In the last nine things I liked and disliked of 2023, we look at why the Memphis Grizzlies are back on track with Ja Morant, how the Detroit Pistons are on the verge of becoming basketball’s Zippy Chippy and why the Charlotte Hornets should be happy with Brandon Miller’s play so far.
| The sad-trombone Pistons
Jalen Green is stuck | Toronto’s symbol of stagnation
Atlanta’s Sixth Man candidate | Miller flying under the radar
Pels’ crunch-time meltdown | A good bench contest | Celtics’ uniforms win Xmas
1. Ja Morant is back
Morant will not give his harshest critics what they want — submissive humility and cosmetic change they can point to and say, “The young man gets it now.” He is going to talk trash and dance after game-clinching shots, and it is not for me to litigate whether Morant’s brief dance after his game-icing dunk against the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday — the team’s third stirring comeback since Morant’s return, and second in New Orleans — featured a (very) brief gun gesture or was merely Morant taunting the crowd with a popular local dance.
(Would it be better for Morant to not allow for any confusion? Of course. The league appears indifferent, having issued no statement.)
Morant’s father, Tee, is still courtside, standing and cheering. Tee Morant told SiriusXM NBA Radio last week that the family has made no changes to Morant’s “inner circle.”
Morant won’t cut off childhood friends or boot his father from courtside seats. Could you? Does it matter? The only thing that matters is whether Morant and that inner circle stop doing the things that forced the NBA’s hand in suspending Morant 25 games.
That is an enormous cost, to Morant and the franchise he is supposed to steward. In four games with Morant, the Grizzlies reminded everyone what they were on track to be. (Morant missed Memphis’ blowout loss to the Denver Nuggets on Thursday with an illness.) As is, they are 10-20. They need to go to 31-21 to reach .500 — where the No. 10 Phoenix Suns are now. It’s possible. The margin for error and injury is zero. No team is so young and so good that it can punt an entire season. If this ends up a wasted year, it will be Morant’s fault. That is a permanent stain.
Change comes away from cameras and phones. It manifests in the absence of things. We will know what is happening only with time, or if Morant slips again.
It’s a fine balance to strike — changing without losing the bravado that makes Morant who he is on the court. There, he is unassailable. The Grizzlies need Morant’s sneering arrogance, the belief he can beat anyone, anytime. It emboldens them. They assume his personality. They believe Morant can take them places they can’t reach without him. The best part of Morant’s on-court superstardom is how inclusive it is. He waves teammates to run with him, gives up the ball when he senses someone needs it more, cuts hard, takes charges. (His overall defense needs work.)
Despite so much time away — despite Memphis missing so many rotation players — Morant instantly transformed the Grizzlies into a coherent offensive team. In a blink, they had their identity back. Their pace, free throws, shots at the rim, corner 3s and accuracy on floaters — remember, this was Team Floater — jumped way up.
In a week, he made every signature Morant play. The game winner in his return was one of those implausible shots in which different parts of Morant’s body appear to be moving in different directions and at different speeds. He drove left, spun right, jumped back left — leaning to his left in midair, his defender still flying the other way — and plopped in a floater. He is ungraspable.
When he zooms forward and then suddenly spins away for his step-back, Morant in that moment of directional change resembles one of those freeze-frame photos in which the fast-moving subject — car, sprinter, whatever — extends into a blur in every direction.
He is so fast, some defenses are scared to duck screens for him even though that should be the right strategy; they know Morant can outrace them to the spot under the pick.
We have already seen highlight blocks, Morant screening and rolling for alley-oops — what a thing for a point guard to do! — and acrobatic floaters released on the way down.
Desmond Bane stretched his game without Morant and is ready to put it all together now. Jaren Jackson Jr. found his offense before Morant returned. Just a year ago, the Grizzlies seemed primed for a long run of contention behind that trio — plus a bushel of picks to find another impact player. They turned two of those picks (and Tyus Jones on an expiring contract) into Marcus Smart, but they still own all their future first-rounders and some swap rights.
Potential tax and second apron issues could limit their trade flexibility in the next half-decade, but that depends on several variables — including how far the cap jumps. Several of their recent first-round picks haven’t yet panned out. Most of their moonshots at adding another heavy-minutes wing — Justise Winslow, Luke Kennard, Ziaire Williams over Trey Murphy III — have missed.
— the racehorse who never won a race. Late in his career, he became the subject of those classic TV soft-lens sympathy profiles. If this streak hits 35 games on Jan. 10 — approaching half a season! — the Pistons might become basketball’s Zippy Chippy in terms of sad-trombone media coverage.
(At home against the Toronto Raptors on Saturday is winnable. The Pistons should have Dwane Casey — now in a front office role — join the coaching staff for that game. The Pistons went on a streak of vengeance wins over Toronto during Casey’s Detroit tenure — after the Raptors fired him.)
It would take an entire column to trace all the draft misses and bad signings that got the Pistons here — looking like a team in Year 1 of a rebuild despite being in Year 5. Every whiff, even those well into the past, ripples into the present in opportunity cost. They all matter — from Killian Hayes and Stanley Johnson to Josh Smith and Jon Leuer and Bruce Brown (and many more).
They enjoyed major lottery luck just once, in a year with no can’t-miss superstar. In time, Cade Cunningham might approach the average return for a No. 1 pick but fall short of foundational star status. Jaden Ivey (No. 5 pick in 2022), Ausar Thompson (No. 5 pick in 2023) and Jalen Duren (No. 13 pick in 2022) have a chance to meet the expected return for their pick slots; Duren should exceed his.
But it was sad that this mundane possession made me bolt from my seat:
That is, kind of, almost, Cunningham and Ivey complementing each other. With occasional exceptions, one stands around while the other runs the show. They diminish each other that way because neither is a shooting threat. There is a world in which they work together in more intricate off-ball actions — think of the pick-and-roll symphony coach Monty Williams helped build with the Phoenix Suns — but those actions don’t bend the defense if neither party can shoot 3s.
A crippling lack of shooting is this team’s defining feature, compounded by Williams’ insistence on using double-center lineups that are dead on arrival. It drives Detroit’s spewing of turnovers; the Pistons are 29th in turnover rate, and holy smokes are some of them ugly. It might be a long time before any NBA team gives us so many wayward inbounds passes, slingshots into the fifth row and guys just sort of falling over.
Like, what is Ivey trying to do there? That is more contortionist act than basketball play. It’s as if Detroit’s ball handlers know a thicket of bodies awaits in the paint and try to cram through whatever shred of daylight they see.
So many of Cunningham’s league-leading 124 turnovers follow a related script:
Cunningham punctures the paint, meets a swarm of defenders and picks up his dribble without any available outlet. The only option is some thread-the-needle prayer, and some of those — including that one — have been wildly inaccurate. Cunningham has also missed some open passes. Sometimes he steps out of bounds, or simply drops the ball.
, remember these Pistons when you demand your team tank. Without luck and above-average decision-making, you might wander the NBA desert for 10 or 15 years — as the Sacramento Kings did before last season.
3. Jalen Green is stuck (maybe in his own head)
Green’s play is the only blot on the Houston Rockets’ Phase II season. The numbers give the surface accounting: 17 points (down from 22 last season) on horrendous shooting — 39% overall, 33% on 3s, 56% at the rim — and an assist-to-turnover ratio closer to even. Coach Ime Udoka has benched Green in several fourth quarters.
After a summer honing his shot selection and pick-and-roll decision-making, Green looks to be trapped between the competing impulses roiling his brain — sometimes pressing as if to extricate himself from a slump in one play, and then fading into jittery passivity and deference.
There are still too many of these:
The Greens — Jalen and Jeff — can’t coordinate on an effective screen, so Jalen Green just jacks a well-contested long 2 with 15 on the shot clock. There is no place for that shot anymore.
When Green attacks the rim, it is almost always in a frantic rush. He flies around screens and launches himself without time or space to find a backup plan. You admire the confidence — it will serve Green well — but it’s also why he bonks layups and coughs up panicked turnovers. Green needs to build an in-between game and figure out when to slow down.
You see glimpses of Green making simpler plays and getting rid of the ball early:
These passes help the offense flow, and the ball often ends up back in Green’s hands.
But even on some of those plays, you can almost hear Green overthinking: This is what Coach wants, right?
Houston’s winning record relieves some pressure on Green. The veteran imports have delivered. Alperen Sengun is in All-Star contention. Jabari Smith Jr. and Tari Eason are thriving — outplaying Green. Aaron Holiday has revived his career.
becoming the symbol of stagnation in Toronto
The Raptors have arrived at a sad moment of clarity. They are 12-18, 11th in the East, 21st in offensive efficiency and 17th on defense. They don’t really do anything well.
They are way short on 3-point shooting around Scottie Barnes. The Barnes-Pascal Siakam-OG Anunoby trio has too much of the same thing. We’ve heard this before, but unless Toronto turns this around in a big way in the next month-plus, I’d be surprised if we don’t see some direction-shifting trade at the deadline.
The Raptors had chances at last year’s deadline but went the opposite way — acquiring old friend Poeltl from the San Antonio Spurs for a protected first-round pick. It helped them reach the play-in (hooray!). Poeltl and Fred VanVleet rediscovered their pick-and-roll chemistry. The Raptors blitzed teams with their best players on the floor.
VanVleet bolted in free agency; Poeltl hasn’t been the same since. He has hit a league-leading 70% of his shots, but you barely feel that. It’s not entirely his fault, but there are too many nights when you struggle to remember anything Poeltl did.
Dennis Schroder, VanVleet’s replacement, is a below-average shooter who can’t unlock Poeltl the same way, especially given Toronto’s awful spacing around them. (The Raptors in Wednesday’s win over the Washington Wizards replaced Schroder in the starting five with Gary Trent Jr., boosting their shooting at the cost of some playmaking.)
Poeltl’s minutes are down. He has dropped back to 51% at the line. Opponents have hack-a-Jak in the bag in fourth quarters, and Poeltl resorts to push shots — which he’s good at, but still… — instead of forcing contact.
has surged, and it might be worth examining how his perimeter-oriented game might fit alongside Toronto’s core starters.
5. Bogdan Bogdanovic, mixing it up as a Sixth Man of the Year favorite
Hey, another team that has — barring a big turnaround — reached clarity! The Atlanta Hawks have lost three straight and are now tied with the Raptors at 12-18. Injuries to Jalen Johnson and De’Andre Hunter hurt, but this has been a mediocrity since the 2021 conference finals run — even since coughing up three first-round picks to pair Dejounte Murray and Trae Young. The Hawks are facing a tax bill next season for a sub.-500 team. Something has to give.
If this is where they are in a month, everything but maybe moving Johnson should be on the table (and likely will be to varying degrees given what is realistic leaguewide and stomachable for Atlanta).
Bogdanovic, though, has done his job and probably stands as a favorite for Sixth Man of the Year. He’s averaging 18 points and sniffing 40% on 3s — many of which are heavily contested — and goes on prolonged heaters that leave you wondering whether he’ll ever miss again.
The Hawks have outscored opponents by 3.8 points per 100 possessions with Bogdanovic on the floor — and are minus-5.8 when he sits. They are plus-28 in 103 minutes with the smallish Young/Murray/Bogdanovic trio — a look Hawks coach Quin Snyder was hesitant to bust out until injuries mounted.
Bogdanovic is much more than a spot-up shooter. He ran a fair amount of two-man game with the Kings and has been smart picking his spots to drive in Atlanta.
That goes beyond attacking closeouts. Bogdanovic can eke by guys who press him at a standstill:
That’s a nice hit-ahead from Young, who has thrown a lot of those to Bogdanovic. There are things to nitpick about Young’s game — how it impacts the larger team ecosystem and translates to winning at the highest levels — but passing is not one. He is an outrageously gifted passer.
The Hawks badly need more off-ball verve in their Young-Murray lineups; Bogdanovic brings it with canny screens and hard slips that nudge the offense toward the basket.
, San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama and Miami’s Jaime Jaquez Jr. — with the last one butting into the Sixth Man of the Year race. (The Heat are 18-8 since starting 1-4 — on a four-game win streak now — despite seemingly missing at least one key player in every game. Watch out. #HeatCulture.)
Dallas’ Dereck Lively II is the early favorite for the fourth first-team All-Rookie spot. Several other rookies have seized the spotlight here and there: Ausar Thompson and Marcus Sasser early for the Pistons; Brandin Podziemski more recently on Golden State; Anthony Black as the fifth starter on a good Orlando Magic team; Cason Wallace playing critical bench minutes for the Thunder; Washington’s Bilal Coulibaly; Jordan Hawkins of the Pelicans; and Keyonte George with the Utah Jazz in fits and starts. Everyone is curious about Portland’s Scoot Henderson.
It will be years before we really know whether the Charlotte Hornets were right to choose Miller over Henderson, but they should be happy with Miller’s play so far. To almost zero acclaim, Miller is averaging 14.7 points on decent shooting — 44% overall, 38.5% on 3s — and hanging in across four positions on defense.
He has been a bit hit or miss in what is mostly a spot-up role, tentative on some on-ball chances. He has 48 free throw attempts in 26 games and blah assist-to-turnover numbers. Charlotte has scored only 0.85 points directly out of Miller’s drives — 260th among 299 players who have recorded at least 20 drives, per Second Spectrum data.
But it’s hard to parse those numbers, given Charlotte’s injuries and lack of top talent. Miller’s shot looks good, and his pull-up 2 should become a nice late-clock fail-safe. He has also shown some ability to bully smaller guards when opponents hide weaker defenders on him:
Again, it’s a little awkward. You can see Miller feeling out the NBA game — how fast he can go, when to slow down, how to avoid fouls. But there’s something to be said for a young guy starting from a place of calm control and learning how to build his explosiveness atop that.
and Jonas Valanciunas do nothing the entire possession. CJ McCollum does nothing between his token entry pass and serving as a one-on-one bailout.
This is a collision of bad shooting luck and lack of reps, compatibility and perhaps even trust — or at least a clear conception of the hierarchy on offense. In the grand scheme of things, Williamson, Brandon Ingram and McCollum have not played much together. Their skill sets are not so naturally compatible — at least not within this roster — so building chemistry will take time.
That process gets harder if three of the crunch-time five are non-threats from deep, as when Williamson, Valanciunas and Herbert Jones play together.
One note on that stalled possession: Trey Murphy III was on the floor over Jones. Earlier in that fourth quarter, New Orleans used Murphy in a supersized lineup without a traditional guard — Murphy, Ingram, Jones, Williamson and Valanciunas. Murphy played the entire overtime. He played most of the fourth quarter in New Orleans’ clutch win over the Utah Jazz on Thursday night.
is an innovator. When the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame builds my Wing of Absurdity, it will devote a permanent exhibit to Kornet’s long-distance calisthenic contest. It is spreading to NBA benches. Watch Rui Hachimura in the right corner:
I assumed Hachimura executed this in the moment on his way to the scorer’s table. Nope. Hachimura sat back down. He just felt the urge to help the Los Angeles Lakers’ defense. With Cason Wallace directly across the court, perhaps Hachimura thought he could sneak into Wallace’s line of sight.
and good Christmas uniforms
This is how you do Christmas uniforms:
The Celtics enter with a sartorial advantage, given green is their hallmark — the base of maybe the best and most famous uniform in sports. But the red accents are perfect. The Celtics were smart not to overdo it with red sleeves covering every limb.
Kudos to Andy Mannix, Boston’s equipment manager, for coming up with the idea and persuading the players to do it — and to NBA officials for greenlighting an exception to the league’s uniform regulations.
The snowflakes above the last names were gorgeous and really popped against the darker jerseys.
In previous seasons, the snowflakes appeared on the front shoulder, but they work better here.
It was hard to see the snowflakes on white jerseys, but some teams might not have another option depending on the opponent and court design. The Lakers did, and the basketball gods punished them for wearing white instead of their illustrious yellow-gold duds. Their white alternates are popular, but any Celtics-Lakers matchup demands the full-on classic look; the mere sight of gold and green gives me goose bumps.
These little touches are all we need on Christmas; no sleeves, no fancy cursive scripts, no over-the-top gimmicks.
