
When you have topline players like Kyrie, Durant, and Harden, you don't need much other than they not self-combust in a typhoon of neuroses, ego, bickering, and mental-emotional cataclysm.

What we can see already is that LaMelo Ball is a player with a newness that matters, and that is in all likelihood bound to matter more and more.

The primary task is to bang out these games, and while they're making an effort to do it safely, the evidence is mounting that they can't, and they're hoping much more than ensuring that nobody gets seriously ill.

A group of nine teams that currently project to have cap space in 2021. Several others could join them, and a handful are going to be over the cap almost no matter what.