal cut in half and still make more than basically the entire league. Every ownership in the league has been worried about its local rights and I'm sure it was part of the Buss family's thinking to sell."

Bontemps: The RSN situation is a fascinating one for the league to manage and one that is on the minds of all 30 teams and the league office. And for fans wondering why, exactly, this is something they should care about, here's an easy answer: It helps set the salary cap.

This year, with the introduction of the new television deal, the cap jumped 10%, as it was expected to. Next year's projections, however, feature only a 7% jump -- with the 3% reduction coming, sources said, at least in part from RSN money drying up around the league.

This is something Major League Baseball has also been wrestling. And while the NBA tries to get its arms around the issue, one thing to consider is that massive local deals for teams such as the Lakers and Knicks have always been standing in the way of a universal plan to put all of the league's local broadcast rights under one umbrella -- because what would those teams have to gain from taking part?

That, though, could be on the table if the RSN money for even those big market teams begins to dry up. The league has been looking toward 2027, when a large swath of RSN deals are set to expire and there is the potential of packaging local streaming rights together to sell, ownership sources told ESPN, with the thinking being that this could be the time national packages come online across the sport as a way to solve this issue once and for all.

The fact Amazon now has full control over NBA League Pass -- outside of the NBA App, it is the only place you can get the service -- could serve as another marker of where this is headed.

The league is watching the early season scoring uptick

Bontemps: There has already been four players to eclipse the 50-point mark this season -- Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (55), Lauri Markkanen (51), Austin Reaves (51) and Aaron Gordon (50) -- entering Thursday night's action, and 16 times that a player has scored at least 40 points in a game.

Entering Thursday night's action, scoring is up by four points per game compared to the same point in last year's schedule. That's partially driven by an increase in fouls (3.3) and free throws attempted per game (2.0) through that same sample size as opposed to last season. (One thing that isn't up, however, is the number of 3-pointers being attempted, which is actually down by 0.1 attempts per game.)

Across the league, teams are averaging 118 points entering Thursday night's action, according to ESPN Research -- the highest mark through nine days since the league averaged 118.2 points in 1960-61.

Don't, though, expect there to be massive changes or reactions to those figures from the league office. Sources said the NBA constantly monitors these things and evaluates the possibility of making tweaks. The most prominent recent example of such a change was when the league shifted the way it was calling fouls a couple of seasons ago midway through the year.

The league isn't looking to make any changes based on a week's worth of data, though it is something that will remain under observation by the folks at Olympic Tower in New York as the season progresses.