It's Friday, so let's take a look around the league:
10 things I like and don't like
1. Another trademark LeBron pass
LeBron has seen this a million times: He gets a favorable switch, licks his chops, goes to work on the wing, and sees an opposing big man -- Dewayne Dedmon here -- creep across the lane to play zone on his side of the floor.
Dedmon's man, Tristan Thompson, comes open under the basket, forcing Patty Mills to abandon Iman Shumpert and climb on top of Thompson. That leaves LaMarcus Aldridge to patrol both Shumpert and Channing Frye on the left wing.
Most guys in LeBron's position won't risk the lob to Thompson. It is a brutally difficult pass. It has to be pinpoint enough to squeeze through a narrow pathway, but soft enough that Thompson can catch it under duress.
Most guys choose the cross-court pass to either Shumpert or Frye. That's what the defense wants; it is the least of all evils. The ball stays away from the rim, and hangs in the air long enough that everyone can rotate and recover.
LeBron is better than most guys, of course. He is one of the three or four best passers in league history. This particular pass is his. He owns it. It's one of dozens of trademark LeBron things that he either invented or perfected.
Someone on the broadcast crew says it during almost every national TV Cavs game, but it's true: We might not be appreciating LeBron enough while he's still playing. We have spent too much brain space creating a fake morality play around his personal choices. We have wasted airtime and internet ink debating his ability in the "clutch," with some very loud critics ignoring years and years of evidence that didn't fit their prepackaged narrative.
Enjoy every pass like this. Savor them. Replay them in slow motion. The guy won't play forever, and there has never been anyone like him.
P.S.: I'm worried about LeBron's minutes, but I'm not worried about the Cavs.
2. The end of Monta Ellis?
Yikes. This came fast. Have you noticed Ellis doesn't, like, do anything for the Pacers? He's taking only 9.3 shots per 36 minutes; he has never averaged below 12.9 attempts per 36 minutes in any other season. His free throws and assists are down, and if Ellis doesn't have the ball, he is useless.
Ellis still can't shoot 3s, so no one pays any attention to him chilling in the corner while Aaron Brooks dribbles or Professor Al Jefferson, Ph.D., punks newbies on the left block. He's sure as hell not compensating with great defense. He's just kind of there, doing nothing, and hurting the weirdly unhappy Pacers. C.J. Miles, always flying off picks, has been more involved -- sometimes dramatically so -- in Indiana's second-unit offense.
Ellis made for a great theoretical fit next to George Hill and Paul George -- two solid long-range shooters who needed a third cog to take on some slash-and-kick duties. Swapping Hill for Jeff Teague was always going to make life hard for Ellis; Teague s a decent shooter, but he's a ball-on-a-string point guard. There is not much utility having Ellis and Teague on the floor at the same time.
Indiana adjusted -- and repaired its damaged defense -- by benching Ellis in favor of Glenn Robinson III (and now Miles), but Ellis hasn't found his old self in a new habitat. The Pacers sometimes coax him that way by bringing him in before Brooks, so that Ellis can work as the de facto point guard. That may not do the trick once Rodney Stuckey returns.
But it's ugly right now, and if that keeps up, Ellis would probably pick up his $11.7 million player option -- in 2018-19. Ouch.
3. Sneering at Mike Conley's contract
Choose the non-Memphis broadcast in almost any Grizzlies game, and you'll probably hear an announcer -- voice dripping with phony disbelief -- remark that Conley is working under the largest contract in league history. One recently made a point of referring to Conley as "the Grizzlies' $150 million man," and you could practically see the dude's smirk.
Really? You're not gonna offer any context for Conley's contract? How about one sentence explaining salaries across the league reached record levels this season because of an unprecedented spike in the salary cap. You could even clarify how Conley's status as "league's highest-paid player" won't even last beyond July, when Stephen Curry (and possibly others) will sign richer deals.
Don't mock an All-Star-level player for happening to hit free agency during a one-time-only cap bonanza.
4. Going back for more on the Kiss Cam
The Kiss Cam always lands on at least one couple that isn't really a couple, and it is always funny. They might laugh it off. They sometimes get all awkward, smile at each other, and start giggling until the scoreboard mercifully flips to the next couple. One might peck the other on the cheek just to end the torture.
The best Kiss Cam segments go back to that non-couple for a second helping. Hit them with that spotlight again. You never know what kind of drama Round 2 on the Kiss Cam might produce. The home run outcome is one victim clarifying the situation by shaking his or her head and making the "I just smelled a fart" face -- and accidentally infuriating their seatmate by acting as if a kiss would be nauseating.
Look: I don't care if some of these fan victims are plants. I don't want to know. Let me live in the illusion.
5. Derrick Favors, trying to make it work
The Jazz appear to have decided the much-scrutinized Favors-Rudy Gobert tag team is not designed to sustain for 20 or 25 minutes per game. The two giants play the first five or six minutes of each half together, and on a lot of nights, never partner up again.
That's easy as long as Favors maxes out at about two dozen minutes per game while recovering from injury. Quin Snyder saves Favors for every meaningful minute at backup center while Gobert rests.
But Snyder's juggling act will get dicier once Favors hungers for more time. To his credit, Favors has spent years stretching his game on offense to accommodate Gobert; he knows there isn't room for both of them near the basket.
Favors has honed a little shot-put jumper -- almost a floater -- to use on "short rolls," where he slips into open space after setting a pick and pulls up before clanking into Gobert:
When Gobert takes center stage in the pick-and-roll, Favors likes to slink across the lane from the weak side over toward the ball handler:
That's a classic big man cut designed to drag the main help defender -- Steven Adams, guarding Favors -- out of Gobert's path to alley-oop paydirt. The cut doesn't accomplish much if Adams feels comfortable ignoring Favors to stick in Gobert's way. For the gambit to work, Favors has to do damage almost instantly upon catching the ball in tight confines.
That requires skill -- soft touch on a bang-bang hook shot, or a slick interior pass. Favors won't pull it off every time, but he's gotten much better over the past two seasons.
6. Detroit's point-of-attack defense
Detroit's defense has collapsed after improbably hovering in the top five in points allowed per possession over the first few weeks of the season. A big reason why: atrocious work at the point of attack from both Reggie Jackson and Ish Smith.
Jackson gets stuck on picks, and he's alarmingly susceptible to straight blow-bys against run-of-the-mill opposing point guards. His stance is casual, and his effort comes and goes.
Seriously: The best late-game play against Detroit might be handing the rock to Jackson's guy and clearing everyone else out of the way. Wiggle one shoulder, and Jackson will lunge that way with all his might -- leaving the other direction clear. Analysts talk sometimes about defenders "getting turned around." That happens quite literally with Jackson; he falls for some fakes so badly, he ends up spinning three-quarters of the way around and facing away from the ball for a half-second.
In Jackson's defense, he expends a ton of energy -- perhaps too much -- directing Detroit's pick-and-roll attack. He's bigger than most point guards, and not as quick in a fast-twitch sense. But he should be better than this.
Now that Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is back, it will be interesting to see how Stan Van Gundy matches up on defense in crunch time.
7. Patient Boogie
Boogie's game can get a little rushed. He threads passes that aren't really there, and rumbles through crowded lanes. Sometimes, that urgency is merited. Windows close fast in the NBA.
But Boogie is a deadly passer out of double-teams when he takes his time to scan the floor. He has great vision, and he's smart at reading layers of defense -- and anticipating when the cascading waves of cutters and defenders will leave behind an open King in their wake:
You can see Cousins' mind at work once Marcus Morris doubles him. He thinks about sliding the ball to Kosta Koufos, but there are too many arms in the way. He spots Arron Afflalo all the way across the court in the weakside corner, but has no clear passing lane there.
He almost winds up to hit Darren Collison up top before Collison darts toward the rim. By the time Collison takes his second step, Cousins already understands where the pass should go -- even if Collison may not. Boogie knows that Reggie Jackson will scrunch in to bump Collison, leaving Afflalo open. Game over.
8. Shabazz Muhammad, never passing
It's honestly unclear if Muhammad knows he is allowed to pass to the humans wearing the same colored uniforms. Muhammad has 15 assists -- total! -- in almost 800 minutes, putting him on pace for one of the lowest assist seasons in league history for a wing player who gets the ball so much. The dude is a complete black hole.
Muhammad has NBA skills. He's up to 42 percent on 3s, including a tight 50 percent mark from the corners -- the third straight season he's at least 40 percent from there. He should shoot more instead of charging over people on wild bum-rushes to the rim! Muhammad drives to the rim as if he thinks all 10 players are racing for a bag of cash hidden behind the basket stanchion.
He's a solid post player, though he's almost totally dependent on one move executed from one spot on the court. He used to be a pogo-stick offensive rebounder.
But Muhammad is not efficient enough on that stuff to hog the ball. It's demoralizing to play with a guy like that. It saps the energy of his teammates. Try sharing the ball!
9. Separating Dario Saric and Ersan Ilyasova
Philly is actually plus-13 in the 210 minutes these two have shared the floor, but that's only because the Sixers killed it in the portion of those minutes that also involved Joel Embiid. (The Process makes everything better.) Saric and Ilyasova are skilled enough to function together, and Brett Brown has even used them (briefly) as a power forward-center tandem during foul trouble crises.
But they are both power forwards; playing them together alongside one of Philly's army of centers requires some positional shoehorning that confuses Saric's developmental minutes -- even if Saric has a funky, arrhythmic post game he busts out against smaller wing players. Brown has thankfully separated them of late. In some games, they haven't played together at all.
Saric hasn't shot well overall, but he has hit a ghastly 32 percent with Ilyasova also on the floor, per NBA.com. Saric is at his best facing up and making plays off the bounce, and it's easier for him to do that against slower bigs. He also has more space to launch 3s that way. Saric hasn't been shy from deep, and his 34.7 percent mark on 3s so far -- a hair below league average -- is encouraging given how some international guys struggle adjusting to the longer NBA triple.
10. Surprise Westbrook-Oladipo pick-and-rolls
Billy Donovan of late has been experimenting with a quick-hitting Russell Westbrook-Victor Oladipo two-man game, and he should keep it in the playbook:
You shouldn't go to the well with this too often. Defenses will sniff it out once they've seen it once or twice in a short span. Westbrook and Oladipo are about the same size, so most defenses should be able to switch this action without pinning themselves into an untenable mismatch.
But the Thunder can catch teams off guard if they use this play sparingly, and spring it after some misdirection that tricks defenders into expecting something else. Guards aren't as used to guarding the screener in the pick-and-roll, and mistakes happen when offenses shock defenders out of their comfort zones.
It's also a good way to get Oladipo more actively involved with Westbrook on the floor. He needs to be a partner, not a bystander.