This week’s eight things I like and dislike include revisiting the 2019 Anthony Davis trade and where the Los Angeles Lakers and New Orleans Pelicans currently stand, how Julius Randle’s new decisiveness is helping the New York Knicks and why Giannis Antetokounmpo is as dominant as ever in Milwaukee.
| KAT’s runner
Randle’s new decisiveness | Jabari’s bully ball foray
Detroit’s double bigs not working | Lively’s development
Scottie in the pick-and-roll?The dominant Giannis
1. The Los Angeles Lakers and New Orleans Pelicans intersect again
It has been almost five years since the Pelicans, amid the low of Anthony Davis’ trade request, enjoyed a simultaneous jolt of euphoria: Winning the Zion Williamson lottery. In the afterglow of that moment in a Chicago hotel ballroom, David Griffin, the Pelicans’ executive vice president of basketball operations, dreamed that the promise of Williamson might curb Davis’ wanderlust.
“We can be [the Oklahoma City Thunder] with Paul George,” Griffin told ESPN that night. “We can hold onto [Davis] and let him see what we really are.” Griffin likely knew it was a long shot — Davis was hellbent on the Lakers. But leverage is leverage.
A year earlier, George had re-signed with the Thunder despite years of rumors dating to George’s time with the Indiana Pacers that he would head to the Lakers in free agency — rumblings that played some part in the Lakers opting against going all-in for George via trade before the Thunder swooped in: Why give up assets for someone we can sign later?
As the Pelicans celebrated their lottery win, Davis was one year from free agency. The Pelicans were confident the Lakers would not risk waiting again, frittering away another year of LeBron’s prime — that Los Angeles would come with a fat offer even though Davis’ representation (Klutch Sports Group) had dissuaded other suitors.
One month later, the Lakers traded Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Josh Hart, three first-round picks (including the No. 4 pick in the 2019 draft) and one pick swap to nab Davis.
The franchises reconnected on center stage Thursday night in Las Vegas, a blowout 133-89 Lakers win that showed how dangerous this big, smart, ferocious team can be when they make shots.
The Lakers have gotten about what they wanted out of the Davis trade: One title (in 2020) and a high enough floor to insulate them from the Brooklyn Nets-style nightmare of coughing up a top-three pick to New Orleans. (The Pelicans selected Dyson Daniels at No. 8 with the Lakers’ 2022 pick.) Winning only two playoff series in the three seasons since that title counts as a disappointment — one the Lakers hope to rewrite with another deep run.
The Pelicans have won zero series since the Davis trade. Williamson has not even appeared in a playoff game.
But their in-season tournament run was an announcement: New Orleans is as healthy and deep as it has been at any point since the Davis drama. It is loaded with perimeter talent around Williamson and Ingram, with more flexibility to play Williamson at center. (It still needs Larry Nance Jr. too; he’s out with a fractured rib.) It is developing more flow and a clearer hierarchy on offense.
The Pelicans have picks to trade — including one more unprotected Lakers pick from the Davis deal. If the Pelicans stay healthy, they are a threat to make the playoffs and win a round — and perhaps more.
The Lakers are a bit of a Rorschach test: 14-9, but barely a net-positive for the season — plus-27 total points — even after destroying New Orleans on Thursday.
But they are 22nd in points per possession and 15th in half-court scoring efficiency. They were 19th in both categories last season. That did not change in the playoffs. This has been a mediocre offensive team for a while now, and they will not reach the Finals that way — with every possession a slog.
The LeBron James-Davis pick-and-roll has never been quite the fail-safe the Lakers envisioned. Early on, James and Davis often played small forward and power forward, meaning their defenders were like-sized enough to switch — vaporizing Davis’ rolls to the rim.
That is less of a problem now with Davis an almost full-time center. For stretches of every game, the James-Davis two-man game starts rolling downhill — into James layups, Davis lob dunks, and catch-and-shoot 3s for surrounding shooters.
But the Lakers are 27th in 3-point shooting. They were 25th last year. Defenses defang the James-Davis two-man game by clogging the middle and backing away from Davis.
Davis is shooting 21% on long 2s. That is not a typo. He is 3-of-13 on 3s after Lakers coach Darvin Ham suggested in the preseason he take six per game. This is one reason Davis’ scoring output is so maddeningly inconsistent. Defenses sell out to take away the rim, and he has no reliable fallback anymore. When Davis manages 15 points instead of 25, it can be hard for the Lakers to score enough to win. The lost jumper is the difference — the reason Davis can’t score like Nikola Jokic or Joel Embiid every night.
Davis should probably be more aggressive eating up the space defenses concede on his pick-and-pops — driving into the void:
But those alleyways are only there when the spacing is pristine by Lakers standards. Sometimes, there is nowhere for Davis to drive without bowling multiple players over — though Davis might also benefit from slipping harder out of screens more often:
This issue could grow more acute with another non-shooter — Vanderbilt — returning to the rotation. (The Lakers have not played James, Vanderbilt and Davis together much since Vanderbilt’s return.)
The Lakers want to see what they really have before wading into trade talks, league sources say. Hachimura has shot well for them. Austin Reaves is down to 33% on 3s after hitting 40% last season. (The Reaves-James two-man game is effective too — with Davis either around the arc or in the dunker spot.) If both stabilize as solid 3-point shooters, the quartet of Reaves, James, Hachimura and Davis has high two-way potential — and presents lots of optionality in choosing the fifth player. Already (and somewhat due to Gabe Vincent’s knee injury), Ham is toying with lineups lacking any point guard — with Reaves as the smallest player.
No one should close any potential trading doors yet, as none have really been opened. The Lakers cannot make major moves until Jan. 15, when some free agents they signed last summer become trade eligible. Zach LaVine of the Chicago Bulls (and Klutch) is the hot name leaguewide now, but more sellers will emerge in the next six weeks. The sense around the league is that the Lakers are wary of boosting their weak half (offense) at the expense of their defense (and their cap sheet) in any potential LaVine deals.
It’s early yet. The price for LaVine will matter for the Lakers if they show any real interest in him. So will how the Lakers perform in the interim, and who else might be gettable; the Lakers have only one future first-round pick left to trade.
But the Lakers aren’t satisfied with a puncher’s chance at reaching the conference finals again. They can’t be — not with James playing this astonishingly well as he approaches 39 years on this planet and 40,000 points.
I’m bullish. I had the Lakers in my second tier of title contenders before the season — behind only the Denver Nuggets, Milwaukee Bucks, Boston Celtics, and Phoenix Suns — and I still have them in that range. James remains the game’s ultimate problem-solver. They will be a dangerous playoff opponent for anyone — good enough that an upheaval via trade may not be worth it. They could lose in the first round or make the conference finals, and once you’re in the conference finals, you’re in the game.
The Pelicans, meanwhile, are no longer satisfied with being everyone’s favorite “what if?” team.
runner
Rudy Gobert was joking when he quipped that Towns should “get his ass in the corner,” but Towns has adjusted more than any Wolves player to accommodate Gobert. He has to think more about how to hunt shots with Gobert now Minnesota’s primary rim-runner — even where to stand.
Towns makes cameos in the corner. It’s not the best place for a big man with his all-around skills. Towns can’t act as a hub from the corners. Plopping him there kneecaps Minnesota’s transition defense — an area it has finally cleaned up after years of disarray.
Towns is finding the right mix. He can spot up along the arc and pick-and-pop for 3s there when Gobert mans the dunker spot. Still: You don’t limit a seven-footer this skilled to the perimeter — even with Gobert occupying the paint. It deflates Towns’ free throws. On some nights, the 3s go cold. Defenses will switch to erase those looks. And if the Wolves want Towns happy and motivated on defense, they have to let him cook some.
In that vein, this is fast becoming one of my favorite Towns shots:
Towns put a buttery touch on that righty runner driving left — a tricky shot. It’s a weapon he can use when defenses run him off the arc, or (as above) against smaller defenders on switches. He is hitting a career-best 54% from floater range, per Cleaning The Glass. He’s a nifty (if sometimes careless) interior passer when help swarms. If Towns misses, the Wolves are in good position to chase the rebound. The caveat: One corner shooter has to start hustling back on defense.
goes fast
Randle since the New York Knicks 2-4 start: 25 points on 49% shooting, 9.7 rebounds, and 5.5 assists. The Knicks are 10-4 in that span, sporting the league’s No. 5 net rating overall.
Some of that is (mild) shooting luck: Randle has hit 50% long 2s and 70% at the rim in that stretch.
He’s still stopping the ball a bit too much; Randle is averaging almost 16 isolations per 100 possessions, behind only Luka Doncic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and the Knicks are scoring only 0.883 points out of those plays, per Second Spectrum. (Doncic and Gilgeous-Alexander are both well over 1.1 points.)
But over extended segments of each game, Randle is operating with new snappiness:
That is an instant baseline tornado. Even in his two All-NBA seasons, you seldom saw Randle act with such decisiveness.
Randle is a smart passer when defenses converge, and he’s in the middle of maybe the best passing month of his career. He’s dishing earlier, ahead of defensive rotations, and he’s less predictable picking his targets.
The Knicks are bringing out Randle’s passing by running more pick-and-rolls for him — almost 11 per 100 possessions, well above his career high of 7.5, per Second Spectrum. That gives Jalen Brunson more chances in a spot-up role to jack 3s, or roast defenders who sprint at him.
The Knicks have outscored opponents by 9.2 points per 100 possessions with their core four starters — Randle, Brunson, RJ Barrett, and Mitchell Robinson — after that group struggled for years on offense amid clunky spacing. (Spacing is still only so-so.)
Brunson and Randle are averaging 50 points combined on almost 50% shooting since that 2-4 start. New York may not have a top-15 player, but Brunson is close; when both play at this level, the Knicks have two players in the next tier. Barrett is a nice jack-of-all-trades third wheel. Robinson is a bear on both ends.
.’s forays into bully ball
For someone who was the rumored No. 1 pick, Smith can be easy to overlook amid the Houston Rockets’ 9-9 start. He’s averaging 13 points as the fifth option in Houston’s starting five, and does not work much as a rim-running backup center even with Jock Landale — presumed backup — having vanished from the rotation. (The Rockets often split that role between Jeff Green and Jae’Sean Tate.)
Even so, Smith is quietly becoming a very good two-way player with untapped upside. He’s averaging 13 points, shooting 37% on 3s, and at 6-foot-11 can defend all five positions. He has amped up his rebounding. Stop there, and that’s a winning player. But Smith eventually will absorb more shot creation duties — in transition; handling in pick-and-roll; attacking close-outs; and even bulldozing mismatches on switches:
The best defenses offer few vulnerabilities. You need to exploit the ones you find. Heavy-minutes bigs have to establish that opponents can’t stash smaller defenders on them — that they will put those guys in the basket unless you send help.
double-big look isn’t working
This was Detroit’s opening possession against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Dec. 2 — the Pistons’ 17th straight loss:
This is how the Pistons chose to open the game! Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart — two centers shoe-horned into a starting five with negative outside shooting — run a pick-and-roll that is dead on arrival. Duren then hands the ball to Killian Hayes, still starting games for some reason (but then not starting others for other reasons!), and the Cavaliers duck the screen because they don’t care if Hayes shoots. Every defense builds a forcefield around the paint against Detroit.
Plan B appears to be Hayes dribbling around for 10 seconds. Anyone want to set a screen? No? Again: This was the first play of the game!
Detroit’s veteran shooters — Bojan Bogdanovic, Monte Morris, Alec Burks, Joe Harris — have missed most of the season; Detroit would have a (slightly) better record if Bogdanovic had been healthy all along.
Pistons coach Monty Williams should swap Bogdanovic into the starting five for Stewart. A lineup of Cade Cunningham, Jaden Ivey (or whoever Williams picks as the second guard), Ausar Thompson, Bogdanovic and Duren is still young and light on shooting, but it at least makes conceptual sense. The Pistons’ double-center looks — featuring two of Duren, Stewart, Marvin Bagley III and James Wiseman — increasingly do not. (Duren is out the next two weeks with an ankle injury.)
Stewart is shooting 37% from deep, but what appears an encouraging sign is really proof that a decent percentage on wide-open 3s does not alone make a stretch power forward. You also have to make plays in space, and Stewart — as you’d expect from a big masquerading as a wing — is overmatched there:
That Cunningham-Duren pick-and-roll has no chance; Evan Mobley does not even pretend to guard Stewart on the weak side. When Cunningham kicks there, one stunt from Donovan Mitchell undoes the whole possession.
, not defaulting to the kickout
It was unlikely the Dallas Mavericks would breach the contender’s circle this season. They are 12-8 after a 6-1 start, and were an underwhelming plus-17 in 312 minutes with both Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic on the floor before obliterating the hapless Utah Jazz by 50 on Wednesday.
Maxi Kleber has missed most of the season (again); he would unlock a ton of intriguing front-court combinations when Lively rests. Josh Green has been invisible in too many games after entering camp as at least a co-favorite to earn the fifth starting spot. The wing and guard brigade behind Tim Hardaway Jr. is a mystery box. Nobody within the Mavs expected to count on Derrick Jones Jr. quite this much. (Jones has been very good, including defending the point of attack — sparing Irving from that job on lots of nights.)
The Mavs rank 4th in offensive efficiency and 23rd in defense — one of three teams (along with the Indiana Pacers and Atlanta Hawks) flirting with top-five status on offense and bottom-five points-bleeding on defense. History suggests that is not a viable model to make playoff noise, though history has never seen an offense as potent as Indiana’s.
The more reasonable goal for this season was for Doncic to see some roadmap back to contention by the end of it — one or two young players he could bank as mainstays. In that framing, Lively’s emergence as a two-way force is the biggest story in Dallas outside Mark Cuban selling the team.
The Mavs knew Lively could be the lob threat to match dance steps with Doncic. Lively is ahead of schedule on defense.
The happiest surprise is Lively’s feel in space on offense. He looks comfortable catching at the foul line and twirling into the next play when defenses blitz Doncic. In an era when too many players — big and small — kick out of potential layups almost by default, it has been refreshing to see Lively brush aside help defenders in the paint:
A lot of veteran bigs could learn from that: Jalen Williams — 6-5 and built like a tank — is there on time, and Lively does not care. A decent layup is still better than a 3 from a so-so shooter, especially since shots at the rim bring the possibility of free throws and offensive rebounds.
in the pick-and-roll?
The Toronto Raptors have lost four of five and fallen to 24th in points per possession, devoid of a coherent identity on that end despite coach Darko Rajakovic’s best efforts to spice things up. The diminishing returns — and overlapping skill sets — of the Barnes/Pascal Siakam/OG Anunoby trio are undeniable.
Four of Toronto’s next five games are against the Charlotte Hornets and Atlanta Hawks. These next 10 games or so could define their season, and their approach at the trade deadline.
I don’t have the answers, but I like this when I see it:
And this:
(or really anyone) screening for him, and as the dive man when Precious Achiuwa is in at center to provide some spacing. I’m not sure 10% more of this changes anything for Toronto, though it could be a way for Barnes and Siakam to work in tandem more if the defensive matchups are right.
8. The Giannis 4-5 pick-and-roll
Turns out, the Milwaukee Bucks offense is fine — even if it isn’t running as much Damian Lillard-Giannis Antetokounmpo pick-and-roll as most of us anticipated. The Bucks are only busting it out about 10 times per game, though that number is trending up — as is the team’s scoring efficiency out of that action.
Milwaukee is now a tidy plus-57 in 490 minutes with its two superstars on the floor — and third overall in points per possession.
Maybe there is logic to parsing out the Lillard-Antetokounmpo two-man game. They need time to build chemistry, and perhaps rushing it is not the best way to get there in this case. (I’m unconvinced). Defenses are barricading the paint before Antetokounmpo even catches Lillard’s pocket passes, forcing Antetokounmpo to kick to an open shooter. Those are mostly good shots, but the Bucks don’t want to fall into the trap of launching over and over. Fast defenses snuff some of those looks.
The Bucks are also testing other options — the Lillard-Brook Lopez two-man game with Antetokounmpo cutting around it, for instance — and freshening up the Khris Middleton-Antetokounmpo bedrock.
There is also the matter of giving Antetokounmpo the touches to match his stature, and he is having maybe his best pick-and-roll season — including in big big pick-and-rolls with Lopez:
Lopez is cagey about where he sets his screens, often dipping toward the foul line — where it is harder for Antetokounmpo’s defender to skirt under his pick. Antetokounmpo is so at ease now attacking centers off the dribble on switches — too fast, too agile, a master of too many fakes and criss-crossing steps.
Meanwhile, Pat Connaughton has inherited the role — originated by Malcolm Brogdon — as the go-to guard screener for Antetokounmpo in inverted pick-and-rolls. (The Bucks really miss Connaughton and Jae Crowder right now.) This thing is unstoppable:
Connaughton is a master of disguising which direction he’ll angle his pick, and often sets them “flat” — with his back directly to the basket — so defenders have to guess. He’s a threat flaring out for 3s. Milwaukee has poured in almost 1.3 points per possession out of this play.
Lillard has set only six ball screens for Antetokounmpo, per Second Spectrum. If both commit to honing that action, it could become a massively important change-up.
Defense is the issue in Milwaukee — its hurdle to a second title in the Antetokounmpo era — but its MVP is as dominant as ever.
