Sacramento Kings head coach Doug Christie has an assistant coach named Mike Miller. Not so long ago, Miller was the head coach of the New York Knicks. (Miller—who shares a name with a former player who’s now an agent—was elevated from the Westchester G-League team to be the interim head coach after Dave Fizdale was fired.)

At the time, the Knicks were terrible. They finished that COVID-shortened season with 20 wins and 46 losses.

But there was a little hope. The Knicks had Julius Randle. They had young players like R.J. Barrett, Mitchell Robinson, Kevin Knox, Dennis Smith Jr., and Frank Ntilikina.

But most importantly, they had a new front office featuring team president Leon Rose, and the most mysterious man in sports, William Wesley. Leon Rose explained Wes’s hiring by saying “this business is built on relationships.”

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Every time plus/minus comes up, for twenty years, we have a conversation about its limitations. Alone, in small samples like this, it’s not a good measure of quality, nor is it predictive. Instead it’s one more view, like points or rebounds. It’s context. Specifically, it’s a perfect record of how a team did when a player was in the game.

You know we’re all so used to saying a player does a lot of stuff that helps a team win that goes unnoticed? That’s a good argument to poke holes box score statistics.

It’s not such a good argument here.

If you’re telling me that Mitchell Robinson does “little things” then I’m telling you that those little things have not caused the Knicks to outplay the Spurs. The Knicks have done abysmally with Robinson in the game.

Maybe, you’ll argue (not sure why I’m imagining you fighting me on this) that it’s because he happened to be on the floor for the Spurs’ big run in the first half of Game 4. And maybe there is some of that. But Robinson has been consistent: Game 1 minus-4, Game 2 minus-10, Game 3 minus-13, and Game 4 minus-14. Three of those games were wins! But Robinson keeps finding the losing minutes.

And ordinarily you’d say well, shoot, the Knicks are up against Victor Wembanyama who plays Mitch’s position. So true. But the problem with that argument is that the Knicks’ other center, Karl-Anthony Towns, has the best plus/minus in the series by a country mile. The Knicks are WAY better with KAT in the game.

I’m calling your attention to this raw plus/minus data to add a layer of analysis to a few points:

• Perhaps it’s his injured hand, or the matchup, but there really might be something wrong with Mitchell Robinson. There might be an argument to experiment a tad more with Ariel Hukporti, in the name of finding people not named KAT to wear Victor Wembanyama down a little.

• OG should be in the Finals MVP conversation, but that minus-19 is an obstacle.

• De’Aaron Fox made some obvious-on-TV mistakes, but he’s generally been damned good in the Finals.

• The story has been that Mikal Bridges has been terrible. He sat for three quarters of the fourth quarter. But the Knicks have been great as a team when he has been in.

• I’ve also heard a lot of commentary about how good Landry Shamet has been, but those numbers are dreadful.

• I’d like to understand what’s happening with Stephon Castle. He seems to do so many great things on defense, which very often translates to good plus/minus numbers over time. He has been in the negative in three out of four games, sharply so in Games 1 and 4. (One possible challenge for him: in my quick film study, he’s guarding essentially all of the most productive Knicks: Karl-Anthony Towns, Jose Alvarado, Mikal Bridges, and Jalen Brunson.)

• The Knicks really did sit KAT, fall way behind, and then bring him back and roar to a victory. He didn’t make a lot of highlight plays, but the numbers are overwhelming that the Knicks are a totally different team when he’s in the game.

• (Also, for all the sitting KAT to keep him from fouling out, he finished with four fouls and thus could have played more. Coaches are so conservative.)

• All of these things I see as starting points, little mysteries. What’s happening when KAT’s in the game? What about Stephon Castle? Sometimes it’s just noise, other times there’s some real dynamic deciding games.

• We talked about a lot of this on video.

Thank you for reading TrueHoop!

But in 2016, two years into Adam Silver’s tenure as NBA commissioner, the Board of Governors voted to allow a two-and-a-half-inch square of branding opposite the Nike logo, on every player’s left shoulder. The patches arrived in 2017, and reportedly bring in about five million dollars a year for the Utah Jazz, and well over $30 million a year for the Knicks.

Jerry Seinfeld has a famous joke based on the idea that who plays for any one team changes all the time. “I want my team’s clothes to beat the clothes from the other city. It’s laundry! We’re screaming about laundry here! People will love a guy, do you know what I mean? And then the guy’ll get traded, he’ll come back on another team, they hate him now! This is the same human being in a different shirt! Boo! We hate him now! Different shirt!”

Rooting for laundry!

Only in practice, in the NBA since the jersey patch the new game has become rooting for laundering—of money and reputations.

We haven’t even had those patches for a decade and already:

• In 2017, Sun Life became the Raptors jersey sponsor. The same year, authorities in Bermuda dropped the hammer on Sun Life, “pursuant to the provisions of section 20 of the Proceeds of Crime (Anti-Money Laundering & Terrorist Financing Supervision & Enforcement) Act 2008, and restricted the Company’s Investment Business licence pursuant to section 20 of the Investment Business Act 2003. … The authority views these breaches as serious because of their extent and duration, and because they demonstrated systemic weaknesses in the company’s internal controls.”

• RobinHood is the jersey sponsor for the Wizards, Heat, and Grizzlies. In 2022, the state of New York announced that “Robinhood Crypto, LLC will pay a $30 million penalty to New York State for significant failures in the areas of bank secrecy act/anti-money laundering obligations and cybersecurity.” And in 2025, they got in trouble with FINRA, which said, among other things, “Robinhood Financial and Robinhood Securities failed to establish and implement reasonable anti-money laundering programs.”

• Webull was the Nets’ Jersey sponsor from 2021-2024. In 2024, an SEC press release noted “Federal law requires broker-dealers to file [Suspicious Activity Reports] to report transactions that the broker-dealer has reason to suspect involve, among other things, funds derived from illegal activity or activity that has no apparent lawful purpose.” Webull was fined for filing deficient SARs over four years.

• In 2025, two members of Congress wrote a letter to PayPal concerned about a collaboration with a Chinese firm called Weixin Pay. In a letter to PayPal, they noted that “U.S. authorities have repeatedly identified Weixin Pay as a central hub for [Chinese Money Laundering Organizations] including those tied to fentanyl trafficking.” PayPal is on the Suns’ jersey.

• And then there are Steve Ballmer’s Clippers, whose jerseys say “Visit Rwanda.” A Cambridge University Press report from Itamar Dubinsky explains “Such strategies reflect the practice of sportswashing, which refers to the utilization of sports by political actors to gain global legitimacy while diverting attention from unjust processes occurring in their home countries. … Despite the NBA’s declared commitment to democracy, transparency, and a just penal system, none of these are to be found in Rwanda. According to Freedom House’s democracy index, Rwanda is classified as Not Free, referring to the RPF’s suppression of political dissent ‘through pervasive surveillance, intimidation, arbitrary detention, torture, and renditions or suspected assassinations of exiled dissidents.’ Despite this abysmal record, NBA officials praise Kagame as a basketball enthusiast without mentioning his human rights violations.”

Tonight Donald Trump will become the first sitting president to attend an NBA game, at Game 3 of the NBA Finals, which the Knicks lead 2-0. “President Trump is very much a New Yorker,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said the other day. “And I’m thrilled that yet another New Yorker wants to participate in the enthusiasm and the joy around this Knick team.”

The President has said he was invited to the Knicks game by “Jim.” He has crossed paths with Knicks honcho James Dolan many times.

• Dolan’s 2002 wedding to Kristin Reynolds was held at Trump’s Florida club Mar-a-Lago.

• Dolan sparked controversy by promising the Rockettes, employed by one of his firms, would perform at Trump’s first inauguration in 2017.

• Trump held a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in 2024 and thanked Dolan from the stage.

• Dolan is a documented Trump donor.

As Trump takes his seat—reportedly Trump will be in a suite—Trump will have something in common with Adam Silver, the NBA, the Knicks, James Dolan, Apollo Global, Leon Black, and Jeffrey Epstein. All those people are in some manner sponsored by the royal family of the United Arab Emirates.

Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan is the brother of the UAE’s leader Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (also known as MBZ). Tahnoun wears sunglasses all the time and is said to manage more than a trillion dollars on behalf of the royal family.

The Emirates’ connection to Trump

The Wikipedia version of his Trump connections are confirmed by many published reports:

On 18 March 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Sheikh Tahnoun for a banquet dinner at the White House and he met with the head of the CIA, the treasury secretary, the commerce secretary, and CEOs like Jeff Bezos.^[15] Leaked reports revealed that during closed-door meetings, Tahnoun sought Trump’s support on several fronts: shielding the UAE from potential international sanctions and an ICJ investigation into its alleged support for the RSF militia in Sudan; backing Israel’s airstrikes in Syria aimed at regional destabilization; facilitating plans to transform Gaza into an Emirati-controlled economic zone under the guise of reconstruction.^[28][29] and acquiring AI chips.^[15]

Sheikh Tahnoun became a business partner with Steve Witkoff and the Donald Trump family at the same time that Witkoff was a key diplomatic envoy for the Trump administration to the Middle East.^[1] In May 2025, Zach Witkoff announced that Tahnoon committed to putting $2 billion into World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency start-up founded by the Witkoffs and Trumps.^[30] Shortly thereafter, the Trump administration agreed to transfer the world’s most advanced and scarce computer chips to the UAE, with many expected to go to Group 42. Multiple National Security Council officials, including David Feith, raised national security concerns that the chips would end up in China. In April 2025, Trump fired 6 security council officials, paving way for David Sacks to take over the chip negotiations. By mid-May, Sacks, Witkoff, and Sheikh Tahnoon had successfully negotiated the increased chip exports to the UAE, despite opposition from top American officials.^[1]

Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, says:

The jaw-dropping Wall Street Journal report reveals that through a complicated, secret deal, a United Arab Emirates-linked company effectively deposited $187 million directly into the bank accounts of the president and his family, and is now primary business partner with the president’s family. There’s no precedent for this in American history.

Tahnoun has many investments in and around Trump.

• He’s the key investor in the UFC, which just held an event on the White House lawn.

• He has run the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, which was an early investor in David Sacks’ firm Craft Ventures—and Sacks has been named Trump’s White House AI and crypto czar.

In addition, Trump and Epstein have both been close to former Drexel trader Tom Barrack, who was influential in Trump’s first presidency. Barrack was indicted (but found not guilty) in 2021 as an agent working at the direction of the United Arab Emirates, obstructing justice, and making false statements to law enforcement.

The United Arab Emirates’ agenda is tricky to know—a lot of the money that flows through the Emirates is reportedly disguised, and offshored from other places. The UAE shows up near the top of every assessment of global money laundering hot spots. There are dozens of stories of massive fortunes from Moscow being laundered through the Emirates, for example. (Here’s a report about Russians holding a trillion rubles in the UAE.) And so it’s possible some Emirati investments are actually being spent with other people calling the shots.

But as a nation, the Emirates’ vulnerability is that it’s a country run by Sunni elites with a huge Shia population, which is frighteningly close to nuclear-capable, Shia-led Iran. Containing Iran is paramount to the UAE. This has long made the Emirates one of the world’s biggest consumers of American defense products.

A former Drexel trader, Steven Feinberg, went on to make a fortune in private equity, and is now President Trump’s under secretary of defense, overseeing massive defense spending.

In the first Trump administration, a plan emerged to build 30 nuclear facilities, based on American technology, in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. However, there are strict laws against selling nuclear technology to overseas firms, so the deal was set up to run through the private equity firms Blackstone and Apollo.

The 76ers have two equal lead investors. David Blitzer of Blackstone and Josh Harris of Apollo. At Apollo, the point person for that nuclear program was reportedly Josh Harris himself. Around that time, Harris began making regular visits to the White House.

In the second Trump administration, the U.S. began a war against Iran.

The Emirates’ connection to Jeffrey Epstein’s network

Abu Dhabi is one of seven Emirates, city states which were not united into one nation until 1971. In a TrueHoop post from a few years ago, we explore much more thoroughly, but on the speed tour:

A Pakistani banker named Agha Hasan Abedi, according to congressional testimony, ingratiated himself to the royal family of Abu Dhabi by supplying them with dozens of young girls to use as sexual playthings, and then used his influence in interesting ways. Abdur Sakhia, a longtime Abedi colleague, explained it to the committee this way:

Abedi created the UAE. He planted the idea of the UAE as a federation to Sheikh Zayed. These people had no standing anywhere in the world. They were smugglers and tribesmen. When Sheik Zayed would come for months in Pakistan, not even a policeman would give him any attention.

First Abedi ingratiated himself with the family with the use of children as sex items. Then he made them royalty, with help from Abedi’s home country of Pakistan. Sakhia continues:

Yet two months after meeting Abedi, Sheikh Zayed finally gets a state visit to Islamabad and meets the President of Pakistan which then became the first country to give him any status. The first embassy of UAE was opened in Pakistan and the second in London, and both were staffed by Abedi’s appointments.

Then Abedi got the royal family to use its oil money to back a bank called BCCI, which Abedi ran. BCCI appeared to be bankrolled by oil money, but reportedly quickly became a hotbed of dark money from all over, including:

• The Afghan opium trade

• The arms industry

• Money purloined by officials of various governments around the world.

In The Outlaw Bank, Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne quote a source saying “the fellow who founded the bank [Abedi] was working directly with William Casey.” Casey, who would later run the CIA, was a protege of Wild Bill Donovan, who essentially invented American intelligence, and whose law clients included many of the biggest American banks and businesses that collaborated with Hitler’s regime. In World War II, Casey was a leader in the OSS (a project with a thread to Epstein).

BCCI did many fascinating things. One of them was to funnel money, secretly, into businesses that appeared to be unrelated to BCCI. One of them was the Miami-based bank Centrust, and another was Capcom. Those businesses invested in the U.S. with Drexel Burnham Lambert.

A 1992 congressional report quotes Ziauddin Akbar, the head of Capcom, boasting to a federal agent “we have contracted 165,000 contracts totaling $53 billion with Drexel Burnham,” and later, “we have done over $90 billion total in 1988.”

Two key figures at Drexel Burnham at that time were Michael Milken and Leon Black. They invested, aggressively, in many industries. Their specialty was taking control of massive businesses, sometimes whole industries.

One of their biggest wins came in the cable business, where Drexel officials reportedly bragged that, thanks to backing a short list of entrepreneurs, they controlled more than 90 percent of the U.S. cable television market. Milken’s bio says he financed “TCI (Liberty Media), Viacom, Time Warner, Cablevision, Telemundo and Metromedia.”

The Dolans’ Cablevision empire was financed by Milken, who was Black’s mentor at Drexel. Their Drexel liaison was on the Cablevision board.

Epstein swam in these waters.

• The Epstein files document Epstein attended the Milken Global Conference at least in 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2017, and that Epstein brokered introductions using Milken’s name.

• Epstein worked at Bear Stearns, which reportedly succeeded Drexel as Cablevision’s investment bank.

• James Dolan was reportedly once briefly part of a group, with Epstein and Harvey Weinstein, that attempted to purchase New York magazine.

• Eventually, Milken went to prison, Black went on to found Apollo Global … and to fund Epstein.

• The last CEO of Bear Stearns, Alan Schwartz, is on Madison Square Garden’s board right now–along with Nelson Peltz (one of Milken’s star investors), and former Bear boardmember Vincent Tese.

The Emirates connection to Apollo Global

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority made a massive investment nearly twenty years ago to become the biggest outside investor in Apollo Global. In the aftermath, it’s almost impossible to track the billions as they flow back and forth between the Emirates and Apollo.

Apollo founder Leon Black stepped down from the firm after it was revealed he had paid Epstein at least $158 million, allegedly for tax advice.

Leon Black’s son Ben Black appears in the Epstein files, especially as an unnamed woman emails Epstein to report on her dates with him. In early 2025, Trump nominated Ben Black CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, a $60+ billion development finance agency. Some have questioned the timing of the appointment, just days after Apollo Global agreed to snap up a chunk of Elon Musk’s Twitter debt.

The Emirates’ connection to James Dolan

Eben Novony-Williams reports for Sportico:

The Knicks’ patch deal with Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism (DCT Abu Dhabi) is part of a wider relationship announced in October 2024. Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. and Sphere Entertainment Co., sister companies to the Knicks’ parent, also have multiyear marketing partnerships with DCT Abu Dhabi, which include advertising on the outside of the eponymous New York City arena and Las Vegas theater. Earlier this year, the two groups announced that Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island would be home to another Sphere project, with DCT Abu Dhabi investing $1.7 billion toward construction.

The Emirates’ connection to the NBA

Here’s where the Spurs might feel a little left out, with their jersey patch for a French cryptocurrency hardware company called Ledger.

The Knicks take the court with an Abu Dhabi jersey patch. Abu Dhabi is the capital of the Emirates. Meanwhile, the referees themselves have an Emirates sponsor patch. From Abu Dhabi, it might look like the Knicks and the referees are on the same team, along with the President, and–if he attends as he so often does–Epstein’s key funder Leon Black.

The NBA has a significant relationship with DCT Abu Dhabi, which is why the league has preseason games in the Emirates, a midseason tournament called the Emirates Cup, and a basketball academy in the UAE.

Adam Silver is also tied to the Emirates through his college roommate James Zelter, who is the co-president of Apollo Global, with its pervasive Emirati ties. The NBA has also done a lot of work with Joseph Ravitch of the Raine Group, who is reportedly a key connector between Emirati money and U.S. investments.

All together now

On a night when people who love sports are excited to watch Karl-Anthony Towns battle against Victor Wembanyama, many other agendas have entered the building. The stands will be packed with people, including the President, who knew Jeffrey Epstein and his schemes.

It’s a strange feeling, that sports are secondary, even in the NBA Finals.

There probably is no consolation, other than this: As WIRED revealed at the beginning of the playoffs, Madison Square Garden is wired up like a surveillance state. Anyone in the building can be tracked, facially recognized, and recorded.

Adam Silver and Donald Trump fostered this world, where billionaires follow their whims and regular people feel the consequences. As Silver and Trump sit in that reality, enjoying the largesse of Emirati money, I suspect they will both feel a little constrained, knowing Dolan can almost certainly hear them.

Thank you for reading TrueHoop!

1. KNICKS WIN GAME 3, PROBABLY

The emotional IQ, toughness, and pragmatism of the Knicks (or at least the ones not named Rick Brunson, more on that below) should be studied. The Spurs are much better than any team New York has played so far in the playoffs, and the Knicks met San Antonio’s level of intensity the first second one of Game 1.

When I watch the Knicks I see brilliant problem solving. And, rare over the last decade in the NBA, a point guard and center who can both be elite scoring in the paint or behind the 3-point line. Mix in the guys they have that play defense with passion and purpose, and the willingness of every player to leave their egos at the door, and you have a hell of a team.

I often get asked who I think’s going to win a particular game, not just a series. The more I know about basketball, the more aware I am of the almost uncountable variables affecting every possession, every quarter, every game. There is no script. There are so many ways for the better team to lose.

Had Victor made that last shot, the media would have pulled apart every little Knick play that didn’t work in the fourth quarter.

The games can be beautiful, often they are, typically very hard fought when you get to the playoffs. But they’re still very messy, and riddled with errors, also. Predicting means entering a stew of percentages and probabilities and not assurances and guarantees.

I said on our Thursday live video that I would not be surprised at all if New York won Game 2. I predicted the Knicks would win the series.

Barring injury, I’d guess the Knicks will win every game of the series.

But of course the Spurs have an incredible opportunity and these games have been close.

2. COACHING THE SPURS DOWN 0-2

In the conference finals, Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson caught hell when he said that his Cavs, analytically, won two of the first three against the Knicks. Obviously his point was that his team should feel like there is hope for Game 4, because the Cavs played well for most of two of those three games. The job of a coach is to motivate.

The Spurs coaching staff might not say it publicly, but they’re in the same boat. The internet has a lot of New York chatter like “we’re not going back to Texas” or “ the Spurs will melt in the Garden.” Spurs coaches and players know this series easily could be 2-0 in their favor.

I suspect Mitch Johnson and staff are telling the Spurs can walk proudly into Madison Square Garden Monday night with genuine confidence, knowing there are simple changes they can make to flip the script so that the Spurs can be the team that hangs around and takes a lead late. The Spurs can be the team that watches the home team fail to make a big shot or a big play in the final possessions.

And then it’s 1-2 series with the Knicks feeling all the pressure. That’s not a hard sell. The players know how close they’ve been.

San Antonio coaches and players will be thinking:

• We can do better on the defensive glass.

• Maybe we should play our bench more so Wemby doesn’t get so tired late.

• We need to get Wemby more touches in the paint all game long.

On that last point, Victor has got to fight for more paint touches off the catch—and not the dribble. His teammates have to help create that, with their voice and with their purpose. Play more inside out and you might get the Knicks’ big men in foul trouble again. Having Victor down there will allow for more potential offensive rebounds because he draws a ton of attention which lets Spurs guards dive in and snag misses like they did in Game 1.

It isn’t a smart strategy to assume any team will shoot well on the road, which means even more offensive rebounds are in the mix for the Spurs in Game 3. If the Spurs can snag them, it can be a great way to demoralize the Knicks and their fans.

3. KNICKS CAN LOSE AT HOME

Crowds don’t win games. Home courts don’t win games. Buildings don’t win games. Players do. Coaches too. Tough though MSG can be, the Pacers have won tough playoff games there each of the last two years. They destroyed the exhausted Knicks in Madison Square Garden in Game 7.

That’s why no self-respecting Knicks player or staff member is thinking about anything but recovering today and tomorrow and finding a way to win by at least one point on Monday. That’s all they’re thinking about.

4. VICTOR TOO TIRED

Victor is wearing himself out trying to guard every Knick all over the court. It’s an impossible task. But the Spurs have been close in both games. He doesn’t have to dramatically change, some tweaks will do.

Maybe show a less on shooters, maybe stay home in rotation and let someone race to the open man, maybe don’t try to block every shot. The Spurs need a little more of his energy owning space around the rim. When OG dunked on him, he did a great job of using physicality and length. But also: Victor jumped two inches. The Spurs need his athleticism in all four quarters.

Victor’s final moment turnover was a result of exhaustion and inexperience.

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In Finals Game 1, people in the expensive seats in San Antonio said something that appeared to bother Knicks star Jalen Brunson. The Finals have mostly been thrilling, but at times it feels impossible to keep America’s culture wars out of the arena. Consider the recent experience of 13-year-old Henry Sumber, who’s writing his first story for TrueHoop.

My whole life, I have gotten really into things. Many kids watched Cars and traded Pokémon cards. But I got consumed to the point that I knew the name of every car in Cars, and every Pokémon. Those things felt like they became my entire life.

In last year’s playoffs, something new caught my attention: basketball. I live in Austin, but both of my parents are from New York. They watched the Knicks games when they were kids, and we watched the Knicks make a run to the conference finals. Everyone (me, my mom, my dad, my brother) has become a Knicks fan and we put on almost every game this season and we know the Knicks’ whole 15-man roster.

Then, in April, I learned my mom was going to take me to the first game of the Spurs vs. Blazers playoff series. I was stoked. At age 13, I was gonna be there for history, and that for the rest of my life I could say that I went to Wemby’s first NBA playoff game. The Spurs, they’re like a second-favorite team. My family and I live in Texas and want to see the Spurs have success, but if it comes down to it, it’s the Knicks every time.

However I also feel a connection to the Blazers because I’m a second-generation American. My grandma immigrated to New York from Israel so even though I’m not from Israel myself, it still feels nice seeing someone represent that background at such a high level. He’s the best Israeli basketball player ever, so whenever Deni Avdija does well, I feel a sort of pride, as a Jew, about what he’s accomplishing.

We drove with some friends, and got In-N-Out on the way. It’s their tradition and the Spurs have never lost when they make that stop. As I said before this game is a big deal, as we were parking and I saw all of the Spurs fans it started to feel real. The arena was organized into different sections, with different colored shirts for every section. I put on my blue shirt and got ready to witness history.

For the most part this game was thrilling. But as it went on, whenever Deni Avdija made a play or got a call, the man sitting next to me kept making comments about Avdija being Israeli or Jewish. He looked to be in his early twenties and was saying things like “go back to Tel Aviv” or “how much did Netanyahu pay the refs for that call?” He said several times he thought Netanyahu was influencing Adam Silver to rig the game for the Blazers.

I understand that global conflicts involving the United States, Israel, and Iran can cause people to be emotional and bring politics into places they do not belong. But I had never, up until this point, realized how that would affect a player like Avdija, or others with similarly Jewish or Israeli identities.

I don’t want to be too meta and it probably seems obvious, but this isn’t something that only happens at Spurs games. It happens all over the NBA, sports, and the world. Anti-semitism is a global problem and there ARE real people on the receiving end of these comments, and it hurts. So please, no matter your political view, your nationality, or religion, stop making mean hurtful comments about entire groups of people just because you don’t like a few.

Sitting there, I felt betrayed by the Spurs’ fanbase and the NBA as whole. Me and my mom whispered to each other a couple times, asking questions like “Did you hear what he said?” and “Do you want to do anything about it?” After a few comments we made the decision that we really didn’t want to start any drama or speak up, and I’m still thrilled I got to see Wemby’s first playoff game.

The crazy thing is: we lucked into more tickets for tonight’s Finals Game 2. I can’t wait.

Thank you for reading TrueHoop!

The NBA Finals start tonight, and promise to be thrilling. But for fans of 28 teams, the questions are already beginning. What can we (including the Thunder) do to be in these Finals in the future?

A decade ago, the Brooklyn Nets were dreadful, winning just 20 games. But they scratched and clawed their way to a medium pile of poker chips by unearthing players like Jarrett Allen, Caris LeVert, and Spencer Dinwiddie.

Then in 2019, the Nets cashed all their chips in. They had a dream offseason, landing Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and DeAndre Jordan. In 2021, they doubled down by trading for James Harden. Everyone knew, then, that they were on their way to contention.

Looking back from 2026, though, the Nets weren’t on a heater, they were on a boomerang. That “superteam” rolled through coaches and role players, but not the playoffs. Those Nets won a grand total of one series (over the Celtics, who started Evan Fournier in place of injured Jaylen Brown) and have long since been broken up. Durant is in Houston, Harden is in Cleveland, Irving is in Dallas, Jordan just finished a season on the bench in New Orleans (and Fournier is in Greece).

And the Nets? They are exactly back where they started: 20-62.

This fits a trend: getting huge stars has always been a mixed bag.

Before apron rules, signing or trading for a superstar at the peak of their powers seemed like a rite of passage to win a title.

• Rasheed Wallace joined the Pistons and won it all in 2004.

• Shaquille O’Neal joined the Heat in 2005 and won a title in 2006.

• Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen went to Boston and won a title in 2008.

• The Lakers won the 2009 title not long after they acquired Pau Gasol.

• The Heat paid Jermaine O’Neal a ton of money, and even that kind of worked; his expiring contract made space to sign LeBron James and Chris Bosh in 2010, and they won titles in 2012 and 2013.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a big NBA fan, and as such you’ve grown used to the idea that the best teams assemble the biggest stars. As the thinking, and the media frenzy goes: If we can figure out where players like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jaylen Brown, LeBron James, or Kawhi Leonard will end up, we will learn a lot about which teams will be good next year.

But it was always easy to miss the failures. The Suns traded for Shaq and turned a great team mediocre. The Pistons took on Allen Iveron’s huge contract and became a bad team. LeBron’s Cavaliers tried again with Shaq, and soon fell to the bottom of the standings. (Two years after signing him, they were 47 wins worse.)

In this era, before the NBA changed the rules, teams acquired players with top-30 contracts 52 times. Mostly it worked out OK—three years later, on average they won 1.1 more games than before the acquisition.

Then we entered a different phase. After the 2011 lockout, the NBA stepped up rules to punish big spenders, and over the next decade, from 2012 to 2023 top-30 salary players switched teams 51 times.

Huge wins made headlines:

• LeBron and Kevin Love won the 2016 title in Cleveland.

• Kevin Durant won titles with the Warriors in 2017 and 2018.

• Marc Gasol arrived on the Raptors in midseason and won a title in 2019.

• Chris Paul’s Suns made the Finals in 2021.

• Andrew Wiggins won with the Warriors in 2022.

But those successes masked an increasing list of failures.

• Joe Johnson didn’t save the Nets.

• Russell Westbrook and John Wall both flopped as Rockets.

• The Suns only got steadily worse after trading for Durant.

And there was another oddity: in some cases, the damage outlasted the player’s stay. Most prominently, the Warriors dedicated a ton of salary and minutes to Durant which didn’t go to younger players. When Durant left, the Warriors tumbled down the standings. Four years after the coup of signing Durant, the Warriors had won two titles. But, less discussed is the associated reality that they were 56 wins short of where they had been before Durant arrived.

On average, teams that got top-30 salaried players in the decade from 2012 to 2023 ended up worse–eight fewer wins–three years later. The trend went from flat to down.

Then it got worse. In 2023, the league made the rules far tougher on big spenders, introducing the dreaded second apron, which (in addition to steep tax penalties) handcuffs the biggest-payroll teams from using many of the tricks of elite roster building. For instance, second-apron teams can’t aggregate contracts in trades, can’t include cash in trades, can’t use trade exceptions, can’t trade draft picks far in the future, don’t get to use the mid-level exception, and can’t sign waived players.

It’s a pretty boring set of punishments, but effective. The richest teams essentially go to the back of the line when interesting players come available. And arguably it hurts roster building of teams in the first apron, too; compared to prior eras, they’re reticent to add salary.

After all of that went into effect in 2023, acquiring expensive players has become a strategy to decline more and faster than in the past. The Celtics added two huge contracts to an already elite team, and won a title in 2024. But the average team has fared terribly.

Bradley Beal to the Suns, Damian Lillard to the Bucks, James Harden to the Clippers, Anthony Davis to the Mavericks, Jimmy Butler III to the Warriors, Luka Dončić to the Lakers, Paul George to the 76ers, Zach LaVine to the Kings, Darius Garland to the Clippers, Kevin Durant to the Rockets, Trae Young to the Wizards … none of those teams is better now than before the acquisition.

Karl-Anthony Towns to the Knicks might turn out to be the best deal of the bunch: the team has improved a little every year, and the Knicks are in the Finals. The Pacers were brilliant to get Pascal Siakam, who took them to the Finals. But right now their record is far worse than before they got him, largely because of Tyrese Haliburton’s torn Achilles.

Two years after acquiring a major player, the average team had gained 0.7 wins in the pre-apron era, lost 4.0 in the first-apron era, and has already lost 7.3 in the second-apron era. The second-apron number rests on only six deals with two years of follow-up. None of the six improved—but the era is young, and that figure will firm up as more seasons accumulate. What’s already clear is the direction: each tightening of the salary rules has made acquiring an expensive veteran measurably worse.

You might be noting that the story would be different with healthy players. Beal, Butler III, Luka, Trae … all suffered famous injuries that cost them massive amounts of time.

This is absolutely true. The league’s highest-paid players miss nearly twice as many games as they did 20 years ago. This points to, arguably, the best reason not to get a player with a SuperMax contract.

For decades, the highest-paid players averaged 12-14 missed games a season. But since 2019 that number has leapt to 22. A discussion for another day is the measurable reality that the game is more intense now, players move faster, jump higher, and get hurt more often.

But there’s another reason the highest earners miss so many more games now. Thanks to changes in the CBA in 2017, the players with the biggest contracts are old.

Teams acquiring a top-30 salary player today should expect them to miss 22 games per season on average. In effect, this makes your player even more expensive. They count against the salary cap for 82 games, nudge you into the first and second apron for 82 games, and keep you from paying other players for 82 games. Then they only play 60. (Or in many cases, they sit out entire seasons—to devastating effect.)

Meanwhile, we recently explored the very real relationship between giving minutes to young players and winning down the road. That doesn’t happen much on win-now superteams like the Durant Nets.

In 2017, the Nets drafted Jarrett Allen, played him 1,441 minutes, and he emerged as the kind of player any team would want. Durant signed with the Nets in 2019 and first suited up in 2020. That star-laden team preferred that DeAndre Jordan start at center. So in 2021, Allen went to Cleveland in a four-team trade that brought James Harden to Brooklyn.

To keep their stars happy, the Nets populated their roster with a steady stream of old guys like Patty Mills, Goran Dragic, Blake Griffin, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Paul Millsap. In the process, Brooklyn stopped being a place where young players thrived. Kyle Kuzma was traded to the Lakers, Mfiondu Kabengele and Jay Scrubb to the Clippers, Saddiq Bey to the Pistons, Nickeil Alexander-Walker in a package to Atlanta for Taurean Prince. Rodions Kurucs, Džanan Musa, RaiQuan Gray, and Kessler Edwards either weren’t good enough or didn’t get to play enough to feel out their full potential. Cam Thomas played a fair amount as a young player, but even he was shown the door at age 24.

Nic Claxton and Day’Ron Sharpe are the exceptions. Claxton just finished his sixth season as a Net. Sharpe arrived and barely played when the Nets were loaded with stars, and signed a two-year extension at a modest salary in 2025.

Meanwhile, a ton of players from the Nets roster of that era have shone elsewhere. Jarrett Allen is a mainstay of the Cavs, who made the conference finals. Landry Shamet is hitting big shots for the Knicks, who are in the Finals. Caris LeVert just played deep into the playoffs for the Pistons. Bruce Brown (and Jeff Green, who played a smaller role at age 36) won a ring in Denver.

Mostly, the Durant Nets repelled young talent—which is often a hidden tax on teams with big stars.

This points to another trend that cuts across all eras: newly added superstars sometimes help great teams become champions. But they hardly ever do anything meaningful for mediocre teams, likely because older stars are short-term solutions but being a so-so team is typically a long-term problem. Bad teams need minutes, touches, and money for lots of young players, stars inhibit all of that.

This is what weighs on me when I see reports that young teams like the Nets or Blazers might want Giannis: precisely incorrect. Trading the upward trajectory of young players and picks for the last few good years of an increasingly injury-prone player who’ll be 32 when next season starts is the kind of move that history shows has failed more than three quarters of the time in recent years.

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They had been right about damn near everything and could afford to be wrong.

But what they don’t have is Victor Wembanyama. Nor, now, this year’s title. And perhaps they also learned that they’re not perfectly built to handle that French dude.

David Thorpe and I are years into noting the Thunder can go and get almost anyone they want. So … should they make that kind of move now?

I expect this will be a critical, era-defining offseason in Thunder history. Either:

• They have everything they need to beat the Spurs, if healthy, and will head into luxury tax territory, with its restrictions on roster tweaks, and stay the course.

• They will reshuffle to avoid the second apron, but return a similar roster.

• They’ll decide they don’t have what it takes, and trade a big name like Chet Holmgren or Jalen Williams.

My guess is that there are several more Thunder titles behind one, but not all, of those doors.

David has been working on a story for the offseason about how to build a team to beat Wemby. We didn’t know, when he started, that it would be a story about the Thunder!

Thorpe’s view is that if the Thunder had been merely healthy they would have been more than 60 percent likely to beat these Spurs. His concern: “the Spurs next year are going to be better. The Thunder don’t have to beat this year’s Spurs team, they’re gonna have to beat next year’s Spurs team.”

Sam Presti is no YOLO gunslinger. He is cautious as they come. A studier. After the Thunder’s first title, he noted that CBA rules take a few years to shake out, to see how they really behave. Is it awful to be in the second apron, or not? The CBA’s big hammers on high-payroll teams are the repeater tax, and the suite of restrictions on the rosters of second apron teams. “As constituted right now, we wouldn’t face the repeater penalties until the next CBA. So we’re far from that,” Presti explained. “The aprons, remains to be seen how we interact with those. But we’ll have to learn as we go along.”

I’ve been examining the aprons, for a forthcoming story, and I’m leaning toward saying that the second apron can royally screw up a contending team. On the long regular season road to the Finals, there is often a need to fill a gap. For the Thunder this year, it was filled by a trade of four draft picks for Jared McCain.

It happened that was the best offer the 76ers could get. And that trade would have also been allowed under CBA rules if the Thunder had been a second apron team. However: trades are hard, and the odds are not high that in many future situations the best deal in the market will come from a team that’s forbidden from aggregating contracts, can’t include cash, and has extremely restrictive salary matching rules. Draft picks are the Thunder’s forte, and a nice loophole to all this, because they can be aggregated with a player, but to me being in the second apron would almost certainly cost the Thunder meaningful opportunities to improve.

My bet is that Presti is years into knowing how he’ll avoid the second apron—in fact, he negotiated team options into six Thunder contracts this offseason, including for Isaiah Hartenstein, Lu Dort, and Kenrich Williams. The most obvious scenario is that Dort goes to another team, while Hartenstein and maybe Williams come back on longer, cheaper deals, by which magic the team could shed the $20 million-plus it’ll take to get out of the second apron.

Dort’s absence might be valuable in developing Nikola Topić, who would have been very handy playmaking when Ajay Mitchell was injured. I’d be surprised if no players prove helpful out of Branden Carlsen, Thomas Sorber, and Brooks Barnhizer. In other words, the Thunder could be better. That could be the plan.

But David has an idea about a bolder move: “I would strongly consider trading J Dub. They did just fine without him in the playoffs, and you’re going to get a hell of a player for him.”

Stephen A. Smith seems to be ready to ship Chet Holmgren out of town as punishment for a bad series against the Spurs. But to David, one bad series is no way to judge a player who has won everywhere he has ever gone. He sent me a chart showing that over the first three playoff series, according to Estimated Plus-Minus, Chet was the third-best player in the playoffs. I asked David who he would trade Chet for, and he said Victor Wembanyama. Then he thought a bit and said Tyrese Maxey and a good young center. That’s all he could come up with.

Jalen Williams, though … makes more sense to Thorpe, because:

1. They’re an excellent team, even in the playoffs, when Jalen’s on the bench, largely because of Ajay Mitchell. (In postseason advanced stats, Mitchell is literally the best Thunder player. Yes, that’s a little unfair because he missed some of the hardest games. But the longer term trend is: Mitchell slays every plus/minus based stat.)

2. Jalen Williams has been injury prone.

And so the question becomes: what player could help the Thunder improve their fortunes against the Spurs?

• A big wing.

• Probably a power forward.

• Young.

• Can shoot and really defend.

Great, but who is that, and available?

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• “Tony brothers should not be allowed in playoffs or finals”

• “All them are 🗑️”

• “I see Scott Foster and Tony Brother there.... Already tilted”

• “Ref’Mafia!!!!!!!”

• “2 shots for Brunson”

So it’s going well.

As we wrote on TrueHoop recently, a dozen of the 16 Finals referees received the highest-possible rating from the Players Association in a recent survey of all players. The exceptions are:

• Tyler Ford and John Goble were voted in the lowest of the three tiers.

• The NBA referee who has called the most Finals games, Scott Foster, ended up in the middle tier, along with alternate Justin Van Dyne.

The Players Association says they shared their findings with the league before the playoffs, along with the recommendation that the league only assign Tier 1 referees to the Finals.

But boy does the league ever love that Scott Foster! Of course he’d get the call …

What’s interesting to me, and perhaps this has been written about elsewhere. But this year’s playoffs are missing David Guthrie. Only five officials have called more Finals games than Guthrie. But he was voted into the second tier by the players, and he made headlines for a big botched call at the buzzer—which he acknowledged was a mistake—in last year’s Pistons/Knicks series. For reasons that I can’t see have been reported anywhere, Guthrie has been absent from this year’s playoffs.

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If you’ve been missing the Thursday live videos we’ve been doing, you’re missing a lot. It’s fun. The next one is after Finals Game 1, at 10 am ET Thursday, and you can watch right here. We’ll also publish it on video after the fact, and on YouTube if you’re into that kind of thing, And as we’ve had a lot of questions from people wondering if they can listen to it as a podcast, the answer is yes, the RSS feed is here.

After Game 5, I, Henry, predicted that the Thunder would win the series, and I had my own rationale for that, but it roughly boils down to: I always predict the Thunder will win. And I was proved wrong—so that leaves us now feeling I would say mixed about my predictions. I’m pretty proud that before the playoffs began I said that I did not believe in Denver, and that one played out well. But here we are heading into what looks like it’s going to be an unbelievable Finals between the Spurs and Knicks (who did not lose a game in the month of May).

The Spurs are the favorites. They have a lot going for them, first and foremost, they beat the goddamned Thunder, the reigning champs and heavy favorites almost all season.

Everybody thought Victor Wembanyama’s time would come. They didn’t know we were already in it.

So the series begins on Wednesday, which is nice, and that there’s an imperfect amount of recuperation time for the Spurs—but at least a lot more than the Cavs got before they faced the Knicks. Also, the Spurs have home court advantage, so during this interim they won’t be flying anywhere, which should set this up to be an intense seesaw of a series.

We don’t have meaningful data about these two teams facing each other. They played three times. The Knicks won two blowouts while the Spurs had an incredible comeback squeaker. (Average of all that: Knicks win 123-112.) But we all know both teams are meaningfully different and better right now. Ordinarily, I’d expect teams to play how they normally play, but these two have been not doing that for the whole playoffs. There won’t be an overwhelming data argument either way.

So working largely off vibes, I will tell you that I’m picking the Spurs, because when I watched the Thunder-Spurs series, the level of defensive intensity from the Spurs doubled what the Cavs had to offer the Knicks. That matters twice. One, it might take the Knicks a minute to get accustomed to that level of intensity. Secondly, that “Victor Wembanyama and a pack of incredibly athletic defensive geniuses” might prove to be the most powerful force in the basketball universe, and I’m guessing it’ll win the Spurs a ring.

But I’ve been wrong before, and then I learned some very interesting counterpoints in a conversation with David Thorpe.

What do you see going into this series?

I’m very confident that a mildly healthy Thunder team, for instance with Jalen Williams back, would have won the West. And a fully healthy Thunder team would have won the series probably in five games.

Injuries are always part of the playoffs. This is no different than last year, the year before, and the year before, and this year those injuries just got in the Thunder’s way. J Dub’s hamstring robbed them of their best defender for Victor Wembanyama and their third-best playmaker. When Ajay Mitchell was missing they lost their best perimeter defender and their second-best playmaker. And even with all that the Thunder led 3-2.

With just Jalen Williams back (I don’t think Ajay Mitchell was close to returning) I would have favored the Thunder over the Knicks.

But now that the Spurs have won, I am picking the Knicks to win it all. It feels to me like New York has a better than fifty-five percent chance to win.

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There are at most three games left in the 2026 Western conference finals–Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Savor them–this might be the highest level basketball that has ever been played.

DAVID: Back when it happened, I saw the Spurs beating the Heat in 2014 and felt it was the best NBA team in history.

I have watched this series very closely. We’re well past that. It’s remarkable. The Thunder and Spurs are so young. But this is the highest-level basketball of all time.

New York is built like a lot of old-school great teams, lots of experience, lots of skill. They’re playing at a very high level, defensively, physically, but to be able to withstand the pressure and the athleticism and speed on the depth of one of these two teams is a test they have nowhere nearly faced. The closest thing they have seen to this kind of team has been the Pacers teams they faced the last two postseasons, a team they went 5-8 combined despite home court advantage in both series. This Knicks team is much better than those teams—we will discuss that later.

HENRY: Last year Kenny Atkinson warned us about the league changing, so that intensity would win. The Pacers put on a masterclass and almost got a title out of it. And now it’s the Spurs who are teaching the lesson.

DAVID: Going into Game 4, I would have said it’s an intensity tie. OKC was playing incredibly hard. In Game 4 I did not see that. The low-level of urgency made me feel like the Thunder simply didn’t believe they could win. They just didn’t have enough gas. They ran out of gas, they just don’t have it.

Cleveland, by the way; talk about a team out of gas. Up 20 something in the fourth quarter in Game 1 and they never recovered. I heard from players that they simply didn’t have the legs. Every player is vulnerable to fatigue; the greatest players can be made mediocre.

It’s affecting the Thunder in a different way: these players are getting hurt on very intense plays. Ajay Mitchell was racing back full speed to prevent a dunk. Against a lot of opponents, he may have just given Castle the dunk. But it’s clear to them, every point can keep them from a second title, so he raced to potentially prevent the points and strained his soleus.

It’s extremely hard to do anything in this series: to bring the ball up, to get open, to get a rebound. It’s fight fight fight.

Devin Vassell is a huge part of that.

And De’Aaron Fox is already helping. I mean, he’s just fucking good.

The Thunder are missing their second- and third-best players, especially against that team, where Chet just won’t be as valuable as them largely because of Victor Wembanyama. It’s gonna be very hard to overcome because of the high level of physicality. It’s very hard for a player who hasn’t played much to step into that.

HENRY: I felt like that. Icing the kicker is calling a timeout to let that guy reflect, for 90 seconds, in the hopes that doubt might creep in and affect performance. What if you had scientists study that for years, and try to perfect the methods of introducing doubt? What would you do? How about a coach you love sits you for weeks? Arguably Isaiah Joe got iced for most of the playoffs by Mark Daigneault. He averaged 21 minutes and eight 3-point attempts per game in the regular season. He is at about half of that in these playoffs. In Game 1 against the Spurs, Mark Daigneault played Isaiah Joe for all of 16 seconds. He has taken ten 3s in the series, and missed seven.

DAVID: I thought the same thing. It’s unfair to expect him to make those shots. Mark did a great job of making Isaiah Joe what he is, but not in the playoffs, and I understand it. I always look at it this way: I could put together an elite relay race team. But if I have to sit two, or even just one of my world-class sprinters and just put in a fast guy, not an elite racer, I’m probably fine against Belgium. But if I’m up against Jamaica, I’m gonna get smoked.

HENRY: You’re already done.

DAVID: That’s what we saw in Game 4.

We also saw a bunch of conversations with Wemby and Mitch Johnson, where they’re all lovey-dovey. That’s so important! And it’s related to seeing Tim Duncan and Greg Popovich sitting together watching the game.

Let me explain why: The broadcast made a big deal about something that happened with Mitch Johnson coaching up Carter Bryant. But also all game Wemby is hugging the head coach. That means that when Coach Johnson gives Bryant instruction, and his star and his coach are in lockstep, Carter has no place to go but to listen. I’m gonna go into my listening mode, because I can’t fight this guy. And by the way, Bryant might love Coach Johnson.

This is really what Pop had, because he had Tim Duncan. He could scream and yell at Tony Parker all he wants. Meanwhile, they became a dynasty and he and Tony grew very close.

Did you hear that Steve Novak story, where Pop refused to trade Novak until the Knicks promised to play him? Then he did what was best for Steve and explained this is really good for you? It’s a beautiful thing to care about each other. And it’s absolutely part of how you get players playing this hard.

Mitch has learned a lot. And Wemby acts like he grew up in the NBA loving Mitch. I know for a fact that’s how Devin Vassell was in college, I saw it in person, putting his arms on his coaches, actually being coached. (Stephon Castle isn’t that way. At one point, Castle was throwing off his own security guy, but he plays with that rage and we need that too.)

If the Thunder get Jalen Williams or Ajay Mitchell back, it’ll be an incredible seven-game series. If not, the Spurs could win the next two.

When Wemby took that half-court shot at the end of the half, I watched it in my mind, basically in slow motion. As he got it, I thought, oh, he’s shooting this, and as it tracked I thought oh it’s going in. Great players, amazing players, world-class players tend to make plays like that.

When you have someone like Wemby anything’s possible. But that’s true of Shai, too.

I’m very impressed with Mike Brown. They can beat you in different ways. And look at how Mikal Bridges is playing now! It’s shocking when he misses. He has Landry Shamet playing so well, what a great story that is!

HENRY: Shamet started the year on a non-guaranteed contract.

DAVID: I didn’t realize that.

What’s happening in the NBA right now, we should all be very proud.

I watched the Euroleague finals yesterday. In my opinion, over the last few decades, there has never been a bigger divide between the NBA and the elite Euroleague teams. Those European teams would lose by 75 points. They’re big and slow and not as tactical as they used to be. Normally I love watching those teams, but I really struggled to watch. Compared to these NBA playoffs those overseas teams are just nothing. The Spurs, Thunder, Knicks, and a few others would blow them out. Last year’s Pacers would too. The rest of the league would beat them, nothing has changed here, but if the league continues this trend towards “Blur Ball marries Bully Ball…” then look out.

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• Guarding Victor Wembanyama

• How Shai Gilgeous-Alexander talks

• The Spurs starters have mostly played 80+ minutes already, in contrast Alex Caruso is at 57

• If De’Aaron Fox had played in Game 1, would the Spurs have been worse?

• Why it’s wrong to consider these defenders “chaotic”

• The many missed calls

• James Harden has the Cavs’ best plus/minus in the playoffs

• David: not a huge fan of Dennis Schröder

Injuries remain at a frightening level. If you made a team of players who have missed playoff time to injury, they might win the title. This is far from an exhaustive list:

• Jalen Williams

• De’Aaron Fox

• Dylan Harper

• maybe Ajay Mitchell

• O.G. Anunoby

• Anthony Edwards

• Luka Dončić

• Donte DiVincenzo

• Ayo Dosunmu

• Jayson Tatum

• Austin Reaves

• Aaron Gordon

• Peyton Watson

• Kevin Durant

• Brandon Ingram

• Immanuel Quickley

• Bam Adebayo

That’s on top of the players who were injured before the playoffs, who include:

• Giannis Antetokounmpo

• Tyrese Haliburton

• Jimmy Butler

• Kyrie Irving

• Cooper Flagg

• Fred VanVleet

• Steven Adams

• Zion Williamson

• Damian Lillard

• Trae Young

• Anthony Davis

• Brandon Miller

• Michael Porter Jr.

• Josh Giddey

• Ja Morant

• Kentavious Caldwell-Pope

• Tyler Herro

• Walker Kessler

Thanks for tuning in!

David Thorpe said the other day that on a lot of teams, Ajay Mitchell would be in the G-League. Instead, the Thunder played him a ton, and started him in the absence of the injured Jalen Williams for six playoff games, which were all wins. By the end of the second round, the league’s actual MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, said the 23-year-old Belgian second-rounder might have been the most valuable player in the series.

Score one for youth.

Meanwhile, in the Thunder’s next game, they played against a Spurs team that made Mitchell look old. Owing to an injured De’Aaron Fox, the Spurs started a lineup with an average age of 22 years and 345 days. The youngest of those was Dylan Harper, a rookie who just turned 20 in March. Harper played 47 minutes, and had 24 points, seven steals, and six assists, with just one turnover. The Spurs outscored the Thunder by 14 when Harper was in the game.

This ignites an age-old debate about how teams get better: by getting better players, or by getting younger players?

Last week, we dug into the idea that draft picks seldom work out as planned. Any way you slice it, a tiny sliver of drafted players—by my analysis, six percent—go on to become excellent players for their first team.

But that’s not to say the evidence suggests, therefore, that highly paid veterans are the answer instead.

There’s a lot going on behind this list, but at its core:

• By CBA rules, you have to play at least seven years to be eligible for the NBA’s biggest contracts.

• By the time you’ve played seven high-scoring years of NBA basketball, you’ve played long minutes and odds are your body is pretty beat up.

• Very commonly players’ production is in decline by the time they get a supermax deal.

• Teams with huge chunks of their payroll going to players in decline are seldom the league’s best teams.

So if the most reliable strategy is not to bet on this year’s lottery pick sticking around to thrive, and it’s not to import a high-priced veteran … what is?

One right answer appears to be: get lots of young players, and play them.

Here are the ten teams that played young players the most minutes from 2022-2026.

And here are the ten teams that were most committed to veterans, sometimes called “win now.”

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When Victor Wembanyama first came to the NBA, he was a guy that wanted to prove he could be a shooter and a perimeter-based player like Kevin Durant was in most of his career. If you go back in the TrueHoop archives (interesting now: a deep dive comparing Chet Holmgren and Victor Wembanyama as rookies) TrueHoop’s first understanding of Wembanyama was that he could be a Duncan Robinson on offense and a Rudy Gobert on defense. That’s how he played. He looked to shoot 3s often as a rookie, and played on the perimeter a ton.

It wasn’t anything close to realizing his full potential. But to his and the Spurs’ great credit, he has learned that he’s better off being Shaq on offense and Bill Russell on defense.

That will be a major problem for the Thunder this year, and Spurs opponents for the next decade. Can opponents figure this out? Titles hang in the balance.

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A conversation about the Eastern conference finals which begin Tuesday at 8pm ET.

HENRY: Are you surprised that the Eastern conference finals are the Knicks and the Cavs?

DAVID: No. The Knicks got a good matchup and made that pivot against the Hawks, running the offense through Karl-Anthony Towns in the pinch post, and it has been smooth ever since. They haven’t lost a game since running the offense through KAT.

Detroit’s issue has always been their emotional maturity, their impulse control defensively, and their lack of offensive firepower after Cade. All those things kind of came to fruition. They foul way too much. I thought I thought they just didn’t have any answer as things changed. They just kept doing what they’ve always been doing: they focused on physicality instead of what they should have been focused on, which was executing without fouling.

HENRY: Stan Van Gundy was like: I love Tobias Harris, but he didn’t even try to stop that guy, he just fouled him.

DAVID: It’s kind of who they are, and they didn’t grow. After the game, Kenny Atkinson said their big adjustment was just not doing anything in the range of Ausar Thompson. It reminded me of reminding me of how to play against Deion Sanders in football. Ausar’s ability to impact winning is significantly altered if he’s not getting a bunch of steals.

HENRY: He’s unbelievable.

DAVID: Unbelievable, but he had five points in a Game 7.

HENRY: I know this is not what we do, but if you were going to 3-D print the ideal NBA body, I’ll take Ausar, please.

DAVID: And he plays the right way, and all of that. But his inability to shoot is a problem.

HENRY: It’s wild.

DAVID: Amen has the same problem. That’s got to be answered. The biggest story coming out, though, is Cleveland’s evolution in terms of toughness. This is where we have to focus. Where Kenny lamented the lack of ability to get to the level of intensity a year ago, they found another level in this series, and that’s really important to recognize.

HENRY: To my eyes in Game 7, a lot of that had to do with Jarrett Allen.

DAVID: Well I thought the spark was Max Strus. Cleveland lost the first two, then won four of five. Strus was all over the place and of course ended up in the starting lineup by Game 7. Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen just seemed to find another level. It wasn’t like flipping a light switch, it was more of a just a growth, or they just started making instead of one play in four, it was maybe two plays in four, and then three plays in five. And confidence grew as well.

But last night the Pistons, honestly, it looked like they were, they had lost their minds. I think maybe it was they were down so much, but even before they were down so much, the game looked to me like an AAU game. I was surprised there was no semblance of organization with what they were doing offensively or defensively. So, Cleveland had a lot of open lanes, a lot of open dunks. Donovan Mitchell was obviously amazing in Game 5 and very good in Game 7. Donovan seemed like he wanted to start the game trying to get his guys comfortable. He did a good job of that. They won the game without Harden doing much other than just managing the team, keeping their team organized, and having one turnover. (ED NOTE: Cavaliers starters: 155 total minutes, five total turnovers.)

HENRY: I loved this moment he had creating a bucket with Evan Mobley. At the end, I wasn’t sure if he was trying to get a steal or maybe celebrating a little? Finding joy in the game?

DAVID: He’s in the Eastern conference finals!bAnd he wasn’t the biggest reason why, which might make him feel good, that yeah, he’s in Cleveland, where Donovan can be the guy carrying the team. Surviving two seven-game series is something. That might give Cleveland a little more confidence. They’re going to be tired in Game 1 against the Knicks.

HENRY: Flying straight to New York. Oh my god, schedule makers, can we just give them a fucking day? Like, can they take a shower?

DAVID: Amazing, right?

If you look at who just came out of a tougher series, obviously Cleveland gets a big advantage in Game 1. But ultimately I don’t think they are like the kryptonite for New York. Two years in a row, the Knicks lost to a Pacers team that wore them down. This year, the Knicks changed coaches, and are coming in rested. But also, I don’t think Cleveland can do that. If the goal is to exhaust Jalen Brunson, then which Cavalier is going to hassle him full court and be in his face all night? James Harden ain’t no Andrew Nembhard, and you can’t have Donovan play that way. So that’s an issue.

And then the other problem is with the way that the Knicks are attacking offensively, where they’re running so much through KAT now. It’s less of a burden for Brunson offensively. The Knicks have only played ten playoff games. So they’ve had a lot of time off. I’m going to guess that if we looked up Brunson’s dribbles per game it’s down since they changed their offense. So, it’s gonna be tough to wear Brunson down.

But Cleveland’s got those two big guys playing, Jarrett and Evan are playing better, which is a big deal against Mitchell Robinson, and obviously KAT.

HENRY: That feels like their team strength to me. Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley are both firing at high levels, which—when you have Donovan Mitchell—feels like the reason they always have a chance.

DAVID: Donovan and Wemby, to me, are the big X factors left in the playoffs. Both those guys, I think both teams are inferior, but both those guys are so incredibly capable of doing marvelous things.

I never watched him play live, but my dad used to tell me about the football player, Jim Brown. He would, you know, get tackled. It would take five guys to tackle him. He would be the slowest guy to get up out of the pile. He would barely get back to the huddle, and then he’d run it again. It’d be amazing. It takes six guys to tackle him. Donovan looks that way every time he scores. It’s like it’s, it’s a labor. He’s like laboring to get back on defense. But he’s still so electric. He’s almost like he’s saving energy.

But he won’t be able to do that against New York. Like, who do you rest him against? Josh Hart? He’ll kill you on the glass. Can’t do it against him. Harden probably can guard Hart, but he’ll have to rebound against Hart. So this is this becomes a big part of the test for Cleveland is that back court has been able to go a little less than full intensity on defense against Detroit. That’s all over.

HENRY: And if Harden gets worn out … I’ve noticed Kenny Atkinson is very reticent to take him out. There were spells when he was terrible. In this series, there might be more need than ever for bench help.

DAVID: I just don’t know who is ready to play a lot of hard minutes at that other guard spot. (Cavaliers bench guards, FTR: Dennis Schröder, Sam Merrill, Jaylon Tyson, Keon Ellis, Tyrese Proctor. Max Strus is sometimes a bench player and sometimes a guard, not sure where he belongs.)

Donovan needs to be off the ball some for his own energy purposes. But the Cavs don’t seem to trust anyone else to handle the ball. And you definitely can’t lose the possession battle against New York, given what they could do on the offensive glass as well.

Cleveland has a fighter’s chance in all these games because of the offensive firepower. James can play great one game, Donovan can play better in more games. I would think of it like: you’ve got to win one of the first three to give yourself a chance. And then go into Game 4 trying to make it two-two before you head back to New York. So, if James can do great things in one of those games, Donovan plays well in two of the three, you can see it. You can win a game if you look at it in that way. But it’s hard given the energy tax that both those guys have to pay to be able to play with New York and also rebound against Josh Hart and guard Brunson. You know, all that’s hard.

HENRY: How do you guard that KAT pinch post action?

DAVID: There are different ways to guard at the point of attack. But the big picture has to be protecting the rim. Every choice to me, every choice has initially has to be we’re always choosing to be on the bottom side of the action, which forces New York to play more on the perimeter. And then you want to contest the shooter.

You can’t let them get layups, you cannot get beat on some of the dribble hand-offs, and just pure back cuts and sprints to the rim when the ball is, you know, 15, 16, 17, feet in the middle third of the court. You can’t give New York those layups. So there’s a discipline there to always choose to be on the basket side of the action, as opposed to on the 3-point line and out of the action.

HENRY: These rules, they apply to everyone? Every Cavs defender?

DAVID: Everyone, yeah. And that’s one of the biggest mistakes that that teams make, is they don’t make that decision, they don’t protect themselves against the layup. This is like Golden State’s Cuisinart. You get so worried about Steph or Klay hitting 3s that you give Draymond a wide-open layup.

For years now this has been my philosophy, and it’s worked.

HENRY: If I’m hearing you right, you think the Knicks are the favorites?

DAVID: Oh, I definitely would favor the Knicks. I’m torn about whether or not it will be a long series. The safer thing is to say it’ll go six or seven, but I worry that the lack of depth on the Cavs in the back court is gonna, is going to make Donovan worn out late in games. And heck, if New York’s learned anything, they should learn how they lost the two series against against Indiana, and and be more focused on making sure they’ve got energy late, and play more guys. I think they have more depth, and OG is back–I heard he’s playing Game 1. So Knicks in four or five sounds good. But either way, I think the Knicks are significant favorites.

Thank you for reading TrueHoop! Don’t miss our Western conference finals preview.

A conversation on the Western conference finals, which begin Monday at 8:30 pm ET.

DAVID: A tiny few players in NBA history can not will their team but carry their team to another level that they otherwise should not reach. In my lifetime. it started with watching what Magic Johnson did as a rookie, in 1980, with his 42 points, 15 rebounds, and 7 assists game. It was just one game, but he was MVP of the series.

Wemby’s one of those guys.

The Thunder are significantly better as constructed right now. But Victor can be such a difference maker on both ends.

HENRY: It’s just stupid, honestly. At times, I have no idea what you’re supposed to do. If you’re a ball-handler in the paint, and he’s lurking behind you, what are you supposed to do?

DAVID: That’s a real concern.

Is he able to make those kinds of plays, is he able to control the paint defensively? That really matters because of all the drives that OKC wants to do. They don’t want to be just a shooting team. They want to get to the rim.

And how does he shoot from 3? It’s certainly possible he shoots badly from 3, but it’s also possible that he doesn’t.

What kind of emotional maturity does he have to settle his younger guys?

When you have the best player on the court on your team, it can give you some of the confidence and swagger that OKC tends to have.

And, yeah, so that to me is a big issue. Wemby gives the Spurs a chance.

The other is on the OKC side, where Ajay Mitchell might be better than Jalen Williams, and I’m not sure how the Thunder will handle that. There’s absolutely a world where they’re both on the court. But there’s also a place where one or the other plays, that’s something that I think Mark Daigneault’s really gonna have to figure out game to game. What are my best rotations? How do I want to break this stuff down? I don’t think it’s cut and dried. I think they’re gonna have to experiment a little bit.

HENRY: Haven’t they been doing that all year, though? Anytime they’ve had injuries all year, that’s how they talk about it, right? We’re gonna find new and different ways to win. They’ve been studying forever. I feel like I don’t know how they’re gonna do it, but I know they’re very open to change.

DAVID: Right. He’s always focused on that, and for that I think he’s super smart. The concern I have that I think what will end up happening is it’ll be Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Ajay Mitchell, Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren, and Isaiah Hartenstein. And then, obviously, Alex Caruso will play, Lou Dort will play, and Cason Wallace will play. That might be their death lineup right there. But we can look it up … I don’t think that lineup has played a ton. (ED NOTE: Very very little indeed. I invite you to spend an hour like I just did, digging through these lineups. Am I missing something? I can’t find that they played together at all. I can tell you that Hartenstein, SGA, Chet, and Ajay played 93 minutes together all regular season. Can’t find any minutes with that lineup plus Jalen Williams.)

But I think best lineup is Mitchell and SGA in the backcourt. Mitchell doesn’t have a lot of experience in the playoffs, so that’s that’s an advantage for San Antonio. But they’ve got young guys too. Mitchell didn’t really play in all the playoffs last year, so we’ll see how all those players handle major fourth-quarter minutes.

They will also, I’d guess, go small at times and bring in Caruso in place of Chet or Isaiah.

HENRY: OKC has so many high-level defenders to throw at, to throw at Wemby. A lot of teams’ most effective defender or against Wemby has been a guard.

DAVID: Lu Dort, Alex Caruso, and Ajay Mitchell can really give him some problems, because they’re strong, Caruso, like piano-wire, strong, Mitchell and Dort are strong strong.

They can get under him and cause them some problems.

They also will get their ass kicked sometimes too.

HENRY: Let’s say Caruso emerges as the best at guarding Wemby. Do you start him?

DAVID: If it turns out he’s the best at it, yes. Although I also think Ajay Mitchell is an elite elite defender.

I don’t think they’re going to start with a small on Wemby, but it’s absolutely a powerful idea. If it’s not Game 1 then Game 2.

HENRY: I really enjoy watching a little guy guard a big guy.

DAVID: You’re doing something where everyone knows what’s going to happen, which is we’re going to try to take advantage of Wemby versus the small guy. Now all the help guys know what’s going to happen. Playing the matchup game isn’t always so effective because you’re telling the other team exactly what you’re going to do, and that kind of stunts the natural tendency to play a more fluid style.

Wemby is a guy that does like to maneuver with the ball, and he’s amazing at that—but not against guards.

HENRY: What happened when the Spurs beat the Thunder in the regular season? Like, how did they do that?

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