Rockets’ Kevin Durant Ruled Out For Game 5
Kevin Durant has been ruled out for Game 5 of the Rockets’ first-round series against the Lakers on Wednesday, Law Murray of The Athletic tweets.
Durant has only appeared in one game during the series. The star forward missed the last two games due to a left ankle sprain and bone bruise and didn’t participate in practice with the Rockets on Tuesday before they left for California, according to Kristie Rieken of The Associated Press. He was seen running on an anti-gravity treadmill.
Coach Ime Udoka provided an update on Durant, who missed Game 1 with a right knee injury, before the team headed out.
“We’ll see,” Udoka said. “It is day to day, game to game. But we’ll have to get on the court and do some things, and he didn’t participate in practice today. But he’s doing the conditioning and other aspects to try to get back.”
Durant scored 23 points in 41 minutes during the team’s Game 2 loss. In Game 4, Tari Eason supplied 20 points, eight rebounds and five steals in place of Durant as Houston staved off elimination.
On the Lakers’ side, Austin Reaves is listed as questionable. He hasn’t played in the series due to a left oblique muscle strain but is reportedly optimistic about returning for Game 5.
Spurs Notes: Barnes, Fox, Vassell, Johnson
The Spurs hold a 3-1 advantage in their first-round series against the Trail Blazers and can close it out on Tuesday night. Veteran forward Harrison Barnes experienced a championship with Golden State, so he knows what it takes to make a deep playoff run.
Relying on the identity the Spurs have built during the season is a key to postseason success, Barnes told Marc J. Spears of Andscape.
“The biggest thing is continuing to do what we’ve been doing, which is relying on our habits,” Barnes said. “We’ve had 82-plus games to build an identity and the coaching staff led by Mitch [Johnson] has us well-prepared every night. It’s just a matter of sticking to our standard. We’ve had great contributions from all of the guys in different moments, which is something I am very proud of.”
Barnes says the Spurs have all the tools to win a title.
“We have depth and variability on both ends of the floor. We’re able to score in a multitude of ways. We’re able to defend in multiple ways,” Barnes said. “And because we’ve had so many different lineups throughout the season, we’ve been able to win in different ways.”
Here’s more on the Spurs:
- De’Aaron Fox delivered his best outing of the series with 28 points and seven assists in Game 4, when the Spurs pulled away to a 114-93 win. He scored 11 of those points in the fourth quarter. “It might have been his best game as a Spur,” Johnson said, per Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News (subscription required).
- Devin Vassell, who has three seasons remaining on his five-year, $135MM contract, came up big in the third quarter of Game 4. Vassell scored nine of his 11 points during that span, sparking the Spurs’ 73-point second-half explosion. “Just being patient, not forcing anything,” Vassell told Tom Orsborn of the San Antonio Express-News (subscription required). “We have a lot of great players and sometimes the ball just doesn’t come your way. So just being ready whenever the ball is swung my way and just being ultra aggressive after I get it.”
- Keldon Johnson earned the league’s Sixth Man of the Year award this season. Johnson believes that commitment to the team supersedes any individual goals, he told ESPN’s Michael C. Wright. “I was averaging 22 points [as a starter], had some individual success,” Johnson said. “I’ve been [an Olympic] gold medalist. But I realized that if you want to be here, sometimes you’ve got to remove your ego. San Antonio is a place I wanted to be. I wouldn’t change it for the world. I get an opportunity to be a part of something special. They saw the bigger picture before I did. But I’m blessed and fortunate to be able to go through it, thrive in it and have fun with it.”
NBA’s Lottery Reform Plan Includes 16 Teams, Flattened Odds
Major reforms to the draft lottery system could be on the horizon beginning next year.
The NBA has shared with its 30 GMs a new anti-tanking, draft reform proposal termed the “3-2-1 lottery” that includes expanding the lottery to 16 teams, flattened odds, and a “relegation zone” where the bottom three teams will be penalized with fewer lottery balls for the No. 1 pick, ESPN’s Shams Charania reports.
If passed during the league’s Board of Governors meeting on May 28, the new system would be in place in 2027.
Here’s some of the key elements to the “3-2-1” proposal, named to represent the number of lottery balls per team, according to Charania and The Athletic’s Sam Amick:
- Teams that do not qualify for the playoffs or play-in tournament but stay out of the relegation zone (ie. the teams that finish with the fourth-worst record through the 10th-worst record) would receive three lottery balls each.
- Teams with a bottom-three record — the relegation area — would have just two lottery balls but would have a floor of the 12th pick, while the rest of the 13 lottery teams could fall as far as the 16th pick.
- The 9th and 10th play-in seeds in each conference receive two lottery balls each, while the losers of the 7-8 play-in games receive one lottery ball each.
- No team would be able to win the No. 1 overall pick in consecutive years or be able to have three consecutive top-five picks.
- Trade rules would also be impacted. Teams would not be able to include protection in the 12-to-15 range on traded picks going forward.
- The proposal includes a sunset provision, with the new system expiring following the 2029 draft and requiring an affirmative vote of the Board of Governors to either continue with the system or transition to a new one.
- The league would have expanded disciplinary authority to regulate tanking by having the option to reduce teams’ lottery odds and/or modify teams’ draft positions.
Commissioner Adam Silver, who has been pushing hard for a revised lottery system, initially offered a variety of proposals to address tanking. The league office has held multiple critical meetings with its Board of Governors, competition committee and 30 GMs over the last few weeks to narrow toward this new singular proposal ahead of the owners’ vote.
There could be minor modifications to the proposal, but the key points of the framework have a majority of the support from teams, sources told Charania.
Warriors Notes: Kerr, Green, Offseason, Giannis
At the end of an extensive, in-depth interview with Charles Bethea of The New Yorker (subscription required), Steve Kerr spoke as if he isn’t ready to step down as the Warriors‘ head coach. Kerr said he doesn’t want to “abandon” Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, and the rest of the team, and said he still enjoys the work that coaching entails.
“I wake up excited to come to the gym and coach basketball and collaborate with the staff and see the players and try to help them achieve something,” Kerr told Bethea. “That’s an amazing life. And that’s all that really matters is: Do you enjoy what you do every day and are you fulfilled? I still am.”
Appearing on Yahoo Sports Daily on Tuesday (YouTube link), ESPN’s Brian Windhorst suggested even if Kerr is interested in remaining in his current position, it’s not necessarily as simple as Golden State’s longtime head coach simply deciding whether or not to return.
“What I think people have misunderstood about this (is that) this is not a straight emotional decision, like, ‘Do I have it within me to coach the Warriors or not?'” Windhorst said (hat tip to RealGM).“There is not a contract sitting on the table. It’s not like the Warriors said, ‘Hey man, sign this anytime, whenever you feel like it.’ They did not have contract extension discussions. They called those off. Steve called those off. He is making the highest salary amongst all NBA coaches at $17 million, that’s a championship-competition-level salary. This team is not a championship contender right now.
“The other thing… (is) there is some desire within the organization for Steve Kerr to potentially change his coaching staff. There’s some desire for Steve Kerr to change some strategy, particularly offensively. That is not a controversial statement. When a team that is this expensive and this veteran underachieves and misses the playoffs, to say that you want potential changes is not a shocking thing. But the question is, is Kerr willing to make those changes? Is Kerr willing to coach for a different salary next year? These are the real questions. This is where the rubber meets the road.
“… This might come down to a negotiating thing. It might not be sentimental at all. This might be good old-fashioned negotiating. Steve Kerr can leave the sideline and walk right into a broadcasting job, in a selection of places, for big money and an easier life. So his leverage is there that he has that out there.”
As Kerr weighs his future, we have more on the Warriors:
- Within that same New Yorker interview, Kerr also explained why he’s skeptical that Green will want to become a basketball coach after he retires as a player. “I don’t know that he’ll coach,” Kerr said. “He definitely has the brain for it. I don’t know if he has the patience. He’s an incredibly passionate, emotional guy, and that passion and energy has frequently gotten him in trouble. And I love him. I think he’s a really good-hearted person with an incredible brain, but if he wants to coach he’s going to have to learn how to control some of that emotion, that desire, and that fire that burns within him, and it’s not an easy thing to do.”
- Dalton Johnson of NBC Sports Bay Area evaluates the 2025/26 Warriors based on several areas, including offense, defense, new additions, and health, among others. Golden State’s stars – Curry and Jimmy Butler – earned the highest mark (a B-plus) from Johnson, since they remained highly productive when they were healthy.
- Yossi Gozlan of The Third Apron (Substack link) explores several of the decisions facing the Warriors this summer and wonders whether the team might try to maintain salary cap flexibility for 2027 if it doesn’t trade for a star in the coming months.
- What would it take for the Warriors to acquire Giannis Antetokounmpo in a summer trade? Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report considers that question and lays out a hypothetical scenario in which Golden State gives up four first-round picks along with Butler and Brandin Podziemski for the two-time MVP.
And-Ones: NBA Europe, D. Jones, Expansion, NCAA
Officials representing the NBA, FIBA, and Euroleague Basketball met in Switzerland on Tuesday and released a statement after that sit-down announcing that they had “constructive” discussions about the future of European basketball and “potential opportunities for collaboration.” The three parties agreed to continue those conversations in the coming weeks.
The NBA continues to target the fall of 2027 as a potential start date for its European league, according to Marc Stein of The Stein Line (Twitter link), who suggests that over 20 existing basketball and soccer clubs in Europe have presented bids for potential NBA Europe teams.
The NBA hasn’t offered many specific details in recent weeks, but deputy commissioner Mark Tatum stated on Monday that the NBA and FIBA are “very, very happy” with the interest shown so far in the league, reports Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press.
“Right now, we’re just going through that process of narrowing down those bids into a little bit of a short list and trying to go out and continue to build partnerships with the right people in those markets,” Tatum said. “… We’re really thinking this is a global opportunity and we want to take advantage of the European culture and the European affinity for the game of basketball. This is not going to be the NBA opposing anything in Europe. This is going to be a European league, built by Europeans, with Europeans, with our partners in FIBA as well.”
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- As expected, former NBA player and assistant coach Damon Jones formally entered guilty pleas on Tuesday to two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one connected to NBA gambling and one to an illegal poker ring, per Michael R. Sisak of The Associated Press. Jones stated in court that he took part in a scheme to defraud sportsbooks by disseminating “insider information that I obtained as a result of my relationships as a former player” and that he acted as a “face card” to recruit players for poker games that he knew were rigged. Jones, who is scheduled for back-to-back sentencing hearings on January 6, faces 21 to 27 months in prison in the NBA gambling case and 48 to 63 months in the illegal poker case, based on sentencing guidelines.
- Although no formal bids for expansion teams have been put on the table this early in the process, there has been “substantial outreach” from potential investors for franchises based in Las Vegas and Seattle, sources tell Randall Williams of Bloomberg Sports (subscription required). Williams adds that early indications suggest Vegas is generating more interest than Seattle.
- The NCAA took another step on Monday toward eliminating redshirt seasons and allowing college athletes to compete for five full season instead of four, according to Scott Dochterman of The Athletic. If the rule change is implemented, it wouldn’t give athletes who competed in the 2025/26 academic year an extra year of eligibility.
Northwest Notes: Jones, McDaniels, Blazers, Jazz
After he made just 15-of-48 shots (31.3%) during the Nuggets‘ two losses in Minnesota, Nikola Jokic submitted a more characteristic performance in Game 5 on Monday, racking up a triple-double (27 points, 16 assists, 12 rebounds) while knocking down 9-of-15 field goal attempts.
Perhaps even more importantly, Denver’s supporting cast stepped up in a major way. Jamal Murray scored 24 points, Cameron Johnson had 18 points on 8-of-13 shooting, and – in his second career playoff start – Spencer Jones added 20 points on 7-of-9 shooting to go along with three blocks and three steals.
As Jason Quick of The Athletic and Bennett Durando of The Denver Post (subscription required) detail, Jones began the season on a two-way contract but showed as early as the preseason that he deserved a longer look after playing sparingly as a rookie in 2024/25. Jones ended up starting 37 games and averaging 22.1 minutes per night, and he has emerged as a crucial part of Denver’s lineup in these playoffs with Aaron Gordon and Peyton Watson sidelined.
As good as Jones was offensively on Monday, head coach David Adelman wanted to talk after the game about the forward’s defense. Adelman first considered a rotation role for Jones last fall based on the way he guarded Brandon Ingram in a preseason game, and his defensive effort was on display again in Game 5 as he took on the Julius Randle assignment.
“He just competes, man,” Adelman said of Jones, who will be a restricted free agent this offseason. “Randle’s an All-Star. Randle’s a load. And nobody in this room would want to be near Randle in their lives. And (Jones) just stands there and takes the hits.
“I thought he was really good outside of one time (at) not fouling him, either, where he made him take tough contested shots. A couple times, (Randle) got to his right shoulder and he laid the ball in with his left hand. But that’s why he gets paid a ton of money, because he’s a really special player. But the stuff early, he pushed him out. That’s the thing with Randle. If you concede space, just go home. I think Spence did a good job of competing for the spot.”
Here are a few more items of interest from around the Northwest:
- Since calling out Denver’s defense after the Timberwolves‘ Game 2 win, Jaden McDaniels has embraced the villain role and was willing to add more fuel to the fire following Minnesota’s loss on Monday, writes Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic. “I love this environment, everyone hating me, all the hate’s coming toward me,” McDaniels said of being booed by the Denver faithful. “I love it. I don’t care. I feed into it. It just brings the best out of me. We just ended up losing today, but we’re going to win the next one.”
- As Sean Highkin of the Rose Garden Report notes (via Twitter), the Trail Blazers‘ two-way players have made the trip to San Antonio for Game 5 on Tuesday. Players on two-way contracts aren’t eligible to play in the postseason, but Portland was the only team not to bring its two-way players on the road during the first two games of a first-round series, with new owner Tom Dundon looking to reduce spending.
- After finishing either 29th or 30th in defensive rating in each of the past three seasons, the Jazz expect former Defensive Player of the Year Jaren Jackson Jr. to help on that end of the court in 2025/26. Still, they know they’ll need to do more this offseason to fix one of the league’s worst defenses, according to Sarah Todd of The Deseret News. “Defense is going to be a team-wide goal for us this summer,” president of basketball operations Austin Ainge said. “Every guy’s been told that we’re making a big leap next year defensively. No discussion. It’s going to happen.” Head coach Will Hardy singled out Ace Bailey and Keyonte George as two players he wants to see more from on defense.
Celtics’ Brad Stevens Named Executive Of The Year
For the second time in three years, Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens has been named the NBA’s Executive of the Year, the league announced today (Twitter link).
Stevens, who also earned the honor in 2024, is the 12th individual to win multiple Executive of the Year awards, according to the NBA.
The 2025/26 season was widely expected to be a “gap year” for the Celtics, who were determined to shed salary after operating above the second tax apron and lost star forward Jayson Tatum to an Achilles tear during the 2025 playoffs. Stevens made a series of cost-cutting moves last offseason, trading away Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis and allowing Luke Kornet and Al Horford to walk in free agency.
However, with Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, and Payton Pritchard leading the way and modestly paid contributors such as Neemias Queta, Sam Hauser, and Jordan Walsh playing key rotation roles, the Celtics remained competitive both before and after Tatum’s eventual return in March. The team won 56 regular season games despite the fact that Stevens completed another series of financially motivated transactions at the trade deadline to get Boston’s team salary below the luxury tax line.
Unlike most of the NBA’s major end-of-season awards, Executive of the Year is voted on by the league’s general managers rather than by media members.
Stevens received 11 of 28 possible first-place votes from his fellow executives and finished with 69 total points. That was enough to beat out runner-up Onsi Saleh — the Hawks general manager actually showed up on the same number of ballots as Stevens (17), but earned primarily second-place (10) and third-place (6) votes and finished with 41 points.
Trajan Langdon of the Pistons (six first-place votes, 40 points), Jeff Peterson of the Hornets (five first-place votes, 37 points), and Sam Presti of the Thunder (three first-place votes, 25 points) rounded out the top five finishers, while Brian Wright of the Spurs earned the remaining two first-place votes.
Six other executives showed up on at least one ballot. The full voting results can be viewed right here (via Twitter).
Suns Notes: Ott, Booker, Gillespie, Offseason, Lawsuit
The Suns became the first of this year’s 16 playoff teams to be eliminated from the postseason, falling at home on Monday as the defending champion Thunder completed a four-game sweep. It was the third straight conference quarterfinal sweep for Oklahoma City, according to Tim MacMahon of ESPN, who notes that the team is 12-0 in first-round games under head coach Mark Daigneault.
How should the Suns feel about their season? As Doug Haller of The Athletic writes, the team lost momentum in the second half, posting a record of 16-23 after February 1 (including play-in and playoff games). However, injuries played a part in that slide, and Phoenix’s performance in the first three months of the season far exceeded outside expectations for the club entering the fall. The Suns’ over/under was set at 31.5 wins and they finished 45-37.
“We were counted out,” forward Dillon Brooks said on Monday. “We were supposed to be a laughing-stock, losing team. And we proved a lot of people wrong.”
The general consensus among Suns players and coaches is that their 2025/26 performance represents a positive first step, with head coach Jordan Ott suggesting his team “should be proud” of what it accomplished, per Haller. Still, after Phoenix needed two games to advance through the play-in tournament and then didn’t register a win in the playoffs, star guard Devin Booker was disappointed the club couldn’t do a little more this spring.
“We exceeded everybody else’s expectation, but not ours,” he said.
Here’s more on the Suns:
- Ott earned praise from Suns players after Monday’s loss for the work he did and the foundation he set in Phoenix during his first year on the job, per Shane Young of Suns.com (Twitter link). “This is a building block to some stability and chemistry,” Booker said. “Something that’s been needed around here.”
- Booker didn’t score more than 24 points in any of the four playoff games vs. Oklahoma City and made just 5-of-20 (25.0%) of his three-pointers. While scoring against the Thunder’s league-best defense is no easy task, Haller of The Athletic notes that Booker no longer seems as capable of flipping the “alpha switch” as he once was, while Gerald Bourget of Suns After Dark evaluates the upside of Phoenix’s roster as long as the veteran guard is their leading man.
- After signing a one-year, minimum-salary contract to remain in Phoenix last offseason, guard Collin Gillespie enjoyed a breakout year, with career highs in points (12.7), assists (4.6), and rebounds (4.1) per game across 80 appearances (58 starts). Gillespie’s confidence is soaring as he prepares to reenter free agency, he told Logan Stanley of The Arizona Republic. “I learned a lot. I learned that I can play at a high level and that I belong,” Gillespie said. “I learned a lot, especially here in the playoffs, about championship-level stuff, playing a really good basketball team — the details in that.” Gillespie added that he hopes to remain with the Suns and said he and the team have had “good conversations” about that possibility.
- Besides negotiating a new deal with Gillespie, the Suns will also have to see if they can re-sign guard Jordan Goodwin and center Mark Williams, ESPN’s Bobby Marks writes within a preview of the team’s upcoming offseason. Brooks will also be entering the final year of his current contract and will be eligible to sign an extension that could be worth up to a maximum of $125.4MM over four seasons.
- A discrimination lawsuit filed against the Suns by former security employee Gene Traylor has been dismissed with prejudice. Baxter Holmes of ESPN has the story.
Central Notes: Bulls, Lewin, Donovan, Pacers, Mobley
After previously identifying Matt Lloyd, Bryson Graham, and Dennis Lindsey as finalists for the Bulls‘ head of basketball operations job, Jake Fischer of The Stein Line adds another name to that list, reporting (via Twitter) that Celtics assistant general manager Dave Lewin met with Chicago and is advancing to the round of in-person interviews.
A Massachusetts native and a longtime member of Boston’s front office, Lewin joined the Celtics as a scouting coordinator in 2012. He later held the titles of director of scouting, G League general manager, and director of player personnel before being promoted to assistant GM in 2022.
According to Fischer (Twitter link), the Bulls seem “very much on pace” to have a new top basketball executive installed in advance of the start of the draft combine, which officially begins on May 10.
We have more from around the Central:
- Within their latest NBA rumor round-up, Fischer and Marc Stein of The Stein Line (Substack link) provided some additional context on Billy Donovan‘s decision to split with the Bulls just a year after signing a contract extension. According to Fischer and Stein, that new deal that Donovan signed in 2025 included a 2026/27 option clause that allowed Donovan to “walk away at his discretion.” Donovan and several Bulls staffers shared the view that a rebuild is likely in the team’s best interest, sources confirm to The Stein Line, which was a major factor in the veteran coach’s decision to step down.
- Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star (subscription required) considers six questions the Pacers may have to answer this offseason, including who to draft if they keep their top-four protected pick, whether or not to extend Jarace Walker and/or Ben Sheppard, and whether to hang onto reserves like Quenton Jackson and Kam Jones.
- Evan Mobley made just 8-of-24 shots in Games 3 and 4 in Toronto and the Cavaliers were outscored by 33 points when he was on the court. Still, head coach Kenny Atkinson gave the 2025 Defensive Player of the Year a vote of confidence following Sunday’s loss, as Joe Vardon of The Athletic relays. “Evan has been one of our best players in this series,” Atkinson said. “Maybe (Sunday), you could argue he wasn’t, but he has been one of our better players throughout the series.” No Cavalier is under contract for longer than Mobley, who has four years and $222.7MM left on his deal after this season.
Austin Reaves Trending Toward Game 5 Return?
Lakers guard Austin Reaves is optimistic about his ability to suit up for Game 5 of the team’s first-round series against Houston on Wednesday night, reports Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link).
Reaves, the Lakers’ second-leading scorer during the regular season, has been out for nearly four weeks after suffering an oblique strain on April 2. Initial reporting indicated that he was expected to remain on the shelf for approximately four-to-six weeks, so if he’s able to return to action on Wednesday, he’d be narrowly beating that timeline.
Reaves was listed as questionable for Games 3 and 4 before being eventually downgraded to out. It’s not out of the question that could happen again, with Charania noting that Reaves’ status will be a game-time decision for a third consecutive contest. However, it sounds like his return is imminent.
In 51 regular season outings, Reaves averaged a career-high 23.3 points on .490/.360/.871 shooting while also chipping in 5.5 assists, 4.7 rebounds, and 1.1 steals per game.
The Lakers hold a 3-1 lead over the Rockets, which means they’re guaranteed at least three more games this spring, so it’s a pretty safe bet we’ll see Reaves sooner or later, even if it doesn’t happen on Wednesday. It remains to be seen whether the same is true of his backcourt mate Luka Doncic, who has also been sidelined since April 2 due to a hamstring strain. Lakers head coach JJ Redick said on Sunday that Doncic has been able to do a little on-court work, but still isn’t moving around much.