One month into the season, there are already five teams that can kiss any sort of playoff chase goodbye: the Hawks, Bulls, Mavericks, Kings, and Suns. For the next five months, hardcore fans of these teams will be paying close to attention to non-NBA games many nights of the season as the drool-worthy 2018 NBA draft class comes into focus.
Well hello there, elite NBA draft prospects!
We have that and more in Wednesday’s NBA newsletter.
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In respect of that and in honor of college basketball’s return, Ricky O’Donnell has a new mock draft. A player outside of the college basketball industrial complex — Luka Doncic — is No. 1, but the rest of the lottery is filled with domestic prospects spending their evenings on ESPN and various other NCAA broadcast partners. And here’s Matt Ellentuck with the best prospects from Tuesday night’s Champions Classic.
Given the NBA’s draft lottery reform, which goes into effect next season, it’ll be interesting to see if anyone full-on tanks as the Suns did last year. There’s almost no downside (other than constant belittlement on Basketball Twitter, which you can earn for literally thousands of other reasons anyway). The Bulls seem like a great candidate. In fact, the Bulls front office is so adept at disregarding normal behavior that they just might tank hard and claim the team is fighting for its playoff life at the same time.
Scores Galore ...
... And So Much More
Wonderful, smart story by Tim Cato on the science and training around landing safely when you are a basketball player who jumps very, very high. This, however, might ruin some players for me because I will cringe every time they jump.
Paul Flannery on why the Celtics keep winning. The streak is up to 13. It will be tested on Thursday when the streaking Warriors — seven straight double-digit victories — visit Boston. Clear your schedule.
Marc Spears digs deep on L.A.‘s best rookie, Kyle Kuzma.
[extreme 1920s gumshoe voice] Avery Bradley wore No. 0 for the Celtics and he’s been missing layups this year. Now Jayson Tatum is wearing No. 0 for the Celtics and he missed a layup!
Just DeMar DeRozan dapping up his invisible teammates.
This is a quite good LeBron piece from Howard Beck, but we must note for the record that Beck is indeed worried about the Cavaliers. Do not fall into this trap, friends!
The Rockets have amped up their three-point shooting rate even more. It’s working.
Meanwhile, Chris Paul might be back on Thursday.
It appears Rudy Gobert and Dion Waiters have beef over Gobert’s injury. The Starters broke down whether it was dirty.
Seriously, Joel Embiid went to town on the Clippers on Monday. You wonder how J.J. Redick felt about it.
Mike Wise with a smart look at Patrick Ewing’s coaching tree, starring (among others) Pat Riley and Jeff Van Gundy.
Whitney Medworth has the definitive timeline of LeBron’s 24-hour New York takeover, capped off with King James posting that he is, uh, the King of New York on Instagram.
Be excellent to each other.
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