A team has turned to stone. Another is creating new awards. And a shooter is no longer just shooting.

Let’s open up the notebook to run through three trends that have caught my eye over the past week:

Statues

No timeout could be more necessary than one Memphis Grizzlies head coach Tuomas Iisalo called Tuesday night.

As a game against the New York Knicks slipped away, so did the Grizzlies’ energy. After the deficit reached double-digits, Ja Morant rolled in a second-quarter layup. The Grizzlies were still within striking distance — though you wouldn’t have known it from the following 10 seconds.

Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson noticed five Grizzlies meandering back on defense and pushed the ball up-court. It’s not like his teammates sprinted with him. The slowest fast break imaginable was unfolding.

No one picked up Brunson until Memphis center Jock Landale rushed his way. By then, it was too late. Brunson galloped to the hoop and kicked the ball to Jordan Clarkson, who caught it on the right wing.

The Grizzlies technically had all five guys back on defense. The Knicks had only 3 1/2 participating in the play. Brunson was the only New York player to cross the 3-point arc. Memphis should have held the advantage. And yet, moments like what happened next have become all too frequent for this team.

Morant drifted into a faux closeout on Clarkson, who skipped to the hoop as if he were in layup lines. No Grizzlies moved.

Immediate timeout.

The Knicks rocked the Grizzlies during that second period before a respectable second-half showing from Memphis cleaned up the cosmetics of another loss. Iisalo praised his team’s effort after the game, pointing out the third- and fourth-quarter fight.

The next night, the Grizzlies, now 4-9, lost to the Boston Celtics by 36.

“The fact that we are struggling in certain games, that’s all right,” Iisalo told reporters on the scene. “It shouldn’t be because of effort like tonight.”

Something is sideways in Memphis. And it’s not just the uncomfortable situation with Morant, who the Grizzlies suspended last week after a halftime snafu with Iisalo, the dispirited second half that followed and the detrimental comments he made postgame. He’s shooting just 35 percent from the field and 16 percent from deep. But the lack of production from Morant, who was out with an ankle injury during that listless performance in Boston, isn’t the only issue.

The Grizzlies have lost seven of eight. Once they get down, defenders transform into statues, like on that Clarkson drive. They are allowing 73 percent shooting at the rim, second-worst in the league, according to Cleaning the Glass. With Morant going through the motions, others have followed his habits. In turn, the offense has cratered, too.

Maybe the Grizzlies turn around their fortunes. It’s still early. Maybe if they find a way to recover the relationship with Morant, they can re-enter respectability.

But today, they’re far from that place.

An unexpected turn

Coming into the season, any conversation about the Charlotte Hornets redirected to the same place: What was this rotation of centers?

They dealt away former first-round pick Mark Williams only a few months after trading another big man, Nick Richards. They pulled off a quirky exchange that sent 7-footer Jusuf Nurkić to the Utah Jazz for yet another scoring guard, Collin Sexton. All that remained were a trio of guys who were either too experienced or too raw: the persistent Mason Plumlee; the undrafted energizer, Moussa Diabate; and the rookie, Ryan Kalkbrenner.

No one predicted this could become the NBA’s best two-way rebounding squad. And yet, three weeks into the season, this is the only team in the top five in both offensive and defensive rebound rate.

It starts with the centers, who are clearing space like few others.

If the NBA replaced the Most Improved Player award with a trophy for Most Improved Insanely Specific Individual Trait, Diabate’s boxing out would sneak onto the ballot. The 23-year-old has always been aggressive on loose balls. He’s a hound on the offensive boards. He slingshots at opponents’ misses and is unrelenting in tapping clanked shots to himself. But until this autumn, if Diabate didn’t get the rebound, the other team probably did.

Hornets head coach Charles Lee has pushed Diabate to adjust, to hit the guy behind him whenever a shot goes up. And Diabate, who has gotten stronger down low, has obliged.

Diabate is now a box-out fiend, which required a mentality change. His goal isn’t for him to get the rebound; it’s for the Hornets to get it.

Last season, Diabate successfully impeded opponents on 66 percent of box-out opportunities, according to Second Spectrum. In 2025-26, he’s up to 82 percent, fifth in the NBA, the greatest year-over-year improvement in the league.

The players who surround him on the leaderboard are mammoths, like Nurkić and Jonas Valančiūnas, the types who can move opponents using only their pinkies. Diabate stands out.

He is 6-foot-11 but weighs less than Donovan Mitchell, who isn’t even thought of as a big guard. Only three years ago, he recorded the lowest body fat percentage in the history of the NBA combine. He’s still causing wreckage on the offensive boards, churning his feet faster than most can. And now he’s wrestling with bigger guys, too.

He’s not the only reason for Charlotte’s success on the glass. After all, Diabate doesn’t even lead his own team in successful box-out rate.

The 7-foot behemoth Kalkbrenner is clearing opponents out on 87 percent of his box-out opportunities, the top figure in the NBA. It’s a wonder how someone of his size, his shot-blocking ability and his professional readiness fell to the second round of June’s draft. He’s already emerging as a Brook Lopez-style rebounder, grabbing less than seven boards a game but propping up his teammates anyway.

Kalkbrenner carves out space in the paint and other Hornets race to the basketball for easy rebounds.

The 4-7 Hornets can’t guard, which will continue to hold them back. But they play fast and bombard the rim like few other offenses can. Their 2025 draft was Reggie Jackson-esque, a three home-run outburst. No. 4 pick Kon Knueppel is already a good player and has a chance to be far better than that. Kalkbrenner was a steal. Fellow second-rounder Sion James isn’t missing shots.

And now, a team that was mediocre on the glass a season ago, traded all its centers only to become dominant rebounders.

Interesting stuff is going down in Charlotte, especially in the Most Improved Insanely Specific Individual Trait race.

All in on Allen

Even without the newcomers, the Phoenix Suns are exceeding early-season expectations. Dillon Brooks has played in just half of their games; Jalen Green is out with a hamstring injury. The guys who arrived in the Kevin Durant trade are not the ones carrying them.

Devin Booker is shining at point guard. Royce O’Neale is draining 3s from the corners. Collin Gillespie has stepped in as a reliable, off-the-bench organizer. And then there’s Grayson Allen, human dynamite.

This is not the same spot-up shooter who has remained on fire since entering the NBA in 2018. Without a conventional point guard in the starting lineup, Allen is taking on more of the burden.

Coming into this season, he had never averaged six 3-point attempts a game. Heading into Thursday night’s action, he was at 9.3. He had never made more than 2.7 long balls a night. Now, he’s at 4.2.

But forget about the 3s. Forget about the distribution, how few are coming from the corners, where he’s at his coziest. Instead, let’s focus on how Allen’s style has changed.

He’s handling the ball more than he has since his rookie season, when the Milwaukee Bucks tried him out as an occasional off-the-dribble creator. No one had put such faith in him since.

Until first-year Suns head coach Jordan Ott did it this season.

Coming into Thursday, Allen had already run 160 pick-and-rolls this season, more than halfway to his previous career high, according to Second Spectrum. He will destroy that number — and, at this rate, he’ll pass it in only a couple of weeks.

Allen is shaking defenders off the dribble. Look at the magic he pulled off during Wednesday’s win over the Dallas Mavericks. Ryan Dunn sets a screen for him. The two defenders, D’Angelo Russell and Naji Marshall, switch assignments, leaving Russell on Allen. And Allen cooks his man with a sweet stepback.

Never before has Allen shown off this type of off-the-dribble work.

He’s taking 3.2 pull-up 3-pointers a game, nearly three times his previous career high, per Second Spectrum. And he’s hitting an outrageous 45 percent of those.

The only two players in the NBA who have taken more above-the-break 3-pointers than Allen are Derrick White and Stephen Curry. Allen’s accuracy on those shots is 19 percentage points higher than White’s and 11 higher than Curry’s.

The Suns are exceeding expectations to begin the season, sitting at 8-5, 13 games in. And one reason they don’t look as predicted is because Allen is not operating in a way anyone could have thought.