Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Here’s how NBA Twitter reacted to the Lakers beating the Thunder on MLK Day.
The Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder 112-105, behind 27 points and 15 rebounds from Anthony Davis on MLK Day.
LeBron James added 25 points, seven rebounds, and six assists for a much-needed Lakers victory.
Here’s how NBA Twitter reacted to it.
Here’s how NBA Twitter reacted to the Thunder’s win over the Boston Celtics.
The OKC Thunder defeated the Boston Celtics 127-123 last night, with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander leading the way with 36 points and seven assists.
Oklahoma currently sits in the No. 2 spot in the Western Conference with a 23-9 record, one game behind the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Here’s how NBA Twitter reacted to an incredible game in Oklahoma.
Here’s how NBA Twitter reacted to the OKC Thunder winning an incredible overtime battle against the Warriors.
The Oklahoma City Thunder won a wild overtime thriller 138-136 against the Golden State Warriors.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the way for OKC with 38 points, five rebounds, five assists, and five steals, while Jalen Williams (28 points, five rebounds) and Chet Holmgren (21 points, seven rebounds) also played an instrumental role in the team’s win.
Here’s how NBA Twitter reacted to yet another incredible game between these two teams.
The Golden State Warriors look like they’re in some real trouble here.
The NBA’s standings feel like a bizarro world right now.
You’ve got the LA Clippers and Golden State Warriors at the bottom of the Western Conference jockeying for play-in position. Meanwhile, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Oklahoma City Thunder look like two of the best teams in the league.
Along with that, the Denver Nuggets have dipped quite a bit in recent days and the Bucks are just starting to catch their stride. Meanwhile, the Celtics just keep winning games at the top of the East.
Our latest edition of NBA Power Rankings is here. It’s still early, but a ton of what we’re seeing now feels very real.
Especially the Thunder.
RELATED: The Oklahoma City Thunder aren’t a fluke and these numbers prove it
Hopefully, Russell Westbrook has finally found a new home
Welcome to Layup Lines, our basketball newsletter where we’ll prep you for a tip-off of tonight’s action, from what to watch to bets to make. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every afternoon
Howdy, folks. Welcome back to Layup Lines. It’s Sykes, once again, here to usher you into another weekend of basketball. Before that, let’s talk Russell Westbrook.
The future Hall of Famer will make his season debut for the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday night.
It’s yet another benchmark of what can only be called a tumultuous season for Westbrook at this point. He’s gone from starter to sixth man to vampire to traded to buyout bargain, all within the span of a few months. That’s a journey that no player wants to go on.
This is the dark side of the “Super Max” deal — the contract Westbrook signed back in 2017 with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The designated player extension — what we know as the Super Max — was originally intended to be used as a tool for star retention. It allowed teams who already had stars in hand to pay them up to 35% of their cap space if they hit certain landmarks like winning an MVP or making an All-NBA team.
That’s the deal Westbrook signed after becoming an MVP. Yes, obviously, it’s been lucrative. But it’s led him down a perilous journey where he’s now playing for his fifth team in five seasons. No one wanted to pay him that money.
Nobody can blame the teams that have moved him for moving him. Paying 35% of the cap to a player who isn’t an All-Star isn’t smart — much less one that isn’t even a starter on your team.
You can find multiple contributors who might be better a better fit instead. Your team probably doesn’t get worse. It might even get better — the Lakers certainly seem to be seeing a boost in the aftermath of Westbrook.
But, man. Doesn’t this all just feel wrong?
I mean, Westbrook is absolutely going to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. He’s one of the best five or so point guards to ever play the game and, officially, one of the best 75 players the league has ever seen.
To see him passed around like this just doesn’t feel right at all. It’s been hard to watch over the years, honestly. We’re in Olajuwon on the Raptors territory with him now. It was painful then and it’s painful now.
Westbrook’s diminishing skill here deserves bigger blame than his contract does. And, ultimately, there’s nothing we can really do about it. The Super Max is here to stay — and it’s also worked in a lot of cases. It kept Bradley Beal and Damian Lillard around with their teams. Steph Curry won a championship on a Super Max deal.
Hopefully, let’s just hope the buck stops here for Russ. He deserves a much better finish to his career.
Some NBA goodness from around the USA TODAY Sports network.
Irony can be so cruel, y’all. The Kevin Durant trade has worked out extremely well for the Nets so far.
Mikal Bridges is the brightest light the organization has seen in quite some time. He seems like he can be a leader for the squad in the future. So, of course, the team wants fans to get to know their new franchise face. In a video, the team asked Bridges who his favorite player was growing up. His answer, our Bryan Kalbrosky writes, was hilarious and sad all at once.
It’s Kevin Durant.
“Bridges had to pause before answering the question because he understood just how funny it was, and then he broke out laughing.
The former Villanova star, who found out he was traded from the Suns after a call from one of his former teammates, had a pinned tweet that said he never wanted to leave Phoenix.
What a cruel twist of fate: He only had to leave the only NBA team he had ever played for because he was traded for his favorite player — who he never got a chance to play alongside.”
That’s cruel, Basketball Gods. So cruel.
One to Watch
(All odds via Tipico.)
Bucks (-1.5, -120) vs. Heat (+100), O/U 219.5, 7:30 PM ET
The Bucks and Heat know each other extremely well. Yes, Milwaukee is on a 12-game winning streak right now and are hitting their stride at the right time. But they’re 3-2 against Miami in their last 5 with some extremely close games played. With Giannis Antetkounmpo out due to his wrist injury, I think the Heat +1.5 feels like a pretty safe bet.
— Our Cole Huff wrote an incredible story on this trainer whose hoop dreams didn’t quite materialize but still landed him in a place of love. You should absolutely check this out.
— This act of kindness from James Harden is so incredible. Salute to him.
— The vibes seem immaculate, once again, for the Lakers. We’ll see how long all this lasts.
—LaMelo Ball needs his driver’s license revoked, dog. I’m sorry.
That’s all, folks. Enjoy the weekend.
This might be the biggest trade in NBA history that actually didn’t matter
Welcome to Layup Lines, our daily NBA newsletter where we’ll prep you for a tip-off of tonight’s action, from what to watch to bets to make. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every afternoon
Welcome to Layup Lines. It’s your boy Sykes here once again. Let’s talk about the most insignificant humungous trade in NBA history.
It’s rare that anyone misses news about an 8-player trade. Well, for that matter, it’s rare to ever see an actual trade with so many players involved. But, believe it or not, one happened on Thursday. It did! I promise.
You just didn’t hear about it because, well, it actually didn’t matter much. The Thunder and the Rockets swapped a bunch of names many non-hardcore NBA fans might not actually know, according to details from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Here’s the move:
Yep. Exactly. Nothing to see here. Just a bunch of dudes, swapping teams.
I wonder how this trade call went. The Thunder were probably like “Yo, do you want to include Theo Maledon in this?” and the Rockets were probably like “…who?” And then they probably proceeded to do the same thing for the next 30 minutes as they mapped the rest of this out.
And that’s not to shame any of these dudes for being involved. Making the NBA is an accomplishment on its own that they should all be proud of. And many of them have been solid contributors on good teams.
But, uh, this ain’t really changing anybody’s fortune. Well, except the Thunder, who literally saved a fortune by shaving $10 million from their cap bill. That’s about it, though.
Good luck to these guys. Hope they find steady homes in the NBA at some point.
Some NBA goodness from around the USA TODAY Sports network.
Everyone loves to talk about the bizarro world in which the Lakers never made the Russell Westbrook trade and went out to get DeMar DeRozan. But, as it turns out, it was actually a thing.
DeRozan, himself, thought it was a done deal. He talked about it on JJ Redick’s Old Man and the Three podcast and, man. Wow. Our Bryan Kalbrosky wrote about it.
“[DeRozan] revealed that he was so “hellbent” on going to the Lakers that he had pushed all his other options to the side. Because of this, he said he had to go into “scramble mode” to find his new home.
DeRozan would have fixed many of the issues that Los Angeles had last season, but the front office opted to make the move for Westbrook, and the rest is history.”
I bet the Lakers wish they’d kept that offer on the table now. Sheesh.
— Rui Hachimura’s media scrums in Japan look like LeBron James’ in America.
— Lonzo Ball’s mysterious knee injury just keeps getting weirder and weirder.
— Matisse Thybulle is catching some eyes in Sixers’ training camp.
— Chet Holmgren is still getting a taste of NBA life despite his season-ending foot injury.
That’s all, folks! Enjoy your weekend.
The NBA’s spending spree is beginning.
It’s time, y’all. NBA free agency is upon us. Transaction season is here. Teams are going to be wheeling and dealing for the next few months.
There are going to be lots of big-money deals dished out — this list of the highest paid players in the league is almost certain to grow. But, honestly? It’s not the greatest summer to be a big name free agent.
There aren’t many teams out there with a ton of money to spend. We just got reported salary cap projections and, while the cap did rise, most teams are still well above that number. Well, at least according to most projections.
That’s OK, though. There are still exceptions teams can use and trades they can make to potentially free up cap space or find improvements for their teams.
Wondering where your favorite team will end up? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here’s how much every team could potentially spend this summer courtesy of the good folks over at Sportrac.
The numbers that follow aren’t the actual salary cap figures for teams — they’re projections. They factor in cap holds teams are likely to renounce, team options and non-guaranteed salaries.
These numbers are potentially what teams could have to spend this summer if all this comes into fruition as of Thursday afternoon at 2 p.m. ET.
Enjoy.
With free agency just three days away, HoopsHype’s salary cap expert Yossi Gozlan came up with several trades he’d like to share.
The NBA Draft is less than a week away, with more potential big trades on the horizon following the Christian Wood acquisition by the Dallas Mavericks, as noted throughout our new HoopsHype aggregate mock draft.
To get a better projection of where all of the projected top prospects stand currently, we compiled mock drafts from ESPN, The Athletic, Bleacher Report, The Ringer, Sports Illustrated, NBADraft.net, CBS Sports, SB Nation, Yahoo, Basketball News, and USA TODAY’s For The Win.
The most notable risers within the projected lottery selections included Dyson Daniels moving up further within the top 10 picks, Ousmane Dieng becoming a projected lottery pick, and Jalen Williams vaulting into the Top 20 range. Jake LaRavia and Dalen Terry, two of the biggest risers throughout the draft process, have moved into the late first round.
Other risers in the second round include Ryan Rollins, Andrew Nembhard, David Roddy, John Butler, Michael Foster, Gabriele Procida, and Dereon Seabron.
The notable name that fell was MarJon Beauchamp, who now is projected outside the top 20 picks despite receiving a green room invite. Josh Minott and Jean Montero were among those whose stock fell in the second round.
NOTE: These rankings reflect the composite score to get a feel for the overall consensus, not our own opinion. For example, if a player was the first pick on a publication’s mock draft, he received 58 points. If a player was second, he received 57 points and so on. We then tabulated the total number of points for each player’s consensus ranking.
HoopsHype’s Alberto de Roa contributed research to this report
Following the withdrawals of several prospects, the aggregate NBA mock draft has shifted noticeably, and more intel on teams have surfaced with the draft nearing.
To get a better projection of where all of the projected top prospects stand currently, we compiled mock drafts from ESPN, The Athletic, Bleacher Report, The Ringer, Sports Illustrated, NBADraft.net, CBS Sports, SB Nation, Yahoo, Basketball News, and USA TODAY’s For The Win.
The most notable risers within the projected lottery selections included Keegan Murray leaping Shaedon Sharpe into the top five range, Dyson Daniels entering the top 10, and Malaki Branham cracking the end of the lottery. Dalen Terry also vaulted 12 spots since our last aggregate mock draft and is currently positioned as an early second-round pick.
Some of the more notable names that fell slightly included TyTy Washington, Max Christie and Leonard Miller.
NOTE: These rankings reflect the composite score to get a feel for the overall consensus, not our own opinion. For example, if a player was the first pick on a publication’s mock draft, he received 58 points. If a player was second, he received 57 points and so on. We then tabulated the total number of points for each player’s consensus ranking.
HoopsHype’s Alberto de Roa contributed research to this report
