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Welcome to the new NBA Star Index – a weekly gauge of the players who control the most buzz around the league. Reminder: registration on this list is not necessarily a good thing. It just means that you capture the attention of the NBA world. Moreover, it is not a ranking. The players listed are in no particular order when it comes to the buzz they generate. This column will be broadcast weekly until the end of the regular season.
Bill Simmons said something in a recent podcast that I’ve thought about several times and couldn’t agree with more: Kevin Durant robbed us of Stephen Curry, who is currently on an all-that-that-is -you-spin-and-spin -on-the-TV which recalls its unanimously MVP 2015-16 season.
I say this as a native of Northern California and longtime Warriors fan: those two Durant Championships were not, and never will be, what they cost in prime currency. For three years, we – not just Warriors fans, but all basketball fans in the world – have lost the unconditional, unprecedented joy of watching a totally unleashed Curry play basketball.
Was Curry awesome alongside Durant? Absolutely. Were they great together? Obviously. But nothing compares to Curry on a lone Star Crusade, mixing up hordes of helpless defenders before hitting the type of gunfire that continues to stretch the parameters of the possible. every match. I mean, what is this nonsense?
Where?
Obviously, there will be people who disagree with me on this, citing the championships as the pinnacle of competitive efforts. To these people, I would say: one team wins the championship every year. It doesn’t matter. Stephen Curry only shows up once, and having to cage his most colorful talents is a basketball crime.
Simmons went so far as to say that the most entertaining curry is to be found in a 47-win squad, which is to suggest a squad that relies on some desperation, which inspires Curry’s most exciting pursuits. I don’t agree with that. For starters, no team with a top-notch Curry, Thompson and Draymond Green will be a 47-win team (maybe unless coached by Mark Jackson). What the Warriors had after Jackson but before Durant was the best of both worlds: Lone-star Curry, perfectly supported by system and staff, in a championship-caliber squad.
Would the Warriors have won other titles if Durant hadn’t come? I do not know. But they definitely would have been on the hunt and give me curry on the hunt every time, no matter how this trip turns out, because there is nothing like it in sports.
This season the real Steph Curry, the one who leads the league by a mile in total points scored and 3 runs scored, gets up, and while that comes with a dose of frustration every night, anything is likely for a team with probably no realistic chance to play deep in the playoffs, it’s always worth it.
In his last 10 games, Curry has averaged over 32 points on a shot over 53%, including 51% of 3. In his last five games, he has averaged 37 points out of 57.5% in the game. shoot. In his final three points, he averages over 40 points while achieving seven 3s per night at a 52.5% clip, a run that includes a blast of 57 points, out of 11 points at 3 points, during of a loss to Dallas last Saturday.
LaMelo is for real, folks. In his last eight games, Ball is averaging 21.6 points on 49% of shots, including 44% on 6.3 attempts at 3 points per game. In those eight games he has scored no less than 14 points and last Friday he set a career-high 34 on Utah.
And they are by no means empty numbers. James Borrego is not playing Ball for development purposes. He’s playing it – in fact he’s starting it – because he can’t keep him off the ground, and Charlotte is over-7.6 points per 100 possessions with Ball on the pitch during that eight streak. matches.
Ball’s rapid development into an aggressive goalscorer has fully unlocked his gaming genius, and his defense isn’t as bad as it was supposed to come into the draft. Add to that his size, instinct, rebound ability, and the unifying effect his game has on his teammates, and Rookie of the Year begins to look like a fugitive.
Overshadowed by Curry’s explosion of 57 points, Doncic’s career record 42 points was a very important victory for the Mavericks, who used that momentum to start a three-game winning streak. The Mavs have now won four of five as they try to get back into the playoff race after a terrible start to the season, and Doncic is starting to watch. slightly best of the earth at 3 points – the only part of his offensive play that is not flawless.
Doncic posted a 28-10-10 triple-double on Wednesday as Dallas squeaked past Trae Young and the Hawks. It’s always fun when Luka and Trae meet. True or false, they will be bound together forever after being traded for each other on draft night in 2018. Luka is the best player, but Trae is his own kind of special and the Hawks got another pick. lottery. became Cam Reddish. Look at the company that Doncic and Young are in:
This isn’t a bad start for a few over the top careers.
Another week, another crazy comment from Kyrie – this time the Brooklyn Nets, the team that traded for James Harden to create what is arguably the greatest offensive line in NBA history, are battling it all out. waiting.
After the Nets lost to the Pistons on Tuesday, their seventh loss this season to a team below 0.500, Irving described Brooklyn as an “average” team before citing COVID-19 protocols and apparently biased officials as a few- some of the obstacles. these gritty and irrepressible nets fight.
Poor guys. It really stinks that they are the only team forced to deal with this COVID inconvenience. I mean, how can you expect a team starting with James Harden and Kyrie Irving to beat the Pistons? and the referees? You can’t ask for much.
Kyrie is going to say that this is the type of snippet of commentary that prompted him to boycott the media to start the season, but that’s not true. That’s what he said. And he was very clear about it. Adamant, even. The Nets are against the world.
The truth is, if the Nets have faced any additional adversity in these universally unfavorable times, it’s the fact that they … employ Kyrie Irving, who hasn’t shown up to games for two weeks. It was a mental health break, and it didn’t diminish Kyrie’s – or anyone else’s – need to take care of himself. It is extremely important. For everyone. But you can’t be the one who, for various reasons and at various points in their career, has personally made life difficult for their team, only to then, in a collectively difficult time, complain about the difficult life in their team.
You know what I mean?
Through it all, Kyrie remains a dazzling basketball player enjoying the best year of his career. On Wednesday, Irving helped bring the Nets back to the winning column with 35 points – helped by a career-high 17 for 17 on the free throw line – against the Pacers. As always, he was poetry in motion with the ball in his hands:
And one of his eight assists:
Coming in Thursday, there are three players in the league who have scored at least 600 points while making at least 80 3 points this season, and Zach LaVine is one of them. The other two are Stephen Curry and Damian Lillard. Not a bad company for LaVine, who is one of the simplest goalscorers on the planet and an evolving playmaker.
There’s a case to be made he is expected to start in the All-Star Game alongside Bradley Beal as an East backcourt, although Kyrie Irving, Jaylen Brown, Trae Young, Khris Middleton and maybe even James Harden will have definitely something to say about it. Either way, LaVine, assuming healthy the rest of the time, is a lock to at least be an All-Star Reserve. At least he better be.
On Wednesday, LaVine, the league’s sixth highest scorer in the league on most effective marks of his career, hit the Pelicans for 46 points while conceding 9 of 14 3 points. Meanwhile, Coby White hit eight trebles, making LaVine and White the first teammates in history to score eight three runs in the same game. It sounds like a record that should belong to Curry and Klay Thompson, but no, it’s LaVine and White.
In this piece, our Jack Maloney explained how LaVine and White were able to go down in history, from defensive incidents of the Pelicans to penetrating paint and creating individual hits.
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