Community Shootaround

When your commissioner compares All-Star Game changes to putting “an earring on a pig,” it’s probably time to try something different.

That’s how Adam Silver characterized the new All-Star format in a speech Friday at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, relays Jimmy Golen of The Associated Press. The NBA is in its second season of having the highest vote-getter from each conference make selections from a pool of players chosen by fans and coaches. Even though this year’s game was shown on both TNT and TBS, it tied for the worst rating in its history with a 3.8.

“The All-Star Game didn’t work,” Silver admitted, calling it “an afterthought” of an event-filled weekend.

Silver would like to shorten the regular season to about 70 games and make up for the lost revenue by replacing the All-Star contest with a midseason or pre-season tournament that would amount to a separate championship. It’s similar to the format in European soccer. He also suggested that teams could stage a mini-tournament in Europe or Asia.

One problem the league would face is how to make the competitions matter when the ultimate goal is to win an NBA title. Another is that cutting the schedule to 70 games means every team would have to give up the money from six home dates. And although players and coaches would prefer a shorter season, none would welcome an accompanying pay cut to make it possible.

We want to get your opinion on Silver’s musings. Is the All-Star Game beyond salvaging? Would you be interested in seeing a tournament take its place, and is there any way to make it meaningful? Does the NBA need a shorter season, and how can the revenue be replaced? Please leave your comments in the space below.

On Tuesday, our Community Shootaround discussion focused on NBA head coaches who might be on the hot seat this spring. For today’s discussion, it seems fair to turn our attention to the coaches on the other end of the spectrum who are in the running for 2019’s Coach of the Year award.

Generally, the coaches who receive the most consideration fall into at least one of three categories: They lead their team to one of the NBA’s best records, their team significantly outperforms expectations, or they manage to overcome a slew of injuries and other obstacles to keep their team in the hunt.

Based on the first two of those criteria, Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer should receive strong consideration. While most pundits predicted a bump in the standings for Milwaukee this season, not many saw this coming — the Bucks’ 46-14 record is the NBA’s best, and the club has a top-five offensive rating to go along with its league-best defensive rating. On the surface, the Bucks’ roster – beyond superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo – didn’t look as deep as Boston’s or Toronto’s, and the starting five didn’t look as dangerous as Philadelphia’s, but Budenholzer has the team in the driver’s seat in the East.

Over in the West, Michael Malone‘s Nuggets have pulled off a feat similar to Milwaukee’s. Denver is just one game back of Golden State for the conference’s top seed, despite not having a particularly star-studded group behind Nikola Jokic. The Nuggets weren’t necessarily viewed as a lock to make the playoffs entering the year, so Malone’s work should be lauded.

Nate McMillan meets all three of the criteria listed above — the Pacers have a top-five record in the NBA (40-21), they’ve exceeded expectations so far, and they’ve done it without star guard Victor Oladipo for much of the season. Oladipo, who is out for the rest of 2018/19, appeared in just 36 games for Indiana. While most NBA fans and observers leave the Pacers out of the “big four” teams in the East, McMillan’s squad remains ahead of the Celtics and Sixers in the standings.

Other candidates worthy of consideration include Kenny Atkinson (Nets), Doc Rivers (Clippers), and especially Dave Joerger (Kings). Their teams were all once viewed as probable lottery participants, but they’re now very much in the playoff mix. Steve Clifford is on the verge of entering that discussion as well, with the Magic making a postseason push this month.

Nick Nurse deserves a mention as well. The Raptors were expected to be a contender coming into the season, but things weren’t expected to come together quite this quickly. Nurse has Toronto on nearly a 60-win pace, and has done so while dealing with Kawhi Leonard‘s “load management” and injuries to several important rotation players.

What do you think? Who do you believe is the frontrunner for 2019’s Coach of the Year award? Are there are any underrated candidates you believe deserve serious consideration for the honor?

Jump into the comment section below to weigh in with your thoughts!

Whispers about a potential coaching change have followed Luke Walton around for nearly the entire 2018/19 campaign, and while the Lakers have insisted both publicly and privately that his job is safe for the rest of the season, there’s no guarantee he’ll keep it beyond that.

With just 22 games left in their season, the 29-31 Lakers are currently on the outside of the playoff picture, trailing the eighth-seeded Spurs by three games. It will take an impressive run over the next month and a half to earn a playoff spot. If the Lakers can’t make that type of run, it wouldn’t be shocking to see the team move on from Walton in the offseason. However, he’s not the only NBA head coach who might be on the hot seat in the coming weeks or months.

As Dan Feldman of NBC Sports relays, John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7 has suggested that Igor Kokoskov‘s seat in Phoenix is getting hot. The Suns picked up a win on Monday night to snap their 17-game losing streak, but if the Suns had been mulling a change, a single victory is unlikely to change their minds. It’s Kokoskov’s first year in Phoenix, but the general manager who hired him – Ryan McDonough – is no longer in the front office, so the new management group might want to bring in its own coach this spring.

Elsewhere in the Western Conference, Alvin Gentry finds himself in a similar spot to Kokoskov. The GM who hired him has recently been fired, and his team hasn’t met expectations in 2018/19. On the other hand, Gentry has had to deal with unusual circumstances, including an Anthony Davis trade request, and he still has his team playing hard. He’s reportedly well-liked by management and ownership, so the Pelicans may stick with him beyond this season.

Ryan Saunders (Timberwolves), Larry Drew (Cavaliers), and Jim Boylen (Bulls) took over for recently-fired head coaches during the season, and while the odds are against all three keeping their jobs in 2019/20, they’ve all gotten pretty good reviews so far. It wouldn’t be shocking to see any combination of the three return for next season.

Scott Brooks‘ Wizards have underperformed in 2018/19. The club has insisted all year that he’s not on the hot seat, but his job security appears more tenuous than many of his fellow lottery-bound coaches, who either have a track record of success (like Rick Carlisle) or were recently hired (such as David Fizdale, J.B. Bickerstaff, and Lloyd Pierce).

With the home stretch of the ’18/19 season approaching, we want to know which teams you expect to make a coaching change this spring. Which coaches are in the most danger? Will we see plenty of turnover once the season ends, like we did a year ago, or will it be a fairly quiet spring for head coaching turnover?

Head to the comment section below to weigh in!

When LeBron James signed with the Lakers last summer, anticipation began building about who the next star would be to join him in L.A. It’s a question that still hasn’t been answered.

As LeBron tries to make a run to the playoffs surrounded by a collection of young players and veterans on one-year contracts, the organization’s long-term picture remains fuzzy. The front office made a strong pitch for Pelicans star Anthony Davis before the trade deadline, but all its offers were rebuffed, and now the Lakers will have to compete with teams such as the Celtics and Knicks that might have more assets they’re willing to offer to New Orleans.

L.A. will enter the summer with enough cap room to offer a max contract, but the team may not be the front-runner for anyone in a talented free agent class. ESPN’s Tim Bontemps examined some of the elite free agents this week and found that the Lakers won’t have an easy path toward landing any of them.

The Knicks are believed to have the inside track on Kevin Durant if he decides to leave the Warriors. The Celtics remain confident they can keep Kyrie Irving, but Bontemps thinks it’s more likely that he would team up with Durant in New York than accept a reunion with James. Kawhi Leonard has indicated a desire to play in Los Angeles, but reportedly prefers a lead role with the Clippers over becoming part of LeBron’s supporting cast.

Klay Thompson will stay with the Warriors if they comes through with a max offer. Kemba Walker has strong ties to Charlotte, which can give him a supermax contract worth more than $200MM over five years. The Bucks’ Khris Middleton and the Sixers’ Tobias Harris both appear destined to stay with their current teams.

Bontemps pegs Jimmy Butler as the most likely option for the Lakers if the Sixers decide they don’t want to max out him and Butler at the same time Ben Simmons becomes eligible for an extension. The ESPN writer sees DeMarcus Cousins as another possibility if the Lakers are willing to take a risk on his long-term health so soon after a major Achilles injury.

We want to get your input on the Lakers’ future. Who do you believe will be the best player that team president Magic Johnson and GM Rob Pelinka will add this summer? Please leave your responses in the space below.

As we relayed on Saturday, Adam Silver criticized the practice of tanking during his annual All-Star press conference, calling it “corrosive” for NBA franchises. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst revisits Silver’s comments today, noting that the NBA commissioner referred to the concept of relegation in soccer leagues when he discussed tanking.

“People who are familiar with the operation of other leagues, you understand now why there’s relegation,” Silver said. “Because you pay an enormous price if you’re not competitive. I think, again, for the league and for our teams, there’s that ongoing challenge of whether we can come up with yet a better system.”

As Windhorst acknowledges, there’s no chance that the NBA would consider a system that relegates the league’s worst teams to the G League each season. But Windhorst believes that Silver and the league office would consider instituting anti-tanking measures that go beyond simply adjusting the lottery odds, since those changes have proven to be largely ineffective when it comes to dissuading tanking.

[RELATED: How New Lottery Odds Will Affect NBA’s Race To The Bottom]

What sort of changes could the NBA consider? Windhorst suggests that the teams at the very bottom of the league’s standings could have their payouts from the league-wide revenue pool cut back or eliminated altogether for that season. Alternately, those clubs could be penalized by having their available cap room or exceptions temporarily reduced, Windhorst suggests.

It’s not clear whether the NBA is actually considering possibilities along those lines, but Silver’s reference to a “better system” suggests that the league isn’t necessarily satisfied with the current format, despite the recent tweaks.

With the NBA constantly on the lookout for ways to discourage tanking, we want to know how you’d address the issue. Is the current lottery format satisfactory? Are there changes you’d make to that system? Are there outside-the-box suggestions like Windhorst’s that you’d like to see instituted?

Jump into the comment section below to share your thoughts!

Each year typically brings multiple front office shake-ups around the NBA. In 2018, the Hornets, Pistons, Sixers, and Timberwolves all dispatched their respective heads of basketball operations. In 2017, even more teams brought in new management groups, including the Knicks, Clippers, Cavaliers, Bucks, and a handful of others.

So far in 2019, the rumor mill has been quiet when it comes to potential front office changes. However, with the end of the regular season less than two months away, it will likely just be a matter of time before we get word of a team or two going in a new direction.

Front office shake-ups aren’t always easy to predict — before a bizarre Twitter-related scandal surfaced last summer, Bryan Colangelo didn’t appear to be in any danger in Philadelphia, but just over a week after that story broke, he was gone. While a saga like that one is unlikely to be repeated, it’s possible we’ll get some surprising front office news this summer.

For now though, there are a few general managers or presidents of basketball operations who already might be on the hot seat.

Wizards president of basketball ops Ernie Grunfeld is one of those executives, as his club has failed to get past the second round of the playoffs at all during his lengthy tenure in Washington, and has taken a significant step back this season. John Wall‘s four-year, super-max deal, which will begin this July, looks like perhaps the worst contract in the NBA, and the Wizards aren’t exactly loaded with assets around Wall and backcourt mate Bradley Beal.

Grizzlies general manager Chris Wallace and Pelicans GM Dell Demps have faced plenty of criticism in recent years as well. Memphis, bogged down by Chandler Parsons‘ overpriced contract and declining veteran assets, has struggled mightily in the last two seasons, and Demps’ issues navigating the Anthony Davis waters have been well documented — as have his issues building the roster around Davis over the last several years.

In Chicago, a few good moves from Bulls executives John Paxson and Gar Forman, such as drafting Lauri Markkanen and Wendell Carter, have helped mask some questionable decisions in free agency and on the trade market. But with the Bulls’ win total set to decline for a fourth straight year, fans are losing their patience with the Paxson/Forman duo.

As the 2018/19 approaches its home stretch, we want to get your thoughts on the front office situations around the league. Do you expect any or all of the executives we mentioned above to lose their jobs this spring? Do some deserve another chance? Are there any other GMs or presidents across the NBA that you believe should be replaced?

Jump into the comment section below to share your two cents!