Let's bring 2016 to a close with our weekly 10 and a bonus.
10 things I like and don't like
1. Nikola Jokic's water polo skillz
Denver officials say they don't think Jokic played water polo as a kid in Serbia, or at least have no knowledge of him having done so. Water polo is popular across the former Yugoslavia. It is a badass sport. Players can only touch the ball with one hand at a time, and judging from his crafty work in tight spaces, Jokic has that down:
I will never understand how it took Denver almost 30 games to realize Jokic is their best player.
They are 5-2 since revamping their starting lineup around his all-court game, though they've managed that against a cupcake schedule -- including two games against the ravaged Clippers.
They'll never be an elite defense with Jokic anchoring a smallish lineup. But they might grow into at least an average one, and their starting lineup, overflowing with shooting and smarts, is feasting on offense. The lineup of Emmanuel Mudiay, Gary Harris (so underrated), Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler and Jokic has pumped in about 112 points per 100 possessions -- equivalent to Houston's season-long average.
Jokic is at the center of it all, leading fast breaks, zinging the rock to cutters, and plopping in feathery hooks.
2. The Bulls: who we thought they were?
Welp. I guess this is the danger in writing about Chicago's surprisingly potent offense after five games, or announcing in the first week of November that Dwight Howard has transformed the Hawks.
After a hot start, Chicago looks exactly like the punchless, clogged-up outfit most of us expected when they cornered the market on bad 3-point shooters. The Bulls are down to 17th in points per possession, and over the last month, they're tied in the basement with the Lakers, per NBA.com. They're dead stinking last, by a mile, in both 3-point attempts and shooting accuracy from deep. Their point guard situation is a disaster.
Every possession is a grind. More of their attempts have come in the last seven seconds of the shot clock over the last month, per NBA.com. Nikola Mirotic only just eked over the Antoine Walker Line (30 percent) from deep. Getting Doug McDermott back helps, but Chicago has had trouble springing him for open looks. They are subsisting on free throws, offensive rebounds, and Jimmy Butler's relentless brilliance.
You can score enough to win without 3-point shooting. The Bulls have proven that, and they have the toughness and collective smarts to hang around .500. But it's hard to win much more than that when you're starting games at a deficit.
3. The Wolves' discombobulated defense
Minnesota is 26th in points allowed per possession, and they've shown almost no progress after 32 games of Tom Thibodeau bellowing at them. Their stars have all the habits you'd expect of 21-year-olds: lazy flat-footed stances, a slow first step in transition, and an inability to stick together as offenses shift the geometry of the floor.
Gaffes like these are chronic:
Minnesota just cannot help and recover in a coherent way. The NBA moves fast. If a threat demands extra attention, everyone has to move on a string: one help defender slides into position, a second teammate sidles over to patrol the abandoned area, and everyone else tries to cover as much territory as possible without overlapping.
And then the ball moves, and you have to do it all again. There is no time for questions, false steps, or confusion. You have to internalize a lot of information about scheme and personnel, and act immediately.
The Wolves can't manage, and that's OK. They're young. They're learning each other, Thibodeau's system, and how different opponents attack it. The three cornerstones -- Karl-Anthony Towns, Zach LaVine, and Andrew Wiggins -- are also learning how hard and unforgiving the NBA is. They are scoring stars who could get away at other levels with standing straight up and down, or admiring their shots while opponents leaked out.
Not anymore. The season has been discouraging, but in a predictable way.
4. The overlooked orchestration of Houston's offense
There is a tendency to characterize Mike D'Antoni's offense as simplistic chaos: someone sets a pick for James Harden (or Steve Nash) early in the shot clock, and Harden takes it from there. That is true on some possessions.
But D'Antoni's system has long featured subtle scripted set pieces that have made their way into almost every playbook. This play doesn't look like much, but it works because everyone starts off in a specific place:
The guy to watch there is Steven Adams, guarding Montrezl Harrell up top. Adams could thwart Eric Gordon's jaunty layup if he planted one foot in the paint and kept his eye on the weak side. But he's up higher, focused on Harden and Harrell. The Rockets played Adams' expectations against him, and generated one of the easiest baskets Gordon will get all season.
Adams would be ready for that next time, but if he slides an extra step back, Harden can pivot right into his usual high pick-and-roll -- and enjoy a long runway to pick up steam before encountering Adams.
5. Ridiculous All-Star shilling
Warning: You may hear your local broadcast crew say something like, "You know there are a lot of good candidates out there, but if you want to vote Clearly Unqualified Player to start the All-Star Game, you can tweet his name with whatever hashtag -- or just retweet my endorsement!" What they really mean: "Look, we know this is insane, but we kind of have to do it."
Rich Paul's agency, Klutch Sports Group, tweeted All-Star votes for almost every one of its clients. Klutch has kicked ass in a lot of negotiations. Teams either fear them or find them irritating -- exactly what Klutch clients should want. They work hard. Contract talks and All-Star promotion are discrete things. Still: It's hard for me to take their arguments seriously when they vote Ben McLemore to the All-Star Game. McLemore may get a bonus if he makes the team, but that doesn't make the boosterism any less icky.
Maybe I'm just old and cranky. But if we're going to consider All-Star appearances serious things -- if they factor into salary and Hall of Fame credentials -- shouldn't we take the process seriously?
Every Toronto broadcast over the next few weeks will be a nonstop "Vote Kyle and DeMar!" show, but at least those guys have legit cases.
6. Jahlil Okafor, finger-rollin'
Poor Jahlil Okafor is in an impossible situation -- playing behind the Next Big Thing, and blocking a popular malcontent who might fit a little better alongside Joel Embiid. He's slow on defense, and sometimes he barely bothers to try. Post-up brutes who don't pass are dinosaurs. His off-court nonsense at the beginning of last season didn't help matters.
But the dude plays with style. I mean, how could you not love this?
That's so cool: Everyone wants to dunk, so I'm going all George Gervin from point-blank range. Voluntary finesse is such an anomaly, I had to rewind just to make sure I had seen what I thought I had seen.
Okafor spins and tap-dances around slower guys, brutalizes skinnier ones, and is at his best working a DeMarcus Cousins Lite face-up game from above the foul line. Put real shooting around him, and those drives will be tough to stop. He gave Rudy Gobert, perhaps the Defensive Player of the Year co-favorite, fits for long stretches of Philly's loss in Utah Thursday.
I hope Okafor commits to the gritty stuff and finds a good home. He's skilled, and fun to watch.
7. Thad Young, lettin' it fly
Thad Young has had a Bridget Jones/Mr. Darcy-level off-and-on relationship with the 3-point shot. (Yes, I lost the vote about what movie the family should rent on Christmas Eve, when the NBA takes a night off.) He started his career toggling between the two forward positions, and firing the modest number of 3s we might expect from a late-2000s tweener -- about two per game.
Doug Collins stupidly had Young mothball the triple for three full seasons before The Process liberated him. Young flip-flopped again in Minnesota and Brooklyn, and Indy officials had no idea whether Nate McMillan would push Young back outside -- or whether Young would feel comfortable there.
They hoped he might. The George Hill-Jeff Teague swap chipped away at their outside shooting, and their presumed starting backcourt -- Teague and Monta Ellis -- needs space to slash toward the rim. The Pacers had confidence in Myles Turner's jumper, but weren't sure he'd be ready to launch a ton of 3s this season.
Turns out, shooting from their big men is the least of their concerns. Turner is a real threat, and Young has been Indy's best 3-point shooter; he's drilled 43 percent on about 2.5 attempts per game.
Unfortunately, he's back to rebounding like a wing for an Indy team that ranks 27th in defensive rebounding rate and has been wildly inconsistent on defense. Young and Turner make a spindly duo, and they haven't been able to hold up against NBA bullies.
But count Young's shooting as a bright spot amid a dreary season.
Also: Stop the stupid conspiracy talk, please, Paul George. You are better than this. LeBron James never, ever fouls out, and he fouled out after two controversial calls in an Eastern Conference finals game against the Pacers. I saw it with my own eyes. Did Cigarette Smoking Man take that night off?
8. The overextension of Kent Bazemore
Atlanta lost a lot of passing and shot creation in effectively exchanging Al Horford and Jeff Teague for Dwight Howard and Malcolm Delaney. Mike Budenholzer has nudged his wings to soak up more off-the-bounce duty, and Bazemore is quaking under the burden. He's shooting a ghastly 37 percent overall, and looks unsteady in a more participatory role.
He's getting way more shots via the pick-and-roll and off-ball screens, and the results have been ugly -- a hail of missed mid-rangers and awkward floaters:
Delaney's tailing off after a hot start has submarined the Atlanta bench. Budenholzer sometimes yanks him from the rotation, and turns point guard duties over to Bazemore or Tim Hardaway Jr. while Dennis Schroder rests. Neither guy is ready.
To his credit, Bazemore admits how far he has to go. He's a worker, and he'll improve. Maybe the Hawks will even be better for it in the long run. But Bazemore is learning on the fly for a playoff hopeful with very little margin for error.
9. The stagnation of Wesley Johnson
Yeah, it's not happening. Doc Rivers entered camp last season hoping Johnson would win a starting job, and emerge as the rangy 3-and-D wing L.A. has needed forever. Lance Stephenson, Paul Pierce and finally Luc Richard Mbah a Moute all ended up beating him out.
Things are even worse this season. Johnson is shooting 25 percent on mostly wide-open 3s, and just 5-of-30 (!) on 3s outside the corners. He looks like the one nonessential piece of the five-man bench mob that torched opponents in the first month of the season. He's long enough to guard most power forwards, but he's a blah defender overall, and he brings nothing on offense. He's the fifth wheel amid three hoggy dribblers and one gleeful gunner in Marreese Speights. If Johnson isn't hitting shots, it's unclear what he does.
10. Toronto, going paperless
A weird press row tradition: At least once a quarter, team staffers hand out paper box scores to every media member. By the end of the game, it looks like someone opened two reams of 8-by-11 plain letter -- "PC LOAD LETTER? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!?" -- and poured them all over our section.
Given how much information has been online for, like, 15 years, this has long seemed antiquated. Kudos to the Raptors for going paperless, with emailed quarter-by-quarter box scores, this season. Every team should do this immediately.
11. BONUS: Hubie Brown, bringing the Christmas spirit
Maybe my favorite non-Cavs/Warriors moment from Christmas Day was Brown's reaction to a "Wired" segment, in which Dwyane Wade, mic'd up for the game, gave teammates some hardcore Xs-and-Os advice. Brown was overcome with tongue-in-cheek glee: "Finally we have a 'Wired' where someone is saying something about basketball!"
Broadcasters are network employees, and understandably timid about calling out useless bells and whistles. Brown knows he's untouchable, and he just doesn't care. He's also right. Most of those segments feature coaches or players talking about "effort" or "rebounding" or whatever generic rah-rah platitudes any of us laypeople might shout.
During this holiday season, let us once again come together and remember: Hubie Brown is a national treasure.