Rounding Up The Biggest Non-Finals News Of The NBA

Throughout the NBA Finals, and now after their conclusion, the league’s 28 teams have not just sat there and watched. Lots of other stuff has been happening!

• For instance, Monty Williams was fired, Wednesday morning, from his post as head coach of the Detroit Pistons. In his sole season on the job, the Pistons were historic (derogatory), finishing 14-68. A different coach couldn’t have raised this team to playoff contention, but, Williams did many head-scratching things, most especially his frequent benching of promising second-year guard Jaden Ivey, who watched as Killian Hayes—a player who might not be in the league, next season—took his minutes. Say what you will about Troy Weaver, the Detroit GM who’s also out in the recent franchise facelift, but he left his replacement Trajan Langdon with an interesting roster, and whoever he chooses to lead it can get interesting results if they embrace its youth and leave Williams’ mad dad act out of the equation.

• The Los Angeles Lakers, meanwhile, have had an odd search for their own head coaching position. Reported in drips and drabs, full of soft launches and infotainment teases, the look for a new coach has been seemingly conducted with maximum content potential for NBA media in mind. Any day, now, it appears they could make things official with LeBron James’ podcast partner, J.J. Redick. But it’s looked that way for about six weeks now—save for the week it looked like, out of nowhere, the job could be Dan Hurley’s. Hurley refused their offer, though, instead accepting an increased offer to keep maintaining his NCAA dynasty at UConn; and he wasn’t flirting with the Lakers for extra negotiating leverage, he insists. There’s clearly a lot of machinations behind the curtains, here; a juggling act of ego, contract, youth and the NBA elderly, the Lakers’ idea of their own prestige, and the gall of hiring a podcast host to co-run a team with a player who will turn 40 next year. Let the post-hiring content mill be as fruitful as the pre-hiring version has been.

• In less drama-rich news, Pascal Siakam re-signed with the Indiana Pacers for four more years, at almost $200 million. It’s a big number, but there’s no need for sticker shock. Siakam played the best basketball of his career in the Pacers’ extended postseason run, and his two-man chemistry with Tyrese Haliburton, a natural backcourt complement, is still blooming. In an Eastern Conference plagued by teams with dubious upsides due to age and health, the Pacers have just positioned themselves to play through May for years to come. 

• The same is less obvious about one of the teams Indiana beat on its playoff road, the Milwaukee Bucks. Of course, Indiana had the privilege of playing them without Giannis Antetokounmpo, who missed the most important games of the year for the second season in a row; and the Bucks, not so coincidentally, died in the first round for a second consecutive season. Giannis’ injury, this year, was a non-contact one during a blowout win over the eventual champion Boston Celtics, and those tuned in closely to the Bucks speculated that their season of chaotic transition turmoil led to him carrying too much of their fate on his shoulders—an injury of some kind was inevitable, in other words. Maybe he can torque his body less aggressively, though, if he better supplements his power game with skill. That’s the logic, probably, behind his recent decision to work with famed NBA skills trainer Drew Hanlen, whose clients include Jayson Tatum, Joel Embiid, Zach LaVine, Bradley Beal, and many other players who you might say “have a bag” in the mid-range and further out. It’s sort of impossible to imagine Giannis operating as a jumper wizard, more showy than assaulting with his footwork, and who knows if his work with Hanlen is even aimed at such a thing. But his evolution continues, in any event, even after what was—despite the Sportscenter-leading stories about his team’s flaws—one of his best seasons as a pro. 

• One of Antetokounmpo and Siakam’s better friends around the league, O.G. Anunoby, is making his own moves. Now a free agent and (still) a likely re-sign with the New York Knicks, he is visibly beefing up his negotiation stance with the team that, quite frankly, has a more perfectly Anunoby-shaped hole than any out there. One team rumored to be lurking in case this financial duel is not just smoke and mirrors, though, is the Oklahoma City Thunder. Like the 2024 champion Celtics, their front office wants the team to exclusively field players who can defend multiple positions at an elite level and shoot three-pointers on the other end. That, the new conventional wisdom goes, is how you “solve” modern basketball. Anunoby would certainly strengthen OKC’s equation on this front, and if they added him to their newfound late-season experience, it would be hard to pick anyone to beat them in the West, come 2025.

• This is no disrespect to the new Los Angeles Clippers head assistant coach, Jeff Van Gundy, who won’t be able to reverse the biology of his aging team. Van Gundy, quietly, just got a ring with the Celtics, for whom he was a back-room consultant this season. It was odd to hear the Finals broadcasted on ABC without him and Mark Jackson. While I wouldn’t say I missed their sour grousing, I was at least wondering exactly how it would sound, in certain moments. It makes sense, though, that the league adopted lead television stewards who actually enjoy the product for a season during which they brokered a new big media contract. And it makes sense for Van Gundy to return to the sidelines, where his trademark misery can be more productive than it was on-air. Like the recently passed Jerry West, he’s a leading curmudgeon of the sport, with few his equal at a vision based on surly criticism. It may not often be wanted, but’s a perspective that will always be needed.