The Golden State Warriors are on a ‘real hunt for a star’ to pair with their future Hall of Famer in their hunt for another championship — and there are options as the trade deadline nears.
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Plus, Philadelphia’s rookie dilemma, Zion Williamson is sidelined yet again amid questions about the injury-plagued star’s future , a rising force’s looming fork in the road, and more in our latest NBA Talking Points!
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TITLE CONTENDER SEARCHING FOR ANOTHER STAR... SO, WHO?
The Golden State Warriors are reportedly searching for another star talent to pair with future Hall of Fame guard Stephen Curry in their hunt for another championship.
Curry and veteran big Draymond Green were unavailable for the Warriors’ recent win over the Houston Rockets to snap a five-game losing stretch, but even with the stalwart pair available, the need for another big name to keep pace in the ever-extending Western Conference arms race is evident.
Charania believes Golden State is genuinely pursuing a ‘star’.
“I’m told that the Warriors are on (a) real hunt for a star; a playmaker, a scorer alongside Stephen Curry,” Charania told ESPN’s NBA Today.
“Think back to the summer when they pursued Lauri Markkanen of the Utah Jazz, they made a pitch for Paul George as a free agent (then) with the Clippers.”
Charania explained that the seven-time champs are deciphering whether the ‘star’ they desire should come from a rival franchise, or whether there is one already right under their nose.
“The debate with the Warriors and teams that look into that situation is, for them, are they going to find that (star player) externally outside of this roster currently? Or will it be in-house, with a player like Jonathan Kuminga?” Charania asked, before providing context.
“That relationship between Jonathan Kuminga and Steve Kerr (is) something that Warriors officials have been monitoring over the last year or so, and how he fits in when Stephen Curry and Draymond Green are back in the line-up will be interesting to monitor.
“The Warriors’ future will be shaped over the next few weeks and the next couple of months before the trade deadline. How can they get that next championship with Stephen Curry and Draymond Green?”
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The 22-year-old Kuminga scored a season-high 33 points against the Rockets in the absence of Curry and Green, but his longer-term fit with the four-time champs remains under observation.
Given the Warriors’ previous interest in forwards Markkanen and George, might they have seriously surveyed 6’8 forward Ingram before he suffered his latest injury?
In the 17 games prior to his costly ankle ailment, the 27-year-old averaged 23.2 points on 46.8—37.2—84.9 shooting splits.
On an expiring deal after failing to agree on a contract extension with the New Orleans Pelicans, Ingram is set to hit unrestricted free agency in the off-season.
Moreover, ESPN’s Charania also previously said of the situation: “I’m told Brandon Ingram wants to be part of a winning competitive environment.”
And while the Pelicans could be easily tempted to deal the North Carolina native given their grim season thus far — they are now 5-20 following costly injuries to Zion Williamson and Dejounte Murray early in the campaign — moving Ingram in-season might have just become all the more difficult due to his injury.
Slightly shorter guard types, such as Chicago’s Zach LaVine and Miami’s Jimmy Butler — those who still fit the ‘playmaking, scoring’ mould — could also be on Golden State’s radar.
LaVine has long been linked to a departure from the Bulls despite consistently publicly pledging his loyalty to the franchise, while Butler could be a less-popularised trade candidate after a few unfulfilled seasons in South Beach.
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The 29-year-old, 6’5 scorer LaVine is making 42.5 per cent of his three-point shots — up four percentage points on his career number — and is averaging a career-high 4.4 assists per game, playing in a slightly more facilitative fashion than in seasons past.
However, LaVine has two years remaining on an eye-watering five-year, $215 million contract he signed in 2022 — potentially representing a stumbling block in trade negotiations before the deadline and potentially in the off-season.
The 35-year-old Butler — a proven scorer and playmaker throughout his time in the league — fits the Warriors’ win-now timeline and is currently shooting a career-best 56.1 per cent from the field through 16 games. The Heat have a plus-7.9 offensive rating with Butler on the court compared to when he is off it.
But it is because of these salivating numbers that the Heat would likely demand a king’s ransom in a potential trade.
Further, the former Chicago, Minnesota and Philadelphia guard-forward is raking in $48.8 million this season and has a player option for 2025-26 worth $52.4, which complicates things for an acquiring party.
Might Golden State general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. inquire about 6’9 Washington forward Kyle Kuzma? The Wizards shape as sellers at the February 7 (AEDT) trade deadline.
A couple of inches taller than Kuminga, and with a championship to his name, Kuzma — who has two years remaining on a four-year, $90 million deal but had front-loaded cap hits — could fit as an additional scoring option beside Curry and co.
The 29-year-old forward, now into his eighth season, is averaging only 15.8 points per game on a career-low 42 per cent from the field, but he is playing with the league-worst Wizards after all.
The simplest option for Golden State might be to retain an improving Kuminga and hoping the championship pedigree of Curry and Green rubs off as the Warriors trend towards snagging a top-six playoff seed this season.
ZION ALARM BELLS AMID $197 QUESTION
The panic meter on Zion Williamson is rising with each passing injury and game missed.
ESPN’s Shams Charania reported on the Pat McAfee Show that Williamson is “not close” to returning despite having already missed a month with a hamstring strain.
It feels like we have the same conversation every season about Williamson and his durability issues despite the former No. 1 pick having boundless potential and once seen as the future face of the league.
We know about the Pelicans’ frustrations over the years with regards to his poor work ethic and commitment to getting himself in peak physical condition.
But now in his fifth NBA campaign, Williamson isn’t a young pup anymore at 24 years of age, and we’ve only seen the two-time All-Star’s dominant best in patches.
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He’s coming off his healthiest season yet, notching 70 games and averaging 22.9 points, 5.8 rebounds and five assists, but it’s the only time he’s hit north of 61 appearances.
That’s set to remain, with Williamson having only appeared in six of a possible 23 games for the Pelicans this season — a season they’ve struggled badly with a 5-20 record to sit dead-last in the Western Conference.
This season was supposed to be go time for the Pelicans to make a real run, bringing in Dejounte Murray to add to their core of Williamson, CJ McCollum, Brandon Ingram and Trey Murphy.
But their key stars missing time has badly hurt New Orleans and made them one of the great disappointments in a season that may not be salvageable given how deep the Western Conference is amid calls the Pels should pack it in and try and get the best draft pick possible.
Of course, everything revolves around Williamson and his health. If he’s not up and running, the Pelicans simply don’t stand a chance against some of the best teams in the league.
But could New Orleans be losing its patience?
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“The question for me is if they could get out of the Zion contract after this year; do you do it?” NBA analyst Bill Simmons said on his podcast.
“It’s a question I can’t believe we’re even asking but I think it’s a serious question.”
Sharania discussed the Pelicans’ potential options if they wanted to explore getting his five-year, $197 million contract signed in 2022 off their books.
“There are ways where, if the Pelicans were to waive him, they could potentially do that for free,” he said on the Pat McAfee Show.
“However, I don’t believe that’s something that’s on the table right now. The Pelicans have no intention of waiving Zion Williamson. They want to figure out a way — any way — to find the right people around him and do anything necessary to get him on the court. That’s their number one objective.”
Waive him!? Even just the idea of it sounds dramatic.
But the Pelicans would surely at least be questioning not pursuing trades for the injury-plagued star last off-season.
New Orleans instead tried to move Ingram but couldn’t find any suitors — and that task has now been made harder after Charania revealed Ingram would be sidelined indefinitely with a significant ankle sprain suffered against Oklahoma City.
Did they try and move off the wrong guy? It’s at least worth some debate.
BOLD CALL ‘MELTING’ SIXERS MUST MAKE ON RISING ROOKIE
First-round rookie guard Jared McCain has been the brightest spark amid a dim season for the Philadelphia 76ers.
But, while starting the No. 16 draft pick night-in-night-out might seem straightforward to Sixers fans, it hasn’t been a unanimous choice for Nick Nurse and his coaching staff.
After impressing off the bench for the first 10 games of the campaign, McCain was deservedly handed a starting spot for the next seven outings.
However, despite the Sixers going 1-6 during that stretch, in those seven games as a starter, McCain averaged 36.3 minutes for a promising 23.7 points, 4.4 assists and 2.9 rebounds per game.
Alongside 2024 All-Star guard Tyrese Maxey, the pair have injected offensive life into Philadelphia when on the floor together — but shortcomings on the defensive end were evident.
McCain returned to the bench for Philadelphia’s wins against Detroit and Charlotte, playing just 21 minutes in the victory over the Hornets on December 4 — his lowest tally across the previous 12 games — but still managing an efficient 17 points on 7-10 shooting.
The 76ers prevailed by only four points against the lowly Hornets after staving off a late comeback attempt, with veteran guard Kyle Lowry serving as Nurse’s preferred option over McCain in the closing stages, prompting frustration in the aftermath.
“McCain not playing this entire stretch with the Sixers mostly melting down aside from PG (Paul George) on offence is just a bewildering decision,” PHLY Sports’ Kyle Neubeck wrote on X during the game.
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Keith Pompey understood the reasoning for riding with Lowry — who has championship pedigree — down the stretch but maintained McCain needed to be inserted into the line-up with the Sixers falling apart.
“Kyle’s a veteran. Kyle’s a guy who can get you into the offence and it enables you to take Maxey off the ball — it enables a lot of things to happen. But the more that you look at it, Jared just needed to be on the floor, because they started falling apart,” Pompey told Locked On 76ers post-game.
And Nurse, despite leaving Lowry out there, knew McCain would have been a positive influence on Maxey and George down the stretch, saying afterwards: “It was a very good off-the-bench performance for him (McCain) … It was a tough decision (not to put him back in), we were struggling on the offensive end.
“I really considered for a lot of the fourth quarter putting him back in there down the stretch to give us more space for Tyrese and Paul to operate, because they (the Hornets) were closing in pretty hard off some of the other guys.”
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Pompey added: “The frustration from the fans and everyone else would have been ugly (if the Sixers lost) because he (Nurse) realised that he needed (McCain), but he stuck with the other guys.”
Nurse reinserted McCain into the starting line-up for Philadelphia’s four-point loss to Orlando on December 5 — in place of George, who sat on the second night of a back-to-back — with the Sacramento product dropping 24 points on another efficient 10-17 shooting clip in almost 39 minutes of action.
However, McCain was shunted back to the bench for George’s return against Orlando on Dec. 7 and remained there as 2022-23 MVP Joel Embiid (knee) returned to Philadelphia’s line-up in an eight-point win over the Chicago Bulls on Dec. 9.
Coming off the bench, McCain played 28 minutes against the Bulls for 11 points on 4-10 shooting from the field.
The 7-15 Sixers are currently 12th in the Eastern Conference, four-and-a-half games behind the sixth-placed Miami Heat.
But while the weak nature of the East means the slow-starting Sixers should still easily challenge for a play-in spot at a minimum this season, is it worth overlooking the long-term promise of McCain — one of the leading candidates for Rookie of the Year — in favour of veterans such as Lowry and Kelly Oubre?
It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Philadelphia back jostling for playoff positioning by the end of the regular season, but this is not a squad that shapes as a serious challenger past the first round.
ROCKETS RISE AHEAD OF THEIR TIME... BUT FORK IN THE ROAD LOOMS
The Houston Rockets are the NBA’s exciting, up-and-coming force that have arrived ahead of their time.
The Rockets have surged to the upper echelon of the Western Conference behind an exciting spread of young, budding pieces.
Ime Udoka thoroughly deserves to be one of the favourites for Coach of the Year for the way he’s brought this team together and made it buy into the defensive side of the game.
That defensive tenacity and ability to cause havoc with multiple weapons on that end of the floor is Houston’s greatest strength – ranked second in the NBA in defensive rating.
“They remind me a lot of Minnesota last year. Nobody wanted to say Minnesota was ready in December and January but they kind of were. It was like: ‘Wow, this would be soon’. And it just kept going,” NBA analyst Bill Simmons said on his podcast.
“That’s how I feel when I watch Houston – they’re so good defensively and so athletic and have so many different line-ups. They’re just a b***h to play.”
Houston is one of the most talented teams from one through eight or nine even if it doesn’t have an obvious ‘best player’ or bona fide superstar. Some games it’s Alperen Sengun, others it’s Jalen Green or Fred VanVleet.
Other times it’s ‘Terror Twins’ Tari Eason and Amen Thompson being menaces on defence and playing their way into the preferred closing line-up.
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Ultimately, Udoka just has so many options and different things to throw at the opposition as a nightmare matchup for teams.
Of course, that comes with its challenges too, for contending teams typically know who their main guys are and what direction they’re going in long-term.
Whereas Houston appears to be figuring it out on the fly and at some stage will need to settle on their optimal mix. That could also mean bundling together some of these pieces for a true and tried superstar.
The Rockets have been linked to the likes of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant and Jimmy Butler, but reports have indicated they’re keen to see how far they can with his group before potentially going all-in on win-now mode.
You can understand why they’d want to preserve what they’ve got for as long as they can, for they’re building something special.
But unless one of their young stars like Sengun or Green, who penned extensions with the team on the eve the season, can really take their games to another level, not having that absolute alpha player to turn to in big playoff games could prove to be an issue.
“It’s an awesome problem to have,” NBA analyst Ryen Russillo said of Houston’s unique roster position on the Bill Simmons podcast.
“They’re one of my favourite League Pass teams. I’m not only entertained, I’m trying to figure out how they’re going to figure it out
“Ime’s the best coach for this because he’s just like: ‘Guess what? You’re benched for the fourth quarter’. And he’ll bench Jalen Green and bench Jabari Smith.
“Long term, they’re probably better getting out of the depth for the next guy. Because what will happen is you’re going to end up ruining the value of your guys because there’s just not going to be enough minutes.
“It’s a concern but not concerning enough because they’re winning games.”
WHAT REDICK FINDS ‘ODD’ ABOUT LAKERS’ STRUGGLES
“Odd” indeed.
JJ Redick’s Lakers haven’t been able to do much of anything right as of late — dropping six of their last eight games, including a 41-point blowout loss to the Heat on Wednesday night.
“We’re having trouble right now on both ends with, like, base-level game-plan stuff,” Redick said after the 134-93 loss. “It’s odd. It’s very odd.”
“Odd” is an appropriate descriptor, especially considering this Lakers team — now 12-10 — got off to a blazing start.
Los Angeles climbed to 10-4 out of the gate, in no small part because star forward Anthony Davis was playing MVP-caliber basketball.
Not to mention LeBron James was besting Father Time as he opened his 21st NBA season at age 39.
Further, the Lakers found a gem in rookie sensation Dalton Knecht, who fell to Los Angeles at No. 17 in this year’s draft.
But the last three weeks have not been kind to the Lakers.
Those six losses in their last eight have come by an average of 21.8 points. And Wednesday night’s debacle set a new low.
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The Heat shot the lights out at the Kaseya Center — setting a new franchise record for 3s in a regular-season game with 24 — but they also worked harder at every juncture, including along the glass, where they out-rebounded the Lakers, 52-36.
Heat star Tyler Herro had the hottest hand of the evening and knocked down nine 3-pointers. During one stretch, the 25-year-old connected on seven straight from behind the arc.
“It’s embarrassing,” Redick said postgame. “I’m embarrassed. We’re all embarrassed. It’s not a game that I thought we had the right fight, the right professionalism.”
The Lakers shot 42 per cent from the field and 22.7 per cent from 3 in their night to forget.
Redick, in his first season at the helm, is far from the only one to shoulder the blame.
“It’s not on the coaches, it’s definitely on us,” James said in his post-game presser. “It sucks for sure to get your ass whooped like that…”
Davis added, “I personally just think it starts with me. If I play better, then guys play better. I definitely take accountability, especially the last couple of games.”
Although there’s still time to right the ship, if the Lakers can’t flip past Wednesday’s disaster, words more flagrant than “odd” are going to start flying around Los Angeles.
-This story was originally published by Will Zimmerman in the New York Post and reproduced with permission.