The Los Angeles Lakers will likely have LeBron James but the status of his co-star Anthony Davis is in doubt, bringing Kuzma into focus.
For over two weeks, Los Angeles Lakers forward Kyle Kuzma has been the subject of trade speculation given the fact they will not trade LeBron James or Anthony Davis anytime soon. Kuzma, among all of the pieces on the Lakers, is the youngest and most attractive asset to another team.
The most enticing name linked to Kuzma was Sacramento’s Bogdan Bogdanovic but that still remains to be a mystery as well. The only thing the Lakers can count on for sure between now and then is that they will play a back-to-back against two playoff-projected squads in Dallas and Oklahoma City. And with Dallas we will begin, specifically their engine Luka Doncic. Meanwhile, the Lakers may not even have to miss a game with Anthony Davis as his status for Friday remains up in the air.
LeBron James just passed Doncic in the All-Star voting but James is definitely doing more in a smaller usage rate. Doncic is currently posting a 37% usage rate, a mark higher than LeBron has ever had by nearly four percentage points.
Doncic will be the key for the Lakers defense, whether they have Anthony Davis or not. Avery Bradley, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Danny Green will likely be the ones who will face him on Friday on the ball.
With Davis still nursing his injury, whether he plays or not, the Lakers will need Kuzma to deliver some strong play to knock off a couple of teams primed to make the postseason in the West.
The Los Angeles Lakers will have their leader and point guard LeBron James when they face Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks.
LeBron James played through an illness that knocked him out of shootaround on Tuesday morning and while he’s still feeling some of the effects of flu-like symptoms and was limited in Thursday’s practice for the Lakers, he’s still likely to play in a nationally televised game against Luka Doncic.
James is considered “probable” with flu-like symptoms, according to Bill Oram of The Athletic. After missing shootaround, James came back later in the night to score 31 points, five rebounds and five assists in a blowout victory for the Lakers. The Lakers and basically the entire NBA has been dealing with illnesses lately.
James remains the NBA’s leader in assists per game with 10.8 assists, a career-high mark, to go with 25 points and just under eight rebounds per game. It’s good news for the Lakers that they will at least have LeBron tomorrow against the Mavericks since Anthony Davis is still dealing with soreness stemming from his nasty fall on Tuesday and may not play. In a good sign, Davis was able to make it to a team viewing of ‘Bad Boys For Life’.
The Lakers will head out later tonight for a quick two-game trip in Dallas and Oklahoma City against two teams currently in the playoff picture.
The Los Angeles Lakers may have their star forward when they kick off a two-game trip on Friday night against the Dallas Mavericks.
The Los Angeles Lakers dodged serious injury with their star forward Anthony Davis after a nasty fall in Tuesday night’s win against the Knicks and they may yet escape the ordeal without Davis missing any games at all because of it.
The latest update on Davis from Lakers practice is that he is “still sore” but is not ruled out for Friday night’s game against the Dallas Mavericks, according to The Athletic’s Bill Oram. That’s fantastic news for the Lakers, following another good sign that he will be with the team for their two-game trip after it was previously reported Davis would stay in L.A. and rehab.
Davis was injured late in the third quarter against the Knicks and gingerly walked off the floor, but did not return. Davis has missed only two games so far this season and the Lakers are 1-1 in those games. But if the Lakers don’t have Davis, it’s not like their opponents also aren’t lacking a key piece. The Dallas Mavericks announced earlier Thursday morning that they’d be without starting forward Kristaps Porzingis for the next few games.
If Davis doesn’t make it for Friday’s game, it doesn’t seem outlandish that he’d be able to play the following night in Oklahoma City against a strong Thunder team. But they also may take more time with him, in which case Kyle Kuzma will have a much bigger role for the Lakers.
The NBA released the latest returns and the Los Angeles Lakers star is in line to become a captain of the game for the third straight year.
After the early returns indicated a changing of the guard in the All-Star voting, the newest returns released by the NBA on Jan. 9 shows that the love for LeBron James is still as strong as ever.
After trailing both Luka Doncic and Giannis Antetkounmpo in the first voting returns, LeBron is now the leading vote-getter in NBA All-Star voting for 2020. If the results hold at this pace, James will be a captain in the All-Star Game for the third straight season. Although the fan vote accounts for only 50 percent of the All-Star voting results, the two captains will be selected by the player with the highest vote total in each conference.
According to the NBA, James has a lead of over 81,000 over Doncic in the Western Conference. Giannis Antetokounmpo, on the other hand, increased his lead to become the captain from the Eastern Conference for the second straight seasons.
As for other Lakers, Anthony Davis looks like a lock to start alongside his teammate LeBron as Davis currently had 3.1 million votes, trailing only Doncic and James in the West. Dwight Howard also remains in the top-10 in All-Star votes while the Alex Caruso gag continues to get even funnier, with Caruso moving into sixth place among guards for All-Star votes.
Below are the full top 10 for backcourt and frontcourt for each conference.
The Los Angeles Lakers will have their superstar big man with them on their upcoming two-game trip in Dallas and Oklahoma City.
An MRI and a good night of sleep are all that Anthony Davis needed to get the reassurance he needed that his injury wasn’t so serious that he needed to stay behind in Los Angeles while his teammates went on a two-game trip to Dallas and Oklahoma City.
The upcoming trip is a quick one, with a back-to-back on Friday and Saturday in Dallas and Oklahoma City. Although it looked like Davis would miss both of the games, the fact that he is travelling gives him a chance to play in at least one of the games, if not both.
Davis playing through the injury would be par for the course for him and the Lakers so far this season. Both Davis and James have played through several nagging injuries, setting the tone that the Lakers will have their stars unless they’re absolutely not ready to play.
The Los Angeles Lakers star big man will likely miss the next two games, according to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin.
The Los Angeles Lakers appear to have dodged serious injury with the nasty fall of superstar big man Anthony Davis, but the Lakers are going to take some time to make sure that Davis is back to full strength when he does return to the basketball court.
Davis is expected to miss the Lakers upcoming two-game road trip in Dallas and Oklahoma City and will also get an MRI on his tailbone Wednesday, according to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin.
Davis previously missed two games this season and the Lakers are 1-1 in those games. Without him in the middle, the logical next step for the Lakers would be a bigger role for Kyle Kuzma. Kuzma has seen his minutes go down in large part due to the fact Davis prefers to play the power forward position Kuzma normally played in his first two seasons with the Lakers.
With Kuzma likely in line for a bigger role, other Lakers will have to step up in addition to James. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope had 16 points off the bench on Tuesday and he is likely another player who will be counted on to score even more while Davis returns to full health.
Seriously, though. Luka Doncic just put together a second straight 38-plus point triple double with a 38-11-10 line in a win over the Chicago Bulls, two nights after a 39-12-10 in a loss to the Charlotte Hornets that also included a pair of steals.
The vision, the shooting, the dribbling ability. LeBron James comparisons might feel hyperbolic at the moment, but the man is doing James-like things, and of course we have to wait and see if he can do this for the next 15 years or so.
But my goodness! This is wild!
Luka Doncic has 10th 30-point triple-double, already as many as LeBron James (5), Oscar Robertson (3) and Magic Johnson (2) combined before turning 22 years old. Doncic is 20.
The nuttiest stuff here is that Doncic does this on a nightly basis. He’s thisclose to averaging a triple-double (29.7 ppg, 9.7 rpg, 8.9 apg) at such a young age, which means you’re basically going to see magic (or Magic-like things) practically every game.
Is other-worldly the phrase to use? Yeah, that’s it. But we’re starting to run out of ways to describe what Doncic continues to do every time he steps on to an NBA court.
Each week, HoopsHype’s staff gives our Top 10 candidates for this year’s Most Valuable Player award. Which stars have stood out thus far?
Each week, HoopsHype’s staff gives the Top 10 candidates for this year’s Most Valuable Player award. This list highlights stars who are in the mix for the 2019-20 MVP award due to their impressive play.
Which stars have stood out? Here are our latest MVP rankings:
Boston Celtics point guard Kemba Walker is well on his way to earning All-Star honors for the fourth season running, as his play this year has been excellent, even as he deals with minor injuries. Walker is shooting 39.8 percent from beyond the arc on the year, the second-highest mark of his career, and a noteworthy clip considering the degree of difficulty on most of his shot attempts. What’s more, as a pick-and-roll ball-handler, Walker is posting ridiculous numbers, producing 1.081 points per possession (PPP) on those chances, the fourth-highest rate in the league, per Synergy Sports.
It’s going to be nearly impossible for Kawhi Leonard to ever receive real MVP consideration with the way his teams manage his minutes during the regular season. Even so, when he has played for the Los Angeles Clippers this season, Leonard has been downright nasty, ranking 11th league-wide in scoring and eighth in steals. Additionally, ater a slow start to the season shooting the ball, Leonard is nailing 40.9 percent of his three-point looks over his last 14 games, which has helped up his efficiency on the campaign.
Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports
8. NIKOLA JOKIC, DENVER
STATS: 18.1 PPG, 9.8 RPG, 6.4 APG, 49.8 FG%
There’s no question that Nikola Jokic hasn’t yet been able to reach his form of previous seasons, when he was producing like a legitimate Top-5 MVP candidate. Regardless, over the past month or so, the Serbian center has more closely started to resemble his 2017 to 2019 self, as Jokic is averaging 20.9 points, 9.6 rebounds and 6.8 assists on tidy 54.4/38.5/85.1 shooting splits dating back Dec. 5. Still, that hasn’t quite helped the Denver Nuggets right the ship fully yet this season; the team is 3-3 in their last six games while being outscored by 30 in that stretch, including a 12-point loss to the lowly New Orleans Pelicans, a 26-point blowout loss to the Houston Rockets and a 14-point loss to the Washington Wizards.
If you only look at the numbers, Damian Lillard would be a lock to be in this year’s MVP conversation. The flame-throwing lead guard ranks eighth in scoring in 2019-20, seventh in assists and is the league’s most productive high-volume pick-and-roll ball-handler, according to Synergy, creating 1.118 PPP on those chances. However, MVP candidates are pretty much guaranteed to come out of winning teams, and with the Portland Trail Blazers at 15-22 and 10th in the West, even despite Lillard’s superhuman efforts, there’s essentially no chance the Weber State legend gets serious consideration for the award at year’s end.
A heavy workload finally led to the Miami Heat giving Jimmy Butler a rest for Sunday’s game against the Blazers, though the team officially termed Butler’s absence as being due to back soreness. Butler continues to struggle shooting the basketball this season, as the All-Star forward has made just 14.3 percent of his three-point opportunities in his last 13 games. Perhaps the ailing back could have something to do with that, though. Nevertheless, Butler still ranks as an extremely efficient offensive player thanks to his insane ability to get to the foul line this year, as Butler leads the league (among qualified players) in free-throw attempt rate at 71.4 percent. For reference, James Harden’s free-throw attempt rate this season is 50.7 percent.
After missing nearly two weeks of action due to a sprained ankle, Luka Doncic has regained his outstanding form recently by averaging 35.0 points, 11.7 rebounds and 8.0 assists over his last three games while shooting 44.3 percent from the floor and 81.5 percent on nine nightly free-throw attempts. Even despite Doncic’s excellent level of play, however, the Dallas Mavericks have hit a slight rut in the past week, as the team has lost three of their last four contests, including a shocking three-point defeat to the Charlotte Hornets at home on Sunday.
The league-leader in assists per game, LeBron James continues to perform at a ridiculous level for his age (35). It must be noted, however, that since returning from the groin injury, James is shooting just 43.5 percent from the floor and 23.3 percent from beyond the arc, and he’s not making up for it at the foul stripe, where he’s attempting a career-low 5.5 free throws nightly this season (and sinking them at a paltry 67.7 percent). There are obvious signs LeBron isn’t anywhere near his prime form anymore, and even so, he’s still posting a nearly 25/8/11 stat line, which goes to show what a specimen he is.
It may not be the popular idea, but it’s pretty clear Anthony Davis is the Los Angeles Lakers’ best player this season, and not LeBron James, because only one other player in the Association, who’s coming up at the top of our list, is as destructive as Davis on both ends of the floor. Davis is putting up a Defensive Player of the Year campaign while averaging nearly 28 points nightly, an absurd feat for any player, let alone one playing in the bright lights of L.A. The fact that Davis, a big man through and through, is shooting nearly nine free throws per game and making them at an 86.2 percent rate is an accomplishment that doesn’t get enough credit.
For the first time in a while, we came close to placing James Harden first overall in this ranking, as The Beard missed the spot by just two votes. And considering his level of play recently, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Harden overtake the top spot soon. Over his last 11 games, Harden is averaging 39.3 points nighty while chipping in 7.7 assists, 1.5 steals and 1.4 blocks. That’s not even the crazy part, though. Over that stretch, Harden is shooting 52.7 percent from the floor, 80.9 percent from the foul stripe and 49.6 percent(!) from three-point range. Consider the fact that the former league MVP isn’t the type to settle for spot-up jumpers and is shooting multiple heavily contested step-back triples a night, the fact he’s making nearly half of his chances from deep over such a long stretch is absolutely bonkers. That, plus the Houston Rockets coming out victorious in nine of those 11 games, have helped Harden make the 2019-20 MVP race quite interesting.
Being the best player on the top team in the league – by a mile, too, as the Milwaukee Bucks’ net rating of +12.4 is the best mark in the NBA by 4.7 points – is what gave Giannis Antetokounmpo the nod over Harden for us. Antetokounmpo is a monster defensively who is also putting up 30 points nightly and shooting a career-high 33.5 percent from beyond the arc, making him a legit threat shooting the basketball for the first time in his career. That’s a scary proposition for a player who is already so good at finishing around the basket. The only thing stopping Antetokounmpo from an even more efficient campaign is his 61.1 free-throw percentage, but he makes up for that by being so good at every other aspect of scoring.
You can follow Frank Urbina on Twitter: @FrankUrbina_.
After colliding with Luka Doncic, D’Angelo Russell is expected to miss his third straight game with a shoulder injury, this time against the Detroit Pistons.
Two games later, the Warriors have looked more like the team their 9-27 record reflects.
Although the team is still without both Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, in December, Steve Kerr had a reasonably deep rotation for one of the first times all season. Again, the injury bug found its way back into the Warriors locker room.
The Athletic’s Anthony Slater reported D’Angelo Russell (right shoulder contusion) and Kevon Looney (abdominal soreness are still ruled out for the Warriors’ first game of the new year in the Chase Center against the Detroit Pistons.
D’Angelo Russell and Kevon Looney still ruled out for Warriors home game tonight vs Pistons. Willie Cauley-Stein listed as questionable. Jordan Poole, who has been shooting it well on assignment in G-League, expected to be available.
Detroit will be Russell’s third straight game he’s been held out since colliding with Luka Doncic of the Mavericks. Russell was down on the floor for a significant amount of time after running into Doncic but quickly returned to the game after a short trip to the locker room.
Russell played out the last minutes against the Mavericks; however, the All-Star guard hasn’t been able to suit up for Golden State as the calendar has turned to 2020.
Along with Russell, hobbled big man, Looney is scheduled to miss game number 22 on the season. The UCLA product has dealt with a complicated neuropathy injury and is now dealing with left abdominal soreness. Golden State has been patient with Looney’s injuries as they signed him to a three-year contract worth $15 million over the offseason.
After joining Russell and Looney on the bench for the previous two games, Willie Cauley-Stein is listed as questionable against the Pistons. Cauley-Stein has been dealing with an illness that’s been making its way through the Warriors’ clubhouse.
Although Golden State is expected to be understaffed when Detroit makes its first-ever appearance in Chase Center, the Warriors still have a chance for victory, as the Pistons are dealing with their share of injuries as well.
Rod Beard of The Detroit News reported Blake Griffin (knee), Luke Kennard (knee) and Markieff Morris (foot sprain) are all listed as out on the Detroit injury report.
#Pistons Blake Griffin, Reggie Jackson, Luke Kennard, Markieff Morris and Khyri Thomas are still OUT for Saturday at #Warriors.
Andre Drummond is (illness) not listed on the injury report.#DFS
Without Russell over the past two games, Alec Burks and Glenn Robinson III have led the Warriors in scoring. Burks has been one of Golden State’s primary offensive initiators without Russell. Burks has started the past two games while Russell’s been on the bench, scoring 35 total points on 48 % shooting from the field. Burks also added five 3-pointers on six attempts in his last two contests.
Alongside Burks, Robinson III has tallied 41 combined points on an efficient 54.8 % from the field. The former Michigan Wolverine is averaging nearly 36 minutes per game over the last two games, shooting 50 % from beyond the arc, while grabbing nine total boards.
If the injury report doesn’t change by the time things tip-off between the Warriors and the Pistons, expect Kerr to lean heavily on his swingman duo of Burks and Robinson III.
The Thunder have won eight of their last nine games, none of which have been by more than six points.
It wasn’t too long ago that the conversation surrounding the Thunder was how they couldn’t close out close games.
But somewhere along the line, the narrative has shifted.
Oklahoma City is now one of the best in the league when it comes to tight games in the clutch. Sixteen of their 19 wins have been five-point games within the final five minutes. That’s by far the most in the NBA.
As of January 3, the Thunder are winners of four in a row and eight of their last nine. Of those eight, none have been by more than six points.
Sure, timely play and some luck has something to do with it. But it’s been a subtle mental shift in the way the team looks at defending in late-game situations that been the driving force behind the Thunder’s recent success.
“We talk about it as a team — really good teams in our league … the last 4 or 5 minutes really lock down, really tighten up,” Chris Paul said after the Thunder did it again Tuesday night in a 106-101 win against Dallas. “We’ve got to figure out how to put a whole game together, but I’m happy with what we’ve been doing.”
The Thunder did just that against San Antonio on Thursday. Down 14 in the first half, Oklahoma City held the Spurs to just 37% shooting in the third quarter, cutting the deficit down to just two.
In the fourth, OKC opened on an 18-9 run, pulling ahead for good on a bucket by Dennis Schroder with 8:19 left to play. The Spurs twice got within four in the closing minutes but timely shots by Paul and made free throws by Schroder allowed the Thunder to escape San Antonio with a win.
“You cannot expect the game to go the way you expect every time,” Danilo Gallinari told The Oklahoman after making a key defensive play against Luke Doncic in the final minute of Tuesday night’s win. “You can’t just be a spectator hoping that the game goes your way. You’ve got to go get it.”
Oklahoma City will look to “go get it” against the Cavaliers when they tip-off tonight in Cleveland. Game time is set for 6:30 p.m. CT.
