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It’s the birthday of my basketball 🐐, Michael Jeffrey Jordan. His Airness turns 63 today. I’ve rewatched “The Last Dance” a few times, and even though it’s a Jordan commercial for 10 episodes, I accept and love it every time. Maybe because it’s a Jordan commercial. Nobody has ever entertained me on a basketball court the way he has. Here’s a 19-minute compilation of MJ’s top plays. Happy birthday, GOAT!
Silver bullets
The biggest tank-aways from the NBA commish
When NBA commissioner Adam Silver spoke to the media on Saturday during All-Star weekend, the biggest topic was tanking. Tanking is such an issue that Silver didn’t even try to find more league-friendly nomenclature like Marc Stein’s Draft Positioning Prioritization Mode. Or maybe it was just to make the conversation easier? Regardless, Silver openly said the word “tanking” over and over as he addressed the issue.
We essentially have nine teams refusing to put the best product on the floor, and the Bucks are the only non-Play-In Tournament squad still openly holding out hope for a better tomorrow by competing today.
“Every possible remedy to stop” tanking is being considered, Silver said. That’s awesome! The league isn’t closing itself off from solutions. But what does that mean?
“It’s time to take a fresh look at this and to see whether that’s an antiquated way of going about doing it,” Silver said of the NBA Draft Lottery, in which the 14 teams that do not make the postseason have a chance to land the No. 1 pick in the draft.
The NBA recently fined the Jazz $500,000 for keeping Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. out of fourth quarters in consecutive games, which is funny because they accidentally won one of those games. They also fined the Pacers $100,000 for keeping Pascal Siakam out of a game. But the fines aren’t severe enough to stop teams. Then what could happen?
Taking away draft picks? Maybe.
Change the way the lottery is weighted? On the table.
Abolish the draft altogether? I don’t think they’re prepared to go that extreme yet.
Silver didn’t seem to have any direct ideas he was willing to share, if they even exist yet. League officials are going to, again, discuss every possible solution to fix this problem. You can’t have fans paying full price for intentional slop. (Although I think tanking teams should charge full price, but use at least half of that as a credit toward next season’s tickets for those fans.) Regardless, we’re going to come to a head with this thing pretty soon.
There were two other big items on the ledger for the news conference.
What’s going on with the Kawhi Leonard/Clippers investigation? Silver isn’t close to a decision on punishment (if any) because he’s not doing the investigation. There’s a law firm still doing its due diligence in figuring out if the Clippers circumvented the cap. Many people around All-Star weekend were wondering if Silver had it in him to drop the hammer on the Clippers if there’s evidence that they cheated in this way. I wonder if we’ll find out before the season is over.
Do we have any clarity on expansion? Absolutely not. Las Vegas and Seattle are the presumed front-of-the-line options, but all Silver would commit to is that the league is still planning on making a decision this year.
The last 24
🏀 Let’s fix it. Shakeia Taylor has some ideas to fix All-Star weekend. What about the NBA Cup final being held then?
📈 Power Rankings. Law Murray has his latest rankings and a new top dog. It’s Detroit vs. Everybody.
⭐ Searching the stars. We polled players at All-Star weekend on various topics. Here are their thoughts on the league’s best player, biggest issue and best player podcast.
🗣️ Not happy. Jaylen Brown had an event in Beverly Hills shut down by the cops. He criticized the police for what they did.
🏀 Not yet? LeBron James was asked about potential retirement. “When I know, you guys will know.”
Stream the NBA on Fubo (try it for free!) and catch out-of-market games on League Pass.
Tanking Tuesday
I’ve found my favorite remedy
I was on my SiriusXM NBA Radio show “Deals and Dunks” with Marc Stein yesterday, and he proposed a hybrid tanking solution. It came from an amalgamation of something that was discussed on Bill Simmons’ podcast and something a reader, Daniel Joyaux, emailed him. The proposed tanking fix is that teams must win at least 27 games in a season to get their full lottery odds. If you fall short of 27 games, then you head to the back of the lottery odds.
This is from The Stein Line substack:
“My pitch: The NBA needs to seriously consider implementing a rule that stipulates teams can only remain eligible to secure the highest possible odds to win the draft lottery if they win at least 27 games.
“Joyaux’s garrulous proposal suggests a 25-win minimum. I like 27-55 as the cutoff to secure the highest possible lottery ends — with teams that fall short of 27 wins moving to the bottom of the lottery order — because winning one-third of your games hits me as less arbitrary.”
He goes far more in-depth, but I think this is brilliant. It does raise the question of whether the league would be punishing teams that suffer through key injuries and lots of them. Think of the aforementioned Pacers. Tyrese Haliburton blew out his right Achilles tendon in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Indiana has had a lot more injuries this season, but missing one of the best guards in the league is not exactly tanking. The Pacers are on pace to win 22 games this season. Would that be fair?
Or does fair have zero to do with this? There are currently six teams on pace to win fewer than the proposed 27-game threshold. The Jazz (26-win pace), Pelicans (22), Nets (23) and Pacers are all within a good effort of getting to 27 wins. It’s really just the Wizards (21) and Kings (17) who need more than a good week or week and a half of determination to get on track to reach this level.
I’m sure there are problems we haven’t thought of with this idea, and figuring out how exactly to order the teams that fall short (maybe it is just the end of the lottery but in reverse order?) of winning one-third of their games could take a brainstorming session. But I’ve been enamored with this proposal since I heard about it yesterday morning.
Facing the future
Ranking options for next face of the NBA
We’re pretty sure that LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Steph Curry are headed toward retirement relatively soon. James could retire this summer, while KD and Steph could follow in a couple of years. Unless the latter two want to play into their 40s? The NBA needs to start figuring out who the next face of the league is. Why does that matter? Because marketing this league and finding that player you know will bring eyeballs and attention to the NBA is massive.
After the All-Star Game, where Victor Wembanyama deservedly received so much of the credit for getting everybody to play hard, Jared Weiss wrote about Wemby as the next face of the league.
“Wembanyama’s emergence as one of the faces of the league has come as much off the floor as on the hardwood. He doesn’t just dilate the filter when polarizing questions come his way; he pulls the pulpit closer.
“Is it time to officially declare Wembanyama as the new face of the NBA?
“‘Obviously, the social media, (the) NBA can promote whoever they want. But at the end of the day, it’s going to be the best players and who the people ask for,’ Wembanyama said on Sunday. ‘Being the face of the league, it’s something that can be manufactured, but only to some extent. It’s only going to be the best players. This is what it’s all about.’”
He understands it. He gets it. He wants it. Wemby knows what that means for him as a competitor and as someone who loves the game. The 22-year-old wants his legacy to be up there with the greatest to ever do it, and it takes a different wiring to reach for that and obviously get it. Is he the sure thing for Face of the NBA once the older stars are done? Let’s rank the five best options.
5. Cooper Flagg: Wired with unreal competitiveness? Check. Plays both ends of the floor? Check. Wants to dominate the very best? We saw that during his practices against Team USA in 2024. Skill set? Developing. Winning? Not quite yet, but he’s a 19-year-old rookie. Flagg could absolutely find himself there.
4. Luka Dončić: Sometimes I forget he’s only 26 years old, because he’s been around seemingly forever. There aren’t many players who can challenge him for best offensive player in the world. But Luka will need to go on a real run of winning to take this crown. He doesn’t defend at all, and he complains a ton to the refs. Maybe that prevents him from being the face?
3. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: Already has an MVP and a title under his belt. He’s one of the most unguardable players we’ve ever seen, and he plays defense too. His team is in a position to win a few more titles. He’ll be 28 this summer, so he’s in his prime now. I just wonder if the public will embrace him because of his fouls-and-free-throw reputation.
2. Anthony Edwards: It could very easily be Ant if he wanted it. I’m not sure he wants it, even though he knows it’s something the NBA would love to happen. Edwards has an unreal skill set that’s still developing. He’s this good already, and he’s only 24. He’s awesome on both ends of the floor and has developed a good clutch reputation now. He’ll also need some accolades and titles to put him in the position, though. He’s never finished higher than seventh in MVP voting.
Like Flagg, though, Edwards is American-born, like every other previous face of the league.
1. Wemby: I mean … duh! We’ve never seen anything close to Wemby in terms of skills at his physical dimension. He has a phenomenal mindset that is both challenging those around him and wanting to challenge the ghosts of the game. Since the moment he entered the league, it’s been obvious that a ceiling doesn’t exist for him. He’s a walking, talking, dunking and blocking convertible.