A once-hopeful contender is wallowing. A veteran has learned new tricks. And two MVPs have become besties.
Let’s open up the notebook to run through three NBA trends that have caught my eye over the past week:
Coping in Philadelphia
The most Philadelphian moment in history occurred Tuesday night.
Move over, Liberty Bell. Forget about any accomplishment Benjamin Franklin ever achieved. Even a cheesesteak has nothing on what ensued before what was an otherwise forgettable basketball game.
The curse upon the Philadelphia 76ers is spreading.
First, Joel Embiid was out for Tuesday’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Not long before tipoff, the Sixers ruled Tyrese Maxey unable to play, too. Then came Paul George. Vital role players were already hurt.
Readying for the top team in the Western Conference, this was about to become the evening of Ricky Council IV. With the announcement of the starting lineups about to commence, the Sixers toggled through general housekeeping on their in-arena video board. First were some pregame segments. And finally, the game’s injury report displayed on the big screen, a graphic which in any other city would pop up without a peep.
But not in this town. The Wells Fargo Center crowd reigned down boos … for the injury report. The choir continued into a game that the Sixers once again lost.
Philadelphia is now 15-24 on the season, 11th in the Eastern Conference. Its big three of Embiid, George and Maxey has played only 10 games together. With the trade deadline less than three weeks away, the Sixers are now a team to watch.
Nine of their 11 games between now and the Feb. 6 deadline are against teams currently .500 or better. Embiid remains sidelined, with the Sixers saying Friday that he’ll be re-evaluated in seven to 10 days after experiencing swelling in his left knee following a workout Thursday. He had already missed the past two weeks with a foot injury. What happens if the Sixers continue to dig into this hole? Could they lean into a strategy reminiscent of what the Dallas Mavericks did a couple of years ago, when they disappointed, then intentionally dove down the standings to avoid giving away a lottery pick?
The scenario then was similar to the Sixers’ now.
In 2023, the Mavs owed a top-10 protected first-round selection to the New York Knicks. Come the end of the season, they were teetering on that line. Fall into the top 10, and Dallas could keep the pick. Choose 11th or beyond, and the first-rounder would go to New York. With the fears of losing a valuable pick, the Mavericks openly tanked the tail end of the schedule, a plan so obvious that the NBA fined them $750,000.
But surely, if it could go back in time, Dallas wouldn’t change a thing.
Sitting players at the end of the season landed the Mavs the 10th pick, which they traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder for the 12th pick who became Dereck Lively II, a stud who helped them to the NBA Finals as a rookie.
Today, the Sixers would have more time to strategize — though they’re approaching a comparable place.
Philadelphia owes this season’s first-round pick to Oklahoma City. But there’s a caveat: If the selection falls inside the top six, then the Sixers get to keep it for now.
If the season were to end today, Philly would own the eighth-best draft lottery positioning, meaning the pick would go to OKC. But the Sixers have won only two more games than the Portland Trail Blazers, who would be sixth today. There is a world where, if the Sixers opt to plummet down the standings, they could.
What could that mean for their deadline strategy, especially considering many of their role players are veterans on reasonably priced contracts?
Maybe how they fare against these 11 upcoming opponents, most of them good, will determine their direction.
The new Norm
The increase in scoring is nice. The heightened 3-point percentage on more attempts than ever, the most-efficient season of his career, the constant trips to the free-throw line — they’re all beautiful. Norman Powell is playing his best basketball since entering the NBA a decade ago.
But his style has also changed completely, and for the better.
The loss of George this past summer didn’t just mean a departure of talent from the LA Clippers. The team also lost a rare skill. George is one of the league’s savviest pinballs, bouncing around screens and making defenses pay with jumpers or rim attacks. Now, Powell is doing his best impression of the nine-time All-Star, and halfway into the season, he’s been convincing enough that he is in the conversation to sneak onto an All-Star team.
Never before has a team used Powell this way, scuttling him around this many screens away from the basketball, and it’s working on the surprising, 23-17 Clippers, who have emerged as one of the NBA’s top defensive squads and score just enough to compete.
Powell rarely brings the basketball up the court. Instead, LA gets it into his hands on the move. James Harden will initiate the offense, waiting for Powell to scurry around picks. He has magnetic chemistry with brute center Ivica Zubac, one of the league’s most underrated screeners.
The goal is to create space, or maybe even a switch, then get Powell headed downhill.
Look at this out-of-bounds play the Clippers ran during their decimation of the Brooklyn Nets earlier this week. Powell rushes around one screen from Zubac before the inbounds. Once the pass comes to Zubac, who then flips it to Harden, Powell is off to the races. He forces a switch after meeting the inbounder, Derrick Jones Jr., and twirls around a screen from Zubac, which frees him from his defender, before grabbing a handoff from Harden and barreling to the basket against an off-balance Keon Johnson, who can’t stay in front of him.
That’s four screens, two switches and one bucket on one play. Of course, the Nets could have disrupted Powell more. Then again, so could the rest of the league.
Powell is running around the most off-ball screens per possession in the NBA this season, according to Second Spectrum. He is draining 3s like never before — 45 percent of them on almost eight attempts per game, an especially important trait on the Clippers. He is their only high-volume, long-range threat who shoots a percentage above league average. And now, he’s also their best source of motion.
The Clippers offense is 10.4 points per 100 possessions better with Powell on the court this season, according to Cleaning the Glass. Only five qualifying players, all of them at least All-Star-caliber, own a larger differential: Nikola Jokić, Stephen Curry, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, LaMelo Ball and Jimmy Butler.
This is the embodiment of what the NBA’s Most Improved Player should be. Powell was a shooter off the bench, a perennial candidate for Sixth Man of the Year. But now, when he should be past the stage of vast improvement, he has altered his game with the help of LA coach Ty Lue. And most importantly, it’s leading to wins.
A unique Jokić partner
Russell Westbrook and Jokić are giving defenses whiplash — and not just because of Westbrook’s blazing speed or Jokić’s twisting passes.
One of the NBA’s unexpected joys this season is watching a couple of former MVPs, one in his twilight and another in his prime, hot potato the basketball enough to give any viewer a crick in the neck.
Westbrook will venture around a dribble handoff from Jokić, receive the basketball, then pass it back to Jokić in the post, who will flip another dime to a cutting Westbrook before any defender can react. “The Jokić bump,” a jump in efficiency that arrives upon teaming up with the three-time MVP, is expected with shooters, 3-point marksmen who benefit from the 7-footer’s playmaking. He and Jamal Murray, for example, have combined to create the game’s most dangerous dribble-handoff combination for years. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope shot 3s better than ever during his couple of seasons in Denver and has fallen off since signing with the Orlando Magic this past summer. But with Westbrook, Jokić is putting his own touch on chemistry — as is a guard most famous for what he can do with the basketball.
Look at the below play from this week’s blowout of the Mavericks, when Westbrook and Jokić look as if they’re running drills against no defense at all. Yes, Westbrook gets credit for the nifty finish and Jokić for a precise bounce pass, but the basket doesn’t happen without a duo that has mastered timing.
As soon as Westbrook notices his defender, Klay Thompson, venture over to Jokić, he takes off for the rim, understanding that a fellow triple-double threat will find him.
The Westbrook-Jokić pairing didn’t always appear headed this way.
Defenses don’t pay attention to Westbrook when he’s beyond the 3-point arc. He’s at his best with the ball in his hands. Historically, he can get stoic when he’s not directly involved in a play, hanging around the corner or the wing and waiting for a pass to return his way. It’s an archetype that isn’t ideal next to Jokić.
Yet, this is why they play the games.
Sometimes, talented players, independent of whatever cookie-cutter basketball we all want to believe in, develop a knack for each other.
The Nuggets are 8-4 since Westbrook entered the starting lineup at the end of December. Three of those losses are to elite competition: the Cleveland Cavaliers, Boston Celtics and Houston Rockets. Now, he’s good to ping-pong the basketball back and forth with Jokić a few times a game.
Denver is putting the rock in Westbrook’s hands but is encouraging him to make quick decisions and cuts from there. He has a 56 percent effective field goal percentage when he shoots off passes from Jokić, according to Second Spectrum.
It’s no coincidence Westbrook has thus far churned out the most efficient season of his career, even if he’s no longer putting up MVP numbers.
The Jokić bump is real — and not just for 3-point shooters.
(Top photo of Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokić: Isaiah J. Downing / Imagn Images)
