The Luka-AD Trade FAQ

Needless to say, the shocking trade of Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis needs some examination.  Here’s a quick review:

Who won the trade?

Well, my gut reaction is that the Lakers feel like decisive winners.  AD Is a great player but he is six years older than Luka and Doncic’s shot creation skills are elite and not readily available on the open market.  For reference, here is the stat lines for AD and Doncic for this year:

Davis: 34.3 mpg, 25.7 ppg, .528 FG%, .298 3FG%, .601 TS%, 11.9 rpg, 3.4 apg, 1.3 spg, 2.1 bpg, 27.4 PER, .208 WS48, 5.8 BPM

Doncic: 35.7 mpg, 28.1 ppg, .464 FG%, .354 3FG%, .584 TS%, 8.3 rpg, 7.8 apg, 2.0 spg, 0.4 bpg, 24.6 PER, .182 WS48, 7.0 BPM

The stats are pretty close but Luka has played injured all year and was even better the last two years.  His advanced stats for 2022 through 2024 are a good deal better:

28.4 PER, .614 TS%, .212 WS48, 9.5 BPM.  

For a little context, since Luka came into the League in 2018-19, the only players to exceed that level of BPM production are Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, James Harden (Rockets version), and this season’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (so far). 

Davis is a great player but not quite the same league as Luka.  By way of another comparison, since 2020-21, Luka has been, at least, in the top eight in the MVP voting  each season and Davis has not received a single vote during the same span.  That fairly reflects the difference in value.

So, why did the Mavs trade Luka?

According to ESPN reports, the Mavs had “concerns over his conditioning and the potential supermax contract he’d be eligible to sign this summer is the biggest takeaway from as big of a trade as the NBA has seen in quite some time.”  In other words, Dallas didn’t want to pay Luka the supermax extension this summer (about $350 million over five years that would take him into his early 30s) because he is heavy and injured a lot.  Yes, Luka has had lingering calf issues and doesn’t look like the most svelte guy but he’s only 25 and the risk of accelerated aging of athletes typically doesn’t really kick in until they reach their 30s anyway.

Instead, Dallas is locked in with a team built around a 31-year old Davis, who is owed $175 million through 2027-28 (he can opt out after 2026-27), and a 32-year old Kyrie Irving, who will opt out this summer and will get a max extension that could cost near $300 million. 

When considering downside risk, AD and Kyrie carry plenty too.  Kyrie is a smaller guard who relies on incredible quickness and is entering the danger zone where his performance could decline from star level.  He’s been a great teammate and player in Dallas, but his numbers already appear to be retreating a bit each year for the Mavs:

2022-23: 38.2 mpg, 27.0 ppg, .510 FG%, .392 3FG%, .634 TS%, 6.0 apg, 24.0 PER, .198 WS48, 4.9 BPM

2023-24: 35.0 mpg, 25.6 ppg, .497 FG% .411 3FG%, .608 TS%, 5.2 apg, 21.9 PER, .163 WS48, 4.9 BPM

2024-25: 35.9 mpg, 24.3 ppg, .479 FG%,  .415 3FG%, .598 TS%, 4.6 apg, 19.7 PER, .143 WS48, 3.4 BPM

As for AD, his numbers have been stable the last three years:

2022-23: 27.8 PER, .226 WS48, 6.3 BPM

2023-24: 25.8 PER, .210 WS48, 5.1 BPM

2024-25: 27.4 PER, .208 WS48, 5.8 BPM

He’s not quite at his dominant peak of 2017 through 2020 (28.8 PER, .246 WS48, 7.9 BPM) but AD has aged pretty well (of course, like Luka and Kyrie, AD has had injury issues in the past).  We can only intuit that Dallas GM Nico Harrison really feels that adding Davis for Luka makes the Mavs a serious title contender now.  Otherwise, he would have shopped Doncic on the open market or attempted to extract the Lakers 2031 first-round pick.

Harrison’s vision in this case is…..questionable.  The Mavs built around Kyrie and AD should be good but they don’t move the needle over a Luka-led team.  Davis has long had a hankering to play power forward, even though an AD pairing with Daniel Gafford or Dereck Lively would not be great for offensive spacing because they can be left unguarded at the three-point line.   Dallas’ defense would be great, of course, but the give back on offense is too much, particularly when they still must replace Luka’s points as well.  In short, Dallas now looks like a solid team, with a lower ceiling, that will be heavily relying on two older players. 

It’s a fascinating deal because the Mavs’ assessment of the relative value of Luka and AD are so at odds with the majority opinion on the subject.  It is possible that Dallas knows Luka better than the public-at-large but anyone watching Luka’s numerous playoff feats has to wonder why Dallas wouldn’t ride that train through his 20s.

Luka and LeBron?

The trade, from the Laker perspective, appears to be a gentle nudge to LeBron James to consider a new role or new team.  Luka’s skill-set (ball dominant shot creation) and weakness (defense) duplicate those of  the 40-year-old LBJ.  With respect to offense, James hasn’t usually given up the ball much in his career.  Here are James’ highest teammate usage rates in his carer:

Dwyane Wade 2010-11: 31.6

Dwyane Wade 2011-12: 31.3

Kyrie Irving 2016-17: 30.8

Anthony Davis 2024-25: 30.4

Kyrie Irving 2015-16: 29.5

Dwyane Wade 2012-13: 29.5

Anthony Davis 2019-20: 29.3

Luka has a career usage percentage of 35.6.  Doncic and LeBron will have to work that out in the short term but something has to give.  The bigger issue is defense.  Losing a great defender and adding Luka will have a cascade effect for the Laker defense, in a bad way, with so many vulnerable defenders.  I can envision a Jaxson Hayes, LeBron, Luka, and Austin Reaves line up getting shredded on defense.

Because of these factors, there is a chance that the Lakers will regress the rest of the year.  But who cares?  The Lakers weren’t a serious contender this season as constituted and now, longer term, they can now build a real potential contender around Luka.  The Lakers could screw up building around Doncic but the chance is there to set up some title runs again.

As for James, he is ensconced in Los Angeles so he may not want to leave town.  At the very least, though, LBJ will have to take a backseat on offense for the first time in his career.

Is this the most shocking trade in NBA history?

Pretty much.  I haven’t found another instance of a player so good, and so young, being traded without the player initiating the trade by request or threatening to leave in free agency.  The only other even remotely similar instances of young huge stars getting traded on the team’s initiative:

Charles Barkley, 1992: Barkley was 28 at the time and was an MVP-level player when Philly traded him to Phoenix.  Barkley did not demand a trade but the 76ers’ regression made the trade unsurprising and Barkley has stated that he was about to request a trade when the deal went down. 

Jason Kidd, 1996:  Kidd was 23 and the trade from Dallas to Phoenix definitely shocked him but he wasn’t quite an inner circle MVP-type player yet.  Moreover, Kidd had requested a trade a few months earlier (as a fall out of his feud with Jim Jackson) before retracting the demand.

Jason Kidd, 2001:  Kidd was a top point guard in 2001 when Phoenix traded him to New Jersey but the trade was caused by Kidd’s domestic violence issues.  This was a moderately surprising challenge trade but not a shocker given Kidd’s criminal case.

Bob McAdoo, 1976: The closest case I could find to the Luka trade was McAdoo in 1976.  Both were young MVP-level stars.  The Braves traded a 25-year-old McAdoo to the Knicks in 1976-77.  From 1973 to 1976, McAdoo had scored 32 ppg and 13.8 rpg and won an MVP and been an MVP runner up the other two seasons.  In the 1976 NBA, McAdoo was as young and valuable as Luka is today.  The NBA, however, was not the big money maker that it is now and the Braves didn’t want to pay McAdoo’s looming extension. 

McAdoo explained the situation in “Garden Glory” that: “I hadn’t requested a trade.  What was coming up was the fifth year of my contract and since I was a superstar, nobody knew what the compensation was going to be if I decided to bolt…[Owner John Y. Brown] was an ABA guy who didn’t want to pay.  I was up for a pay raise because I had been the best player in the league.”  McAdoo was traded for workman-like center John Gianelli and cash (with the emphasis on the cash).  McAdoo was pretty good in New York but became radioactive when he negotiated his future contracts like a proto-Jimmy Butler.

Jimmy Butler v. Miami Heat FAQ

The Jimmy Butler-Miami Heat Feud has lingered long enough for us to finally weigh in on the issues as we see them.  Let’s quickly sort out the issues as we see them, FAQ-style…

A Review of Jimmy Butler, Master Negotiator

Making any conclusions about how to allot blame, both legally and karma-wise, really starts with a common understanding of the underlying facts.  So, let’s briefly run through the facts as we understand them:

-Butler signed with Miami in 2019 for four years and $141 million.  Since signing, he has been excellent overall (24.5 PER, .349 WS48, 6.4 BPM).  He has been even better in the playoffs (24.5 PER, .206 WS48, 7.2 BPM) and been the driving force on three deep playoff runs by the Heat during that time. 

-In 2023, Butler signed an extension, his current deal, which is worth $146 million, if he opts in for 2025-26.  Butler is 35 and is set to make about $48.8 million this season (if he doesn’t lose any money from suspensions).  His option for 2024-25 is for about $52.4 million but Butler clearly wants a long-term extension.

-Last summer, Butler was reported to want a two-year maximum extension of about $113 million for 2025-26 and 2026-27.  That would be about $56.5 million per season, which would be a small raise over the 2025-26 option (assuming the payments were structured equally per annum).

-Butler has missed about 20-30 games per season with nagging injuries each season.  He missed last year’s first-round loss to Boston with injuries.  At the time, Butler loudly asserted that Miami would’ve won that series had he been healthy.  This prompted an annoyed Pat Riley to tell reporters that: “If you’re not on the court playing, you should keep your mouth shut.”  This is not the type of blunt assessment that most team presidents make publicly about their best player, even if true. 

At the same presser, when asked by reporters about Butler getting another extension, Riley called him “an incredible player” but said the following: “We have to look at making that kind of commitment and when do we do it. We don’t have to do it until 2025, actually. But we’ll see. We haven’t made a decision on it, and we haven’t really in earnest discussed it.  That’s a big decision on our part to commit those kinds of resources unless you have somebody who’s going to be there and available every single night.  That’s the truth.”  Pardon my skepticism, but I’m pretty sure Riley had discussed the extension internally.

-Butler has a well-documented history of complaining and hardball negotiation tactics when he is at an impasse with ownership.  First, he had a very rocky end to his time in Chicago, where he repeatedly complained about that team’s commitment to winning.  He did not seek a trade but Chicago preemptively did so, sending him to Minnesota before the 2017-18 season.   Butler’s complaints about management and teammates did not hurt his value, as Minnesota sent significant young assets to get the deal done (Kris Dunn, Zach Lavine, and Lauri Markkanen).

Things went south in Minnesota pretty quickly too.  Butler played great down the stretch of the 2017-18 season to make the playoffs  but, during the middle the Wolves’ first-round series against the Rockets, he publicly called out his teammates: “I put so much into this game and I only play to win. I don’t play for stats or accolades.  And at times I get lost in how everybody is not built the way I’m built….Sometimes I just look around and I don’t understand how or why you all don’t love to get better the way that I do.”  When Minnesota lost the series, Butler refused to fly home with the team or participate in the usual off-season examinations or formally contact the team.

Shortly afterwards, an article reported that Butler was “fed up” with his teammates lack of intensity, particularly Karl-Anthony Towns.  The Wolves, despite the hullabaloo, offered Butler a four-year maximum extension a few days later (Minnesota could have offered a five-year extension if Butler played out the 2018-19 season).  Butler then rejected the max offer and demanded a trade.  Minnesota told Butler that it wasn’t interested in trading him at that time.

Faced with this impasse, Butler first feuded on-line with the brother of his teammate Andrew Wiggins.  Butler returned to practice shortly before the regular season and immediately caused problems.  He famously cursed out his teammates and management during an intense scrimmage.  Adrian Wojnarowski reported that “At one point in a scrimmage, sources said, Butler turned to GM Scott Layden and screamed, ‘You (bleeping) need me. You can’t win without me.’ Butler left teammates and coaches largely speechless. He dominated the gym in every way. Jimmy’s back.”

This is the part I totally forgot….the practice incident did not lead to Jimmy’s immediate trade.  Minnesota still tried to keep him around and make it work.  Butler’s stats during that time were consistent with prior efforts but the team went 4-9 and were on a five-game losing streak when the Wolves threw in the towel and traded him to Philadelphia for medium value (Jerryd Bayless, Robert Covington, Dario Saric, and a 2022 second-round pick swap, which ended up being 50th overall and was used to draft Italian Matteo Spagnolo, who has not yet played in the NBA). 

-Seven years have passed and we are back to another Bulter showdown with management.  This time, Butler hasn’t cursed out Riley directly but has made oblique references to being unhappy: “I want to see me getting my joy back playing basketball. Wherever that may be, we’ll find out here pretty soon. I’m happy here off the court, but I want to be back to somewhat dominant, I want to hoop and I want to help this team win, and right now I’m not doing it.”

On the court, Butler is playing less (30.9 mpg, his lowest since 2012-13) and scoring less (17.6 ppg, his lowest since 2013-14).  Interestingly, his advanced stats are the same or slightly higher levels than last season.  Despite the overall adequacy of the stats, there are suggestions that Butler may have had some effort issues. 

On December 20, 2024, Butler tweaked his ankle against OKC but left the game early with an illnessHe missed the next five games with stomach illness.  With rumors swirling about Butler possibly malingering, on December 26, 2024, Riley publicly proclaimed that he wasn’t trading Butler (in a clear attempt to keep leverage with potential trade partners).   Butler returned to the court on January 1, 2025 and played two tepid games where he scored only 9 points each time and appeared to be passive on the court.  

It was after the second tepid game, a 13-point loss, Butler stated that he had lost his enthusiasm with the Heat.   Shortly after this proclamation of loss of joy, the Heat suspended Butler for seven games for lack of effort, which was reportedly documented by Riley in a 10-page notice letter to the NBPA.  Butler returned to the team this week but is still not happy.  ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne reported that a Heat source said “We don’t want him back.”  She further quoted a Butler ally saying that “Jimmy hasn’t ever really started” his resistance to the current status quo.

So now the Heat are essentially in the same position that the Wolves were in 2018.  Minnesota found that playing with Angry Jimmy was untenable and threw in the towel and traded him for whatever they could to clear the clubhouse. 

Having gone through the history/facts, let’s examine the burning questions…

Who needs a deal more, the Heat or Jimmy?

Clearly, Butler.  The Heat are a .500ish team with or without him. If Miami cannot get decent value for Butler, they seem content to let Butler play out the contract on the bench as a sunk cost.  Meanwhile, without a trade, Butler cannot get to a preferred destination because so much of the NBA is over the salary cap aprons.  With a weak trade market, Butler has two options: (a) play out the year and play well enough to entice more suitors in the off-season or (b) become such a pain that the Heat will accede to his trade demand.  Butler has chosen the second route.

What is the line between sharp negotiation tactics and breach of contract?

Continuing to push the envelope to force a trade is not without risk.  Obviously, an ugly dispute does not make Butler more valuable to other teams.  The other risk comes from the NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement (“CBA”), which, on paper, gives teams broad authority to suspend players.  Specifically, with respect to player conduct, section 5(b) states as follows: “The Player agrees:  (i) to give his best services, as well as his loyalty, to the Team, and to play basketball only for the Team and its assignees; (ii) to be neatly and fully attired in public; (iii) to conduct himself on and off the court according to the highest standards of honesty, citizenship, and sportsmanship; and (iv) not to do anything that is materially detrimental or materially prejudicial to the best interests of the Team or the League.”

The only limitation to these obligations, is that any fine or suspension must be “reasonably imposed” and that the player “shall be given notice in writing (with a copy to the Players Association), stating the amount of the fine or the duration of the suspension and the reasons therefor.”

A significant breach of contract noted in CBA section 12 titled “Disputes with Respect to Players Under Contract Who Withhold Playing Service” also permits that “a Team may recover damages in a proceeding before the Grievance Arbitrator when a player who is party to a currently effective Player Contract fails or refuses to render the services called for under the Player Contract.”

So, Miami has some hammers to drop if Butler ramps up his hardball negotiations. How broad are these powers?  The answer is we don’t really know because the conduct clause hasn’t really been tested so extensively with a long suspension or attempt to void a guaranteed contract.  The closest we came to finding out was Ben Simmons’ 2022 grievance with the 76ers over $20 million in lost salary.  The case was settled confidentially thereafter but it was clear Simmons was spooked enough about his exposure to compromise. 

The reason these powers haven’t been tested much is because most teams don’t have the stomach to fight with players who can’t emotionally process the concept that they have to play out their contracts without the security of a new deal or at the destination of their choice.  When Kyrie Irving and James Harden started rumbling, management just immediately traded them to avoid this mutually assured destruction.  Here, the Heat are wired to be a little tougher and there is no deal on the table that makes apparent sense anyway. Faced with a crappy trade market and an obstinate player, the Heat’s best financial outcome is to save salary by suspending Butler every time he pops off and accept that the relationship is only going to get worse.

If Miami doesn’t budge, what can Butler do?

Butler is entitled to be unhappy and try to leverage his unhappiness to force a deal but his best option is still to come back and play hard to rebuild his market value.  Of course, that’s unlikely to happen.  Butler, if he cannot bring himself to continue his relationship with Miami, must walk the fine line between legitimate protest and behavior that arguably constitutes breach of the CBA.  Given his current trade market and off-season cap options, Butler probably would make more money exercising his current option on his contract than he would on the open market.  Accordingly, Butler’s best financial play is to convince Miami to buy him out or to keep him away from the team while still being paid until a trade is made.   

A little perspective….

To sum up, this isn’t 2018.  An older Butler just doesn’t have the value he did then to behave similarly.  In the end, though, it’s hard to get too worked up about this ugly end to the tenure.  Miami got three deep playoff runs from Butler and Butler has been paid $200 million.  There is little doubt that either side has too many regrets, other than that the breakup couldn’t be more pleasant.

Is The NBA Broken?

Let’s get into the topic du jour…..ratings and the NBA.  As has been pointed out widely, recent reports show that NBA television ratings are down 19-25%, which is a larger proportional dip then the general decline in television viewership.  This trend has made the usual criticisms of the NBA more acute.  While I usually don’t write about the popular to do in NBA circles, I can’t help but wade into the current controversy about whether the NBA game needs some fixes.  Let’s do a brief review, FAQ-style…

Is there a problem with the current NBA product?

I’ve been watching the NBA for a while and I think the product is pretty watchable most of the time.  Of course, I’m not the NBA’s concern, as I watched the product through since the early 1980s, including the slow-paced, defensive slogs of the 1990s and 2000s. 

The real impetus for the audit of the NBA is the ratings decline.  The NBA has just locked in a hugely lucrative 11-year, $76 billion deal, so the concerns about bleeding viewers may be real but are not exactly an imminent crisis.  The more interesting question is whether the NBA decline is any worse than the declines suffered by most other sports besides the NFL. 

Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch tackled this issue pretty well in a recent article and noted that the NBA decline in ratings isn’t particularly bad and that assessing the data behind it is more complicated: “[e]ven if one takes as fact the broadly-parroted 48 percent decline for NBA games from 2012 — a stat that, again, compares this year’s pre-Christmas average to a season that began on the holiday — it is not out of step with the broader trend. Versus the same 2011-12 benchmark, viewership for Major League Baseball, college football and men’s college basketball is down about 40 percent. Perhaps most importantly, people using television is down 52% to fewer than 50 million, and cable homes are down a third. (The NFL, it should be noted, is down just four percent over that period).  None of the above is to suggest that the NBA is thriving as a television property, merely that the persistent claim that the league is tanking in some unique and unprecedented way remains as untrue now as it was in 2020.”

So, it seems that the decline is certainly worth watching but may not be linked to anything that the NBA is specifically doing wrong.  Lewis concludes as much: “[t[he NBA is undoubtedly off to a subpar start this season, but that is no surprise for a league whose best-known players are pushing 40, whose top teams are short on charisma, and whose games are still — for a few more months — primarily tethered to cable. One might even argue that the ratings indicate a dissatisfaction with the product indicative of real problems with the quality of the game, though to be frank that is an opinion in search of data to back it up…. Yet anyone who has observed sports media for any length of time knows that ratings ebb and flow with rarely any practical effect. Every single league has slumped for a few years and bounced back, then slumped again. The NBA in particular has surged and slumped every few years for the past four decades, and each trough has been accompanied by concerns about the future of the league — from the ‘Why the NHL is hot and the NBA is not’ Sports Illustrated cover in 1994 to the ‘thugs and punks’ gripes of 2004, to the present day. Paired with the new rights deal, prognostications of disaster over the current ebb seem premature at best and — especially coming from those who promised that the league would soon go ‘broke’ — hard to take seriously.”

This analysis is quite persuasive to me.  The ratings decline is not a good thing but there is not too much evidence that the decline was due to a particular thing the NBA is doing wrong, other than starting the season way too early.  Indeed, the ratings for the Christmas Day games were quite robust.  Having said that, we should examine the prevailing specific complaints about the NBA and see what merit they have.

Too Many 3s?

The most widely discussed complaint has been the proliferation of the three-pointers relative to other shots.  Three-point shooting has steadily increased over the years to the current peak of 37.6 attempts per game so far this season.  The argument that taking too many threes is a bad thing is facially appealing.  Even LeBron James has said this is a bad trend: “ It’s not just the All-Star Game; it’s our game in general. Our game—there’s a lot of fucking threes being shot. So it’s a bigger conversation than just the All-Star Game.”

The counterpoint made by analysts is well-articulated by Yahoo’s Ben Rohrbach: “[w]as it better when teams were shooting 40.1% on 31.3 midrange jump shots per game in 1996-97, as far back as the NBA’s database goes? That figure is down to 9.8 a game (at a slightly higher success rate). All those long 2-pointers have been pushed beyond the arc, where players are making 35.9% of them. By the percentages, the difference in eras is marked by one more missed field goal per game (and more points).”

John Hollinger had a similar position that the three-pointers haven’t really changed anything: “[t]his season’s uptick in 3s is just the latest evolution in replacing all the 20-foot shots with 22-foot shots, and otherwise does little or nothing to change your viewing experience.”  To that end, coach antipathy for long twos is nothing new.  I recall Pat Riley, back in 1991, telling reporters that 20-footers were the worst shots in basketball and should be avoided at all costs.  It just took 25 years for the NBA to live this vision.

This begs the question whether there is something inherently wrong, from a viewing/fan perspective, with taking a lot of threes.  Reflexively, it seems like taking too many threes is a bad thing for the fans.  All the way back in 2003, George Karl told Marc Stein that three-pointers were hurting the game: “[i]n general, shooting is becoming more and more valuable in our league.  I don’t like that because the 3-point line is overvalued. If I was writing a philosophical book, I would say (the 3-point line) has changed the game too drastically, too dramatically.”  Stein clarified this further: “[t]ranslation: The lure of the 3-point line, in Karl’s view, has led to an outbreak of what he and others ([Don] Nelson among them) call ‘volume shooting.’ That’s another way of describing what happens in Boston, where Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce sit Nos. 1 and 7, respectively, in 3-point attempts — but also miles away from the top 50 in percentage. Pierce, in particular, is shooting 26.4 percent on treys, with just 43 makes in 163 attempts.”

In 2007, William C. Rhoden declared that the NCAA college three-point line was broken and needed changing.  He quotes Larry Keating, chairman of the rules committee, stating that: “[t]he percentage of shooting on the men’s side has gotten too high.  The imbalance is too much in favor of the 3-point shot. A higher percentage of total shots are 3-point attempts, and the success percentage is higher.”  Rick Pitino supported moving the three-point line back: “[w]e talked about once it got to one in every four shots taken was a 3, we would move it back. Well, certainly we’ve surpassed that.”  The NCAA has since moved back the line two times.

I’m not sure how Pitino got to his specific ratio but there does seem to be a tipping point where taking too man threes is a detriment to fans and even teams.  Taken to the extreme, a game where the teams only take threes, sounds not very watchable.  But the proper ratio for optimal viewership seems harder to assess. 

Without much studying to back it up, my intuitive sense is that the average amount of threes taken should not exceed twos (ie should not exceed 50%).  In other words, it should be no more likely, on an average possession, that a team shoots a three than a two.  But more details are needed.  The raw number for the ratio of threes taken does not take into account shot quality.  When Steph Curry goes bananas from three, we all love it.  When Jordan Poole and Kyle Kuzma take Curry shots, it’s usually less pleasing to the eye.  Similarly, nothing infuriates an older fan when a team has a layup on a fastbreak only to kick it out to a teammate for a three-pointer.  Someone (namely the NBA) needs to crunch the data on chucker pull up threes versus those taken in the flow to determine if there are too many ugly looks.

The other issue is that the fixes for reducing threes, assuming that is a proper remedy, are limited.  A rule capping the amount of threes taken in a game seems quite arbitrary and unsatisfying.  Instead, the NBA would have to create a scenario that demonstrates to teams that taking more threes is less offensively efficient.

To that end, a recent paper by professors Shane Sanders and Justin Ehrlich found that the expected value of three-point shots was actually below that of two-pointers since 2017-18.   Sanders summed up the findings as follows: “[i]n past conferences, there has been a lot of discussion among NBA executives about how basketball analytics created the 3-point ‘moneyball’ era of basketball and how this has impacted the popularity of the game.  Perhaps ironically, our research uses basketball analytics, along with a fully specified team offensive objective function, to say there is now too much 3-point shooting for a point-maximizing offense.” 

Sanders’ conclusions do not seem to sway the NBA teams so far, who continue to hoist up threes at higher rates every year.  Here is a year-by-year list of league-wide three-point attempts as percentage of total shots (example: .222 means 22.2% of field goal attempts were threes):

Year3-Ratio3-point %
2010-110.2220.358
2011-120.2260.349
2012-130.2440.359
2013-140.2590.360
2014-150.2680.350
2015-160.2850.354
2016-170.3160.358
2017-180.3370.362
2018-190.3590.355
2019-200.3840.358
2020-210.3910.367
2021-220.4000.354
2022-230.3870.361
2023-240.3950.366
2024-250.4240.360

The rate of threes has nearly doubled in the last ten years, with basically no dip efficiency. 

Where does this leave us?   It seems that teams will continue to skew towards shooting more and more threes until the efficiency dips below that of the standard two-point shot.  I personally don’t mind the three-pointer in most instances except when we see ugly ill-advised pull ups.  Still, the data shows the shot has gotten too easy.  While the Sanders/Ehrlich paper may disagree with the strategy, the threes will continue to increase if the percentage stays relatively steady.  I’m agnostic as to the exact optimal ratio but, clearly, the shot hasn’t gotten too easy.  The three-point line should be moved back a bit and the corner three (which is a closer shot) should be moved back accordingly, even if it means widening the court.  This change isn’t vital to maintain viewership but, with all NBA trends, the teams inevitably take them to extremes until they become a problem (who can forget the nadirs of the old hand checking and illegal defense rules?).

Late Game Strategy

There have been complaints about late game intentional fouls that are designed to prevent teams that are down three points from getting off a game tying shot.  I agree that the intentional foul game is not fun but I don’t see a cure that’s definitely better.  The one suggestion being bandied about that seems reasonable is that the team being intentionally fouled gets one free throw and the ball to discourage the tactic.  I suspect the unintended consequences of such a special rule for late game might be worse than the free throw contests that we see now but I do have an open mind about this issue.  In either case, this is not a new issue and it is unlikely that it suddenly has cost the NBA viewers.

Political Activism

Is the NBA too woke?  The NBA was much more overtly political in 2020 and that didn’t seem to affect viewership so I don’t know why it would matter more to anyone suddenly now.

All-Star Game/NBA Cup

The All-Star game is unfixable.  The salaries are just too high to get the players to engage meaningfully in a meaningless game.  The NBA Cup is moderately fun early season tournament but is essentially meaningless to fans.  It does work as a structure to get the players care and play hard.  The obvious solution to the All-Star game malaise is to turn All-Star Weekend into NBA Cup Week and have the event centered around games where players care about the outcome.  The NBA can still bask in the publicity and there still can be vacuous parties and fun, except for the players who are competing.

Fading Superstars

The next arguable problem the NBA has is that its three major American stars, Steph Curry, LeBron James, and Kevin Durant, are aging out and there is no obvious replacement to carry the mantle.  Accepting for the sake of argument that NBA fans prefer American stars over the current best players (Jokic, Giannis, Doncic) or future superstars (Wembanyama), the NBA should still be fine.

The same handwringing was present when Michael Jordan was close to retirement in 1998.  In May 1998 (right before-MJ’s retirement), Henry Louis Gates wrote about the economic impact of losing Jordan: “In March, Nike announced that its 1998 earnings had declined by seventy per cent, and that it had laid off sixteen hundred employees. Jordan’s imminent retirement is likely to show up on the bottom line, too: this has been clear since he spent that sabbatical, courtesy of Jerry Reinsdorf, playing minor-league baseball.” 

At the 1998 All-Star Game, David Stern responded to the concerns about the future of the NBA without MJ: “Can a league like ours say that losing the greatest player of all time perhaps in any sport will not have some negative impact?  I’m not going stand here to fool you.  Of course it will.  But I’m comfortable, as were Time Warner and General Electric, when they agreed to pay us $2.7 billion against the certainty that at least half and probably three-quarters of that contract would be post-Michael, that our business….will continue to grow.”

Stern was right.  The NBA followed up the 1997-98 season with the loss of Jordan, an extended lockout, and terrible basketball upon the players’ hasty return.  Despite all this, the NBA continued to grow and new stars emerged organically.  Fast forward to 2024, LeBron, Curry, and KD are still great stars but they haven’t seriously contended for titles for a few years now and fans still watch.  I’ll miss these three when they retire but someone new always emerges.

82-Game Season Too Long?

Is 82 games too long a season?  The case for shortening the season has been made repeatedly.  The arguments boil down to: (a) fans don’t care about the NBA until after the NFL season is done, (b) too many games increase risk of player injury, and (c) there is a drop in player intensity, at times, from the long season.

These are not exactly new complaints either.  Here is John Papanek from back in February 1979, arguing pretty much the same points that are made in 2024: “[t]he teams play a tedious 82-game schedule that begins during the World Series and doesn’t end until early April; then the playoffs begin and go on until June, when most spectators have long since wearied of watching a winter sport.” 

And here is Jerry Sloan in 1982, defending the length of the season but also acknowledging some issues with player intensity over a long season: “Sure, the end of the year means more if you’re talking about getting into the playoffs. A win is still a win anytime, but if you’ve got a choice, you want to win those games at the end of the year.”

The NBA has had a few shortened seasons due to labor strife (1998-99, 2011-12) and covid (2020-21, 2021-22) and fan interest didn’t change in any way.  A minor reduction to 72-75 games per year and having the season start a few weeks later makes all the sense in the world but….

A reduction in games played is not going to happen because, as this AP Report from 2019 recognized: “the drawback to any shortening of the schedule — and perhaps fewer home games — is a decrease in revenue, which everyone would want to avoid.”  The NBA had toyed with the idea of using the NBA Cup to replace the revenues of a shorter season but I don’t see the owners or players voluntarily leaving any money on the table. 

Replay

The incessant replays are too much.  I find myself changing the channel as the refs pore over the film to determine fouls after the fact, which has been mostly a terrible viewership experience.  Can you imagine if we had replay after Jordan hit the game winner in the Finals in 1998?  Waiting around to see if MJ may have pushed off in what is a subjective judgment? 

Interestingly, this was David Stern’s opinion in 1991: “Look, my view is that our game should not have instant replay.  We believe the referees, like the players, are human beings, and anything that takes away from that climate is bad.”  Stern did go on to say that “[b]ut there has been a lot written this season about ‘egregious mistakes’ that have cost a few teams some games, so we decided to begin collecting data only—and let me emphasize only—on the narrow issues of the expiration of the shot clock and the three-point line in the last two minutes of the game.”

Replay obviously makes sense in certain contexts but it needs to be more limited in scope and duration.  I know the rules attempt to achieve this but it ain’t working and needs a tweak.

Overall

The NBA product is pretty good and any dip in ratings is likely not the result of any NBA-specific problems.  NBA revenue has drifted steadily upwards for 40 years.   Changes in how entertainment is presented and consumed may change the paradigm but the NBA looks to be in a pretty good financial position for quite a while.  As always, however, some tweaks would help the product.  Moving back the three would probably make sense but is not a must.

Revisiting The Mavericks’ Three Js (Kidd, Jackson & Mashburn)

In November 1994, roughly 30 years ago, the Mavericks debuted the famous “Three Js” lineup consisting of smooth scoring shooting guard Jimmy Jackson, shot happy small forward Jamal Mashburn, and exciting rookie point guard Jason Kidd.  The trio with the flashy nickname and flashy games captured the imagination of fans before quickly flaming out due to a variety of factors, most notably personality clashes between the three stars that may or may not have involved a love triangle with singer Toni Braxton.

Enough time has passed that I thought now would be interesting to revisit the rise-and-fall of The Three Js and what more we can learn with a little distance from the controversy.  Let’s run through the Three Js, FAQ style….

A Little Context: Dallas before The Three Js

The Mavericks were the model of how an expansion franchise builds intelligently.  After a rough 15-67 debut in 1980-81, Dallas steadily improved by hitting on most of its draft picks, culminating in 55 wins in 1986-87 and 53 wins in 1987-88 before the team began to decline due to an aging core and the addiction issues of franchise superstar Roy Tarpley. 

 The tipping point came in 1990-91.  The talented Tarpley had been suspended twice for failing drug tests and a third failed test would necessitate a three-year ban (which, at the time, was considered to be ostensibly a lifetime suspension).  The Mavs started out 4-1 and the 26-year old Tarpley was dominant: 34.2 mpg, 20.4 ppg, .544 FG%. 11.0 rpg, 2.4 apg, 1.8 bpg, 23.6 PER, .165 WS48, 3.6 BPM.  Alas, Tarpley injured his knee dunking in that fifth game and was ruled out for the season.  The Mavs finished up the 27-53 without Tarpley but were left hoping, with his return in 1991-92, they could plausibly contend.  Things went sideways from there.

While rehabbing his knee, Tarpley had other issues.   He was arrested for DWI again and suspended for another relapse.  Before the 1991-92 season, Tarpley, who had failed two prior tests, refused to take a mandatory drug test.  The NBA considered this a third failure and resulted in a ban from the NBA.

Without Tarpley, the Mavs fell to 22-60 in 1991-92 and it was clear a full rebuild was needed.  Dallas picked a pretty good year to tank.  The 1992 Draft was loaded with huge prospects: Shaq, Alonzo Mourning, Christian Laettner, and Jimmy Jackson.  Dallas had the third worst record in the NBA but fell to the fourth pick, when a 31-win Charlotte team had lottery luck and leapfrogged Dallas and Minnesota to get the second pick (the Wolves luck was worse, as they were the NBA’s worst team by far and still missed out on Shaq and Zo). Dallas tabbed Jackson with the fourth pick, getting its first J.

1992-93: Tanking & antagonizing Jackson for no good reason

The 1992-93 Mavs were a tank machine on par with The Process 76ers.  Dallas clearly did not intend to compete in 1992. Of the 19 players that played on the team that year, 17 were young fringe players.  A few of those players would end up having decent NBA careers (Sean Rooks, Terry Davis, and Tim Legler) but they were role players and the rest of the roster would be out of the NBA shortly after the season.  That left two bona fide NBA players: Jackson and veteran point guard Derek Harper.

To make matters worse, JJ had a serious contract dispute that led him to hold out for much of the season.  According to The Seattle Times, the crux of the dispute was that Jackson wanted a six-year deal and the team was only offering a four-year deal.  By mid-December an angry Jackson released a statement saying that he’d never play for the Mavs: “I do not feel that the Dallas Mavericks have dealt with me in the same way other top NBA picks were dealt with.  I now feel it is necessary to publicly stop all speculation that I might at some time be willing to sign with Dallas. I will not under any circumstances, or at any time, play basketball with the Dallas Mavericks.”

Perhaps because he was perfectly happy to tank the year away, Dallas GM Norm Sonju was not particularly intimidated: “If we were able to get them talking on a six-year model, no matter what words have been said, things could change.  Maybe I’m naive, but I’m hoping good things can still happen.  We’re not holding it against him. He was sincere and polite in the way he said it. He meant every word of it and I don’t blame him for being frustrated.”

In retrospect, it’s a bit funny that contract length was the sticking point.  As we soon learned, young players who hit the free agent market earlier would command huge extensions.  Still, it did seem that, with the benefit of hindsight, Dallas was in the wrong in the negotiations.  Years later, in 2014, Jackson clarified that the value of the deal offered was more of an issue than length:

“I’m the fourth pick, and at the time, it was a market set. So you got Shaquille O’Neal goes No. 1, Alonzo Mourning as No 2, and Christian Laettner as No. 3. So the market is already set. So here’s my window—at six years, I signed a $21 million deal, so Christian was at like 25 or 24 [million], so my market was between 21 and 25 [million]. That’s where it was at. So when I got drafted, and they tried to offer me a deal that was about what the eighth pick got. So Donald Carter came to Columbus in the big plane, and picked me up, and we were flying over Columbus, and he says, ‘Well Jimmy, I don’t think we should pay a guard this much money, because Randy White and Doug Smith didn’t really work out.’

“And I said, ‘Mr. Carter, no disrespect,’ I said, ‘But that’s not my fault that they didn’t work out.’ I said, ‘Now, I’m the fourth pick. I’m not going to ask for anything more, but I’m not going to take less than what my market value is,’ and I said, ‘So if you don’t want to pay me what the fourth pick is, I understand. Trade the pick, but if not, I’m not coming in for anything less than that….”

Jackson brought an antitrust lawsuit against the Mavs and the NBA alleging collusion (there were no pre-determined salary slots for rookies at that time but it was understood that the top pick set the market and each successive pick would descend correspondingly and Dallas was bucking that paradigm for unknown reasons).  The lawsuit prompted the Mavs to give in and sign Jackson in March 1993 to the six-year deal for about $21 million, exactly what he asked for initially.  While Jackson was gone, the Mavs had gone an execrable 4-50.  The Mavs ended up ticking off Jackson for no reason other than to try to upset the well-established salary slots for draftees. (I realize there is an argument that Dallas benefitted by losing while JJ was out but: (a) the would’ve still been horrible with Jackson and (b) the costs of antagonizing your only good young player clearly outweigh any benefit of “super tanking”).

Jackson played the final 28 games and was quite raw (33.5 mpg, .451 TS%, 16 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 4.7 apg, 11.0 PER, -.081 WS48, -4.5 BPM).  While those numbers sound bad, he had ability to score that made a defense worry (the shooting guard position had been manned mostly by CBAers Walter Bond and the NBA Jam legend Mike Iuzzolino).  Even though he was raw and totally inefficient, Jackson seemed to help and the Mavs closed a relatively hot 7-21 after he joined the team.

1993-94: Enter Mashburn & everyone hates Quinn

The Mavs’ lottery luck in 1993 literally couldn’t have been worse.  The 1992-93 were decisively bad.  They finished with the worst record in the NBA by eight games and had the league’s worst offense AND the worst defense.  Despite having the best odds to land somewhere in the top three picks, the Mavs didn’t get any such pick.  Instead, a 41-41 Orlando team with the worst odds (1 in 66) got the top pick.  In fact, Orlando GM Pat Williams had said before the lottery that the Magic winning “would be tantamount to World War III breaking out, with Switzerland winning.”  To add to the insult from Dallas’ perspective, a 34-48 Golden State also passed them by and got the third pick.  So, Dallas was set to pick fourth, their worst possible (and least probable) outcome.

Dallas missed out on consensus number one pick Chris Webber but drafted Jamal Mashburn, who was widely considered the second-best prospect (Philadelphia took project Shawn Bradley second, and Penny Hardaway went third).  Mashburn fit well as a small forward because the backcourt was the only place where Dallas had any talent.

The other big move of that off-season was the hiring of Quinn Buckner as coach.  Buckner was a no-nonsense disciple of Bobby Knight, his old hard ass college coach.  He got a five-year contract, which imparted Buckner with two goals: (a) impart iron-fisted control of the organization and (b) run the Triangle Offense.  At his introductory press conference, Buckner said he was “not somebody who’s going to be patient.  There’s a task at hand and we’ve got to approach it with a sense of urgency.  We can’t afford to be complacent.”  

Many coaches go with the tough guy approach but it only works if people, on some level, like and/or respect you.  The players hated Buckner and hated the Triangle Offense.  As early as November 26, 1993, articles were dropping that reported that Buckner had worn out his welcome.  Jackson and Mashburn were scoring pretty well but the team looked worse than ever, starting out a miserable 2-39.

On December 20, 1993, Sports Illustrated wrote a derisive piece about the Dallas situation: “Before the season was even a month old, the Mavs were rebelling against what one player called Buckner’s ‘reign of terror.’ The three most important Mavericks—rookie forward Jamal Mashburn and guards Jimmy Jackson, who is in his second season, and 11-year veteran Derek Harper—were the most demonstrative in their criticism, lashing out publicly at Buckner for everything from his erratic substitution patterns and his structured half-court offense to what they considered his harsh treatment of the players.” 

Buckner’s two young stars were particularly irked: “After a game against the Utah Jazz on Nov. 13, Jackson angrily yelled at Buckner about substitution patterns, and when Mashburn was yanked early in the first quarter from a game against the Trail Blazers on Nov. 21, he fumed. ‘I asked him why [I was coming out],’ Mashburn says, ‘and he didn’t say much. If he’s trying to send me a message, he’s got to tell me. Let me in on it too.’”

Buckner also antagonized his only vet in Harper by benching him in the pre-season for Fat Lever, who had played 35 games in the last three seasons due to knee issues. Things got worse during the season: “Harper started the season opener, but hostilities resumed when Buckner yanked him against the New York Knicks on Nov. 16 only 3:47 into the contest. During a timeout moments later, a steaming Harper sat in open defiance of Buckner at the end of the bench while the rest of the team huddled around the coach. When Buckner reinserted him three minutes later, Harper cursed audibly as he passed the scorer’s table and kicked a resin bottle onto the floor. ‘There’s too many games being played with me, man,’ Harper said later.”

The Mavs were horrible and the environment was totally toxic.  The Mavs would sort of rally to finish 13-69.  The Mavs were, once again, the worst offensive team in the NBA, though the defense improved marginally to 24th (out of 27 teams).  Putting aside Buckner’s interpersonal skills, his offensive scheme failings were notable.  A team with two good young scorers in Jackson and Mashburn shouldn’t be the worst team in the NBA.  This was enough to get Dallas to fire Buckner after the season and eat the remaining four years of his deal.  The Mavs rehired Dick Motta, their original coach from the 1980s, who had been working as a consultant for the team.

In the larger scheme of things, the bad season had two bright spots: Jackson and Mashburn got a lot of playing time to develop and the Mavs were in line for a high pick in a pretty good draft.  In terms of development, here’s what the first 2 Js did in 1993-94:

Jackson: age 23, 37.4 mpg, 19.2 ppg, .445 FG%, .283 3FG%, 4.7 rpg, 4.6 apg, 14.4 PER, .009 WS48, -1.7 BPM

Mashburn: age 21, 36.7 mpg, 19.2 ppg, .406 FG%, .284 3FG%, 4.5 rpg, 3.4 apg, 13.2 PER, .014 WS48, -2.4 BPM

Both players showed an ability to create shots but, like with most very young players, efficiency was not there.  At the time, Mash’s rookie usage rating of 26.6% was the eighth highest of any rookie since the three-point shot was instituted in 1979-80.  His adjusted shooting numbers were ghastly (.480 TS% which was boosted only by the fact that he drew 5.5 free throw attempts per game). 

Despite the efficiency issues, the consensus was that both players had bright futures.  For example, The 1995 Complete Handbook of Pro Basketball was bullish on both players. Jackson had shown clear improvement and was called a “big-time player in the making…[his] strength gives a lot of guards trouble inside on defense.”  As for Mash, Joe Dumars stated “he’s the most well-rounded rookie I’ve seen this year…at the time of the draft, I thought Jamal had the most potential.” 

Even better news was the shift in draft luck.  Dallas landed the second pick in a three-player draft of Glenn Robinson, Jason Kidd, and Grant Hill.  Robinson was the biggest star and Grant Hill was the most polished but Dallas had Mashburn and didn’t need a scoring small forward.  They drafted Kidd to fill the point guard hole (Harper had been dealt to the Knicks at mid-season in 1993-94).

Kidd had some off-the-court baggage but he was an even bigger prospect than both Jackson and Mashburn and his college stats jumped off the page:

1993-94: Age 20, 35.1 mpg, 16.7 ppg, .472 FG%, .362 3FG%, 6.9 rpg, 9.1 apg, 3.1 spg

In short, Kidd’s college stats made him look like a mini-Magic Johnson. Adding this kind of all-around player to Jackson and Mashburn was truly an exciting prospect and The Three Js were truly born.

1994-95: The Three Js [briefly] play together

For the first time since early 1990-91, there was optimism in Dallas.  In addition to the coaching change and drafting Kidd, Tarpley was reinstated and was still only 30-years old.  If he could stay clean, the Mavs finally had the depth of a normal NBA roster.  Vegas had pegged Dallas for 26 wins, which sounds bad but would’ve been a big improvement over the two prior dumpster fire seasons.  Having three young potential stars, unshackled from Buckner’s version of the Triangle, figured to be explosive. 

On November 5, 1994, the new Mavs won their opener against the Nets and the component parts did great. Jackon had 37 (and went to the line 17 times), Mash had 30, and Kidd had a near triple-double (10 points, 9 rebounds, 11 assists, and 3 steals to boot).  This marked the first time since November 20, 1990 that the Mavs were over the .500 mark.

Dallas continued playing competitively and reached a high mark of 12-8.  From there, the Mavs struggled a bit, going 4-17, and were 16-25 overall.  On February 23, 1995, the Mavs were 20-30 and were set to play (coincidentally) the Nets again.  At the time, here were the stats of the Three Js:

Kidd: 34.9 mpg, 9.4 ppg, .370 FG%, .207 3FG%, 5.6 rpg, 7.4 apg, 2.1 spg

Jackson: 38.9 mpg, 25.7 ppg, .472 FG%, .318 3FG%, 5.1 rpg, 3.7 apg

Mashburn: 38.1 mpg, 23.9 ppg, .436 FG%, .341 3FG%, 4.1 rpg, 3.4 apg

The Mavs were not great but were respectable and both JJ and Mashburn were getting more efficient in their scoring.  Kidd couldn’t shoot at all but was still a positive value player because he did literally everything else on the floor.  In that second Nets game, Jackson severely sprained his ankle and went down for the rest of the season.  We didn’t know it at the time, but this was essentially the last time the Three Js would play together regularly.

Without Jackson, Dallas played pretty well.  The Mavs finished up 16-16, shattering the Vegas odds with a 36-46 record (a  23-game improvement from prior year). Here are the stats for Kidd and Mash after Jackson’s injury:

Kidd: 32.2 mpg, 15.0 ppg, .400 FG%, .331 3FG%, 5.2 rpg, 8.1 apg, 1.6 spg

Mashburn: 35.9 mpg, 24.4 ppg, .436 FG%, .308 3FG%, 4.2 rpg, 4.3 apg

Mashburn scored a little more but Kidd’s improvement was marked.  He picked up scoring and efficiency at the same time. 

Digging deeper into the stats, for the season, Dallas jumped to 15th on offense and improved to 21st on defense.  The offense was driven by the offensive boards.  Though they were 26th in FG%, Dallas led the NBA in shot attempts, offensive rebounds, and total rebounds (they were 7th in defensive rebounds).  So, the big scorers had to give some credit to the unheralded front court that got them so many extra shots. 

Tarpley had been the best scorer in the frontcourt and was still a pretty good player (12.6 ppg, 8.2 rpg in only 24.6 mpg).  The starting power forward was 24-year old Popeye Jones, who was developing into a nice solid player and a boarding machine (10.3 ppg, 10.6 rpg but only shot .443 FG% and led the team in offensive rebounding with a 14.1% rate).  Center was manned by undersized hustler Lorenzo Williams, who played 29 mpg and rebounded on offense nearly as well as Popeye.  On offense, though, Williams made Ben Simmons look like Nikola Jokic.  Williams put up only 3.7 shots per game and scored 4 ppg with a comically low 7.9 usage rate.  Williams’ usage rate that year was the fifth lowest of the Three-Point Era for players who logged over 2,300 minutes.

As always, Tarpley was an issue.  He had played well off-the-bench but the threat of relapse loomed.  In addition, he wasn’t a peach to deal with.  According to the 1995-96 Sports Illustrated preview, Tarpley “squabbled with Motta because he didn’t start.  Though Dallas tried to deal him, Tarpley is back, and his unhappiness could be the biggest threat to what Motta calls ‘a sort of magic developing here.’”

So, the Mavs had to hedge against another Tarpley implosion.  Moreover, replacing Williams with a starter with a modicum of offensive skills seemed to be a way to improve quickly.  There was every reason to believe that the Mavs, with the right off-season moves, could take the next step to the playoffs with the Three Js in 1995-96.

1995-96: Unbreak my heart

The only avenue for improvement for the Mavs in the summer of 1995 was the NBA Draft, where they had the 12th pick and the 24th pick (from the Knicks for giving them Rolando Blackman in 1992).  Dallas was set to draft two big men to replace Williams and, possibly, Tarpley.  At the 12th pick, the Mavs took Duke C Cherokee Parks and, at the 24th pick, they took Iowa State C Loren Meyer.  On paper, both had more skill than Williams but Motta still stuck with Williams as the starter.  This was a bad sign for the new draftees.  Parks and Meyer ended up being bench fodder and were both traded within the next year. With perfect hindsight, we can see that Dallas missed on a few helpful players at those spots.  While the best player available was Michael Finley, Dallas had no need at that spot with Jackson ensconced at the position.  Limiting the options to other frontcourt players, Theo Ratliff (drafted 18th by Detroit) would’ve fit in well as a supercharged version of Williams.  The other bad decision was taking Meyer over fellow Big 8 center Greg Ostertag (who fell to Utah at 28).  It’s hard to knock Dallas for not drafting the perfect pick in these slots but they got almost no value from either pick (Parks would go on to have a decent career as a backup big and Meyer was out of the NBA shortly).

To make matters worse, Tarpley failed a drug screening when he tested positive for alcohol early in the 1995-96 season.  Tarpley claimed that the positive test resulted from taking NyQuil.  He was suspended and never played another game in the NBA after the 1994-95 season.  (He did end up suing the NBA years later, you can read about that in detail here if you are interested).

Despite the frontcourt issues, things started nicely.  Dallas opened with an impressive win at San Antonio, where Kidd and Mashburn each scored 27 points and the undersized bigs held David Robinson to 6-18 shooting.  The Mavs won their next three games at home to go to 4-0.  Then the bottom fell out.  Mashburn began shooting horribly (.478 TS%, which was worse than his rookie season) and injured his knee on December 9, 1995, ending his season. Dallas began losing a lot.  They went 2-12 after the 4-0 start until Mashburn’s injury.  The losing continued after Mash’s injury and the Mavs bottomed out at 8-22 (or 4-22 after the hot start). 

It was at this point, that rumors of a rift between The Three Js surfaced.  Sports Illustrated summarized the situation in November 1996: “Kidd and Jackson, previously close, were
quarreling, with Kidd upset with what he saw as Jackson’s selfishness on the court.  Jackson had been the Mavericks’ brilliant new star before Mashburn arrived–but then Kidd eclipsed them both…. That team went ‘in the tank’–Kidd’s words–by the end of December. Kidd’s disenchantment snowballed as his grievances against Jackson, which he aired publicly, piled up. And during a
Feb. 15 game in Utah, Kidd says, he hit his breaking point: ‘We were winning by something like 20 points at halftime [actually, 12], but there was almost a fight in the locker room. Jimmy and
[backup point guard] Scotty Brooks were going to fight because Scotty didn’t throw him the ball. Then we went out and lost. I was fed up.’”

Sports Illustrated also gave voice to the rumor that Kidd and Jackson, who were not speaking, were fighting over the attention of singer Toni Braxton.  I remember the rumor from those heady pre-modern internet days but this article was kind enough to give concrete details:

“Oblique but persistent published reports said the two guards’ squabble was partly over a ‘mystery woman’ later identified as pop singer Toni Braxton. Shaking his head now, Jackson says, ‘People actually come up to me now and ask, ‘What’s she like?  What’s Toni like?’ And I say, ‘Brother, I don’t know. I don’t even know the woman.’

Kidd says, ‘I was supposed to meet her last [Dec. 4 and 5] when we were in New York. She was in the studio, recording. But I didn’t go.’ Nevertheless, a Dallas Morning News columnist, citing unnamed team sources, wrote that Braxton called Kidd after they missed each other in New York and said she was sorry he wasn’t feeling well–but it was nice of him to send Jackson in his stead. When Braxton was reached for corroboration, she coyly said, ‘A girl will never kiss and tell, you know that.’  The columnist reported that Jackson was unavailable for comment.  Soon the unrefuted story was picked up by publications from Vibe magazine to the National Enquirer.”

Regardless of what was true, it was clear that Kidd and Mashburn detested Jackson at the time.  The team finished a miserable 26-56 and Motta was fired.  After the season, in late June 1996, Kidd went public with a demand that either he or Jackson be traded and Mashburn also stated that “I told [ownership] some of the same things, that there’s a lot selfishness on the part of Jim.”  Management refused to agree to a trade and Kidd retracted the ultimatum a few days later but was still discontented, blowing off a meeting with new coach Jim Cleamons.

Sports Illustrated reported that at the start of the 1996-97 season, “the Mavs’ three young stars
were promising to be ‘professional’; Jackson and Kidd, along with [the recently reacquired] Harper, were elected co-captains by their teammates. Kidd and Jackson talked several times during camp, and each expressed some regrets.”

Turning to the stats, the 1995-96 Mavs fell a little bit on offense from 15th to 19th and regressed even more on defense from 21st to 25th.  Dallas still led the NBA in offensive rebounds and shot attempts but after shooting about league average in 1994-95, they shot below league average and stopped getting to the free throw line.  It was a lost season for Mashburn’s development.  Kidd and Jackson played full seasons, which showed improvement from Kidd and regression from Jackson:

Kidd 1995-96: 37.5 mpg, 16.6 ppg, .381 FG%, .336 3FG%, .468 TS%, 6.8 rpg, 9.7 apg, 2.2 spg, 17.8 PER, .068 WS48, 2.0 BPM

Jackson 1995-96: 34.4 mpg, 19.6 ppg, .435 FG%, .363 3FG%, .538 TS%, 5.0 rpg, 2.9 apg, 16.6 PER, .092 WS48, -0.3 BPM

The Mavs were willing to keep the core together and see where it took them for 1996-97.  At this point, it was clear that Kidd was a star.  Mashburn was a question mark coming off of injury and Jackson (who noted that he hadn’t fully recovered from the ankle injury in 1994-95) played like a decent starter level player.

The Mavs completely screwed up the draft, trading their pick at six in one of the greatest drafts ever for Eric Montross and the ninth pick.  At nine, the Mavs took a decent back up in Samaki Walker while Boston used Dallas’ pick on Antoine Walker.   This exchange did not help Dallas add to its core.

1996-97: A swift end of The Three Js

The Mavs gave The Three Js a pretty short leash in 1996-97.  Actually, it seemed more like Kidd gave the Mavs a short leash.  The infighting among The Three Js calmed (or placed on hold) because the bigger nemesis was the return of the hated the Triangle Offense.  Cleamons, who had worked under Phil Jackson in Chicago, ran the same sets as Buckner and Kidd hated it.  After an 9-17 start, Kidd was traded to Phoenix on December 26, 1996 primarily for Michael Finley and Sam Casell. 

The SF Gate reported at the time that: “Kidd was feuding with Cleamons over offensive philosophy, had not noticeably patched up his differences with Jackson (whom he had derided for selfishness last year), and had refused to back off of a ‘trade him or trade me’ ultimatum he issued in the summer. He was only one of several Mavericks players who had griped from time to time during Cleamons’ brief reign, and was one of many players with whom Cleamons was unhappy with their commitment to winning….The past week or two had been filled with talk that Kidd, who felt shackled by Cleamons’ deliberate offensive schemes, was on the market.”

Jackson commented that the trade: “caught me off guard.”  Mashburn was quoted more directly as saying that that trade was “fucking stupid, man.”  Kidd took a shot at Cleamons’ lack of patience on the way out: “Look at the Utahs and Seattles, they’ve been together for years. We never had that opportunity, and now we can’t have that opportunity. We were never given a fair shot, but we have to go on.”

On February 7, 1997, the Mavs hired Don Nelson to run the organization.  His first order of business was to clean house.  He traded Mashburn to Miami for flotsam and jetsam on February 14, 1997.  At the time of his trade, Mashburn summed his assessment of The Three Js Era thusly: “Everybody considered The Three Js the problem, and that wasn’t the case. We were just three perimeter guys trying to put it together – and it didn’t work. We all wanted to win, but we had different perceptions of winning. We never really came together. Jason [Kidd] wanted to go this way, Jimmy [Jackson] wanted to go this way to win, and I thought it was another way to win. It was one of those things where we all have to take responsibilities for it.” (H/T to https://nbatrades.tumblr.com/)

Jackson was traded three days later in a massive nine-player deal with the Nets, where Nellie picked up the object of his affection in Shawn Bradley.  In the end, the Mavs turned The Three Js into Shawn Bradley and Michael Finley (also nominally Robert Pack, who was traded by the Nets for Cassell).  

Summing up The Three Js

We’ve gone a long way on our journey back to the time of Three Js.  Let’s summarize with what we’ve learned:

-Because of injuries and bad luck this team never got to gel.  Ultimately, all three players played together in only 111 games.  This was too short a time to really get a chance to prove themselves.  On the other hand, Jackson and Mashburn didn’t end up becoming big stars as anticipated, though Mash was pretty good.  If the Mavs could’ve gotten some competent frontcourt players (Antoine Walker was clearly available or could’ve been traded for a good vet), the team would’ve been playoff level but not good enough to challenge the real contenders.

-Objectively, the returns for The Three Js was less than what was traded away.  Here’s how the five major players in these trades did after the 1996-97 season:

Kidd: 1,176 games, 36.1 mpg, 12.5 ppg, .402 FG%, .353 3FG%, .513 TS%, 6.4 rpg, 8.7 apg, 1.9 spg, 18.1 PER, .143 WS48, 4.2 BPM, 66.5 VORP

Finley: 938 games, 34.1 mpg, 15.8 ppg, .441 FG%, .378 3FG%, .524 TS%, 4.3 rpg, 2.9 apg, 16.3 PER, .113 WS48, 1.2 BPM, 25.7 VORP

Jackson: 565 games, 30.8 mpg, 11.5 ppg, .416 FG%, .378 3FG%, .504 TS%, 4.5 rpg, 2.8 apg, 12.1 PER, .061 WS48, -1.1 BPM, 4.0 VORP

Bradley: 549 games, 20.3 mpg, 6.5 ppg, .472 FG%, .524 TS%, 5.6 rpg, 0.6 apg, 2.1 bpg, 16.7 PER, .139 WS48, 0.9 BPM, 8.2 VORP

Mashburn: 365 games, 38.5 mpg, 19.1 ppg, .423 FG%, .369 3FG%, .507 TS%, 6.0 rpg, 4.4 apg, 16.4 PER, .112 WS48, 1.1 BPM

Finley was a very good player and Bradley was a decent center.  Kidd was so good that the Mavs would’ve come out way ahead if they just kept him.  Jackson was a solid player but never played as well as he did in 1994-95 and it’s fair to wonder if that ankle was ever the same again.  Mashburn was about as valuable as Finley until a knee injury forced his early retirement in 2004.

Though the Mavs clearly lost the talent exchange on all three trades, they’d be fine because Nellie found Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash shortly after he cleaned house.  Sometimes, there is something to be said for resetting the board when your team is in a rut.

-Within a short time afterwards, The Three Js had basically gotten over the Dallas experience.  In April 2003, David Aldridge did a great feature on them.  Here’s how each saw the situation with a little hindsight:

Kidd: “We all got along, [but] different stories started to take a life of their own and they grew into something bigger than what really didn’t have no truth (to them). The three of us didn’t know how to handle it … I think the outside was really a big influence on the three of us and which sent us down the wrong road. And we kind of separated and started to take a stand against one another, which really wasn’t the case. And that really hurt us.”

Jackson: “[Kidd’s] agents were intimidated by me.… because I was all about business. I used to question Jason on a lot of things that were going on business-wise that they probably didn’t agree with, but I didn’t care. Because my loyalty was to him and not to his people.”

Mashburn: “When you’re losing, it brings a lot of inconsistencies in your personality. It was real rough.”

On the Braxton story, Jackson denied it emphatically and at length:

“It’s funny, ’cause no matter how many times I say it or how many times Jason says it or no matter how many times she may say it, people are still going to believe what they’re going to believe, to be honest with you, I never met her. Jason may have met her, but what happened was we were in New York … I had a publicist who was going to set up the whole team to go over there and see her in the studio (in New York). So, I’m sitting in my room, I’m chillin’, it’s about 7:30, 8 o’clock, and I’m waiting for people to call me, and nobody calls me. So, I’m like dang they must have left me, so I went to a sponsorship meeting with Scotty Brooks. Hung out that night with some sponsors from Coke and AT&T. 

Jason was supposed to go, but he didn’t go. I came back to the room at 12 o’clock, 12:30 to get ready for the New York game. A few days later I heard that I left the team and went to the studio (to allegedly meet Braxton). And my biggest disappointment was if you want to know where I was at, just ask me. Didn’t nobody ask me about this until late June when we had a meeting with the new coach, Jim Cleamons. And (rumors) were spread because someone said I was on my way, which was true, but I was on my way with the team because I had already set up that there was going to be seven or eight of us going to the studio, but I never got a call that night. So, they all went out and did their separate things without telling me, so I got stuck.

So, now the label is that it happened in Atlanta, and a car was downstairs and I went downstairs and said that Jason was sick, which is a lie because Jason, Jamal, all of us were all together in Atlanta that night because a friend of mine had a party, so it never happened in Atlanta. So, it all goes back to communication. And that’s what I said to Jason was this. I said, ‘Jason, I’m not mad at you, but I’m disappointed because as a man, how close we were — if you ever had a problem you could have sat down and talked with me.’ Whether I agreed with you or not, that’s not the point — it was a matter of respect. I can always respect a man, whether I agree with you or not. And that was my biggest problem.”

In other words, Kidd definitely thought it was true at the time and was pissed off.  Mashburn essentially confirmed this in 2015: “She definitely cost me relationships with Jimmy Jackson and Jason Kidd.  “I necessarily wouldn’t even put it on here. I think at that time Jimmy and Jason were going through their own particular issues. From my understanding, being in the locker room, there was no truth to the Toni Braxton part. She played a part in it from the standpoint that she had an album out at the time, or was about to release it, called ‘Secrets.’ She went on the Dallas airwaves and said she doesn’t kiss and tell.”

As Mashburn noted, had they been a bit more secure and/or mature, none of the chatter would’ve bothered them but they were too young and immature and the rumor it was just another spark to add to the controversy fire that was already brewing. 

-Lastly, a special shoutout to the Triangle Offense, which was part of the vexing Quinn Buckner mess in 1993-94 and then returned to annoy Kidd in 1996-97.  It just seemed like the wrong offense to take advantage of Kidd’s skillset and was the last straw in his demanding a trade. 

A Closer Look At The Cavs Hot Start

The biggest positive story of the new season is Cleveland’s 15-0 start, which puts the Cavs in pretty elite company.  Much has been written about this great start but I thought we could take another look, FAQ style, and see if we can squeeze a few more interesting nuggets…

How is Cleveland doing this?

In simplest terms, the offense has exploded.  The Cavs were a defense-first team last season (6th in defensive rating) that had to eke out offense (18th in offensive rating) by running most key plays through Donovan Mitchell and asking him to create points.   This year, things are different.  Cleveland has maintained the same defensive rating but is also first overall in offensive rating. 

Last season, the Cavs were mid-pack in two-point field goal percentage (.479%, 12th in NBA) and three-point field goal percentage (.367%, 15th in NBA).  Kenny Atkinson has implemented a much quicker paced offense (7th in the NBA in pace versus 22nd last season), which is paying dividends.  Interestingly, the big names of Mitchell and Evan Mobley aren’t really playing any better statistically.  Mitchell hasn’t been any better or shot less (his usage is the same 31%) but Atkinson has reduced his minutes load by four minutes per game, which should be helpful later in the season when they really need him.

Putting coaching aside, the biggest improvement has come from Darius Garland, who tried to play through a broken jaw last season.  A healthy Garland has been incredible.  He has gone from average starter last season to a clear All-Star:

Garland 2023-24: 33.4 MPG, 18.0 ppg, .446 FG%, .371 3FG%, 2.7 rpg, 6.5 apg, 14.5 PER, .067 WS48, -1.0 BPM

Garland 2024-25: 30.1 MPG, 21.1 ppg, .531 FG%, .458 3FG%, 2.2 rpg, 6.6 apg, 22.6 PER, .210 WS48, 4.0 BPM

On the surface, this uptick in shooting feels a little flukey.  He has never shot nearly this well from three-point land (career mark is 38%).  In fact, few players have ever shot this well from three on the volume that Garland is taking them (7 three attempts per game).  The only player to shoot over 45% from three on that volume of shots is peak Steph Curry (2012-13 and 2015-16).  If you reduce the attempt threshold to 6 threes per game, you get a few great shooting role players as well:

Kyle Korver 2014-15: .492% on 6.0 3PA/G

Joe Harris 2020-21: .475% on 6.4 3PA/G

Steph Curry 2015-16: .454% on 11.2 3PA/G

JJ Redick 2019-20: .453% on 6.6 3PA/G

Steph Curry 2012-13: .453% on 7.7 3PA/G

Joe Ingles 2020-21: .451 on 6.1 3PA/G

This is not to say that Garland can’t continue to shoot threes well (there are 27 players who made 42-45% of their threes on this rate) but Garland is unlikely to continue shooting threes like peak Curry.

In addition, Garland’s two-point mark (.595%) is 100 points above his career mark (49%).  The shooting chart shows that he has improved his shooting percentage by taking more shots at the rim (20% versus 17% the prior two seasons) and converting those layups at a 68% clip (versus 59% for his career).  He’s also shooting 61% from mid-range, which is about 15 points above his career norms.  Garland is a great player but regression to the shooting mean is probable from all distances.  Still, if he can retain even half of these gains, he will still be excellent.

The even bigger shooting fluke comes from Caris LeVert, who is shooting 60% from two (versus 50% for his career) and 49% from three (versus 34% for his career).  Granted, LeVert’s volume is low (4 threes per game) but not that low to explain that rate of makes.  This shooting has powered LeVert to a mind boggling .681% TS% and a 6.1 BPM.  It is possible that Atkinson’s more fluid offensive system will sustain higher shooting rates for Garland and LeVert but the current rates seem unsustainable.  Even if the offense regresses a bit, Cleveland is still a very good team and a real threat to the Celtics. 

Have historically great streaks to start a season translated to titles?

No really.  Of the five other teams to start 14-0 or better, only one squad, the 1993-94 Rockets, ended up winning the title.  The rest of the teams to do so were all pretty close to a title.   Here’s the rundown on each of these team’s season after the initial winning streak:

Golden State Warriors 2015-16, 24-0: Started out 24-0 and ended up 73-9 before losing to the Cavs under an insane set of happenings (Draymond suspension, Bogut injury, LeBron playing the best ball of his career, Kyrie outshooting Curry, and Kevin Love somehow forcing Curry to miss in isolation) that would be difficult to duplicate.  In my mind, it still feels like the Warriors won that title but LeBron and Andre Iguodala remind me otherwise.

Houston Rockets 1993-94, 15-0: The Rockets won a title but had a strange regular season.  They started out 15-0 before losing to Atlanta on December 3, 1993.  Houston then ripped off seven more wins in a row, bringing them to a 22-1 record.  From there, malaise set in.  The Rockets were a more tepid 36-23 and they even tried to trade Robert Horry to add some energy to the team.  The Rockets still ended up 58-24, which was good for the two-seed but they weren’t exactly roaring into the playoffs.  Powered by Hakeem Olajuwon, they did win the title after two epic seven-game series (beating Barkley and Phoenix after dropping the first two games in Houston and winning the Finals against Ewing and the Knicks in a grueling battle of attrition).

Washington Capitols 1948-49, 15-0: This defunct franchise was coached by good old Red Auerbach and led by prehistoric stars like Bob Feerick and Bones McKinney.  The Caps were a .500 after their great start (23-22 the rest of the way).  Washington made the Finals but they were dispatched 4-2 by George Mikan and the Lakers.

Boston Celtics 1957-58, 14-0: In Bill Russell’s second season, Boston started out 14-0 and ended up with the top seed at 49-23.  While the 35-23 finish sounds less impressive, it was fairly good, because the teams in that smaller league clustered around .500.  The Celtics ended up losing 4-2 in the Finals to the Hawks because Russ missed two games with an ankle injury and was hobbled when he returned.  Even with an injured Russell, the Hawks still needed Bob Pettit to score 50 points in Game 6 to clinch the series.   

Incidentally Russell’s Celtics started almost every season of his career with a winning streak.  Here’s the year-by-year breakdown:

1956-57: Russell was playing in the Olympics to start the season

1957-58: Started 14-0

1958-59: Lost opener in OT to the Knicks

1959-60: Started 6-0

1960-61: Started 2-0

1961-62: Started 4-0

1962-63: Started 3-0

1963-64: Started 7-0

1964-65: Started 11-0

1965-66: Started 2-0

1966-67: Started 4-0

1967-68: Started 6-0

1968-69: Started 4-0

How impressive is this?  By way of comparison, Wilt did it 7 times but never was better than 7-0.  In more modern times, Larry Bird only streaked to start a season 6 times and was never better than 6-0.  Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan only streaked to start a season 5 times (though MJ started 12-0 to start 1996-97).  Finally, LeBron has streaked only 5 times to start a season (most recently 3-0 this year) but never was better than 6-0.  So, Russ’ season opening streaks look pretty impressive in this context.

Dallas Mavericks 2002-03, 14-0: One of the best Don Nelson teams, this squad featured the Steve Nash-Dirk Nowitzki duo plus a deep roster with Michael Finley, Nick Van Exel, and a ton of other pretty good players.  They finished up 60-22 for the season and were first in offense and ninth in defense.  The Mavs did not get the top seed or even win their division.  The Tim Duncan Spurs started out slowly (10-7) but rallied to 60-22 and won the tie breaker for the top seed.  The teams would meet in the Western Conference Finals but Dirk missed most of the series with injuries, robbing us of a proper match up.  The Spurs won 4-2 and then took out the Nets to win the title.

A Historical Look At NBA Pre-Season Odds

With another season fast approaching, we are reminded that most teams enter the season with optimism about their chances to have a successful season, if not necessarily win a title.  Sometimes the optimism comes from good planning and other times from pipe dreams.   I was wondering what was the most objectively optimistic time for each franchise entering a season. 

To that end, I thought a nice objective measure of legitimate optimism would be pre-season odds to win a title.  SportsOddsHistory has kept track of pre-season title odds since 1984-85.  Here are each franchise’s best pre-season odds during that time:

Boston 1986-87 (+160): Coming off, arguably, the best season in franchise history, Boston was the heavy favorite to repeat.  They nearly did so, even though they had a grueling gauntlet in the Eastern Conference playoffs.  After squeaking by Milwaukee and Detroit, Boston ran out of steam and lost to the Lakers in the Finals 4-2.

New York 1993-94 (+200): New York looked like they had a clear path to a title with Michael Jordan’s abrupt retirement.  The Knicks came very close to that title but lost a tight seven-game series to the Rockets in the Finals.

Brooklyn 2021-22 (+240):  Man, 2021 training camp feels like 100 years ago in Brooklyn.  We won’t rehash that debacle again but suffice it to say things were messy and the Nets ended up getting swept in the First Round by Boston.

Philadelphia 1984-85 (+250):  Despite getting upset by the Nets in 1983-84, the 76ers were held in high esteem by Vegas.  The team was still filled with established stars (Julius Erving, Andrew Toney, Maurice Cheeks, Bobby Jones, and Moses Malone) and was adding a rookie Charles Barkley.  They were really good  in the regular season (58-24) and made the Eastern Conference Finals but were dispatched easily by Boston 4-1.

Washington 1986-87 (+1300):  What passes for optimism in DC is different. Here, Vegas gave moderately long odds for a title to a team that had gone 39-43 and replaced Jeff Ruland with a near-peak Moses Malone.  Mo’s presence improved the team to 42-40 and they were swept by Detroit in the First Round.

Orlando 1995-96 (+400):  This was the theoretical peak of the Penny-Shaq Magic that had just eliminated the MJ Bulls.  Vegas still had the Bulls a slight favorite (+350) over Orlando.  The Magic did win 60 games but were swept in the Eastern Conference Finals by the Bulls.

Miami 2010-11 (+175):  Yes, we all remember LeBron James promising to win four straight titles at his opening press conference after signing with Miami in 2010.  Vegas was pretty optimistic as well.  We also all remember, however, that Dirk and the Mavs spoiled the plan by beating Miami in the Finals that season.

Atlanta 1987-88 (+500):  There were many who thought that Atlanta, and not Detroit, would ultimately knock off the Larry Bird Celtics.  Atlanta was pretty good (50-32) and lost an epic seven-game series in the Second Round against the Celtics.

Charlotte 1994-95 (+1000):  The hopes in Charlotte have been really dim for the past 20 years or so but there were good vibes around the team built around young Larry Johnson and Alonzo Mourning.  Charlotte went 50-32 and had the best SRS in franchise history.  They had the misfortune of drawing the Bulls right after Jordan had unretired.  The Bulls won the series 3-1 and Zo forced a trade a few months later.

Chicago 1996-97 (+100):  They had just won 72 games and dominated the playoffs, so they were naturally heavy favorites to repeat, which they did without much difficulty.

Cleveland 2014-15 (+275):  LeBron had just returned to Cleveland to deliver the title he had promised the local fans.  They did make the NBA Finals but lost to the recently emergent Splash Brothers Warriors.

Detroit 1989-90 (+300):  The Bad Boy Pistons had won a title in 1988-89 and looked like strong favorites to repeat, which they did.

Indiana 1998-99 (+450):  The Pacers seemed like the best team in the East (they nearly upset the Bulls the prior season) but crapped out against the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals, in part due that questionable four-point play by LJ.

Milwaukee 2019-20 & 2020-21 (+550):  The peak Giannis Bucks probably would’ve won a title in 2019-20 had Covid not popped up and changed everything.  Instead, they were upset by Miami in the Second Round of the surreal Bubble playoffs.  They probably should’ve lost to the Nets in the 2020-21 playoffs but, their luck swung the other way, and they just beat an injured Nets team and won a title a few weeks later.

Toronto 2001-02 (+1500):  The Raptors’ best odds followed Vince Carter’s peak year in 2000-01.  VC struggled with injury and the Raps were a low seed in 2001-02, where they lost in the First Round to Detroit.  In case you are wondering, the 2018-19 title team had odds of +1850 because Vegas was so sure the Warriors would repeat again.

Dallas 2005-06 (+400):  Sometimes we forget just how consistently good the Dirk Nowitzki Mavs were in the 2000s.  The 2005-06 team knocked off a 49-win Grizzlies team in the First Round, the Duncan Spurs in the Second Round, and the Nash/Stoudemire Suns in the Conference Finals before losing to the Heat in the Finals.

Denver 2023-24 (+450): This one isn’t too hard to recall, as it was just a few months ago that Denver coughed up a 20-point lead in Game 7 against the Wolves to lose in the Second Round.

Houston 1986-87 (+350):  Even though, the Rockets have won two titles and been serious contenders several times over the last 40 years, the best odds were allotted to the Hakeem/Sampson Twin Towers team that had just lost to Boston in the 1985-86 Finals.  The team fell apart and went only 42-40 in 1986-87.  The Rockets did upset Portland before losing to Seattle in the Second Round.

Memphis 2004-05 (+900):  Hubie Brown had turned the Grizz into a 50-win team in 2003-04 with Pau Gasol and a deep rotation.  Hubie ended up resigning early in the 2004-05 season due to health issues and the team slumped to 5-11 but finished strong under Mike Fratello (40-26).  They ended up getting swept by Phoenix in the First Round.

Minnesota 2004-05 (+500):  From optimism of a 58-24 record in 2003-04 to misery in 2004-05.  The Wolves looked great on paper but struggled with injuries and age-related regressions.  Though Kevin Garnett was still awesome, Minnesota went 44-38 and missed the playoffs.

New Orleans 2008-09 (+900):  Chris Paul was near his peak and the 56-26 Hornets nearly knocked off the Spurs in the 2007-08 playoffs.  The Hornets didn’t quite play as well but were still pretty good (49-33) and were knocked off in the First Round by the Nuggets.

San Antonio 2005-06 (+250):  You can pretty much pick any Spurs team from 2000 through 2014 but this squad was slightly better in the odds scale.  The Spurs lost a tough seven-game series to the Mavs that is referenced above.

Utah 1998-99 (+350):  Like the Pacers, the Jazz looked to have a clear path to the Finals without Jordan in the way.  Utah went 37-13 but lost to a younger and more athletic Blazers team in the Second Round.

Warriors 2017-18 (-187):  This Curry/KD Warriors had the best odds of winning a title as any team since 1984-85.  They weren’t quite as good as the other iterations in the regular season (they were “only” 58-24) but delivered a title anyway.

L.A. Clippers 2019-20 (+425):  Remember when Kawhi and Paul George were healthy and playing together regularly?  They went up 3-1 against the Nuggets in the Second Round before losing three straight.  Man, that Bubble was crazy.

L.A. Lakers 1987-88 (+120): The Showtime Lakers were favorites to repeat and they did, even though Detroit fans will note that a late foul in Game 7 of the Finals on Laimbeer was a bit ticky tacky

Phoenix 1993-94 (+300):  The Barkley/Kevin Johnson famously lost a tough seven-game series to eventual champs Rockets in the Second Round. 

Portland 1992-93 & 1999-00 (+350):  The 1992-93 Blazers were the end stages of the Clyde Drexler squads.  After three straight deep playoff runs, the Blazers were still good (51-31) but were injured and were dispatched by the Spurs in the First Round. 

The 1999-00 squad was one quarter away from beating Shaq and Kobe in the Western Conference Finals.  Had Portland held on, they would’ve likely been favored over the Pacers in the Finals (Portland was 2-0 against the Pacers that year and +5 ppg).

Sacramento 2002-03 (+300):  This was a really fun Kings team.  They went 59-23 and were able to avoid the side of the playoff bracket where their nemeses, the Lakers were.  The West was so deep, however, that they drew a deep Mavs team in the Second Round.  Sacramento won Game 1 on the road but Chris Webber blew out his knee in Game 2 and missed the rest of the series.  Sacramento still took the series to seven games but lost and Webber was never the same player again.

Seattle 1994-95 and Oklahoma City 2012-13 (+450):  The Payton/Kemp Sonics won 55+ games each season from 1992-93 to 1997-98.  The 1994-95 team was 57-25 but ended up having the least playoff success, losing to a young Lakers team 3-1 (Nick Van Exel had 25 ppg and really outplayed Payton). 

The KD/Westbrook Thunder had a similar great five-year run and 2012-13  was the best year on paper (60-22, 9.15 SRS).  OKC got screwed when Westbrook tore his knee in the First Round on a very questionable defensive play by Pat Beverley.  OKC still beat the Rockets but were defeated by Memphis 4-1 in the Second Round and we were deprived of a Thunder/Spurs matchup (the Spurs swept Memphis 4-0) and, potentially, a KD/LeBron Finals rematch.