Catching up on the biggest stories of the young NBA season

James Harden continues to thrive in Mike D’Antoni’s offensive system and looks even better in year two. The team hasn’t lost with Chris Paul in the lineup, and Clint Capela has been one of the biggest surprises of the season. As great as the Rockets have been offensively, they’ve jumped from finishing last season with the 18th best offensive rating in the NBA to having a top 10 defense. They’re getting it done on both ends with Harden looking like a runaway MVP candidate. Still a lot of basketball left to be played, but the Rockets are looking awfully scary in December. 

After Sam Presti went out and traded for Paul George and Carmelo Anthony, many believed the Thunder won the offseason and seemed primed to compete for the Western Conference title. To start the season, it’s been quite the opposite in Oklahoma City with Russell Westbrook regressing in nearly every statistical category following his MVP campaign and his two running mates struggling to figure each other out. The Thunder could find themselves fighting just to earn a playoff spot instead of fighting for one of the top three spots out West as everyone expected. 

In the first quarter of the first game of the NBA season, Gordon Hayward went down with a gruesome leg injury. The Celtics lost their first two games, and many wondered how long it would take the team to figure itself out without Hayward. The answer: immediately. Boston would win their next 16 games off the strength of Al Horford working as the team’s consistent rock and Kyrie Irving working as the team’s hired assassin any time the game was on the line. Brad Stevens continues to prove why he’s the NBA’s best young coach by turning this version of the Celtics into the best defensive team in the NBA despite losing Hayward and playing a collection of young, inexperienced players in huge roles and monster minutes. 

Tony Parker missed the first 19 games of the season and 21 games total, and Kawhi Leonard missed the first 27 games of the season. Despite 48 combined missed games from two of Gregg Popovich’s core rotation players, the Spurs find themselves sitting comfortably as the third seed in the Western Conference and a mere five games behind the first-place Rockets. Rudy Gay is starting to find some comfort in the Spurs' ecosystem, and the San Antonio youth movement is one of the most underrated in the NBA right now with guys like Dejounte Murray, Bryn Forbes and Kyle Anderson all contributing with the absences of Parker and Leonard. 

Ignore the 12 30-plus scoring nights. You can even ignore the three 40-plus scoring nights. You can ignore the fact that he’s second in the NBA in scoring and top 15 in rebounding. You can ignore that he JUST turned 23 years old and is a seven-foot small forward or de facto point guard depending on the other four players on the court. Ignore everything everyone wants to tell you about Giannis Antetokounmpo and just know this: Giannis has been sent to the NBA to destroy any and everything placed in his path, and he’s on the verge of figuring it all out despite shooting less than 30 percent from beyond the arch. 

The positional revolution that became the idea co-opted by hoops intelligentsia  in the early years of this decade is coming to full fruition with Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid. The idea is to play players with skill sets and sizes that allow for a fluidity in their on-court functions. Ben Simmons is a 6-10 point guard who scores like George Gervin, rebounds at almost the same rate as 2005 Amar'e Stoudemire, fills it up at the same clip as 2000 Dirk Nowitzki and accounts for almost the same percentage of assists while on the court as 1983 Magic Johnson. Embiid sees the floor incredibly well for a center who didn’t start playing basketball until his mid-teenage years, has the footwork of a budding Hakeem Olajuwon carbon copy and moves like a young Manu Ginobili. You can insert either of them in any role and they’ll find a way to thrive. 

For everything that LaVar Ball has done for his sons — and please recognize that he has been a tremendous father and advocate for his boys — his antics have rubbed some the wrong way. Some of those people are bona fide NBA superstars who couldn’t wait for the opportunity to go at the Lakers' rookie point guard. Lonzo has had peaks and valleys all season, but his vision alone is going to keep him in the league. He’s been an underrated defender and works hard on the boards. If he can find a way to improve his jumper, Lonzo is going to cause some problems. But for now, he has to deal with the problems that come with being one of the most hyped rookies in the second largest media market with a father who believes his son is better than a two-time MVP.

Ben Simmons and Lonzo Ball have already received mentions, but they’re not the only rookies making noise this year. Jayson Tatum is playing a huge role on a Celtics team that might compete for a title. Donovan Mitchell is a dark horse Rookie of the Year candidate in Utah. Kyle Kuzma is leading the Lakers in scoring. De’Aaron Fox and Dennis Smith Jr. are going to be two of the NBA’s most dangerous point guards in half a decade while Lauri Markkanen is the only good thing happening to the Bulls in Chicago. We’re a ways away from seeing exactly how this class will pan out, but early returns are good. We’ll just have to wait to see if it’s '84/'96/'03 good. 

Remember that guy who was kind of the No. 2 for Russell Westbrook last season? Well he’s in Indiana having the season of his career. Victor Oladipo is averaging career highs in points, rebounds, assists, blocks, steals, three-point percentage, PER and usage. He is already on the verge of eclipsing the 1.5 offensive win shares he finished with last season, and it’s not even Christmas. Oladipo should make his first All-Star appearance, and if he keeps this up, he should make one of the All-NBA teams for the first time in his career, too. He’s playing better than both Westbrook and Paul George to start the year, and the Pacers look to have a much better shot at making the postseason.

There are a few players all waiting to claim the crown that’s been sitting on the King’s head for at least a decade now, but LeBron James is still unwilling to relinquish it. James is averaging more points than he has in seven years, more assists than he has in his entire career and his rebounding per game numbers are the second best of his career, only following last season. James is 33 years old and playing some of the best and most inspired basketball of his career. With Kyrie Irving gone, Derrick Rose trying to figure out his life and Isaiah Thomas still sidelined with an injury, James has had to take on a lot of the ball-handling responsibilities that he split with Uncle Drew last season. The result is a offense that relies less on on-ball pick-and-roll sets and more on off-ball movement that keeps help defenders occupied while letting James make the right decisions for himself and his teammates. 

On NBA Media Day, Stephen Curry told reporters that he would not visit the White House to celebrate the Warriors' title. President Donald Trump responded via Twitter saying that the Warriors were no longer invited. While this was far from the spark that ignited the beef between the two parties, the NBA has been adamant about its distaste for the 45th POTUS. Players like LeBron James, Kevin Durant, John Wall and Russell Westbrook have all spoken out about Trump’s views on social issues while coaches like Steve Kerr and Gregg Popovich have been very clear that they do not like the way the president is running the country. There have not been national anthem protests in the NBA, but the biggest stars have voiced their opinions and have been willing to have an open dialogue about political, social and economic topics that affect the communities they come from. 

In each of the last two seasons, the Golden State Warriors have set the NBA record for team eFG%, and they’re on pace to do it again this year. Golden State’s eFG% is .588, which is up from the .563 that they set last year. Only three teams in the last 20 years have made more than half of their shots from the field, and the Warriors are primed to become the fourth. The Warriors are the best shooting team from every spot on the floor except in the restricted area in the paint, where they are second-best shooting team in the NBA. They’ve regressed slightly on the defensive end, and minor injuries may have something to do with that, but they’ve balanced that out with the best collective shooting the NBA has ever seen. 

After wallowing at the end of the bench for 1.5 seasons in Philadelphia, the basketball gods had mercy on Jahlil Okafor, who was traded to the Brooklyn Nets. Before the 2015 draft, the biggest debate was about who should follow Karl-Anthony Towns at No. 2 overall between Okafor and D’Angelo Russell. The Lakers took Russell and the 76ers took Okafor, and now they’ll both receive a second shot together in Brooklyn. With Russell out indefinitely following knee surgery, Okafor is going to have to settle into his new home without the point guard he ostensibly is going to have to grow up with, but the two could potentially turn some heads when Russell gets back. Both are talented ballplayers who found themselves in situations that weren’t the best to start their careers. With Okafor, the Nets have eight players 25 years old or younger, which could put them in line to compete with both the Lakers and 76ers in the future. 

While he’s come back to Earth from his white-hot start to the season, Kristaps Porzingis is averaging 25.5 points per game while shooting 47/40/85. He eclipsed his career 30-plus scoring nights (three before this season) in the first five games of the season (he actually scored 30+ is five of the first six games of the season) and is looking like the player the Knicks will build the next decade around. Porzingis has some glaring flaws that he’s going to have to address to take his game to the next level, but in his first year being “the man,” Porzingis has been everything the Knicks hoped he’d be when drafting fourth overall in 2015 and more. 

The DeMar DeRozan, Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka core has found a rhythm on both ends of the floor with a top five offense and a top 10 defense. DeRozan continues to grow as a player. Last season, he lit the league on fire with his throwback midrange game; this year, he’s become a much better playmaker. He’s sitting at five assists per night with the overwhelming majority of them leading to buckets at the rim or three-pointers. DeRozan’s 24.5 percent assist percentage is second on the team, only trailing Lowry. Watch out for Ibaka getting more minutes at center in small-ball lineups as the season progresses. Jakob Poeltl has been really good for them in the five spot, but the Raptors become incredibly efficient when Ibaka is the de facto center.