There will forever be a gap between what the Bucks can achieve (era-defining dynasty) and what they will (something well short of an era-defining dynasty). Read more »

Jonathan Kuminga's number one appeal to teams is his combination of age, physical profile, and pedigree as a scorer at the youth level. Read more »

Jalen Green is one of the best scorers in the draft with two-way potential and will be a case study either way for his newly created path to the NBA. Read more »

Damian Lillard is trapped by his own myth- the loyal one, the fierce underdog- and attempting to square his actual desires with what he thinks he should be, for other people. Read more »

Despite all the bellyaching about how the NBA has become a homogenized soup of three-point shooting, this year's playoffs reveal the true variety of the game's best teams. Read more »

The 2021 NBA Playoffs have been a bridge to a new era, one that will not fully blossom for a few more seasons, but one that fans can see a faint outline of now. Read more »

The days of Devin Booker being an empty stats, bad team star are over. He's become one of the more complete offensive guards in the NBA, helping a deep Phoenix squad overachieve in every possible way. Read more »

Jalen Suggs is one of the best all-around prospects at the top of the draft though he certainly can improve his passing, perimeter shooting and on-ball defense. Read more »

Imagination has failed for this weird epoch of the Sixers, if they can be said to have ever attempted it in earnest. More accurately, Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and Tobias Harris are a logjam that no one ever tried very hard to solve. Read more »

Ben Simmons is not subtle or syncopated. He is simply quiet. Powerful nerves, a lack of understanding, whatever it is. Read more »

The Suns have adopted Chris Paul's style, not his sensibility. Unlike nearly every other Chris Paul team, the Suns don't appear universally terrified of and reliant upon Paul. Read more »

The ultimate messy series at the end of a chaotic, pandemic-wrecked season of basketball, Brooklyn vs. Milwaukee is a gnarly feast of weirdnesses difficult to digest, and even harder to explain. Read more »

Nikola Jokic is confounding, and six years into making work what seems like it shouldn't, his coronation is us coming into a still somewhat baffled understanding of his genius. How wonderful it is that such a weird player is so effective. Straight up dominant. Read more »

Brooklyn has found a new way to solve basketball's fundamental problem -- not by coming up with an inventive new strategy, but by reducing the game to its bare essentials. Read more »

For the first time in a long while, the title race is wide open, without even familiar laundry to look for. Read more »

In Game 1, we saw both the extreme benefits of Philadelphia's strategy of kaiju-like paint monster trio of Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Tobias Harris, and the ways in which Trae Young can solve its long-limbed riddles. Read more »

Ben Simmons might have to barrel to the basket more regularly; what the highlight-seeking, unwashed masses want from him, in this case, might overlap perfectly with what his team needs to win. Read more »

Anthony Davis can be dominant, brilliant, unstoppable, invaluable. But we have also seen him tumble over and over and over. Read more »

Marc Gasol offers the Lakers much needed equilibrium. A cool counterweight to the occasionally overwhelming aesthetics of tell-don't-show Laker grandiosity. Read more »

Billionaires have their own ideas about what's tacky and what might severely compromise the quality of play, but their taste is all that separates the league from becoming a total cash-grabby farce. Read more »