NBA News and Rumor Roundup 1/15/2024
Going Green, chaos in Philly, and the call of the tank
Aaaaaand we’re back!
Well, another week has gone by without a Jimmy Butler trade, but it’s been quite a fun week of actual, unrelated-to-rumors basketball! Of note, the Kings are on a tear, the Pacers, and even the Zombie Heat look good without Mr. Butler at the helm. Pure unadulterated basketball, y’all.
Now, that doesn’t mean we don’t have any rumors to talk about this week — quite the contrary! With teams beginning to fall into set funnels (i.e. Tank or No Tank), the rumor mill is heating up surrounding various role players, franchises, and more. To cap off all of the drama, there’s some discontent brewing in the City of Brotherly Love; more on that later.
Also, I’m still running last week’s reader survey, so if you want to have a say in the future direction of this publication, you can do that right here!
Now, let’s dive right into our primary recurring segment of the week: It’s time to take a gander at your Kings of The Court!
This Week’s Kings of The Court
If you’re new around these parts — welcome! — this section is one where I take three players and/or teams from the past week who I deemed to be Kings of The Court. Crucially, these aren’t necessarily the best teams or players of the week (though they can be), but are instead the ones I’ve been most impressed by, regardless of minutes, points scored, or otherwise.
👑Isaiah Collier, Doing A Bit of Everything👑
Key Stats From the Past Week
8.0 assists per game
40% shooting from three-point range
66.7% shooting on drives (1st out of all rookies with at least 5 drives per game)
Bonus Stat: Isaiah Collier is the first rookie this season to record at least 7 assists in four games consecutively. He’s the 9th since the 2019-20 season to do so.
This is why I include the caveat of players not necessarily being the absolute best on the week; let’s talk about Collier for a second.
Isaiah Collier, who ended up being drafted by the Jazz at the 29th pick, was once thought to be a candidate for the #1 selection before a subpar season at USC. Now, despite a rough start to his rookie year, he seems to be coming into his own a bit more, and boy is it fun to watch. In his past four games, he’s recorded at least 7 assists in each, with back-to-back nights of 9 assists. Though he can be wild at times, he’s been making some tricky passes to his cutters, helping keep the Jazz surprisingly close in games that they likely should get blown out in:
One of the bigger concerns with Collier coming into the draft was a seeming stagnation of his distribution skills and an uptick in his turnovers, but he’s recorded a near-4-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio over the past week and has done an honorable job of keeping the ball in his hands.
Even better, his terrible efficiency from the beginning of the year looks like it’s on the upswing as well. He’s shooting above 50% from the field this week, has knocked down 40% of his (admittedly limited, with just 3.3 attempts per game) threes, and has forced defenses to adjust to his driving capabilities; according to my data, his shooting percentage on drives is 66.7% over the past week. For reference, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who leads the league in drives per game, is shooting just over 57%. While it may not be sustainable, Collier is showing some more versatility and playability than he did earlier in the year, potentially making him a solid late-first-round steal:
Has the defense improved? No, not particularly, and his 27th percentile defensive RAPM over at
’s website looks about right still — but what’s not to like about the below clip, where Collier makes a rookie mistake, gets chewed out by Collin Sexton, and then sinks the Nets with the clutch drive:👑Jalen Green, Efficiently (?!) Scoring👑
Key Stats From the Past Week
34.5 points per game (1st in the league)
64% shooting from three-point range
2 steals per game
Bonus Stat: Jalen Green scored 42 points in a win over the Grizzlies on Monday night, marking the 9th time he’s scored 40+ points in his career. Out of all players in Rockets history, only Green and Elvin Hayes have scored 40 points more than 5 times in their first 4 seasons in the league.
Oh boy. Jalen Green is one of the more polarizing players in the league when it comes to gameplay. I, for one, was super high on him after coming out of the now-defunct G League Ignite, but he’s taken me and everyone else on a rollercoaster ride since. At times, he’ll shoot under 30% and look like the worst player in the league, and at other times he’ll look like the second coming of James Harden — this past week has been one of those times.
He’s averaged over 34 points per game, has shunned his inefficient ways by knocking down threes that have a higher-than-66% chance to go in, and is destroying opposing defenses in the process. Have his shots been “good” quality? Only somewhat, but you can’t argue with the results that come from double-teamed, fadeaway threes from the corner like this one:
While that shot is an extreme case, this past week has been one in which the Sengun/Green two man game has really meshed, epitomized by Sengun’s ability to maximize the handoff for Green, who runs with the speed of a Japanese bullet train:
The results have been astonishing to watch. The Rockets won both their past two games this week and won the game over the Grizzlies due to Green’s 42-point heroics, while Green’s overall shooting splits have been even more absurd than just the three-point percentage says:
Shooting at the Rim: 80% (1st in the league)
Shooting in the Short Mid-Range: 60%
Shooting from Corner Threes: 100%
Shooting from Non-Corner Threes: 67% (1st in the league)
Will he keep it up? I doubt he will be at this level, but any improvement in efficiency for Green is a good one. Defensively he’s still not at the level that the Rockets would like — shades of Harden there, for sure — but adding a more efficient and potent offense alongside Alperen Sengun and crew makes this Rockets team one of the best in the league.
👑Jared Butler, Even if You Don’t Know Who He Is👑
Key Stats From the Past Week
14 minutes per game
14.3 points per game
62.2% shooting from the field
Bonus Stat: Jared Butler has totaled 50+ points in a 4-game span only 4 times during his 4-year career (lots of 4s!). All of those spans have occurred this month.
Jared Butler!
After being drafted in the second round of the 2021 draft, Butler has largely languished in the G League while also getting around 2 to 5 minutes per game when brought up to the NBA, outside of a few niche instances. Over the past month, though, the Washington Wizards have given him a bigger role in the name of the tank, and he’s making the absolute most of his opportunity.
In a relatively tight loss to the 76ers last week, Butler put up a career-high 26 points on 11-of-19 shooting from the field, using a sneaky-shifty handle to get to the rim and float ‘em in:
Somehow, Butler has turned an inconsistent past few years into a past week of averaging more points than he is minutes played, even if the Wizards are still terrible in general. Though still limited by his lack of verticality in games, he’s potentially showcasing why he might be worth a full-time role.
It hasn’t just been the scoring, either; Butler is dishing out assists with a 3-to-1 turnover ratio over the past week. He’s not exactly a natural distributor from the perimeter, but he’s been a great drive-and-kick guy in the vein of Fred VanVleet, allowing him to get teammates better looks beyond the arc:
Whether or not his improved three-point shooting holds will be crucial to his development for the rest of this season. His most efficient play comes from inside the lane, with the three-point line being somewhat of a crapshoot. Last season he shot just 30% on 2 attempts per game but has seen an increase to 38% on a smaller sample size this year. Over the past week, that’s catapulted to 83.3%; an outlier, of course, but one that is worth watching:
Butler is still just 24 years of age and will go into restricted free agency this offseason. If he can keep up his play from the last week — including two games of 18 points or more — he may be in line for a multi-year deal.
Cooper Flagg (And Others) Brings The Tank
Even if you’ve only been paying attention to the NBA this season, you’ve likely heard all about Duke star Cooper Flagg. The rumors are true: He’s tall, is absurdly good on defense, and can jump despite being white — and unlike the White Man Can’t Jump remake, he’s actually very good! And not just good; he’s setting an ACC freshman record by scoring 42 points in a game and looks to deter those who might dare deem him anything other than the #1 selection. Outside of him, you have the fast-twitch Bryce Harper and the likes of Tre Johnson, who isn’t quite a top 5 pick yet but would have gone #1 with ease in the 2024 draft.
While the connection between Flagg’s boom and the current state of certain franchises could simply be a coincidence, a few teams are starting to slouch, both in the wins column and in the murmurings surrounding what they might do at the trade deadline. At the moment, three of these teams stand out: The Wizards, Raptors, and Nets.
In DC, there have been rumors that the team could ship Kyle Kuzma to the Sacramento Kings in a move that would turn away one of the few “good” (that’s a big air-quote moment right there) players on the roster so as to further bury themselves into the NBA’s proverbial dumpster. Though the Pelicans are giving them a bit of competition, the Wizards are currently the worst team in the league by winning percentage, were 2-8 over their last 10 as of Monday, and have also seemingly shut down also-good guard Malcolm Brogdon due to what is being reported as a foot contusion. Of course, this was predictable; the Wizards own their own first-rounder this year but would have to give it to the Knicks if it fell out of the top 10, and with Cooper Flagg, Bryce Harper, and more on the line, they aren’t going anywhere upward anytime soon.
The Raptors, separately, are more intriguing if only because they have a better core on paper. Scottie Barnes is a star, Immanuel Quickley may very well be one as well, and RJ Barrett can be one, unfortunately, depending on the day and time. And yet, the franchise has gone 2-8 over their last 10 — somewhat due to injury as well as poor play — and now look like they’re a solid contender for a top 5 selection. Are they tanking? It doesn’t seem to be that way, but the narrative may trend that way should their terrible defense and subpar offense continue, and it wouldn’t be a terrible idea either considering this team needs a de-facto co-star to Scottie Barnes.
Lastly, you have the Nets, who looked like a surprising dark horse playoff contender earlier this season but are now making their way toward the lower end of the standings. While there are some genuine injuries here, there’s a lot of tanky descriptors coming out of the team’s injury reports. For one, Cam Johnson, the perceived role player prize of the trade market, was left out with an ankle injury against the Jazz, while Trendon Watford, D’Angelo Russell, and Bojan Bogdanovic are out with various injuries of varying veracity. And of course they are! The Nets, despite their early season goings, aren’t good enough to be a “good” team, and Cam Johnson could be one of the few players on the market who could command multiple first-round picks. ClutchPoints’ Brett Siegel reports that a bidding war has commenced for the Nets forward, which would help furnish the team’s already large draft war chest with even more picks, similar to how the Thunder have done under Sam Presti. The Nets are fully embracing their chance at a franchise star, as they likely should, even if “tanking” is deemed taboo by the league.
Philly, There’s Good News and Bad News
Though they look better than they did earlier this season, the Philadelphia 76ers look like they’re on track to have the roughest season since the tanky Process era. Philly ranks in the bottom 5 in offensive rating, is below average in defensive rating, and is near the bottom in effective field goal percentage. In other words, little is going right — except for one thing, at least if you’re a local fan.
After a period of time in which the franchise teased building a stadium in downtown Philly and moving there from South Philly — for a cool $1.3 billion and a classic bit of resident displacement — the 76ers have moved away from the plan and opted for building a new stadium in their current area. It’s been reported that the likes of Adam Silver, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, and Comcast executives helped convince the team’s owners to reconsider their proposal, which would have likely increased traffic further and created a highly inflationary rent environment, even if it would have possibly revitalized certain parts of downtown. It’s likely for the best that the plan was rejected, but it likely won’t be the last that fans of NBA teams hear of relocations based on the motivations of profit.
Now, there’s bad news, and it’s unrelated to the stadium. You see, offseason acquisition Paul George has been playing some minutes at center without Embiid on the floor, and he’s not exactly happy about it:
"I'm used to scrapping and running around and chasing and fighting through screens. To be honest, I'm bored playing on a 5. It just don't do enough for me. But, you know, I think, being mindful of my ability to clog the middle and kind of help and cut off passing lanes and driving lanes and kind of battle with the bigs is what Nick sees in that style. But again, I enjoy chasing the little guys and matching up against wing offensive players."
Is this akin to a Jimmy Butler level of disapproval? Not by any stretch of the imagination, but it is somewhat concerning for a Sixers team that is paying George over $50 million per year until potentially 2028-29 and is already struggling to bring about cohesion and, more importantly, wins. If the Sixers don’t start winning, I wouldn’t be completely shocked — especially in the current NBA environment — for George (or, worse, Embiid) to ask out, potentially opening the door for a blowup of catastrophic proportions.
Jersey of The Week
If you’re new here, this is a segment in which I get to flex my creative muscles and craft a new jersey for any team of my choice. In the past few weeks, I’ve made Orlando Magic jerseys, some classic Raptors fits, and an OKC/Seattle Supersonics kit, but this time I want to give some love to the Pistons.
In the two designs below — one with the team’s classic colors and one with the modern ones — I wanted to make it feel retro at heart. By warping the text to create a sort of optical illusion of a wall, it allowed me to stray away from the normally flat text that most NBA teams employ. It’s a simple design and isn’t anything special, but I quite like it for its practicality:
Other News, Rumors, and Fun Facts
The Pelicans are in a bit of a rut right now. On top of already among the worst three teams in the league by win percentage, Zion Williamson was suspended for a game because of consistent tardiness, which, as you might expect, threw the media into a bit of a mini frenzy. Williamson’s perceived weight issues, inconsistencies, and more have made him a frustrating talent at times, but there’s no concrete rumors on whether or not he wants to stay in New Orleans other than some classic Stephen A. Smith rumormongering. It’s good to keep tabs on this, but don’t expect Williamson to be moved at the deadline.
It feels as though we’ve forgotten by now, but the Jontay Porter betting scandal is still being investigated. If you remember correctly, Jontay Porter, a player for the Raptors, was found to be purposely missing shots, opting out of games, and more to help win bettors money, and now court records show that he texted bettors mid-game as part of the scheme. Per CBS Sports’ reporting, Porter sent messages such as, "Hit unders for the big numbers. I told [Co-Conspirator 2] no blocks no steals. I'm going to play first 2-3 minute stint off the bench then when I get subbed out tell them my eye killing me again." We will likely get even more information in the months to come, but the league can’t be thrilled that an underground player-led betting ring went unnoticed for even a short time.
Amazon looks like they’re creating the broadcasting version of the Avengers to kick off the start of the new NBA media deal. After already locking up Dirk Nowitzki and Blake Griffin and getting Ian Eagle in for play-by-play, the e-commerce/media giant is now securing a deal with Kevin Harlan to commentate alongside Eagle, per The Athletic. If the deal goes through, Amazon would immediately have one of the most stacked crews in recent memory, which feels like a godsend when ESPN and others are rolling out a continually declining and cost-cutting product in many respects.
Zach LaVine, who has played awfully well this season after being seen as a non-winning player previously, has reportedly been the subject of talks between the Bulls and two franchises, The Lakers and the Nuggets, per Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun Times. Whether or not he’ll actually be traded remains to be seen, but the Nuggets talks have reportedly stalled, paving the way for LA to make a move.
Somehow, LiAngelo Ball is making more money rapping than he ever did in the NBA. The lesser-known Ball brother recently went viral with his rap hit Tweaker, which has led to him performing at Rolling Loud and signing a unique deal with label DefJam that also allows him to maintain the rights to his music — all for a cool $13 million. And, once again, this is off a single song, which is absolutely wild. LaVar Ball always gets the last laugh, so we might as well put him in the Dad Hall of Fame already.
Despite the loss on Monday to the Raptors, Steph Curry hit a new milestone — actually, two! First, he passed up Allen Iverson to become the 28th-leading scorer in NBA history and then passed up Kobe Bryant to record the 35th-most assists in a career. You might think that he’d have more points considering his scoring prowess, but Curry’s ankle injuries and relatively late-blooming contribute to that. Still, recording over 24,000 points and 6,000 assists is a massive milestone and further solidifies Steph’s legacy.
Another day, another fine for Anthony Edwards. After already racking up more than $200,000 in fines this season, Ant got fined again for flipping off a referee from the bench. He has since said he isn’t getting any more technical fouls this season, which, if past history is any indication, may be tough for him to live up to. But, hey, his swagger and attitude is what the fans love about him, as there aren’t any other players who carries themselves like he does right now.
Domantas Sabonis has had some absurd statlines over the past week. he recorded at least 20 points and 15 rebounds in back-to-back games, but the more impressive one by far came in a win against the Celtics. In that game, Sabonis recorded 23 points on 66% shooting while grabbing 28 (yes, 28) rebounds, making him just the third player to score 20+ points, grab 25+ rebounds, and make 3 three-pointers in a game. The other two are Karl Anthony-Towns and Kevin Garnett, who met the mark in 2019 and 2003, respectively.
According to Josh Robbins and David Aldridge of The Athletic, the Wizards are shopping veteran big man Jonas Valanciunas but may not get much for him. The maximum Washington is expected to get in return are two second-rounders, but they don’t have any reason to keep him around, either. I’d expect him to be traded, but he could be sent anyway since his price tag is so low.
My thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by the California wildfires that have devastated the Los Angeles area and the Palisades. The NBA rescheduled multiple games for the Lakers and Clippers as well as their opponents, but resumed play on Monday.
According to at least one report, the Nets are out on Jimmy Butler, as they don’t exactly want him in the first place based on their current timeline. This comes after Butler reportedly reiterated his desire to be traded to Pat Riley, yet we have no idea how this is going to go down due to the Heat being, per Shams, “hesitant to negotiate further.”
Raptors guard Davion Mitchell recorded one of the NBA’s more unique statlines on Monday, recording 0 points, 0 rebounds, 0 blocks, 0 steals, 0 turnovers, and 5 assists, making it just the 43rd time in NBA history that a player has recorded that many zeroes and had five or more assists. These are the hyper-specific statlines this publication lives for!
On this day in NBA history (in 1892!), the 13 original rules of basketball were printed in the Springfield YMCA training school newspaper. Those rules can be found here and include fundamentally different aspects such as: “If either side makes three consecutive fouls, it shall count a goal for the opponents (consecutive means without the opponents in the meantime making a foul).”
My Favorite Reads This Week
I’ve been very much enjoying
’s debunking of the “all players/teams play the same now” argument. In a recent piece, he takes a look at a proprietary metrics to analyze team defensive aggression and variance, showcasing just how wild some of the league’s defensive schemes are. You can go check that out — and the data within it — here.- and recently chatted/debated with one another over the current financial landscape of the NBA, the trade market, what to do with young players, and more. It’s a long read but a really entertaining one that, for some reason, includes a reference to a Thai tsunami — go read it right here.
Over the past week, Russell Westbrook has been playing quite well, with him and Jokic becoming the first pair of teammates to each record triple-doubles in the same game twice in a season.
writes about whether or not Russ’ play is a winning one and what it means for the rest of the season, which you can check out right here.The
crew has been killing it as of late, putting out tons of draft content and NBA content for good measure. In a recent piece, the writers over at their Substack put together a Rookie Scale Big Board, which looks to measure how valuable player on a rookie scale contract is compared to others. It’s bound to bring a bit of debate, particularly once you get outside the top 10, but it’s a really fun way to talk about the league’s young players. Go read that one right here.- recently talked about the merits of the Jimmy Butler trade request, which is a bit deeper than your average opt-out. Michael categorizes Jimmy as a toxic ex, while also talking about the balance of need for money and winning a ring. It’s a good read and is one you can read about right here.
One last thing; over the past few weeks, I’ve had the honor of my pieces here being featured in OffBall, which is a site that looks to bring together sports and culture articles and social media findings from across the internet in what is effectively an anti-algorithm effort from the sports industry’s finest. I’ve found so many other great writers through OffBall’s twice-daily newsletters, so I want to recommend them to you all. This isn’t sponsored or anything, but I just want to pass the great work they’re doing on:
That’s it for this week’s roundup! As always, more musings are on the way for this weekend; until then, go read all of the articles I listed above!