stars<\/a> to miss far more games than the occasional liberty taken by tanking teams to hold our their most talented guys. Gordon might be the most notable example, given his recent track record, but it\u2019s almost certain one of the league\u2019s elite will have to adjust to a key player going down between now and April. (The 65-game rule also makes this matter more than it ever has before.) Let\u2019s hope for health. The ever-rising number of injuries, however, suggests we should prepare for the worst.<\/p>\nDoes Jayson Tatum return?<\/p>\n
The Boston Celtics were not supposed to look like contenders without Jayson Tatum this season. Even if they remained competitive, this was meant as a gap year, one spent waiting for the All-NBA first-teamer to return. Instead, the Celtics have the league\u2019s fourth-best record and third-best point differential.<\/p>\n
Boston has accomplished this by arguably being the league\u2019s hardest-playing, most consistent team. This team doesn\u2019t miss rotations nor jog through them; they hurl themselves at the offensive glass every chance they get; they deconstruct opponents less talented than them. Look under the hood, though, and it\u2019s harder to believe in this team\u2019s absolute ceiling being title contention. Boston has a losing record (8-9) and a negative point differential against top-10 opponents. It prioritized tax relief over roster improvements at the deadline, which makes sense as a longterm play to rebound next year. Replacing Anfernee Simons with Nikola Vucevic could help, but it\u2019s not guaranteed to. No one in the Eastern Conference wants to face them in the postseason, make no mistake, but it\u2019s reasonable to also believe that they\u2019ll falter at some point. That it\u2019ll become clear this team has a Tatum-sized hole.<\/p>\n
Unless he does come back, and he might.<\/p>\n
Tatum recently practiced with the Celtics\u2019 G-League squad, and it\u2019s been continually hinted that he could return to the court this season. If he does and looks even mostly himself, we\u2019ll have to completely reframe our expectations for who might actually come out of the East.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the next All-Star pivot?<\/p>\n
Count me as a skeptic that the league\u2019s new All-Star Game format, pitting American players against international ones, will work any better than the other failed changes. We\u2019re probably headed, next week, towards more discourse focused on fixing this unfixable game. It\u2019ll feel like a culture war issue meant to distract from the league\u2019s actual issue: When stars get hurt more often than ever before, with already three players being replaced due to injuries, why would they care? Don\u2019t mock the players for not trying when it\u2019s the league\u2019s responsibility, truly, to figure out how to more often keep them on the courts that actually matter.<\/p>\n
What happens to the Clippers?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s anticipated the league will announce its findings, and potential punishments, for its investigation into the L.A. Clippers stemming from Pablo Torres\u2019 investigation into what appeared to be salary cap circumvention to further pay Kawhi Leonard. That\u2019s notable for the sport. Under the league\u2019s new collective bargaining agreement, where teams are essentially held to a hard cap, every dollar has more importance. It depends what the league finds, of course, but coming down on this behavior feels important beyond L.A.\u2019s alleged transgressions.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s possible how the Clippers finish this season, however, will have an even larger impact on the league. L.A. owes this year\u2019s first-rounder to Oklahoma City, as you may know, and the Clippers downgraded its roster at the trade deadline. They\u2019ve won too many games to avoid being a Play-In Tournament team; I\u2019m confident L.A. won\u2019t regress to the version of itself that started 6-21. It still matters where that picks fall, though. The Clippers losing in the Play-In Tournament, giving the Thunder even some slim percentage points at the top four, would set up a true disaster scenario that the league, with all its parity-driven thinking, would dread.<\/p>\n
Who wins Rookie of the Year?<\/p>\n
Cooper Flagg will be the best basketball player selected in the 2025 draft. There isn\u2019t all that much doubt about that. And if the season ended today, Kon Knueppel would have my vote over him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thus far, Knueppel has had the most efficient season from a rookie of all time. I\u2019m excluding big men but including anyone else with at least 800 minutes: forwards who mostly dunked, older rookies who came in polished; bench cogs who played smaller rotation roles. Knueppel clears them all, and he\u2019s done that while averaging nearly 19 points per game as a full-time starter. He has been spectacular far beyond his 3-point shooting, although that\u2019s the standout; he\u2019ll shatter the rookie record for most 3s made in a season sometime later this month. And he\u2019s been doing exactly this since the season\u2019s first game.<\/p>\n
Flagg can\u2019t be blamed for starting slower. He was told he would have to fit into a team that was designed to win this season, an idea he believed even as it started unraveling from the season\u2019s very first jump ball. He\u2019s played large swaths of this season either without a point guard, with an undrafted rookie free agent at point guard, and with D\u2019Angelo Russell. He had to realize he was Dallas\u2019 best player and the team\u2019s primary option by himself. Of course, given all that, he\u2019s had more bad games, more 4-of-13 shooting outings, than his Duke teammate.<\/p>\n
If Flagg plays the rest of this season like he has the past six games \u2014 averaging 32 points on 53 percent shooting while making 46 percent of his 3s \u2014 there won\u2019t be any discussion who wins. Knueppel can\u2019t top those heights Flagg has lately reached because almost no player, of any experience level, can. Even then, these are the two most impressive rookies we\u2019ve seen enter the NBA at the same time in decades. Let\u2019s hope Flagg\u2019s foot injury heals quick, because this race should have a hell of a finish.<\/p>\n
How high do the Hornets rise?<\/p>\n
Charlotte has been basketball\u2019s coolest story of late, and it\u2019ll continue if the team keeps playing like this. LaMelo Ball has positively impacted winning his entire career \u2014 don\u2019t forget the Hornets were 3-36 without him last season \u2014 but that was often hard to be sure about due to the lack of talent around him. Knueppel and Moussa Diabat\u00e9 and more health has changed that. To Ball\u2019s credit, he has also reduced his TikTok hooper insanity. Don\u2019t get me wrong: Watch Charlotte and, most games, you\u2019ll still see Ball do something you haven\u2019t seen before. But those moments, increasingly, are positive ones. It\u2019s still impossible to predict his brain\u2019s decision tree on any given possession. There\u2019s just no question, these days, that it scrambles opponents far more than anything else.<\/p>\n
Does Scoot Henderson look like Portland\u2019s future?<\/p>\n
Henderson missed this season\u2019s first 52 games. With his return, the Portland Trail Blazers hope, come answers about the franchise\u2019s forward direction.<\/p>\n
Portland needs a point guard. This team\u2019s offense has been cataclysmic without Deni Advija; Damian Lillard and Jrue Holiday, if he\u2019s on the team, can\u2019t be next season\u2019s primary initiators. This year\u2019s coming draft has point guard prospects galore, and five are projected to be top-10 picks. That would be great news, but Portland has won so much this season that the team\u2019s all but locked into the Play-In Tournament. And, depending on what happens, the Blazers might not have a first-round pick at all.<\/p>\n
Portland owes its first-round selection this summer to the Chicago Bulls, but that pick does have top-14 protections. This situation could resolve itself: If Henderson thrives the rest of this season, Portland losing that pick wouldn\u2019t have such extreme implications even if the team has a successful Play-In Tournament. If Henderson doesn\u2019t take another step, Portland just might not be good enough to beat two teams \u2014 likely the Clippers and the Golden State Warriors, who both got worse in the past month \u2014 and it will still have that pick to use, perhaps in an attempt to move up into that top-10 to draft one of these studs.<\/p>\n
The worst case scenario: Henderson doesn\u2019t improve from his first two seasons but Portland still wins in the Play-In Tournament to lose this summer\u2019s selection. But Henderson has the chance to erase this conversation completely if he finally comes good on his draft prestige.<\/p>\n
Does Anthony Black continue to rise?<\/p>\n
One more guard whose play the rest of this season has major implications on his franchise\u2019s future is Anthony Black. Right now, the Orlando Magic are set to pay a combined $155 million to Franz Wagner, Paolo Banchero, Jalen Suggs, and Desmond Bane next season. Even through all their injuries, we\u2019ve seen that foursome enough to know it\u2019s not good enough to be a contender in the East. Orlando should be prepared this summer to make a decision on which one\u2019s the odd man out.<\/p>\n
Black\u2019s ascension this season has taken him from an energy bench guard, as he was his first two years, to an All-Star-adjacent level. Since Nov. 14, he\u2019s averaged almost 18 points and five assists while knocking down about 35 percent of his 3s. Notably, that hesitation he once had behind the arc is gone. Is this really who he is now? Will this mini-slump he\u2019s currently stuck in carry past the All-Star break? If so, how does that affect how much money Orlando\u2019s willing to offer him in his rookie extension? If not, does he inspire the confidence needed for Orlando\u2019s front office to choose him over one of the core four? Over Banchero or Suggs?<\/p>\n
Orlando\u2019s huge decision will be affected by how well he plays. We\u2019ll be watching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBA\u2019s All-Star break can be viewed as the season\u2019s halfway mark. While teams have played about two-thirds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-744620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}