Wolves Notes: Randle, Reid, McDaniels, Beringer
The Timberwolves were missing starting forward Jaden McDaniels on Wednesday, and Anthony Edwards‘ shooting slump continued — he made just 6-of-20 shots from the floor, including 1-of-8 three-pointers, and has now shot just 10% (3-of-30) from beyond the arc over his past four games.
Still, as Chris Hine of The Star Tribune writes, the Wolves built a 27-point lead against the lowly Wizards behind big-time production from forwards Julius Randle and Naz Reid, who signed lucrative new multiyear contracts with the team in free agency over the offseason. The duo combined for 60 points and 15 rebounds, though Minnesota’s lead dropped all the way to five points in the fourth quarter before the club put the game away.
“We got lucky, to be honest,” Randle said after the victory. “Really our edge and our activity and our aggressiveness — all that stuff, we kind of just left it in here at halftime. We’ve got to be better and more mature than that.”
Reid agreed with that assessment, responding, “Yes and no” when he was asked if he was happy with the win.
“Not like that,” Reid said. “It’s still an NBA team. Obviously, I don’t want to just roll over them. But we still got to hold ourselves to a higher standard. We know better than to put ourselves in that situation.”
Here’s more on the Wolves:
- Reid, whose five-year, $125MM deal was the most lucrative contract signed by any free agent this year, got off to a slow start, with averages of 10.8 PPG and 5.0 RPG on .421/.321/.647 shooting through his first 11 games. But he’s rounding into form (20.3 PPG, 8.8 RPG, .552/.483/.750 shooting in his past four games) and is showing why the Timberwolves value him so highly, according to Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic. “He’s a starter coming off the bench for us. He’s one of the best bigs in the league,” teammate Donte DiVincenzo said. “The way he can space the floor, the way he can handle the ball, it gives us such a unique wrinkle to what we can do. We can play him with so many different guys.”
- McDaniels, who has a sprained left wrist, missed his first game in nearly two years on Wednesday, snapping a streak of 157 consecutive regular season appearances. There’s no “firm read” yet on the severity of that injury, tweets Krawczynski. Head coach Chris Finch told reporters that imaging on the injury came back relatively clean and that the team will be monitoring McDaniels to see how his wrist responds to treatment in the next few days.
- Timberwolves rookie big man Joan Beringer, who just turned 19 last Tuesday, has only seen garbage-time action in the NBA so far, logging 37 total minutes across nine appearances. According to Finch, the plan is to assign Beringer to the G League at some point in the near future so that he can get some run with the Iowa Wolves (Twitter link via Hine).
And-Ones: NBA Schedule, Breakout Players, Cap Room, More
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, who has advocated in the past for shorter regular seasons, is beating that drum again this fall with soft tissue injuries on the rise around the NBA, writes Nick Friedell of ESPN. Kerr said he’s “very concerned” about the increase in injuries, pointing to an increased pace of play and a relentless schedule as two factors he believes are contributing to the trend.
“The pace difference is dramatic,” Kerr said after Tuesday’s game vs. Orlando. “This team tonight has really upped their pace compared to last year. I think across the league everybody understands now it’s just easier to score now if you can beat (the other team) down the floor, get out in transition. But when everybody’s doing that, the game’s are much faster paced, and everyone has to cover out to 25 feet because everyone can shoot threes.
“… We have all the data,” Kerr continued. “Players are running faster and further than ever before, so we’re trying to do the best we can to protect them, but basically have a game every other night and it’s not an easy thing to do … (The medical staff) believe that the wear and tear, the speed, the pace, the mileage, it’s all factoring into these injuries.”
Kerr said the NBA has done a commendable job of trying to reduce back-to-backs and instances of four games in five days, but points out that it has resulted in teams rarely getting more than one day off between games, which results in little recovery time and almost no opportunities for practices.
“We literally have not had a single practice on this road trip. Not one,” Kerr said after the fifth game of a six-game trip. “We’ve gone a week, or longer, eight days, not one practice. It’s just game, game, game. So not only is there no recovery time, there’s no practice time. What was different back in the day — you did have four in five nights, which was not great, but then you’d have four days before your next game. So you’d take a day off, and you’d actually have a couple good practices and scrimmage. So there’s no easy answer here.”
Kerr isn’t alone in believing that playing fewer regular season games would benefit the players — Knicks forward Josh Hart agreed with that sentiment on Thursday, as Stefan Bondy of The New York Post relays. However, both Kerr and Hart acknowledged that it would be very difficult to actually implement that change due to the loss of revenue that would occur..
“Do I think there’s too many games? Yeah,” Hart said. “Conversely, will (team owners) and the league and players take a pay cut to not do that? I don’t know. It’s easy to sit there and say that we play too many games — which we do — but conversely, we’re also blessed to be able to benefit greatly from it.”
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the NBA:
- In a pair of stories for The Athletic, Fred Katz takes a look at some of the NBA’s most improved players so far this season, while John Hollinger zeros in on several of the league’s breakout players. Heat forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Pistons center Jalen Duren show up on both lists, with Hollinger suggesting Duren appears to be on track for max or near-max money when he reaches restricted free agency next summer.
- Previewing the salary cap landscape for the 2026 offseason, Keith Smith of Spotrac projects that six teams will operate with cap room, led by the Wizards with over $80MM in space. We conducted a similar exercise earlier this month, noting that the Wizards, Jazz, Nets, and Bulls are best positioned to go under the cap, while several other teams – like the Lakers and Clippers – are in the “maybe” category depending on what happens with certain free agents and player options.
- A panel of ESPN’s NBA insiders takes an early look at potential trade-deadline needs for eight NBA teams hoping to contend this season, including the Pistons, Lakers, Warriors, Timberwolves, and Knicks. In the view of Bobby Marks, the Pistons are better positioned than any other Eastern Conference playoff team to make an in-season move, given their cap flexibility, movable contracts, and extra draft picks.
Latest On Plans For NBA Europe
Appearing at the Sports Business Journal Dealmakers conference, NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum spoke in more details about plans for the NBA’s European league, according to Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic and Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal.
Confirming previous comments from NBA Europe managing director George Aivazoglou, Tatum said the league expects to have permanent franchises based in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Greece. He also named some specific existing clubs that the NBA views as candidates to join the league, including Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and LDLC ASVEL.
“There’s nothing definitive yet,” Tatum told Vorkunov. “We’re having conversations with lots of potential investors in the ecosystem. Those were examples of potential teams. As I said, I think the mix will be an example of existing teams in the current top-tier league, some soccer teams that don’t have a basketball club and some teams from whole cloth.”
Tatum described the NBA’s vision as “almost like the Champions League of basketball in Europe,” per Friend.
“So brands like Real and Barca and Man City and PSG and AC Milan playing basketball,” Tatum said. “That’s pretty compelling. Not only premium live sports content that’s relevant in Europe, but it’s relevant globally. It’s relevant in Asia, it’s relevant in the United States and North America because some of the brands that we’re talking to have tremendous global followings.”
Tatum believes that many top European teams will have their licenses with the EuroLeague expire after the 2025/26 season, opening the door for those clubs to join the NBA’s league.
“My understanding is that those licenses are up at the end of next year,” he said, per Vorkunov. “As you know, I think, because it’s been reported, several teams have not signed that license (extension). So the ones that have, again, I’m not going to speak to their ability to get out of that license, but I know that there are several teams that have not signed that license. And so, I think as I understand it, when those licenses are up, they’re free to go play in whatever league they want to play in.”
NBA owners still haven’t formally approved plans for the European league, but it sounds like that’s viewed as a formality at this point — Tatum suggested that bidding for NBA Europe teams is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2026, as long as the league can get “everything signed off on by our owners and by FIBA.”
Here’s more from Tatum on the NBA Europe plans:
- While there’s momentum toward launching the league in the fall of 2027, that first season would likely feature fewer teams and would function as a “play-in” year, according to Vorkunov, with the first year of the full league occurring in 2028/29. “If you’re in Lithuania, if you’re in Serbia, if you’re in Croatia, other clubs in those markets, we want every team to have an opportunity to play into that top tier league,” Tatum said of the play-in process, per Friend.
- The NBA is hopeful that the new league will help slow down the trend of top European prospects coming to the U.S. to play college basketball, Tatum said, since it will give them the opportunity to develop their games and make good money closer to home.
- Tatum added that the clear goal for NBA Europe is to be the second-best league in the world. “It will be the best basketball in Europe,” he said, per Friend. “… If the NBA is players one through 450, [NBA] Europe is 451 through 900.”
- The league envisions NBA teams and NBA Europe clubs playing one another in preseason exhibitions, with the opportunity for the top European clubs to get involved in the in-season NBA Cup down the road. “In the immediate short term, you could see a competition, think about it as a preseason cup, where NBA teams go over and play against European league teams,” Tatum said. “And you’d create a little tournament around that, where the Knicks and the Lakers and the Bulls go over and play PSG, Real, and Man City. So that we could do year one, and I think that would be an exciting proposition. You award a cup at the end of that. Medium term – and I mean, you know, five to 10 years down the road – you could see a situation where the winners of the top two finishers in the European league, for example, get entered into the NBA Cup tournament. So now all of a sudden, you are having AC Milan and Barcelona playing in the NBA Cup tournament.”
- In the longer term, the NBA’s European league could open the door for European expansion teams in the NBA itself, Tatum suggested: “You saw the article about the supersonic travel. At some point – and again, I’m talking long term down the road – you could see a scenario where the quality of the basketball continues to rise. Where you now have world-class infrastructure in these major world-class cities, and where supersonic travel becomes a reality, you could see a situation down the road where there’s a division of the NBA.”
Injury Notes: Melton, Banchero, McDaniels, Garland
The Warriors provided an update on guard De’Anthony Melton on Wednesday, announcing in a press release that Melton has intensified his workouts and participated in practices and scrimmages with the Santa Cruz Warriors in the G League (Twitter link). According to the club, Melton will continue to be integrated in practices and scrimmages with the NBA team and will be reevaluated in 10 days.
Melton tore his ACL last November and underwent surgery to repair the tear on December 4, sidelining him for the rest of the 2024/25 season. He has continued to progress through the final stages of his recovery after rejoining Golden State on a minimum-salary deal prior to the season.
According to Anthony Slater of ESPN (Twitter link), December has been the “floating target” for Melton’s season debut, so he could be just a few weeks away from returning to action.
Here are a few more injury updates from around the NBA:
- Magic forward Paolo Banchero, who is dealing with a left groin strain, will remain out for a fourth straight game on Thursday vs. the Clippers, tweets Jason Beede of The Orlando Sentinel. It’s worth keeping a close eye on how much time Banchero misses, since his maximum-salary rookie scale extension includes Rose Rule language — he could earn a significant raise if he makes an All-NBA team this season, but he’d only be eligible if he appears in at least 65 games.
- Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels has been diagnosed with a sprained left wrist after exiting Monday’s game in the third quarter due to the injury, per The Associated Press. McDaniels will sit out on Wednesday vs. Washington, marking his first injury absence since December 8, 2023. The 25-year-old is off to a hot start, having averaged 17.5 points per contest with a 52.1% mark on three-pointers through 14 games.
- Cavaliers point guard Darius Garland will miss a fifth straight game on Wednesday after re-injuring his surgically repaired left great toe last week, but head coach Kenny Atkinson doesn’t anticipate Garland’s absence lasting much longer. “He is close,” Atkinson said (Twitter link via Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com). “Really close.”
Bam Adebayo Cleared To Return For Heat
Heat star Bam Adebayo will return to action on Wednesday vs. Golden State, the team announced, per Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel (Twitter link).
Adebayo has been out since November 5, having missed Miami’s past six contests due to a left big toe sprain. The team held its own in his absence, winning four of six games and registering a pair of two-point victories over the conference-rival Knicks and Cavaliers during that stretch.
In his seven healthy games this season, Adebayo averaged 22.4 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 3.3 assists per game, with a .462/.356/.861 shooting line. He was averaging 6.4 three-point attempts per night in those first seven outings, which would be a career high by far — he shot 2.8 shots threes per game in 2024/25 after attempting a total of just 104 in his first seven seasons.
Kel’el Ware has been starting at center with Adebayo out and has recorded four consecutive double-doubles, with averages of 15.0 PPG and 14.3 RPG during that stretch. Ware and Adebayo started alongside one another five times earlier in the season, so Adebayo’s return doesn’t necessarily mean that head coach Erik Spoelstra will move the second-year big man back to the bench.
Either way, Ware figures to play a significant role, since the Heat will be monitoring Adebayo’s minutes in his first game back, per Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald (Twitter link). Additionally, while Adebayo will be backin action , the Heat won’t have a fully healthy frontcourt, as Nikola Jovic (hip) will miss Wednesday’s game, tweets Winderman.
The Heat will be taking on a shorthanded Warriors team. After previously ruling out Stephen Curry (right ankle soreness), Al Horford (left toe injury management), and Jonathan Kuminga (bilateral patellar tendonitis), Golden State has also downgraded Jimmy Butler (right low back strain) and Draymond Green (illness) to out, tweets Anthony Slater of ESPN.
Spurs Notes: Fox, Wembanyama, Kornet, Olynyk
The Spurs have won back-to-back games since Victor Wembanyama went down with a calf strain, pulling out a 10-point victory over Memphis on Tuesday despite also missing reigning Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle due to a hip flexor strain. As Jeff McDonald of The San Antonio Express-News writes (subscription required), De’Aaron Fox led the way with a team-high 26 points, but San Antonio got important contributions from several less heralded players.
Veteran forward Harrison Barnes scored 23 points; Kelly Olynyk was a +15 in 19 minutes of action; Jeremy Sochan and Keldon Johnson combined for 26 points and 13 rebounds off the bench; and Luke Kornet, despite going scoreless, played solid defense in his second start in place of Wembanyama.
“We want to play our brand of basketball and try to maintain our same identity no matter who is in,” head coach Mitch Johnson said. “It was really good to see so many people help win.”
“No one thought we’d be missing this many guys or two of our top three scorers,” Fox added. “We’ve had a lot of guys that have been in and out of the lineup. You’ve got to continue to get wins. That’s what good teams do.”
Here’s the latest on the 10-4 Spurs:
- The Spurs figure to take a very cautious approach with Wembanyama’s return timeline, according to McDonald (subscription required), who notes that calf strains have become increasingly common across the NBA and have been precursors to Achilles tears in some cases. Even if that worst-case scenario is a rare outcome, rushing back from a minor calf strain can lead to an aggravation that requires a lengthier absence, McDonald writes. “As we’ve seen around this league recently, the calf tightness thing is not something you want to take lightly,” Johnson said. “We don’t want to push it there.”
- San Antonio is better positioned to navigate a Wembanyama injury this season due to the frontcourt depth the front office added in the offseason, including signing Kornet and trading for Olynyk. Writing for the Express-News (subscription required), McDonald examines the impact that duo has had so far and describes how Kornet rejuvenated his career after briefly considering retirement in 2022 during a stint in the G League. “A big perspective (shift) was just realizing if you’re not enjoying your time in the G League, you’ll not enjoy it in the NBA,” Kornet said. “… It was just recommitting to, ‘How do I serve and where do I fit in?’ And just letting that take you wherever you go.”
- After playing only five games together last season, Fox and Wembanyama shared the court for just four games this fall between the time Fox returned from his hamstring strain and Wemby sustained his calf injury. Despite their limited time playing together so far, Fox has bought into the idea of being the Robin to Wembanyama’s Batman, according to Jared Weiss of The Athletic. “It’s very clear we have the face of our franchise and (Fox is) comfortable with that and everyone around him is,” Johnson said. “I think for De’Aaron to be one of the faces of his franchise (in Sacramento) prior to joining our group and wanting to really be here and show that desire, it helps set the tone for everybody else. Because he has been someone who’s been in similar shoes, where he’s been the max guy and the big dog with his group.”
Cuban: Mavs Don’t Intend To Trade Anthony Davis
3:25 pm: Cuban is contradicting what MacMahon’s sources said about Davis, telling Joe Vardon of The Athletic that the Mavericks won’t try to trade the 10-time All-Star this season.
“We won’t,” Cuban wrote in an email when asked if he and Dumont would look to move Davis. “We want to try to win.”
While Cuban is part of the Mavericks’ brain trust, he’s essentially serving as an advisor and doesn’t have the final say on basketball matters, so he won’t be the one ultimately making the decision on Davis. It’s also possible his position will change prior to February 5 if the 4-11 Mavs don’t begin turning things around in the coming weeks.
7:54 am: The Mavericks will explore the trade market for big man Anthony Davis prior to this season’s deadline, multiple team sources tell Tim MacMahon of ESPN.
There has been rampant speculation since the Mavericks parted ways with head of basketball operations Nico Harrison last week that Davis will end up on the trade block. MacMahon’s report is confirmation that the team will at least consider dealing the 32-year-old during the 2025/26 season.
As MacMahon explains, Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont and his new team of decision-makers – including co-interim general managers Michael Finley and Matt Riccardi, head coach Jason Kidd, and minority owner Mark Cuban – are “plotting to pivot” to a future built around this year’s No. 1 overall pick, 18-year-old Cooper Flagg. While Flagg represents the franchise’s long-term future, it remains unclear how significant a roster overhaul the club is mulling.
Davis has an impressive NBA résumé that includes 10 All-Star appearances, five All-NBA berths, five All-Defensive nods, a championship, and a spot on the league’s 75th anniversary team.
However, he also has an extensive injury history, which has reared its head in a major way since he was traded from Los Angeles to Dallas as part of last season’s shocking Luka Doncic blockbuster. Davis has appeared in just 14 of 48 possible regular season games for the Mavs since that deal and is currently sidelined due to a left calf strain.
Davis had hoped to return by now, but has been held out of action by the club’s medical staff. Dumont has reportedly been involved in that decision-making process, having pushed for a cautious approach in order to reduce the risk of the star forward/center aggravating the injury or making it worse. The team announced on Sunday that Davis will be reevaluated in seven-to-10 days.
Besides his injury history, Davis also represents a major risk for any team acquiring him due to his age (33 in March) and contract situation. He’s earning $54.1MM this season and $58.5MM in 2026/27, with a $62.8MM player option for ’27/28. He’ll also be extension-eligible next summer.
Although Davis is still expected to generate interest on the trade market, it’s possible the return wouldn’t be what the Mavs are hoping for. The 14th-year veteran could boost his value if he’s able to get back on the court soon and play at an All-NBA level again leading up to the February 5 trade deadline, but if Dallas isn’t satisfied with what an in-season return for Davis looks like, the team could end up waiting until the offseason to more seriously explore a deal.
Details On Power Struggle Between Mavs’ Cuban, Harrison
After speaking to more than a dozen sources within the Mavericks‘ organization, Tim MacMahon of ESPN took a deep dive today into the events that led up to Nico Harrison‘s dismissal as the team’s head of basketball operations last week, painting a detailed picture of a long-running power struggle between Harrison and minority owner Mark Cuban.
As MacMahon outlines, Cuban hired Harrison as Dallas’ president of basketball operations and general manager back in 2021, when Cuban was still the team’s majority owner and had the final say on basketball decisions. After Cuban sold control of the franchise to Miriam Adelson and Patrick Dumont in late 2023, he maintained a 27% stake in the team and hoped to continue running the basketball operations department too, but quickly found himself pushed out of the inner circle.
“Mark is a friend. I will consult him from time to time,” Dumont said during a basketball operations meeting after taking over as the Mavericks’ governor, according to MacMahon’s sources. “But make no mistake about this: I’m the governor of the team and I am making decisions.”
Sources inside the organization tell MacMahon that Dumont’s announcement was a welcome one to many people in the organization, including Harrison and head coach Jason Kidd, who were “often frustrated by what they perceived as Cuban’s frequently unproductive meddling in personnel decisions.”
However, sources familiar with Cuban’s thinking tell ESPN that he never meant for Harrison to have full autonomy on basketball decisions and that he didn’t believe the former Nike executive was qualified to be making those decisions, having hired him due to his relationships with players and agents. During Harrison’s first couple years with the team, Cuban still had to sign off on any personnel moves the Mavs made, while veteran executive Dennis Lindsey was brought in to “help mask Harrison’s perceived shortcomings as an inexperienced NBA executive,” MacMahon writes.
After Harrison became the Mavericks’ primary basketball decision-maker and Lindsey left for a job in Detroit, Cuban sought to regain some of the control he had lost. He now once again has Dumont’s ear in the wake of Harrison’s ouster.
“Mark’s been trying a palace coup for months,” a team source told ESPN.
Here are more highlights from MacMahon’s report:
- After Dumont took over as the Mavs’ governor, Harrison began reporting directly to him instead of going through Cuban, as he sought to “ice out” the former majority owner. “Nico basically said, ‘Dude, I don’t want to deal with Mark anymore. He’s too much,” a team source told ESPN.
- According to MacMahon, Harrison blamed Cuban for some of the Mavs’ biggest roster-related missteps in recent years, including losing Jalen Brunson and trading for Christian Wood, a player Kidd “didn’t want to coach.” Other members of the coaching staff and front office also blamed Cuban for those moves, MacMahon writes, adding that Harrison made the case to the new ownership group that the front office would function better without Cuban’s involvement.
- Harrison strengthened that case by making savvy deals for P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford at the 2024 trade deadline and getting the Mavs to the NBA Finals, according to MacMahon, who notes that those deals only materialized after a trade sending two first-round picks to Washington for Kyle Kuzma fell through. “Nico did a hell of a sales job,” a Mavs official told ESPN. “He took credit for everything that was done. When Patrick asked questions — asked how we got Kyrie (Irving), how the draft happened, etc. — (Harrison) said he was the guy. We got on a roll and went to the Finals. Fool’s gold.”
- While Dumont asked Harrison to keep Cuban in the fold, Harrison didn’t always do so — he and Cuban were communicating less and less after the sale, according to MacMahon. “Nico built the moat and put up the fence and said, ‘I got this!'” one source familiar with the situation told ESPN. Sources also said that Harrison was telling Dumont what he wanted the team governor to know, rather than everything Dumont needed to know. “The one guy in basketball ops who had a pipeline to Dumont wasn’t giving him the straight scoop,” a source said.
- Having fully gained Dumont’s trust, Harrison sold him on February’s Luka Doncic blockbuster, making the case that committing to the star guard on a super-max contract worth a projected $345MM would be a bad investment due to conditioning concerns and recurring calf injuries, per MacMahon. At the time, Harrison and Doncic’s camp weren’t seeing eye-to-eye on the recovery process for his latest calf strain, which Harrison portrayed to Dumont as evidence that the perennial MVP candidate wasn’t fully committed to the Mavs. As MacMahon writes, Harrison also convinced Dumont not to loop Cuban in on those trade talks, contending doing so would likely result in a leak.
- Cuban, who blamed Harrison rather than Dumont for the way in which his role in the organization was minimized, spoke out against the Doncic trade after the fact, and once the Mavs won the draft lottery in May he began pushing more aggressively for Dumont to make a front office change, MacMahon reports. Cuban’s case gained credibility because his criticisms of Harrison’s roster construction proved true — for instance, Cuban warned Dumont that a lack of ball-handling and play-making would result in Dallas having a poor offense, concerns which Harrison dismissed. The Mavs currently have the second-worst offense in the NBA.
- Cuban’s relationship with Dumont never became contentious and he’s now once again part of the small group of team officials that has the governor’s ear, along with Kidd and co-interim GMs Michael Finley and Matt Riccardi. One source who spoke to MacMahon made it clear that Cuban is more of a consultant than a decision-maker, but the former majority Mavs owner is nonetheless thrilled to be back in the inner circle. “He’s walking around on air right now,” another team source told ESPN. “Cuban’s floating in his Skechers.”
Pacific Notes: LeBron, Curry, Warriors, Sabonis, Livers
Lakers forward LeBron James only took seven shots from the floor in his season debut on Tuesday vs. Utah, but he racked up 12 assists in a 140-126 victory and extended his NBA-record streak of double-digit scoring performances to 1,293 consecutive games, writes ESPN’s Dave McMenamin. Most importantly, James played 30 minutes after missing the first month of the season due to sciatica and didn’t experience any setbacks.
“The pace tested me, but I was happy with the way I was able to go with the guys,” James said. “As the game went on, my wind got a lot better. Caught my second wind, caught my third wind. Rhythm is still coming back, obviously. First game in almost seven months, so everything that happened tonight was to be expected.”
For a separate ESPN story, McMenamin spoke to 10 sources inside and outside of the Lakers’ organization to get a sense of what they’re monitoring with James back on the floor, including how the return of the four-time MVP will impact the team’s role players and whether the high-scoring duo of Luka Doncic (34.6 PPG) and Austin Reaves (28.1 PPG) will keep rolling. Not all of those sources were in agreement on certain topics, including Deandre Ayton‘s fit alongside James, McMenamin notes.
“Ayton should benefit the most out of LeBron back,” an Eastern Conference executive said. “LeBron makes people look good. [He’ll feed Ayton] lobs and dump-offs at the rim.”
“I imagine Deandre’s going to be a problem. He’s just not smart enough of a player,” a Western Conference exec countered. “And the inconsistent effort, LeBron usually has issues with, to say the least.”
Here’s more from around the Pacific Division:
- Stephen Curry (right ankle soreness) will sit out the Warriors‘ game vs. Miami on Wednesday after tweaking his ankle a couple times during the team’s recent road trip, tweets Anthony Slater of ESPN. Golden State could end up very shorthanded on the second night of a back-to-back — Al Horford (left toe injury management) and Jonathan Kuminga (bilateral patellar tendonitis) are both out, while Jimmy Butler (right low back strain), Draymond Green (illness), and Buddy Hield (illness) are all considered questionable to play.
- The Kings will be without center Domantas Sabonis on Wednesday vs. Oklahoma City due to left knee soreness, tweets Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee. It will be the fourth missed game of the season for Sabonis, who has also dealt with hamstring and rib injuries.
- Back in the NBA this fall after a lengthy absence due to hip problems, forward Isaiah Livers is grateful to be playing a role for the Suns and isn’t concerned about keeping track of his active games, tweets Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic. A player on a two-way contract can be on his team’s active roster for a maximum of 50 games — Livers is at 11 so far. “I’m not counting,” Livers said. “I’m taking it one day at a time. We all know my story. I’m just blessed and grateful to put a uniform back on and help an organization win games. We’ll worry about the rest later.”
Southeast Notes: Wizards, Black, Heat, Butler, Jakucionis
As they go through a full-fledged rebuild, the Wizards are spending big on their support staff and infrastructure, according to Jake Fischer of The Stein Line (Substack link), who says the team has been encouraged by the fact that top prospects in recent years – including Alex Sarr and Ace Bailey – have been enthusiastic about coming to D.C.
Still, with Washington off to a miserable 1-12 start this fall and ranking dead last in the NBA in net rating (-16.1), Josh Robbins of The Athletic wonders whether the club can continue losing at this rate without stunting the growth of its most promising young players. Corey Kispert – a relative veteran at age 26 – offered a thoughtful response when presented with that question, pointing out that there are pros and cons to the situation the Wizards’ young players are in.
“The guys that are in the building now that are first- and second-year players have a much greater opportunity to play a ton more minutes than I ever did my first couple of years,” Kispert said. “That’s for better or for worse, but they can come in and they can play and they can try things and they grow on the floor. And that’s a really big blessing for them, and they should absolutely take advantage of that.
“But what that does impair, I think, is that winning is a skill and learning how to win is a skill. And it’s not something that you can just flip on and off from year to year. That’s something that you have to be taught and you have to practice. Those games where we are in crunch-time situations — like Detroit, for example, a few games ago (on Nov. 10) — that’s a learning opportunity for our young guys to learn how to win and what it takes to close out games.
“I’m really looking forward to these guys getting more opportunities to learn how to win, and I hope that us as vets can teach them that within our practices and within our games, whether it’s a word on the sideline or the way that we play or the way we try to play.”
We have more from around the Southeast:
- Anthony Black has had an up-and-down start to the season, but after scoring single-digit points in five of his previous seven games, the Magic guard contributed 18 points in Sunday’s loss to Houston, then had a season-high 21 in Tuesday’s win over Golden State. Those performances – particularly Tuesday’s – provided a reminder of the former No. 6 overall pick’s ability to raise Orlando’s ceiling, as Robbins writes for The Athletic. “I think A.B. is someone who can impact the game on both sides,” Magic forward Franz Wagner said. “When someone like that has the right energy, it’s really contagious for everybody else. … I think he’s a super-important player for our team. Obviously, with some guys out and him seeing more minutes, we need him to play like that consistently.”
- Wednesday’s game against Golden State will be the Heat‘s first meeting with Jimmy Butler this season after the two sides had an ugly divorce last winter, but Miami’s players and coaches are downplaying that narrative, according to Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. “We already have done the game, so how many games do we have to play for it not to be the big storyline?” head coach Erik Spoelstra said, pointing out that Butler visited Miami as a member of the Warriors in March. Bam Adebayo, who is “optimistic” about returning after missing six games with a left big toe sprain, echoed his coach’s sentiment: “You move forward in life. We got a great team playing great basketball, and you want to continue that rather than try to chase a headline.”
- Without a spot in the rotation for first-round pick Kasparas Jakucionis, the Heat recently assigned the rookie guard to the G League, where he has already appeared in two games for the Sioux Falls Skyforce, Chiang writes for The Miami Herald. Jakucionis is viewing it not as a demotion but as an opportunity to get crucial in-game reps. “I just need live basketball, to be honest,” the 19-year-old said. “… I think it’s good to just be able to come here, play, and the development part is very good. So I think that’s a good thing.”