𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

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On this date in 2009, Brandon Jennings set a Milwaukee Bucks rookie record by dropping 55 points on fellow rookie Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors. It broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record of 51. Jennings was a hyped prospect in high school who skipped college to play in Europe until he was draft-eligible. This felt like a validation of the hype and a preview of things to come. Turns out it wasn’t. But that night was magical.

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Best 🏆defense ever?

The Thunder have somehow gotten better

The Oklahoma City Thunder are really good. End of section.

OK, we can elaborate a bit more. The Thunder are already off to a ridiculous start this season. After winning 68 games, setting the NBA records for margin of victory (+12.57), and most double-digit wins in a season (55) and marching their way to their first NBA championship, they are looking even better this year.

They’re already 12-1, and their next four games are at Charlotte, at New Orleans, home vs. Sacramento and then at Utah. Unless an asteroid hits the planet because a misfit crew of deep-core drillers couldn’t blow it apart with a nuke, I’m going to pencil in the Thunder winning all four of those games. That would push their winning streak to eight games.

They’re already on pace to win 75 games this season, and this hypothetical continuance over the next four would push their pace to a ridiculous 77. Not to mention, they’re dominating teams more than they did last season. They already have eight double-digit victories in their 12 wins, and their margin of victory (+15.54) is far outpacing what they did last season. By the way, they’re doing all of this without their second-best player, Jalen Williams, who’s recovering from offseason right wrist surgery.

They were the league’s best defense last season with a 106.6 defensive rating. After 13 games, they’ve shaved it down to 103.0. Reminder: Williams is an All-Defensive selection. Lu Dort has missed six games, while Alex Caruso and Chet Holmgren have each missed four. The Thunder are going to get better when the team is fully healthy. 

All of this has me wondering whether this title defense has the chance to be the best we’ve ever seen. If we keep the timeframe to everything post-merger in 1976-77, we really only have four major challengers for best title defense in league history: the 1991-92 Chicago Bulls, the 1996-97 Bulls, the 2012-13 Miami Heat and the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors.

The Warriors started 24-0, won 73 games and had one of the best margins of victory (+10.76) ever. Just one little problem: They didn’t win the championship in 2016, so the title defense failed. Look at how the Thunder have followed their championship season so far compared to the other teams on this list.

As mentioned above, the Thunder are on pace for 75 wins. And the 2013 Heat were 46-20 in the lockout-shortened season, but that’s a 57-win pace in an 82-game season. That Heat team also had the second-longest in-season win streak in NBA history at 27 straight.

We still have a lot of season to go, and we still have a lot of Nikola Jokić and the Denver Nuggets to step in the way of the Thunder in the West. But as of right now, it looks like OKC is here to eliminate parity and create even more history this season.

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The last 24

The “other” Duke rookie shines

🏀 Rookie rankings. Sam Vecenie ranks the top first-year players so far. Cooper Flagg’s former college teammate takes the No. 1 spot. 

👟 Big split. Steph Curry and Under Armour are parting ways after 12 years. Is Curry taking his shoe brand independent? His appeal will be put to the test, Jason Jones writes.

💰 Simple solution. Jason Lloyd says taking away micro bets in sports gambling is the only way to restore integrity. Would leagues ever do that?

🏀 Bad wheel. Jalen Brunson hurt his ankle against the Magic on Wednesday. He’s out Friday night and is day to day. 

🏀 Groin pains. Paolo Banchero left that same game against Brunson early. He has a strained groin and is also day to day.

Stream the NBA on Fubo (try it for free!) and catch out-of-market games on League Pass.

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Trade AD Now?

What could Mavericks get for star big man?

The Dallas Mavericks, as an organization, clearly don’t believe in the Nico Harrison vision, because 1) it hasn’t yielded anything close to winning; and 2) it got him canned. Building this team around Anthony Davis (often injured) and Kyrie Irving (same but also very much currently injured) was always a flawed concept, and that’s before you point out that it took moving Luka Dončić to pull it off.

Neither Kyrie nor AD is a leading man, and that’s honestly fine in most scenarios. It’s worked for both of them. And for both, it was because LeBron James played the role of “the guy” while they starred as “the other guy” on those teams. Both won championships with it. This is different, and now both of them are within arm’s length of their mid-30s.

It’s just a guess, but I would imagine Davis was hoping to play with a healthy Kyrie because 1) he’s awesome; and 2) AD wouldn’t have to be the guy. The Lakers appeared to want him to take that torch from LeBron around 2021 or 2022, as they assumed James would start declining (he didn’t). And it seemed like Davis reached for the torch and then thought, “Nah, that’s too hot.” Again, that’s fine.

The Mavericks now have Cooper Flagg as their franchise north star and hope he’ll take the reins of the organization on the court. He probably will, but that doesn’t mean it has to be with this iteration of the Mavericks. John Hollinger wrote about the Mavs needing to trade Davis and build around Flagg with Harrison gone. And he’s 100 percent correct.

Unless Cooper was immediately the San Antonio Spurs version of Kawhi Leonard, this Mavs team was not going to contend in the West. The best they could hope for was a spirited first-round exit. So why subject Davis or Flagg to this current situation?

What does an AD trade even look like?

The logistics of an in-season trade are not easy for several reasons:

• Davis makes $54 million this season.
• The Mavs are hard-capped at the second apron.
• They’re $10.5 million deep into the first apron.
• That means they can only take back contracts within 110 percent of Davis’ deal.
• As John noted, they likely are trying to get under the salary tax since they’re bad.
• They’re $16 million into the luxury tax.

I’ve been looking on the Spotrac trade machine for about an hour, and I can’t find any easy trades to make. The teams you assume would be interested might not be logistically able to make a deal because of the trade restrictions on either or both teams. You can make it work by sending Davis to Phoenix for Jalen Green, Royce O’Neale and Nick Richards. Throw in a Cleveland 2027 first and a 2030 first from Phoenix and … then what?

Does that deal make sense? Mat Ishbia probably couldn’t help himself, because he loves a splash.

What if Chicago made a move for him and offered up Nikola Vucevic, Coby White and Isaac Okoro? Would Dallas do that and have Chicago include a protected first just to have a chance to re-sign White? Would Chicago do that if it’s not actually committed to the younger players? I’m not even saying any of these are good deals, but a lot of trades like that are ones that work.

Why do it at all? 

You can’t trade Kyrie any time soon. He’s still recovering from the ACL injury in March. Getting 50-75 cents on the dollar for Davis is more about clearing the way to rebuild around Flagg, your franchise guy. And the Mavericks are incentivized not to do well this year. They have their own pick in a loaded draft. Their 2027 pick is top-two protected to the Hornets because of the P.J. Washington deal. And ultimately, this team just doesn’t have it.

It makes a lot of sense to trade AD. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense on how to do it.

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About last night

Technically, there were NBA games on Thursday

I don’t know if the NBA was worried about competing with Jets-Patriots on Thursday or maybe matching the spotlight of Braden Smith against Labaron Philon in the Purdue-Alabama hoops battle. Regardless, there was a real light night of basketball, and it wasn’t exactly award-winning. With that said, I’d feel weird not giving you some updates on the action, just in case you missed it.

Here’s what to know from last night:

Raptors 125, Cavaliers 113: The Raptors (7-5) have been sneaky good to start this season, and they crushed the Cavs to show it. Immanuel Quickley was ballin’ with 25 points on 10-of-13 shooting and six assists. Scottie Barnes had 28 points, 10 rebounds, eight assists and five blocks. And Toronto lit up the Cavs’ defense with 55.7 percent from the field thanks to 37 assisted field goals (out of 49).

Donovan Mitchell had 31 points, but Evan Mobley was held to seven points on seven shots in 35 minutes.

Hawks 132, Jazz 122: Nobody in NBA history has had a game like Jalen Johnson did Thursday. He finished with 31 points, 18 rebounds, 14 assists and seven steals. No player has had at least those numbers in each category. You have to knock it all the way down to three steals to get some Jokić games. Johnson tied Chris Paul and Alvin Robertson for the second-most steals in a game whilst posting a 30-point triple-double. The record is nine steals by Larry Bird, Rick Barry and the recently passed Michael Ray Richardson.

By the way, Onyeka Okongwu hit eight 3-pointers on his way to 32 points to help combat Lauri Markkanen’s 40-piece. Atlanta hit 24 3-pointers overall.

Suns 133, Pacers 98: The Suns sent the Pacers to their sixth straight loss as they trounced the defending (legally speaking) Eastern Conference champs. Dillon Brooks had 33 points and Devin Booker had 32 points to light up this battered Pacers squad. Don’t look now, but the Suns (8-5) have won five straight.