25-year-old Tyrese Maxey is on the path to be a serious MVP contender, and he has been using his ascent to do something rare: he has been inspiring and developing his 20-year-old teammate VJ Edgecombe. And it’s not just Edgecombe. Maxey’s 76ers beat the Celtics in the playoffs while giving real responsibility to young players like then 22-year-old Dominick Barlow, 23-year-old Adem Bona, and 22-year-old Justin Edwards.

This journey has included some of the most inspiring NBA leadership ever. The 76ers lost their first playoff game in Boston while making just four of their 23 3-point attempts. Maxey made one of four, Edgecombe missed all five. The Celtics won by 32.

At the very next game, also in Boston, Maxey and Edgecombe made 11 of 22 3-pointers, and the Sixers won by 14. When the two stood together for a post-game NBC interview, Maxey smiled and said they got good shots in Game 1, but “that’s not who we are man, we just didn’t play good. We missed shots. We let our offense dictate our defense.”

In Game 2 they had combined for 59 points. They asked Edgecombe how he scored 30 in the second playoff game of his NBA career. He nudged Maxey and said: “This guy right here. Told me to keep shooting, and he keep making the pass. I mean, the pass is coming with some love on it, so I got to make that shot.”

The pass is coming with some love on it.

Basketball is jazz, not classical music. In classical music, if the flutist or the trombone player is really feeling it, and just start ad-libbing, it wouldn’t be classical for long, where every note hits at the exact right moment, performance after performance, century over century. In football, everyone has to run precise routes, just like in practice. But jazz is so much about feel and rhythm, and here’s Tyrese Maxey telling a younger player to catch that feeling and to find that rhythm. I see those guys playing with so much joy; it feels essential and free to me. My biggest thought is: let them play, let them figure out this beautiful game.

After they got eliminated by the Knicks, Maxey and Edgecombe addressed the media together, and it was clear they had big plans. Maxey has told stories about inviting his teammates to six a.m. workouts, after which he told his dad he was going to love Edgecombe.

Maxey told the media that the Knicks had made life very difficult for him, by swarming him on defense. Drafting Edgecombe, Maxey said, “was huge for myself. Like, he took a lot of pressure off me this season, just being able to, and he’s going to only get better, honestly. But being able to handle the ball, being able to make some plays, being able to give me some relief as far as just like here, man, you bring it up, you create a play, let me go over here. and you know sometimes he was creating plays for me.”

The future Maxey and Edgecombe envisioned was clearly similar but better. Edgecombe will have bad shooting nights, but they’d tell him to keep shooting, and he’d end up well ahead of the curve for someone who can’t legally drink until he turns 21 later this week.

Edgecombe said he planned to spend the offseason working on “scoring, you know, off the dribble” and “shooting catch and shoot.” He had been left open a little in the playoffs; he only made 35 percent of his regular-season 3s, and 29 percent of his playoff 3s. Edgecombe planned to fix that for good. “Coming into next year,” he explained, “a team won’t ever leave me open.”

Two months ago VJ’s season ended. He took his vacation, and I imagine he was dreaming about averaging 22 points a game next year. Without question, he looks to be a bona fide NBA starter with real potential to become a star. And then Jaylen Brown comes in July, and now he’s thinking, okay, that’s going to be a little harder, but I’m going to be the third option when Embiid doesn’t play, and the fourth option when he does. Then LeBron chooses Philadelphia.

Now, if you’re Nick Nurse, the head coach, before guys start returning back to Philly for September workouts, you’re assessing roles. Maxey’s the high-level scoring guard. Brown is an elite-level scoring wing. You’ve got Embiid at center, and LeBron, a power forward.

And you’ve got a giant problem, which is to win in the East will mean figuring out who’s going to guard players like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kawhi Leonard, Scottie Barnes, Tyrese Haliburton, Jayson Tatum, Pascal Siakam, Cade Cunningham, Jalen Johnson, and Jalen Brunson in the playoffs.

It looks like they’re now adding one of LeBron’s former teammates, and another Klutch client, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope—who was just waived by the Grizzlies. Now this is starting to seem more like a LeBron team, populated with past-their-prime veterans. (Henry has written about how LeBron’s obsessive nature has long made him intolerant of young teammates.)

As a thought experiment, I have long let myself imagine what would happen if LeBron had wanted to lead like Tyrese Maxey, by encouraging young teammates to explore their full capabilities. LeBron’s up there with Magic, Bird, and Bill Russell on the Mount Rushmore of cerebral, gifted basketball thinkers.

What if he had used that to say: give me all the players with the most athletic ability or the most skill who don’t yet know how to play. I’ll take care of that part. There are always players knocking around like Jalen Green and Benn Mathurin who are super athletic, super powerful, super skilled, super everything—but they don’t want to change the way they play because it’s always worked for them.

If anyone could convince them to change, you’d think it’d be LeBron.

How many championships would LeBron have if he had spent these decades surrounded by the world’s most skilled, athletic dudes who just need to know how to play? I’d argue it’d be more than the four he has. I’d argue he has that opportunity right now with V.J. Edgecombe and LeBaron Philon Jr.

But … I know players who have been LeBron’s teammates in recent years. I can’t really ever remember a time where they felt like he was all-in helping them grow. The stories I’ve heard are from players who love LeBron, but in honest moments will grumble that he often seems checked out. The whole team had a group chat, I was told LeBron literally never joined in. As one player said to me a few years ago “the leader of our team is Patrick Beverley, not LeBron James.”

A player called me once, halfway through the season, and said “hey, LeBron hugged me today after practice.” I didn’t know what he meant. Hugging is very normal in basketball. He said “he’s never hugged me, not one time before.”

The pass, in other words, is not coming with much love on it.

In a perfect world, LeBron would be hugging whoever it is that’s getting ready to sacrifice their body to guard the other team’s best players.

It could be great for VJ, in terms of his long-term player development, to become a defensive demon. He certainly has the capability of evolving into a classic three-and-D guard/wing who shoots 3s on one end, gets out in transition, and is the most reliable defensive perimeter player on the roster.

But that’s a giant career change from growing his offensive game, which means playmaking with the ball, using screens in ISO, end-of-clock situations, and all the other things maximum salary players do.

In what rotations in this team is he going to get to do that now? The pecking order is Brown, Maxey, Embiid (the 40 games or so that he plays), LeBron … and then VJ.

Long term, this could be a really impactful season for VJ as a winning player, a guy that finds ways to win possessions without having the ball in his hands much.

But those guys are never All Stars, and this league is brutal in the way a reputation can be hard to shake. If VJ is seen as a role player, it’ll be tough for him to be seen as a star. As long as LeBron is healthy, VJ’s going to be playing a role that usually goes to players making the mid-level. I just don’t think that’s what VJ was expecting or wanting—and it comes at the same time it appears Jaylen Brown may be in line to devour the maximum salary slot that was once going to be VJ’s.

Meanwhile, Dom Barlow and Dean Wade can guard the perimeter. Barlow is seeking to become a high-level defender. He can guard guards. He’s almost 6-10 and super athletic with a seven-foot-plus wingspan. And he just turned 23. That’s the guy you throw in all year. Let him take his lumps, just as Dean Wade has done for a few years now. You’ll have plenty of wins, and by playoff time, you’ve got your shutdown guy. Even if he’s off the bench, you still got to guard Giannis. You think LeBron’s doing that? You still got to guard Siakam. You think LeBron’s doing that? Someone’s got to guard Cade and it won’t be Tyrese Maxey.

Imagine a regular season with 48 minutes of Dean Wade and Dominick Barlow guarding the other team’s best player. By the playoffs, you’ll know how you’re going to play opposing stars.

Henry has talked about the risk of adding huge salary players like Jaylen Brown. And he discussed some of the risks of adding LeBron the other day. To me, they include:

• I never think it’s a great thing to get a player who has seriously considered retiring. The grind of the season, the physicality that the league has in place now, the speed of the games—all of that has reduced LeBron’s impact significantly in recent years. If you were doing a geometric progression, LeBron will be lucky to be a net neutral player this upcoming season. Last season was his worst season of record. He’s amazing, and he can still run. But stopping and starting and changing direction and having the fight required to play championship-level defense just hasn’t been there. He had Luka Dončić on his team last year, and they were good but nowhere near the best.

• I’ve seen people saying LeBron will mentor Maxey and Edgecombe. But show me, in the last ten years, how many players has LeBron mentored into star status? It’s hard enough at anyone’s age, much less LeBron’s age, to just play well enough himself to be impactful. It’s not fair to ask him to be an assistant coach too.

• They’re legends and former MVPs, but of course neither LeBron James nor Joel Embiid is likely to be a reliable contributor this season. I wrote not too long ago that Embiid should sit every game until April. I’d amend that now to say he should play once or twice a month just to get some minutes with LeBron. But I think the chances of him doing that are just not great. More likely, they will play Embiid quite a lot if they can which means it’s very unlikely he’s going to be healthy in the playoffs. We can say the same for LeBron, who will either be heavily load-managed, or in all likelihood, pretty beat up. Either will have a big impact on the 76ers prospects.

And that’s where my worries come from. From this team’s ability to keep the spirit of brotherly love.

Imagine being Tyrese Maxey. You just finished your career year. You are a legitimate MVP candidate going forward—if your team can contend.

LeBron seems to at least not make them worse. I don’t think he’s going to be the juggernaut some fans and media are suggesting, but still, the Sixers probably are better with LeBron in there than some other minimum player who either is too young to make an impact or has never really been good anyway and is just hanging around the league.

But LeBron can’t help but soak up a lot of the oxygen in the room. Tension off the court, and then without question, he’s going to want the ball a fair amount. There’s absolutely an argument that LeBron and Maxey should play well together. Except it’s not just those two. Add Jaylen Brown, and it’s already almost impossible for Maxey to be the MVP.

Jayson Tatum is an absolutely incredible player who has never won an MVP … in no small part because he always shared the stage with Jaylen Brown.

I’ll remind you of what I was hearing just after James Harden was traded from OKC. It seems to have been lost in the dust of history, but I spoke with multiple players who played with Harden during those years. The word I was getting from them was that Harden didn’t go to Houston looking merely for more money than the Thunder would pay.

Harden wanted to be the best player in the world, the leading scorer in the league, and one of the richest players of all time. Check, check, and check. He totally succeeded at those goals. That was never going to be the case in OKC with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. And if not for Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, and Chris Paul’s tricky hamstring, he likely would have at least one title too.

Here we have Maxey, who may indeed have had similar urgings. Does he want to explore what he might become? It doesn’t matter now. Those days are gone. The presence of Jaylen Brown alone pretty much kills Maxey’s chances of accomplishing that.

Now, could they win more games with Maxey doing a little bit less now that Brown is there? Absolutely. Does that have an impact on Maxey’s value and place in the league? Of course. It definitely means he’s not going to be competing for MVP honors. Whether Joel Embiid is healthy or not, Brown and Maxey together are going to make it tougher for either of them to win an MVP.

So let’s just assume Maxey’s fine with not having a chance to chase those dreams of winning an MVP and being considered a top-five player in the world. He still has to deal with a new superstar presence in Brown, the enigmatic Joel Embiid and the never-ending drama of his health, and LeBron James.

Say what you want about LeBron as a leader and as a global icon, it’s extraordinary. Nevertheless, a circus follows wherever he goes. Some of it is self-driven. It benefits him because there’s always eyeballs on him and what he’s doing. None of which will have anything to do with helping Tyrese Maxey grow his game. Now, if you can say Maxey will score more baskets without dribbling because of LeBron’s passing, then you’re probably right. But Maxey is probably the best ISO player in the league next to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. So you’re asking for him to make a pretty big change.

Almost any other player who will play the supporting role LeBron will play this year would be a quiet spiritual leader. Think Aaron Nesmith for the Pacers. Obviously, they’re very different players, but Aaron Nesmith tends not to take too many dribbles, tends not to take contested shots. He’s got other players on the team who do those things. He races. He works. He shoots open 3s. He does straight-line drives. He lets everyone else shine.

LeBron is not going to accept that role, even if he could pull it off, which to me becomes as much a challenge as any.

A lot falls on Nick Nurse and his staff to coach this up, to make sure everyone’s on the same page and not just accepts but embraces their role. And nothing against Nick Nurse, but this team has had some clunkiness to it for a while, as did his last team in Toronto—Nick’s offenses have never been seen as creative, even when efficient, and this roster will require an artist’s touch. I don’t know if anyone can build a great offense when the starting power forward and center are such incredible talents while also being old, fragile, and in desperate need of load management. Building a cohesive offense with the egos that these guys have, and the challenges their two starting big men face, is the challenge of Nurse’s career.

And it could interrupt a wonderful youth movement. They just drafted one of my favorite players in the draft, LaBaron Philon Jr. At Alabama he played in a pro-style offense and became an All-American in his second season. I probably wouldn’t have picked him as rookie of the year, especially considering the coaching staff in Philadelphia likes to play their starters a lot, but I expect great things if he can get on the court. He was going to be an important player. He’s a scorer. He’s a winner. He plays the right way. He plays incredibly hard. He’s a lot like Tyrese Maxey in that he plays with so much joy.

Now how do you think LaBaron feels? He had no control of any of it.

Dean Wade is an excellent player, who not very long ago was set to battle Dom Barlow for a starting job. Barlow started 60 games last season, and absolutely looks like a long-term starter for a good team. He was the team’s best tall defender last season. When will either of them play?

The coaching staff will tell Barlow and Wade this doesn’t change anything, you’re going to play a lot. They both can guard both forward positions. I don’t know if Barlow can play the three on offense unless he’s learned to shoot better, which is possible. Both those guys are cutters. They’re willing passers. They do all the little things to help win possessions.

It’s certainly possible Dean Wade’s now second guessing his decision. He thought he was signing to be a starter on a playoff team. 100 percent that’s not happening except when LeBron’s out, and he has Dom Barlow nipping at his heels to take some of his minutes. And Barlow is in line for a big pay raise and is looking to have a breakout season. How good can he be? Two seasons ago, Johni Broome and Cooper Flagg were the two best college players, both playing for top seeds in the NCAA tournament. Last year, Broome mostly toiled in the G League, while Barlow carved out his starting role for the Sixers, despite being nearly a year younger than Broome. And now his minutes are going to be tight.

All of this can be washed away with great vibrations in the locker room. Lots of winning, lots of egoless stars who are all bought in for the right reasons.

Does anyone really think that’s likely? If so, you haven’t really paid much attention to the history of these players.

So again, it’s absolutely possible that the team has some kumbaya moments. It’s possible LeBron plays enough without risking injury. It’s possible VJ improves overall, and Philon Jr. becomes a good guard off the bench. Wade and Barlow might become outstanding role players despite limited minutes. Maxey and Brown might be the top duo for any team, regardless of position.

That team won’t play amazing defense, but you can contend anyway if you can score at an elite level, and they might.

But I can’t ignore the possibility that it’s not a kumbaya team, that it’s Embiid disappearing for a week or two or more. LeBron doing the same to be able to still play solidly come springtime. And some incredible young players wondering when it’ll be their turn, or worse, playing wonderfully then getting relegated when Embiid and James are back.

The East is looking tough, probably the first time in many years it’s the better conference. The defending champion Knicks are still excellent. I’m hearing great things about the shape Tyrese Haliburton is in, and the Pacers also added Kelly Oubre and Ivica Zubac. Of course Boston is a sleeper, they know how to win and their management team bet on addition by subtraction after moving Brown. The Raptors, with Kawhi, look like a nightmare to face because of that defense. The Hawks gave the Knicks a little trouble and have made some major deals.

The Sixers are in that mix, but not at the top. This approach may well sap the delightful spirit of what was recently a young team bursting with love. They’re at a moment in the development of their young players where, as Maxey and Edgecombe taught us last year, great things can come from letting them play through their mistakes, so you can get to the playoffs with some healthy studs ready to do whatever the team needs.

In a few years, neither LeBron nor Embiid will remain here. Soon it’ll be a team built around Maxey, Edgecombe, Philon Jr., and Barlow. Now’s their chance to mature.

Instead, I’m worried we’ll have moments where some young player makes a mistake, and LeBron will turn to say “fuck, we gotta get this guy out,” and then KCP comes in and he’s just okay. That’s how a team with a high ceiling becomes a team with a low one.

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My second thought: This’ll be fun. The 76ers will be fun to watch. And I like that it sets up some real grudge matches with the scorned Cavaliers.

Betting lines moved

The 76ers odds of winning this year’s title shot up with this news, but that might not be because oddsmakers really think the 76ers will win. It might be because oddsmakers think a lot of people are about to bet on the 76ers to win. (Remember, oddsmakers move lines to keep half the bets on either side, and thus minimize risk.)

I love Tyrese Maxey, V.J. Edgecombe, Labaron Philon Jr., Dominick Barlow, and the youth movement they have going in Philadelphia. I’m excited about what that group might do together in a few years … when the team can finally use Joel Embiid’s massive salary slot on players who are more likely to be available. To me, the idea of the 76ers as contenders, with this roster, hinges on Embiid manning the middle through multiple consecutive playoff series. And of course, LeBron’s at an age where he wasn’t sure, a few weeks ago, he would ever play again. Just continuing to play is a miracle. The 76ers are loaded, and much improved. Maxey is a potential future MVP. But who can bet on LeBron and Embiid both being at their best for a playoff run? And failing that, do you expect Ariel Hukporti and Adem Bona to hold their own against Karl-Anthony Towns?

I recently wrote about how the teams that do the best in the playoffs tend not to have any wasted contracts.

David Thorpe recently wrote:

They’re stuck with that albatross at center. The Sixers drafted Joel Embiid 12 years ago. When he plays he has often been among the very best in the game. But the poor man has been beset by so many injuries. Over his career he has played 490 games–an average of 41 a year. Now that he’s 32, and hasn’t managed to play 40 games even once in the last three seasons, I would sit him the entire year—or at least until April, so that he has a chance to contribute in the playoffs.

Maxey should be the focus

I guess the starters will be Tyrese Maxey, Jaylen Brown, Joel Embiid, LeBron James and … V.J. Edgecombe? Every single player on the court wants to score 40. It reminds me a little of when Shaq joined Dwyane Wade in Miami. The best thing for the team was to give the ball to Wade as much as possible, the dumbest thing would be for Wade to play a background role. I wonder if this team is ready to showcase, feature, and force-feed the incredible Tyrese Maxey. And I wonder if V.J.’s development will be stifled as he’s tanding in the corner on offense.

Talk to me about defense

I doubt last season’s 16th-best defense has improved. Last year, Paul George was the 76ers’ one elite defender. He’s gone, replaced by Brown who has stirred debate mostly because his defensive production, in the analytics, is disappointing. Maxey plays hard but is small. If I coached against the 76ers, I’d figure out ways to make Embiid and LeBron run all over the court—and assume they won’t. LeBron and Embiid are both historically wonderful defenders who have now come back to the pack, with ordinary defensive numbers. The 76ers also now employ players like Anfernee Simons, Caleb Love, and Jabari Walker, who are all among the league’s worst in the advanced statistics.

An Apollo Global connection

Everyone thinks the Knicks are the team with the deepest connections to the Epstein class, just because Leon Black and his son sit in amazing seats. But don’t count the 76ers out! The Sixers are owned by Josh Harris, who made his billions at Apollo Global.

In 2022, LeBron’s friend and business partner Maverick Carter appeared on stage at a Forbes Summit with the Apollo Global CEO Marc Rowan.

Marc is an investor and board member at SpringHill, LeBron and Maverick’s original Hollywood production company. He raves about how Maverick runs his business.

Maverick explained that banker Paul Wachter introduced him to Marc and Apollo a decade ago, and says “I’ve literally been with Marc and Paul learning about business and finance ever since.” Maverick says he has been “an investor in Apollo for a very long time and Marc has become a personal friend.”

I’d like to know whether or not LeBron James is an investor in Apollo Global.

Of course, Apollo’s stock has tanked because of the company’s many deep ties to Jeffrey Epstein, which has been the focus of some prior discussion on TrueHoop, including a lot of emails between Harris and Epstein.

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But it has its oddities. A reality of 30 teams sharing two courts in one arena is a new challenge for players: not a lot of time to warm up before games. They certainly don’t get their regular pre-game routine that they’ll have pretty much the rest of their careers.

I often go watch players do their pre-game workout before NBA games, and they’re doing that workout 90 minutes or more before tip off. The latest I see a player get a full 15-minute warm-up would be a good 80 minutes before tip-off. I have players sometimes working out as early as 4:30 or 5 for a 7pm tip.

That gives you some indication of how much time they have to get their touches, get their shots, get their handle work in, and then they have the good 20-minute warm-up, give or take a few minutes, with their team, where they’re doing layup lines and shooting 3s and free throws and everything else. They’ve had an individual workout with a coach, and then at least a 20-minute warm-up with their team.

It’s impossible to give that to summer league teams with 30 teams on two courts. It’d be like expecting no lines for the popular rides at Disney. The math just won’t allow it.

So they spend a few minutes on the court, and then they play. That’s one reason I am not going to make any wild observations about what a player looks like based on shooting percentages. Lack of pre-game work on the playing court, plus a lack of time practicing with his teammates in the days before the league began, is simply not the same as we see in-season.

Memphis played Golden State in the Summer League Finals, both teams came to Vegas having played a few games in Utah and California. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those teams played better. I can tell you that after one game, I spoke to one of the best young passers in the NBA. After his first game last week, he admitted he didn’t know half his teammates’ names. AJ Dybantsa made one of his eleven 3 point attempts. Caleb Wilson hit just six of his 18 free throw attempts and averaged over five turnovers a game. They deserve fair evaluations in real games this fall.

Still, I saw the top four guys in person for their games, and have opinions.

AJ Dybantsa

I just told you I’m not going to overreact to someone missing shots in summer league. And the fact that AJ was one of the worst shooters in the league for a couple of games isn’t my biggest concern. But …

Let’s start with the positives. AJ Dybantsa is an enormously skilled and large wing who has both the athletic ability, ball handling skills and feel to get by people and create good shots. He is a sometimes-willing passer, and we have every reason to believe that over time he’ll become a more willing passer if teams begin to load up on him more.

One of the challenges of evaluating summer league is that these teams have so little experience playing together. Another is the coaching.

Most teams’ summer league are run by men who have never been head coaches at any level. That doesn’t mean they don’t know what to do, but they lack the poise and to explain it in real time. One player told me he had to take the clipboard and draw up a play in a late game situation because his coach simply didn’t have a plan.

These new coaches are also dealing with players they’ve barely coached, who may or may not be able to execute what those coaches want, which is why sometimes coaches don’t change the game plan all night. They just keep doing what they’re doing during the course of the game, for simplicity. This was especially true that first weekend when everything was so new. (I thought in the league’s final game, Warriors vs. Grizzlies, there was more recognition of doing things differently, and an ability to do it, because they had played 10-plus games over nearly three weeks together.) Also, and importantly, these coaches are far down the pecking order of their teams regular season staff. The chances of them yanking a drafted player out of a game for a mistake, even when that would actually help the player, is basically nil.

AJ only played at the beginning of summer league, which probably helped his results. Summer teams are not geared to defending a talented predator wing like Dybantsa. He shot poorly and still averaged over 25 points per game on 16 shots per contest (for two games).

It will take years before we know if the Wizards drafted a future All-NBA level player. Everything about him suggests that it’s possible.

I don’t mean to sound pessimistic but I’m not sure it’ll happen without serious growth from the player and the franchise.

When I watch AJ play, I see too much LaMelo Ball, a focus on “me” more than “we.”

It’s understandable. That approach has made all of Dybantsa’s dreams come true. He has been on an incredible ride to the top. He has played a certain way, and even though it hasn’t helped him win high-school championships nor AAU titles, he’s still the number one pick, and he will always be known as the first pick of this draft. Mission accomplished!

We’ve seen this show before, where players are rewarded for their talent and their style. So why should they be more invested in winning? I’m not telling you that I think AJ doesn’t care about winning, or that I think he’s strictly a selfish player. I’m only suggesting that the part of his career where he puts winning first isn’t here yet. There has to be serious growth from him in that area.

I’ll contrast that with a player we’ll get to later in Cameron Boozer, who has major hurdles he has to get over in order to be a very good NBA player, but winning isn’t one of them! That is not to say that Cameron only took good shots. That is not true. But no one watching him, or anyone who has studied him for years, would suggest he is a “me” player over a “we” player.

I’m not going to give percentages on AJ’s chances of being an All-Star based on a couple of summer league games. I’ll save that for the season. I just don’t think it’s a sure thing. The future is in his control, and right now his team’s as well. There’s every reason to be optimistic, but to think there’s no chance he fails is a mistake. Four years ago, Benn Mathurin was the number six pick of a draft that has already produced four All-Stars, plus a key starter and proven scorer on an NBA Finalist. But for the moment Mathurin doesn’t have a job. The “we over me” debate looms large for his career, still. Dybantsa has more big-picture talent, to be sure, but the point remains.

To go one step further, Dybantsa should absolutely be a defensive stud. On that end of the court he should be able to defend, with some ease, small forwards and power forwards, and there’s even a world that allows him to play some small-ball five against certain opponents. That’s how talented he is. It remains to be seen if he grows in that area, and he has no excuse given the other talented offensive players he has in Washington to make progress this season. He does not have to be the only offensive guy on that team.

Darryn Peterson

The next pick, the Jazz’s Darryn Peterson, was both amazing and not so much.

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In hindsight, now that he has proved to be a playoff legend with a ring to prove it, it’s a little weird that the Wolves bailed on Karl-Anthony Towns in 2024. It was earth-shattering when the Mavericks bailed on Luka Dončić in 2025. Those feelings resurfaced in 2026 when the Celtics traded Jaylen Brown. And over all those years, the Bucks dithered over what to do with Giannis Antetokounmpo, but finally traded him to the Miami Heat.

And this summer, an NBA front office source shared with me a theory: these four moves are connected. The throughline: those teams had all recently changed hands, and the new billionaires made sober choices in preventing what were about to become insane contracts.

In some cases, billionaires and stars are simply bonded, in ways that nuke a team’s long-term salary cap planning. For example: Will Mat Ishbia really play hardball with Devin Booker? Mark Cuban has already said he would have never traded Luka. I’d be shocked if Joe Lacob ever turned on Stephen Curry.

But the four cases of traded stars introduce a new variable: a new billionaire, without such history.

• The decision to trade Luka came quickly on the heels of Miriam Adelson taking over the Mavericks.

• Bill Chisholm has made hard cap-driven choices running the Celtics that upend some of the team building accomplished in the Wyc Grousbeck era.

• The Giannis trade came after new Bucks honcho Jimmy Haslam set a deadline for Giannis to sign an extension or accept a trade.

• When KAT was traded, Glen Taylor technically controlled the Wolves, but Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez were years into their now-complete process to take over the team.

What is it about newbie billionaires being willing to sever ties with stars?

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One of the NBA’s burning questions: How do you beat the Knicks in the playoffs?

Almost nobody could. The Spurs, Cavaliers, and 76ers—three good teams—combined to win one measly playoff game, while losing a dozen, against New York.

But somehow, the Hawks won two in the first round. Everyone watched, just in April. the system looked a lot like: Give the ball to CJ McCollum and get out of the way. In the fourth quarter of Game 2 in Madison Square Garden, McCollum scored huge bucket after huge bucket, some over the likes of OG Anunoby or Karl-Anthony Towns.

In the very next game, back in Atlanta, the highlights got even better when McCollum nailed the game-winner to put the Hawks up 2-1.

When you’re all over SportsCenter winning playoff games against great teams, NBA history demonstrates that’s irrationally good for your income. It’s the unseen part of that highlight reel above. That 34-year-old was about to hit free agency, and that’s how you get paid.

Over the last three years, McCollum has made $36 million, $33 million, and $31 million. He’s at an age where it’s common to take a little pay cut to shore up an extra year or two of job security.

McCollum’s new deal comes with the biggest decline of his career. He’ll make a third less than last season: $21 million. And it’s just a one-year deal. (Norman Powell is a similar age, and—coming off an All-Star season in Miami—took a very similar deal from the Bulls, with the second year a team option.) This feels like a shift from how the NBA has done business in the past, now older and injury-prone players are slipping in value:

• On the brink of his 30th birthday, Jaylen Brown returned a dispiriting trade haul for the Celtics.

• The oft-injured and controversial Ja Morant was traded for Jerami Grant’s undesirable contract—even though he’s only 26 and says he’s 100 percent healthy.

• Joel Embiid, the NBA MVP three years ago, probably can not be traded.

• Giannis Antetokounmpo was traded for a rich package of players, but—headlined by Tyler Herro—a far cry from what top-five stars have fetched in the past.

• LeBron James is a free agent and not expected to command big money.

We have long thought the NBA’s big challenge was: How do you get the most possible talent on your team? Here’s a new wrinkle: Maybe it’s about who can waste the least money and roster spots on bad contracts, which creates a halo of caution around certain high-risk players.

Because the truth is that the league is riddled with players who make a lot of money but don’t produce much for their teams, usually because of injury. The colors down the right side of this chart show that this league smiles on the teams that don’t employ them.

How we define “bad contracts”: We ranked every 2025-26 NBA contract worth at least $15 million by Earned Wins per million dollars of salary, using Dunks & Threes’ Estimated Plus-Minus. The 50 lowest-value contracts by that measure are what we call “bad.” The bar shows each team’s total salary tied up in those 50 contracts.

• Over the last twenty four champions, twenty one title teams carried zero wasted max contracts. The average champ carried 0.1 wasted max contracts.

• 50-win teams convert 81 percent of their top-30 salary slots into elite production. 30-win teams convert 11 percent.

• As measured by Earned Wins per dollar, the Knicks had the cleanest cap sheet, top to bottom, of any contender in the league—and won the title.

To be clear, no one’s saying this is all it takes to win a title. There’s no magic bullet, no one weird trick. Execution makes up for bad strategy all the time! A team might have a poorly constructed roster and run a basic play, and get a game-winning bucket anyway. People do miraculous things.

Instead, what we’re saying is: pay attention to the reality that teams with expensive and unproductive players are not merely inconvenienced, they are sunk. Excessive unproductive contracts appear to dog a team so profoundly that even brilliant execution can’t fix the problem. Teams don’t carry fat bad contracts and contend; every lottery team carries bad deals.

Maybe this analysis seems cheap. In one way, we’re asking: did your team’s star get hurt and miss a big chunk of the season? If the answer is yes, then two things happen: that player’s contract becomes bad value, and the team’s win total goes to hell. Unlucky.

On the other hand, this raises the question: if bad contracts ruin your team’s chances, can you build a roster around players who are less likely to become bad contracts?

Maybe. We are in an era when stars are missing more games than ever. We see the league responding with shorter deals, deals with team options, or smaller salaries. Digging through this data with Claude coughed up fascinating findings:

• Each wasted big contract, on average, costs a team about eight wins.

• Of the 30 worst-value contracts in the NBA last season, 21 of 30 were on lottery or play-in teams. Zero were on championship rosters.

• 72 percent of the 50 worst-value contracts ended their season in either the lottery or play-in. Zero made the Finals.

In other words: good teams convert nearly all their big-salary slots into elite production. Bad teams convert almost none of them.

50+ win teams carry, on average:

• 0.95 top-30 players

• 0.22 wasted top-30 contracts

• 81 percent of their high-paid players produce at elite level

30-or-fewer-win teams carry, on average:

• 0.09 top-30 players

• 0.78 wasted top-30 contracts

• 11 percent of their high-paid players produce at elite level

Is there any way to know which players are at risk of soon becoming bad contracts? The data has some clues which help explain some of what’s happening in the NBA’s free market this summer.

I believe there are many reasons that the Celtics traded Jaylen Brown when they did. David Thorpe told us in April that NBA insiders suspected Tatum and Brown would not keep playing together.

But also: I guaranteed the razor-sharp Celtics front office knows all about Jaylen Brown’s age, and its likely effect on his productivity going forward. The trade haul they got for him this summer might have been less than everyone expected, but it also might be a lot more than they could get next summer.

Why would last season’s missed games matter? Many reasons. Here’s one: in the granular movement data of elite athletes, it emerges that most non-contact injuries occur from landing. Some players have excellent landing form, where their hips, knees, and ankles flex in unison, capable of absorbing massive forces into strong soft tissues like the glutes. Those players have a huge advantage in avoiding injury.

Other players land with oddities, like not flexing their hips to absorb the force of landing. Or they have odd foot positioning landing on the outside of their foot. Or (this one’s subtle) in some cases, as athletes settle toward the ground, the long leg bones rotate beneath the muscle, which puts a ton of stress on joints.

Those movement patterns might work for a while, in a robust young body, but they can catch up to you over time with an array of new injuries to the knee, back, ankle … you name it. In some cases, I suspect this is what we’re seeing: players who missed a lot of games last year might be old players, or beat-up players.

But they might also be players who have always had high-risk movement patterns.

This applies to all of us, and is what my book Ballistic is about. There’s a whole chapter you can read on TrueHoop right here. Here are a zillion interviews about the book.

Sifting through the data, Claude sees some risk in age, more risk in games missed last season, and huge risk when old age and games missed combine. There’s also a bit of difference by position: guards and big men show up in the data as less durable than wings. Put it all together, though, and if you are an NBA player over the age of 28, and missed 31 or more games last season … WOW are you an incredibly high risk to become a bad contract.

So: who fits the bill of being high risk to become a bad contract in the upcoming season?

In my years writing about the NBA, I’ve learned how profoundly unkind it is to predict any one player will get hurt. People’s livelihoods are at stake. And frankly, I hope nobody gets hurt, injuries are terrible.

And if you wanted to predict such a thing the right way, with the best possible science you wouldn’t do it with Claude and performance data. You’d do it with the granular movement data that I wrote Ballistic about. That is where the best signal is.

But in working with the publicly available data, and Claude, we can still see the huge trends. Claude suggests that mega-star old players like Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard, LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, Jrue Holiday, Paul George, Anthony Davis, Fred VanVleet, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Joel Embiid are among those most likely to become bad value contracts this upcoming season. Not far behind are names like Kawhi Leonard and Kevin Durant.

None of this should be surprising. They all make huge amounts of money, they are among the NBA’s oldest players, and they have all missed plenty of time to injuries.

What’s not as widely understood, though, is the degree to which any of these players becoming unavailable sabotages a team’s title hopes. You can’t win it all and pay big salaries to players who don’t produce.

Giannis missed 46 games last season. Imagine how bad the Heat will be if he misses 46 next season. Joel Embiid missed 44. Jayson Tatum’s new co-star Paul George missed 45. Damian Lillard missed all 82.

That reality goes a long way to understanding this offseason’s mysteries. This is why no team is preparing a max offer for LeBron James at his record-setting age.

And it might explain the Celtics’ thinking in trading Jaylen Brown. The 76ers’ new star is 29 now, and missed just 19 games last season. Right now, it’s easy to predict he’ll be productive next season, and thus fetched a two first-round and two second-round picks to go with a decent player in Paul George.

But Brown will turn 30 a few days before the season tips off, an age when many players have their production begin a steep decline. Jaylen Brown is in the middle of a SuperMax contract. As a 29-year-old, he made $53 million. But right now he’s eligible for his next extension, and after carrying the Celtics close to the top of the East without Jayson Tatum most of the season, it’s a sure thing he wants it. But the extension he’s eligible for will bring his salary over $70 million by the time he is 34. The choice of whether or not to employ that guy, at that price, comes now.

$70 million for a player of that age is a flaw in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Players peak in their permitted maximum earning when past the age most players retire; there’s a flashing red light of warning over that future contract. The 76ers got a great player, but it’s a sucker’s bet any player will be worth $70+ million at 34.

That kind of thinking also explains McCollum’s modest salary.

The Hawks guard was healthy last year, and in P3’s movement data has been identified as a “kinematic mover” a player with a movement pattern that comes with a lower risk of injury. (A lot of P3’s training is teaching other kinds of players to move more like that.) But for a player going into this 35-year-old season, no matter how many buckets you just scored over the Knicks, the likelihood of two or three healthy years is very low. A one-year contract is the market speaking perfectly.

Thank you for reading TrueHoop!

When the 2026-2027 NBA season tips off this fall, almost every East contender will be reconfigured.

Giannis Antetokounmpo is in Miami, Jaylen Brown plays for the 76ers, Mitchell Robinson and Paul George are in Celtics green, Kawhi Leonard’s back in Toronto, Naz Reid and Coby White are on the Hornets, Tyler Herro is a Buck, Norm Powell a Bull, and Julius Randle plays for the Nets. The Pacers plan to turn their winning machine back on with Ivica Zubac as Myles Turner’s replacement at center and Tyrese Haliburton back from a torn Achilles.

We’re going to examine the contending teams in four categories:

• teams that improved,

• teams that got worse,

• teams that stayed the same,

• and the Washington Wizards.

TEAMS THAT IMPROVED

SIXERS

One of my first thoughts after learning Jaylen Brown was joining the 76ers: this could stifle V.J. Edgecombe’s development.

V.J. has a chance to become a magical max player one day—an absolute star.

But not this year. Tyrese Maxey, Jaylen Brown, and Joel Embiid will take all the oxygen. Instead of creating with the ball as much as he would like in year two, Edgecombe has got to be a demon in transition, on defense, and on the offensive glass. He’ll have to be the best energy guy in the league while draining the open shots he will get as the defense focuses elsewhere. And then he can pick his spots to get more creative when two 76ers stars are on the bench.

One thing that will help this team as they figure out how to play together: Tyrese Maxey is a delight. On the court, he’s blatantly joyful, to the extent that if you can’t play with Tyrese, something’s wrong with you. OK, he’s not always the most dedicated defender, but you can’t complain about the joy he brings to the game. (It would be an awful mess if suddenly we see a sullen Tyrese Maxey.)

Which brings us to the question of Jaylen Brown. Boston has been one of the best teams in the league, and … something broke there. I have to imagine that, on some level, the 76ers are asking themselves if they really can be a better-run team than the Celtics.

That’s a tall order. But there is plenty of room for innovation. Part of the problem in Boston was that they leaned into the 3-point game so profoundly that it may have robbed Brown of some of his effectiveness. Philly played faster than Boston last year, they will have to figure out what’s best for Brown without hurting Maxey’s and V.J.’s development.

They’re stuck with that albatross at center. The Sixers drafted Joel Embiid 12 years ago. When he plays he has often been among the very best in the game. But the poor man has been beset by so many injuries. Over his career he has played 490 games–an average of 41 a year. Now that he’s 32, and hasn’t managed to play 40 games even once in the last three seasons, I would sit him the entire year—or at least until April, so that he has a chance to contribute in the playoffs.

RAPTORS

The Raptors played excellent defense last season, thanks to Scottie Barnes and a big collection of high-potential studs like Collin Murray-Boyles, Jamal Shead, and Ja-Kobe Walter who made huge leap forward in his second season. Alijah Martin is dogged and was upgraded to a full roster position last week.

On offense, they’ve been in the middle of the pack, hoping RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley return better than ever and that Scottie Barnes can improve on his career 30 percent 3-point shooting percentage.

And now they add Kawhi Leonard.

My guess is that Kawhi’s presence will keep Scottie from taking a big step forward on offense, but there is a world where they function like Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown did in Boston, in a good way. Scottie’s magical as a playmaker, which doesn’t have to take a hit with Kawhi on the court—and maybe this is the summer Scottie figures out 3-point shooting.

RJ Barrett could be a candidate for sixth man of the year if he embraces coming off the bench—I think that would be great for him. He could also feature in jumbo lineups as more of a shooting guard.

To me, the Raptors have a huge gaping hole at center, and the pressure’s on the front office to pull off a trade. (Don’t be surprised if the Myles Turner rumors crop up). He’s expensive, but dragging centers out of the paint might be worth it.

Adding Kawhi is a low risk shakeup for the season he’s under contract. He’s taking minutes that used to be played by Gradey Dick, no big whoop. The mistake, though, would be to extend a 35-year-old at more than $60 million a season, and at that price you’re almost asking to be disappointed.

PACERS

Don’t let last year’s off-year fool you. We know this team, at full strength, is excellent; They had the full-strength Thunder on the ropes in the Finals before Tyrese Haliburton tore his Achilles, then a rash of injuries early in the season doomed them from the start.

A lot has happened since then: Myles Turner left for the Bucks. Bennedict Mathurin was traded to the Clippers for new starting center Ivica Zubac. Kelly Oubre arrived as Johnny Furphy and Jarace Walker matured.

It will almost certainly take some time for Haliburton to be himself again, which will put pressure on Andrew Nembhard and Pascal Siakam to produce at high levels at both ends. That’s part of the reason I still worry about their depth at both guard positions and, most critically, at center. Jay Huff and Micah Potter are bad on defense and only good-to-OK on offense.

Rick Carlisle knows what he is doing, and arguably can mitigate the backup center issue by playing long stretches without any center at all. He really likes to go small with Obi Toppin and Pascal Siakam playing together. It’s so killer offensively that the Pacers tend to outscore opponents no matter what happens on defense.

In Oubre, Furphy, Walker, and Aaron Nesmith the Pacers seem to have a surplus of small forwards. I love Nesmith, such a key starter in their Finals run. Oubre was an important player at both forward positions for Philly last season. Walker showed real signs of life after January. Furphy is injured a ton, but I love him too. But that collection of players might present an opportunity: if you can get a real backup center and point guard by trading two of them, it’s worth it, because with the East in turmoil, the Pacers’ opportunity is now.

HEAT

Adding Giannis Antetokounmpo makes them better than if they hadn’t added him. Of course I like Davion Mitchell and Bam Adebayo, but this is not a contending roster. The Heat gave up four important players in Tyler Herro, Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr., and Kasparas Jakučionis,and Tim Hardaway Jr. and Bobby Portis don’t replace them. The roster is not fully formed; there must be more to come. For now, it’s hard to imagine this team being favored in any playoff series; the league is too demanding for such a shallow roster.

TEAMS THAT GOT WORSE

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There doesn’t seem to be a way to contend with two poor defenders on the floor at the same time.

Which is why it’s almost impossible to imagine the Blazers will be any good with Damian Lillard and Ja Morant sharing the court.

POOR DONOVAN CLINGAN

Remember back to Rudy Gobert’s defensive prime with the Jazz? One season they were literally the best team in the league, and had Dynasty Warriors net ratings. But in the playoffs, one of the reasons why they lost and ultimately traded Rudy was because the average person thought Rudy couldn’t play in the modern NBA. He didn’t necessarily take advantage of what he could do offensively when he had switches. But the bigger thing was they always saw him as being less effective in the postseason than he was the regular season.

Since the trade, the Jazz have been in the lottery while Rudy goes on long playoff runs just about every year. It’s important to get the lesson.

What was really happening was the Jazz had a bunch of below average on-ball defenders at the same time. Rudy had to protect the 3-point line to some degree (because you can’t just not help in some situations) but he also was assigned to protect the rim. It’s an impossible assignment.

All of which is to say: poor Donovan Clingan.

If the Blazers are really going to have those two guys on the court, Donovan is going to run himself ragged protecting the rim with the free flow of driving guys who have no problem getting past the point of attack.

One of the problems with guys that have a hot motor defensively at the center is they’re overeager to help. That problem can be mitigated when they’re just not needed as much to help. Here’s where we’ll see how dedicated Ja Morant and Damian Lillard are to winning. If they decide to really compete defensively, they can do a lot to make life easier for Clingan.

Remember my rule has kind of evolved from: you have to be great defending on the ball to simply play really hard. Even if you can’t execute some of the strategies of dealing with ball screens, getting over a screen, being physical at the point of attack, you can still help with purpose and physicality. Stay connected and race to your next help. We could talk a ton about the particulars, but essentially, if someone helps on Dame’s driver, leaving a shooter open in the corner, Donovan will probably run to that shooter if Dame or Ja doesn’t beat him to it. It’s good for the Blazers to keep Donovan from having to do everything, to cover so much ground, to draw so many fouls, to leave the paint open. That doesn’t take an elite defender, it takes a committed one.

BULLIED

Imagine what it’ll be like against Dylan Harper and Stephon Castle. Damian Lillard and Ja Morant are going to get bullied like crazy. Denver, with all their cutting. The Blazer guards will need help and then it’s up to Jokić who’s incredible passing to whoever’s open.

They’ll suffer against almost every team. I mean, they’ll be fine against the Kings when Darius Acuff Jr. is still a rookie. But there aren’t many teams like that.

Those guys are small. Big wings can bully them, the league’s many talented isolation scorers too. They’ll both have a very tough time doing anything against them–which means other people have to be triggered to help early.

And that opens another vulnerability: teams that run a lot of actions. The way the Pacers stack actions, the way the Heat aren’t setting many ball screens, just a lot of movement and cutting. More teams are starting to do that now. It means that, as a defender, you can’t stand still. You’re always in movement and you’re always having to make decisions. That’s hard on players like Dame and Ja who don’t see the defensive floor so well. They won’t have much time to process decisions. You always have to be head on a swivel, feet ready to move all the time. They’re going to be exposed.

DEFENSIVE SCHEMING

The Blazers have Clingan, Camara, we’ll see if they have Jrue Holiday. And they have a coaching staff. I don’t believe that a player’s defensive EPM is his destiny. We’ve seen all kinds of players—Ray Allen in Boston—go from not so great on D to part of a great defensive team. And so the question for the coaching staff becomes can we get total buy-in? That includes a willingness to compete your ass off, you’re not running to close outs, you’re racing. Or if the strategy is do not overrun on your contest, don’t overrun. If you do your job fully and it fails, either the strategy wasn’t good enough, or the talent wasn’t able to execute the strategy. But so-so defenders can go crazy hard and follow the plan and be part of an OK defense.

The problem: it’s a hell of an ask for a defensive coordinator to come up with a top-fifteen defensive strategy if both Ja and Dame are on the court frequently at the same time. I don’t think it’s possible. You could put Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Cooper, and Andre Iguodala out there with them, and there’s no guarantee that’s a top-fifteen NBA defense.

THE SCOOT STAGGER

How would you optimize a roster like this? My first thought is to stagger Dame and Ja, and Clingan and Robert Williams. They can say we have 48 minutes with an experienced scoring guard and a rim protecting center. That’s super valuable, and a decent starting point when those other spots are filled by players like Deni Avdija, Jrue Holiday, and Toumani Camara.

Jalen Brunson just made the point: you don’t necessarily have to be a point guard or a shooting guard. You want to be a guard. This is where Scoot Henderson’s continued development is essential to the Blazers’ future.

Other teams will hunt mismatches against Dame or Ja, but that doesn’t mean the Blazers have to allow it. You have to be really physical with those screens. You have to have bigs that can help and recover. You have to have guards willing to fight like motherfuckers to get over or under, depending on who you’re guarding. Multiple screens at the point of attack that requires a lot of toughness and energy. Because of his age and athleticism, Scoot is the Blazers guard who will have to get good at that. It’s a lot of work. But it’s fantastic for his development to get a steady diet of guarding the other team’s best player.

Which is why I’d stagger Ja and Dame, and let them share the court with Scoot. It’s better for Dame at his age and his injury history. It’s better for Ja with his injury history.

You’d have to sit them both down at the beginning of the season and say you’re not going to play enough to be an All-star, but there’s a chance to play 70 games, each of you, and we can win more that way.

We’ll see how he plays this upcoming season, but when we last saw him, Ja doesn’t really have an off-the-ball gravity to draw defenders anymore, but hopefully he can drive and kick. So when he’s in with Ja, Scoot’s the shooting guard. And then when Dame’s in the game, Scoot’s the point guard, hopefully getting to the rim, taking advantage of space Dame creates. Scoot could get 16 minutes a game at each position, and that’d be great for his long-term development.

POOR DENI

Deni Avdija is 25. He’s entering his full prime. You cannot script a more perfect player for the modern NBA. He’s a big size. He’s a very physical driver. He’s also really fucking fast, and he plays with power. This is a physical downhill guy who is a warrior. He plays hard. It’s perfect for this league. No surprise that he’s not just their best player, but an absolute deserving All-Star. Literally one of the twenty best players in the world, with chances to grow.

And this is how you thank him? You bring in a lame duck coach on a make-good contract? What power does this guy have to direct a successful team around Deni?

When LeBron and Wade and Bosh were struggling early on in Miami, Pat Riley brought them in and said a lot of things can change. But one thing that won’t change is who our head coach is. Never come into this office, that was the report, never come into this office and tell me to change coaches. It’s not happening. Then they went to four straight Finals and won two.

That can’t happen in Portland.

NO TASK FOR A LAME DUCK

Hypothetically, if Damian Lillard and his agent don’t like Micah Nori yelling about defense, by midseason, Lillard can just go to Tom Dundon and say “who cares if you fire him halfway through the year, hire another guy for a million bucks and you’re still expending far fewer resources for that position than anyone in the league has for a decade or more.” It’s maybe twenty years since someone’s been paid so little.

At your work, why would you listen to a CEO who’s making not just less money than you, but has less years in their contract than yours? Micah Nori is in a battle for control, and he has no arms. They cut his arms off and claimed it was a harmless act of good business.

Micah Nori might be thinking right now: “How am I going to get Ja Morant and Dame Lillard to care about defense?” And there’s a world where Nori says, “You know what, I’m not going to fight it, I’m going to just try to get Ja and Dame on my side, so I can get a longer deal. I’ve got to get my foot in the door, I can’t lose this. Whatever you want to do, guys, I’m never going to talk about defense. Let’s just outscore people and have fun, and they’ll come up with some strategies that tries to hide them as best as they can.

The Blazers have been here before. Under Terry Stotts, Lillard shared a backcourt with poor defenders C.J. McCollum and then Anfernee Simons. The team routinely finished in the league’s bottom ten in defensive measures, had one memorable playoff run, but mostly underperformed.

I don’t know how it works in Tom’s other companies, but it looks to me like in the NBA he’s empowered the wrong people in the wrong way. The stars are overpaid and not everybody else.

Charlotte just did the opposite. In fact, Charlotte could have done this deal for Ja too. But instead, they’re willing to get a little worse this year to get much better going forward. OKC has always resisted short-term thinking. You build and build until you’re ready to build to a championship. The Blazers, to me, either lack a strategic plan, or they don’t have a good one.

Thank you for reading TrueHoop!

They won’t improve immediately. LaMelo has his issues, but on the court he destroyed opponents. An offensive juggernaut who led them to a fantastic second half of the season. And the guy they acquired for him has been a back-up big man.

So, no big whoop to assert the Hornets will likely be worse this coming season.

But I love what they are doing.

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Black barely testified. About an hour after it started, Black had his expensive little sunglasses back on, and the officials were in the hallway talking to the reporters.

Politicians from both parties were gleeful that the House Oversight Committee finally did something tough. When Leon Black evaded their questions about non-disclosure agreements Black has with women, the committee chair James Comer dropped the hammer, issuing Black subpoenas to return, under oath, next month. He has also been commanded to turn over any non-disclosure agreements he has with women.

If you’re a fan of the truth, this is a wonderful piece of news.

Probably.

In the years I’ve been looking into this, so many different people who know a lot about Epstein and his world see Leon Black as untouchable.

When he was alive, Steve Hoffenberg described Jeffrey Epstein to me as part of a “large group” that committed the biggest crime in the history of the world. And when I asked Hoffenberg about accounts in the Caribbean, bursting with double digit billions, held by the founders of Apollo Global, Hoffenberg said those were the proceeds. His suggestion was that Leon Black, in effect, is the guy holding the bag that belongs to many of the world’s richest and most connected people.

Kirby Sommers has lived with deep knowledge of that cabal for decades, and has long described Black as “untouchable.” She describes, among other things, his lifelong ties to intelligence agencies.

The Epstein files include a 2023 email from attorney Jeanne Christensen, apparently to prosecutors in New York, saying:

Leon Black paid 62.5 million to USVI - and this does not include payments of money to individual women - it’s outrageous that criminal charges have not been brought against him.

I’ve heard one lawyer represents ten women that he sexually assaulted.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/investor-leon-black-settles-with-us-virgin-islands-over-epstein-probe-2023-07-21/

I hope that your office is going to take a hard look based on this new information.

Nothing happened!

Senator Ron Wyden has been pursuing insight into Leon Black and Jeffrey Epstein’s financial ties for years, and makes an incredible point: Epstein advised Black on tax strategies that eluded even the highest profile firms. Black enacted them, and says they reduced his tax bills by so much that it was worth paying Epstein a reported $170 million or so. And, according to Black’s advisors, those transactions have not been audited by the IRS.

Leon Black has the most incredible political connections. Jay Clayton is just one example: after a career representing many people with Epstein ties at what has historically been seen as a CIA-connected law firm, Clayton ran the SEC when the SEC didn’t meaningfully investigate Epstein’s cabal. He ran the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York when it amassed tons of evidence but failed to prosecute Epstein’s co-conspirators. And in between, he ran Leon Black’s company, Apollo Global, as chairman of the board.

Now Jay Clayton has been nominated as the next director of national intelligence.

The point being: by reputation, and in practice, Leon Black has a lot of game, connections, and history in staying out of trouble.

James Comer is not so far removed from being the Kentucky commissioner of agriculture. I think it’s fair to wonder if he has the chops, or will, to unravel the rat’s nest of sophisticated billionaires around Epstein. (Comer has himself been accused of bad behavior with a woman.)

In an article about how Comer won his appointment to lead this committee, Politico noted “In recent years, the top GOP spot on the Oversight panel has gone to some of the party’s fiercest attack dogs, since the committee is the party’s first line of defense against Democratic-led investigations.”

The suggestion is that this is someone appointed for the purpose of being loyal to Donald Trump. Comer sends out press releases saying things like “Our State of the Union is stronger than ever, thanks to President Trump’s unwavering commitment to fulfilling his promises to the American people.” A March 2023 New York Times article by Luke Broadwater and Jonathan Swan got my attention:

House Republicans have quietly halted a congressional investigation into whether Donald J. Trump profited improperly from the presidency, declining to enforce a court-supervised settlement agreement that demanded that Mazars USA, his former accounting firm, produce his financial records to Congress.

Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and the chairman of the Oversight and Accountability Committee, made clear he had abandoned any investigation into the former president’s financial dealings — professing ignorance about the inquiry Democrats opened when they controlled the House — and was instead focusing on whether President Biden and members of his family were involved in an influence-peddling scheme.

“I honestly didn’t even know who or what Mazars was,” said Mr. Comer, who was the senior Republican on the oversight panel during the last Congress, while Democrats waged a lengthy legal fight over obtaining documents from the firm.

“What exactly are they looking for?” Mr. Comer added in a brief statement to The New York Times on Monday. “They’ve been ‘investigating’ Trump for six years. I know exactly what I’m investigating: money the Bidens received from China.”

Recently The New York Times published well-sourced reporting about key White House officials having a series of crisis meetings in the situation room to discuss the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. That’s the very topic of Comer’s committee’s active and ongoing hearings.

And yet just a couple of days ago, this report was published by Spectrum News showing Comer on camera sayig that he could see no reason to summon White House officials to testify before his committee.

I don’t think it’s outlandish to suggest that James Comer has a natural reflex to do whatever Donald Trump wants.

And that’s the guy who just subpoenaed Leon Black.

Donald Trump and Leon Black go way back.

That’s a recent photo of Donald Trump and Leon Black holding hands. They went to Moscow together in 1996, and Leon Black told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he couldn’t remember whether or not Black and Trump went to a strip club together. Trump appointed Leon Black’s son Ben Black to his administration.

My guess is that the non-disclosure agreements will open a tough line of questioning for Leon Black. Once they are public, what might begin is a sprawling conversation about Leon Black and women and Jeffrey Epstein and women. Every part of that could undercut his credibility. Any part of might inspire members of Congress to search through the unreleased parts of the Epstein files for more evidence.

There are already strong clues that Epstein played an active role in handling Leon’s various reputational crises.

And I’ve already seen some suggestions that there could be some messy overlaps between the love lives of the various powerful men involved.

In other words, James Comer, with these subpoenas, might have really opened Pandora’s Box.

Here’s what I’m wondering:

• Did Comer drop a bomb on Leon Black without Trump’s knowledge and permission?

• Did Comer drop a bomb on Leon Black with Trump’s knowledge and permission?

• Was this move, in effect, fake tough, a show of enforcement—and somehow Leon Black will not actually get in trouble?

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TrueHoop is years into investigating the connections between Jeffrey Epstein and the NBA, and they run directly through Leon Black. The founder of Apollo Global—a firm with profound NBA ties—has magically avoided real accountability. He will at least testify under oath on Friday. I’ve read almost all of the House Oversight Committee’s interviews, and have found they haven’t helped our understanding much. We need insiders to narrate what DID happen, instead we get insiders obfuscating and wriggling off the hook. And I’m alarmed at how many potent topics don’t come up. With that in mind, here’s what I’d ask Leon Black.

• Did you write this letter that appeared in Jeffrey Epstein’s birthday book?

• What does this mean?

“By birds and by bucks, C’s and M’s are his key,

blonde, red or brunette, spread out geographically.”

• Are those references to women?

• What are birds? What are bucks? What are C’s? What are M’s?

“Wet dream and cauchemar, an architect’s wild spree

Moscow, Paris, Santa Fe, Alhambra East jamboree”

• “Cauchemar” is French for nightmare. What is the nightmare you were referring to? Who is the architect you’re referring to? What was the spree?

• What did you mean when you signed this “love and kisses”? Was that a common way for you to sign letters at the time?

• Were you ever romantically involved with Jeffrey Epstein?

• What caused you to bring up Moscow, Paris, Santa Fe, and Alhambra East? Are those places you went with Jeffrey Epstein?

• Did you go to Moscow with Jeffrey Epstein?

• When?

• What happened there?

• When you wrote this poem in Epstein’s birthday book in 2003, had you known him for a while?

• Jesse Kornbluth wrote a book about Drexel Burnham Lambert, and told Craig Unger that you “spent a lot of time” with Epstein in the 1980s. Does that sound right?

• A report commissioned by Apollo Global, and The New York Times, say you were introduced to Epstein in the 1990s. Can you clear that up?

• Many people have testified that they didn’t see Epstein interact with women. You are different. You called Epstein a “lover” in writing, and discussed several different kinds of women, and wet dreams. It’s refreshing that it seems we finally have a witness who can testify to the nature of Epstein’s relationships with women. What did you witness that caused you to write those things in the birthday book?

• How would you describe the interactions you saw Epstein have with women? Did any of them strike you as inappropriate?

• What is “Maxwellian delight”?

• In your $62.5 million settlement with the U.S. Virgin Islands, you acknowledged that Epstein used the money you paid him to partially fund his operations in the Virgin Islands. When did you come to understand what those operations were?

• That settlement granted criminal immunity not only to you but to your attorneys and agents. What potential conduct by your attorneys or agents was that immunity intended to cover?

• Senator Ron Wyden wrote you a letter asking if the money you said you paid Epstein for tax services was “a pretext for other more nefarious tasks Epstein performed on your behalf. Newly released emails between Epstein and your assistant suggest that Epstein was engaged in unseemly tasks on your behalf that ‘will need to remain unknown.’” What did you understand Epstein to be referring to when he emailed you that in 2004?

• Bill Gates recently testified that he thought Epstein tried to blackmail him. Did you ever have the feeling Jeffrey Epstein was trying to blackmail you?

• To your knowledge, did Epstein’s properties contain hidden cameras?

• Did Epstein ever reference, or did you ever observe him holding, compromising material on any individual?

• How did Jeffrey Epstein get rich?

• In 2007, you announced that you had sold nine percent of Apollo Global to an investment firm from the United Arab Emirates. In the years to follow, the Financial Action Task Force said the Emirates “must take urgent action to effectively stop the criminal financial flows that it attracts.” Is it your understanding that sometimes the Emirates function as a passthrough for money that’s really coming from elsewhere?

• Jeffrey Epstein had strong ties to the UAE. Was he ever helpful in connecting Apollo and the Emirates?

• Do you know former Attorney General William Barr? When and how did you first meet?

• You have appeared in photographs with Jared Kushner. When and how did you first meet? What is the nature of your relationship?

• Justice department’s Epstein files show that you banked with Deutsche Bank. Why did you choose that bank?

• The division that you banked with was known internally as “DBAB,” which stands for Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown, to denote its roots in the bank Alex. Brown that Deutsche acquired in 1999. Did you know longtime Apollo boardmember A.B. Krongard led Alex. Brown? Did he play any role in your choice of bank?

• Mr. Krongard was a former executive director of the CIA. Did his intelligence history convey any advantages in his role for Apollo Global? How so?

• When Apollo acquired Constellis — the successor to Blackwater — in 2016, were you aware that Mr. Krongard had sat on Blackwater’s advisory board and, as a CIA executive, helped Blackwater win its first agency contract?

• A review commissioned by Apollo’s Conflicts Committee and conducted by Dechert cleared you. Mr. Krongard was on the three-person Conflicts Committee. Are we right to assume that he participated in selecting and overseeing the Dechert engagement?

• That investigation was led by Andrew Levander. Were you or the committee aware, when Dechert was retained, that Mr. Levander had a prior relationship with Epstein dating to 1982, when the two worked together on a financial-recovery matter?

• Did you know that in July 2015, Epstein emailed your lawyer Brad Karp to suggest hiring Levander in a sensitive matter?

• In 2014, Jeffrey Epstein emailed Melanie Spinella, your former assistant at Apollo Global, to say that he had arranged a $2.4 million payment to Melanie from your former partner Josh Harris. Can you explain?

• Why did you give Jeffrey Epstein power of attorney over your account at Deutsche Bank?

• The Epstein files include a list of the largest clients of Deutsche Bank’s private banking division. Reviewing it now, which of these individuals do you know personally or have done business with?

• You seem to have a lot of ties to intelligence. Your father bought United Fruit. You started Apollo Global with billions from Robert Maxwell’s preferred bank. You had a former CIA executive director on the board of Apollo Global, and Apollo purchased the former CIA contractor Blackwater. You had deep ties to Jeffrey Epstein and funded his operations. You have been summoned to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee. What is the nature of your relationship with intelligence agencies?

• You have said your relationship with Epstein was limited to tax and estate advice. But you are known as an aggressive dealmaker who’ll do whatever it takes to win a deal. Why did you not make use of Epstein’s network, which included world leaders and many powerful people?

• Why did you go to Moscow with Donald Trump in 1996?

• Journalist Craig Unger has reported that one of Robert Maxwell’s projects was to help the KGB move a large amount of money out of Russia before the fall of the Soviet Union, and that a lot of that money made its way into major financial institutions in the West. Have you ever heard a program like that?

• Did Apollo Global raise a large amount of money from Credit Lyonnais?

• Are you aware of reporting that one of Credit Lyonnais’s biggest customers was Robert Maxwell?

• Did you know Robert Maxwell? What was the nature of your relationship?

• To your knowledge, did Jeffrey Epstein know Robert Maxwell?

• Did Jeffrey Epstein play any role in your business in Russia?

• Apollo’s most-cited success—the LyondellBasell investment—was made alongside oligarch Len Blavatnik. How did you first meet Blavatnik? What is the nature of your relationship?

• You testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee about meetings with Allen Vine, associated with oligarch Suleiman Kerimov. What was the nature of your business with Kerimov?

• When oligarch Vladimir Potanin divorced, his wife filed documents suggesting Potanin owned stock in Apollo Global. What was the nature of your relationship with Potanin?

• How did you come to be named to an advisory board of the Russia Direct Investment Fund? Are you still on that board?

• Have you done any other business with Russian oligarchs or state actors?

• A Senate intelligence committee report says that in September 2011, you “reportedly” met “one-on-one” with Vladimir Putin. What can you tell us about that meeting?

Thank you for reading TrueHoop!

It’s very difficult to predict anything, especially which NBA players will be successful. And I’ve been wrong plenty of times through the years. But if you’ve been reading TrueHoop, you know that I see some worrying signs about AJ Dybantsa and to a lesser degree Darryn Peterson. Either might prove splendid, but with what I have learned from my network, the third and fourth picks of Cameron Boozer and Caleb Wilson, strike me as far less likely to fail.

Memphis won day one

Wilson might have a higher ceiling than Boozer, but a lower floor. The Grizzlies might be the only team that knows what they’re getting, and it’s a perfect fit.

The Grizzlies have a collection of good young players. One of the best is the enormous Zach Edey. When he’s in the game, he has been wonderful. But two seasons into his career, Edey has appeared in only 77 games, while missing 87 to an assortment of injuries. When he is out, the Grizzlies don’t have a great solution, which is a bigger problem than ever now that, thanks to Victor Wembanyama, all kinds of teams are loading up on big men.

I’m sure I’m not the only one seeing that Boozer might be the Grizzlies long-term answer at center, with Edey as the backup that I always thought he would be. Edey’s a more effective player than I expected him to be, no doubt. The game also has changed a little bit, permitting more physicality than ever, which is good for him. But like Manu Ginobili back in the day, Edey might not have the makeup to play the starter minutes that he wants to play.

Boozer does not have the classic build of a five. He measured 6-foot-8-and-a-quarter without shoes at the combine. But he is strong as hell, made 39 percent of his college 3s, has a game a lot like Alperen Şengün, and is all about winning.

Then the Grizzlies did some clever work, trading down minimally in the draft, from 16 to 17, and then from 17 to 21, in exchange for five second-round picks—two from the Thunder and three from the Pistons.

And then they got also got Karim López. I don’t know much about him, but I just talked to a prominent agent Wednesday morning who said “I recruited (but didn’t sign) Lopez, he’s got a chance to be very good.”

If that proves true the Grizzlies will look like geniuses.

They might anyway. The Grizzlies now have two cornerstones of their next generation: Cedric Coward and Cameron Boozer. They also have a roster heavy with young players with potential: Edey, O-Max Prosper, Jaylen Wells, Scotty Pippen Jr., Jahmai Mashack, Taylor Hendricks, Walter Clayton Jr., Lopez, Cam Spencer … I could go on. They have almost all of their own picks moving forward, some nice draft capital coming from Orlando as a result of the Desmond Bane trade, and as of yesterday five spare second-round picks. The Grizzlies have given themselves every opportunity to build a successful young team.

You think I’m crazy now, but there’s a world where one day Cedric Coward is as dominant as Jalen Brunson. As one of the best tall shooters in the world, who does everything right, Boozer has similarities to Karl-Anthony Towns. And we all know how that combination performed in the playoffs.

The Thunder solved two problems

Hand, meet glove.

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The reigning champs came into the draft with the 24th overall pick. That was high enough to nab someone who had generated buzz coming into the draft, like super athlete Cameron Carr, 6-5 Spanish point guard Sergio De Larrea, or 19-year-old Arizona star Koa Peat.

It happened fast. Carr went 24th. De Larrea was picked 25th, Peat 30th. And then everyone switched hats. The Lakers ended up with Carr. The Mavericks landed De Larrea. The Suns now have Peat.

Many teams take the philosophy of selecting the best player available. The Knicks took the approach of no player at all. Instead they collected:

• The 47th pick on Wednesday.

• A second round pick in 2029 from Phoenix.

• A second-round pick in 2033 from Phoenix.

• Two future second-round picks from Dallas.

• Hilariously for the super-rich Knicks: Cash from the Lakers.

The Knicks already had the 31st and 55th picks in tonight’s second-round, so they have three picks on Wednesday.

David Thorpe just told me that he thinks “the Knicks are super fucking smart.”

Six reasons this is brilliant:

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1. GIANNIS’S AGE and INJURY HISTORY

Giannis, at this age, is often a top-five NBA player. But even when he’s really rolling, he’s no longer the best player in the NBA, and he’s at an age when production, even of the best players, tends to decline sharply.

2. THE CROWDED FIELD OF ELITE TEAMS

That competition’s between Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Victor Wembanyama, and Nikola Jokić. Two of those studs have FAR better supporting casts than Giannis in Miami.

• The death star of Victor’s Spurs will be fully operational for the first time.

• The Thunder will be even better, somehow.

That’s the real problem for any team trying to win a title anytime soon. You won’t beat the Thunder or Spurs.

Before this trade, Vegas suggested the Heat had about a 2.5 percent chance to win the title. Maybe it has moved up a little, but … so what?

But maybe you’re hoping to luck into facing one of those teams with an injured star. Even worse news for the Heat is that the knot of teams behind those epic ones is far better positioned than the Heat to succeed in today’s crazy-intense NBA.

• The Knicks, duh.

• The Pacers will have Tyrese Haliburton back, now with Ivika Zubac.

• The Pistons won the regular season in the East.

• The Celtics will make noise.

• The Cavaliers were in the conference finals.

• Would you rate the Heat above the Wolves?

• The Jalen Johnson Hawks won’t get worse.

• Nikola Jokić and the Nuggets get to retool.

• Who knows what the 76ers will look like, but they have a potential future MVP in Tyrese Maxey and a second-year guard in V.J. Edgecombe who’s poised to make a big jump.

• The Raptors are perfectly built for today’s crazy-intense modern NBA.

3. SALARY HELL

The starter set of contracts are for Giannis ($58M), Bam Adebayo ($50M) Andrew Wiggins ($30M), Bobby Portis ($15M), Davion Mitchell ($12M). That adds up to 165 million, which IS the salary cap level for the upcoming season.

But to have any shot at being good, the Heat will want to bring back all-star Norman Powell, who is an unrestricted free agent, but whose Bird rights the Heat hold. So they can bring him back at what, three years and $100M? But the team would then be hard-capped at the first apron, which is $209M. There’s VERY little wiggle room to improve.

It would make a ton of sense for the Heat to trade Andrew Wiggins, and his expiring deal, for two or three rotation players. But who wants Andrew Wiggins?

4. LACK OF DEPTH

The Heat lack depth and it’s hard to see how they’ll add it. If the past is any guide, the Heat will fill their roster with older players willing to take a pay cut for a chance to be part of something special one last time. It would not surprise me one bit if the Heat already had plans involving players like Khris Middleton, Andre Drummond, or Bradley Beal. That’s not a formula to win in the playoffs against mega-intense teams like the Pacers or Thunder.

5. LACK OF SHOOTING

When Giannis and the Bucks were pretty good for a stretch last season, the Bucks were the best 3-point shooting team in the NBA. That’s a formula the Heat can not recreate with this roster. The Heat were the 11th best 3-point shooting team last season, thanks to eight players who shot better than 37 percent from 3. They just traded three of those players to Milwaukee, including the highest volume shooter (Tyler Herro) and the most accurate (Kasparas Jakučionis).

Thank you for reading TrueHoop!

DAVID: On Saturday night, my wife was visiting my daughter in DC. I thought I would put basketball aside for a few hours and have a cocktail. I turned on the World Cup.

And then a basketball writer texted, and I ended up talking to him for an hour and a half about this draft.

Mostly what I told him is that “you guys are out of your minds” if you think all these guys in this year’s draft are ready to be core players for NBA teams. I just don’t see it.

HENRY: Steve Magness just published a story, based on academic research from across sports. The takeaway is that every sport is terrible at talent identification. In one study, less than one percent of the elite prospects in German youth soccer even became professionals.

With the draft Tuesday and Wednesday, and Jay Bilas warming up his voice to tell us how incredible all of these prospects are, it’s probably a good time to bring up this story we published in May, looking at decades of data, showing that only six percent of draft picks become good players for the team that drafts them. Six percent.

DAVID: You did that incredible research and it won’t be any part of the ESPN broadcast, that’s for sure. They’ll talk about every pick like he’s the guy to save a franchise.

I just went through every pick from 2020 through 2024. That’s 150 first-round picks.

First question: did they make an impact for more than a month or two for the team that drafted them? The obvious choices are Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball (2020); Cade Cunningham (2021) and Stephon Castle (2024). Throw in guys like Onyeka Okongwu (2020) and Anthony Black (2023) who clearly are difference makers for the teams that drafted them or traded for them on draft night.

How many of that 150 total made the “good list”? 46.

In total, less than a third of those first rounders have proved, on their original team, that they belong. For every Franz Wagner and Alperen Şengün we had a Patrick Williams or Kai Jones.

Then there’s a group of players who found themselves on a second team. All-Star Deni Avidja, Eastern Conference champion and hero Aaron Nesmith, and most recently, Thunder sparkplug Jared McCain. Absolutely zero Wizards, Celtics, or Sixers fans were excited their team drafted those guys on their draft nights knowing they would be stars, starters, or clutch bucket getters for other teams. Some players, like Bennedict Mathurin and Obi Toppin, both appear to be long-term players, it’s just that neither of them were deemed to be important enough to keep despite being lottery picks on successful teams.

To my eyes, plus solid metrics, 70 of them have yet to prove they are going to make any difference, or worse, they are complete failures to this point. From Josh Primo and Jeremy Sochan (no, the Spurs are not perfect) to Johnny Davis and Killian Hayes, lottery picks and first rounders drafted after the top 14, nearly half of the top 150 picks the past five drafts excluding the most recent one (judging rookies should never come too harshly), are still question marks, at best. So, 46 “good to go” guys plus those 70 leaves us 34 players we still are not sure about. Are you sure Shaedon Sharpe is going to make it as a key rotation player for a good team? I’m not, so he’s in this “TBD” list (though I put Scoot Henderson in the good to go group thanks to his more consistent progress). Jarace Walker showed a huge jump in 2026, his third season, on a tanking team. TBD. Same as Jett Howard, who’s been bad for most of two seasons but his shot can be a lifesaver in Orlando (though his defense is a worry)--it’s too early to make a call.

We are talking about just less than a third of first-round picks stand to make a difference within four years. If you keep this in the front of your mind while you watch the draft, then you’ll start to feel more like I do watching. By these odds, maybe ten first-rounders will succeed for the team that drafts them. Can you imagine ESPN selling that reality?

HENRY: You and I have been talking about basketball for decades, and there have been hundreds of times when everyone is all excited about … some prospect like AJ Dybantsa … and in a way that feels blasphemous to the bigger world of basketball commentary which is already projecting All-Star games, you often add something along the lines of “he might make it.”

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This New York story is being told like it’s Marvel, with Jalen Brunson as the superhero who saved Gotham. Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady had a conversation about Brunson as “the greatest Knick.” FOX had a conversation they call “All Hail King Brunson” with talk about next year’s MVP.

Hero stories are fun; everyone loves Jalen Brunson. But that’s not this story; that’s not how the Knicks won.

Brunson’s superpower is not that he cooks every defense, as that narrative suggests. Through the playoffs on TrueHoop we’ve discussed Brunson’s elite problem solving capability.

But I suspect his most incredible quality may be something else: that he’s the most incredible leader and teammate, which inspires greatness from his teammates, especially—it shows up dramatically in the evidence—when it matters most. The Knicks, as a team, are remarkabl…

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