It seems like early March should really be the NBA’s time to shine. With baseball still a month off and the MLS season just peeking out of its shell, the only other major North American league playing meaningful games is the NHL. Here’s what’s being happening in the NBA while preparing for March Madness, getting caught up in the different kind of chaos that is NFL free agency or watching long and pointless MLB spring training games if only for a window into an alternate universe completely devoid of snow.
Russell Westbrook enters the MVP discussion
How crazy good has the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Russell Westbrook been this last month? There’s actually now a point-counterpoint discussion about whether or not he can be rightfully compared with a killer robot that was sent back in time to destroy humanity.
Westbrook rattled off three straight triple-doubles before literally denting his face. This injury seemed like it would, at the very least, slow him down. Instead, he missed a grand total of one game and when he returned to the court for Wednesday night’s game against the Philadelphia 76ers, he recorded his fourth straight triple-double in as many games played. That ended up being his sixth of the season.
Of course, from there Westbrook suffered through a dry spell. It would be a whole four days before he came up with his seventh triple-double of the year, this time during a win over the Toronto Raptors on Sunday.
Now obviously a big part of Westbrook’s purple patch has to do with the fact that, with Kevin Durant missing so many games with injuries, he essentially must play at this high of a level for the Thunder to hold on to that eighth seed in the Western Conference and sneak into the playoffs.
If this scenario feels familiar, it’s because it’s not entirely different than the circumstances that led to Durant beating out LeBron James for MVP last season. With Westbrook missing long stretches thanks to his own injury-riddled season, Durant carried the team offensively. This season, it seems Westbrook is determined to do the same. It’s like the basketball equivalent of tag-team wrestling.
Unfortunately, even if Westbrook plays at this level for the remainder of the season (which would give him like 11 triple-doubles for the year), he will not be winning the MVP. Westbrook himself missed too many games to start the season to catch up to the likes of Houston’s James Harden or Golden State’s Steph Curry.
Plus the early stretch of the season where the Thunder had to play – or attempt to play – without Durant and Westbrook put them in the hole they’re in now, scratching and clawing just for a chance to make the postseason. Voters tend to look at their team’s overall record when examining a player’s MVP case.
This feels unfair. If anything, the gap between how Oklahoma City played during that stretch without Westbrook and how they are playing now only magnifies how valuable he is to his team.
Adam Silver and the NBA Player’s Association at odds
March Madness will soon be upon us and, soon after that, the draft. With these events will come even more debate about when basketball players should be eligible to play in the NBA.
Right now, the rules require players to be 19 before being eligible for the NBA draft, a requirement that was supposed to ensure that the best young players wouldn’t enter the league right from high school. In practice, it’s means the more heavily hyped players spend exactly one season playing for a school before leaving to pursue an opportunity to actually get paid for their work.
It’s one of the more ridiculous compromises in recent sports labor history. It’s hard to imagine that a single year in college will make that big of a difference in a player’s wisdom and maturity. (Indeed, if the experience that my friends and I had, that first year of college can sometimes even lead to a drop-off in those areas.)
It is partly for this reason that, from the very beginning of his reign as NBA commissioner, Adam Silver has been very vocal about his belief that the age requirement should be raised to 20. Theoretically this is so that players come into the league better prepared to handle the experience.
Except, of course, Silver’s proposal is not really about looking out for players. Like most decisions made by a sports commissioner, it’s all about the team owners. Forcing players to spend another year playing for free in college would push back any potential free agent payday another year. Plus the larger sample size of college games played would give teams a lot more information about whether or not players have the skills and mindset to play in the NBA.
The NBA Player’s Association, under new head Michele Roberts, knows all of this, which is why the eligibility issue is shaping up to be Silver’s biggest challenge yet as commissioner. NBAPA general counsel Gary Kohlman is on record as saying that “quite likely the union will be taking a radically different position” on the issue. That, of course, didn’t make the headlines. No, those came from what he said next:
If they were white and hockey players they would be out there playing. If they were white and baseball players they would be out there playing. … Because most of them are actually African-American and are in a sport and precluded from doing it, they have to go into this absurd world of playing for one year.
The fact that those on the side of the Player’s Association are not afraid to bring inevitably controversial comments about race into this discussion so early on in the process makes it clear that this is going to be an incredibly contentious topic. In other words, Silver should be prepared for the first major, meaningful opposition he’s had to face since replacing David Stern.
Atlanta Hawks defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers
It’s been a good time to be a pro hoops fan in Atlanta. Last week the Hawks became the first team in the league to clinch a playoff spot with a 104-96 win over the Houston Rockets. Then, in their biggest statement game of the season, they defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers, 106-97, in a preview of the Eastern Conference finals.
Now normally there would be a “could end up being” or a “what was possibly” qualifier before the whole “a preview of the Eastern Conference Finals” bit. Instead, recent injuries to pretty much every sentient lifeform with any connection to the Chicago Bulls have made it obvious that the Hawks and the Cavaliers are the only legitimate NBA Finals teams in the woeful Eastern Conference barring an out-of-nowhere run of dominance by the Toronto Raptors (currently the No5 seed) or the Washington Wizards (No6). By comparison, of course, every single playoff-bound team in the Western Conference can be a considered a NBA Finals contender.
It even feels wrong to put the Hawks and the Cavaliers into the same category. Yes, the Cavaliers have LeBron and are quite likely to be playing their best team basketball come the postseason. Right now, however, Atlanta has a 10.5-game lead over Cleveland. That no more a “rivalry” than as the tug-of-war between the Harlem Globetrotters and Washington Generals.
Injury blotter
OK, the health situation in the NBA has officially reached the point where we’re just going to run the injury report as a regular feature here at Five Things until a) the NBA’s injury luck improves or b) there are no healthy players left in the league.
The biggest blow this week was dealt to the Portland Trail Blazers. On Thursday, shooting guard Wesley Matthews suffered a season-ending Achilles injury. Portland, who have one of the weakest benches among all the currently contending teams, are ill-prepared to replace any of their starters. That’s the major reason that LaMarcus Aldridge has been soldiering through a torn ligament all season: the team simply can’t afford to lose any major players for a significant amount of time.
Meanwhile, the Phoenix Suns’ Brandon Knight sprained his ankle during Monday night’s game against the Golden State Warriors. The Suns, who still harbor some hope of beating out the Oklahoma City Thunder and the New Orleans Pelicans for the final playoff spot in the West, had just acquired Knight in the same deadline deal that sent off guards Isaiah Thomas and Goran Dragic. Well, so much for the “too many guards” problem they had at the beginning of the year.
And hey, look who just got in under the wire. Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs hyperextended his elbow during his team’s 117-107 victory over the Toronto Raptors. Duncan’s injury isn’t expected to be serious, but after these last few seasons, we wouldn’t blame NBA fans for being worried.
There was at least one bit of possible good news: Derrick Rose thinks he will be able to return to the Chicago Bulls’ lineup in time for the postseason. So, yes, the only good injury news this past week has been about the Bulls’ much-maligned floor general. I am as confounded as you are about that.
Other things we’ve learned
• Even before the elbow injury, there was something off about Duncan, who, during Sunday’s contest against the Bulls, made no field goals in a game for the first time in his 830 NBA seasons (note: this figure is possibly exaggerated). It didn’t matter, the Spurs still defeated the Bulls.
• Is the honeymoon officially over for breakthrough Miami Heat find Hassan Whiteside? After he was ejected from Monday’s game against the Boston Celtics for pushing Kelly Olynyk, an incident that also earned him a one-game suspension, teammate Dwyane Wade publicly called him out: “We all have our moments, selfish moments. But you can’t keep having them, because you gotta be reliable and you gotta be able to be counted on. And right now, if he continues to act that way then he’s not reliable.”
• E’Twaun Moore did this? Really? Are you sure this is the E’Twaun Moore and not an impostor?
• Welcome back Craig Sager. We never thought we would miss your ridiculous wardrobe this much. Not to mention the fact that this means a reunion of one of the best comedy duos in sports history: Sager and Popovich.
