I think the recent injury news(fluid draining from his shoulder, doesn't have the range of motion to shoot normally, etc.) explains this -- and another good reason why rushing to judgment on these things doesn't make sense.

If his shoulder is that bad, it begs the question of why he's even been playing at all.

Agreed. Was he able to hide this from the staff? Did they not question why his shooting changed so much? If they knew, why play him at all?

I think it's likely that they've known all along, but the optics of a third straight top pick missing significant time their rookie year embarrassed them more than letting the kid flounder to open the season.

The injury train continues. AD will not return to the game. MRI scheduled.

I've heard that too but that just makes the organization look worse & worse. It's not like Fultz is a plus player right now that will help them make the playoffs, with Simmons/Embiid playing it's not like they need Fultz on the floor to sell their fans on hope, so why is this happening?

It's possibly a big injury, as always, but I never make any assumptions about the Brow when it comes to injuries. The man has yet to overcome even a little bit of pain to complete a game.

In the No One Cares/Shameless Plug Department:

Where Will Bledsoe Go? Spoiler Alert: Not A Hair Salon - Dallas Sports Fanatic

It's quite possibly my favorite headline I've ever written

Why do the Lakers look like they're wearing Nuggets throwbacks tonight?

Amazing how well your team can defend when you have a legit NBA coach. Suns look like a different team. They are still bad, but atleast watchable and they try hard.

Break up the Suns!

Super weird night in the NBA, with BK over Cleveland and Detroit, Charlotte & Phoenix dominating Minnesota, Denver & Utah.

Draymond Green is such a dirty POS.

Beal started that. He slapped him in the face and started choking him. Yes, Green is dirty but Beal was the dirty player in that particular confrontation.

https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/924117109961056257

Omri Casspi went to the Draymond Green school of kicking people in the junk when you take a shot.

Lonzo has a game that is basically the opposite of his father. Whereas the dad is boastful and brash, he does a lot of under the radar stuff that "true basketball fans" like to see their players do. Depends on who the Lakers get as big men for rebounding, but he could easily be a 20-9-9 guy in his prime.

Pointless to argue with Wizards fans. You'd figure with the amount of times they're one of two sides in a confrontation they'd pick up on the common denominator, but they follow their wings lead (Beal, Oubre, Morris) in terms of a victim complex.
I've been very impressed with his rebounding at this level, but I don't ever see the 20 points happening.

Btw speaking of impressive rookies Semi Ojeleye had some great defense on Giannis the other night. His offense isn't NBA ready, but that's another switchy wing for the rotation. Semi Ojeleye Great Defense On Giannis Antetokounmpo - Celtics vs Bucks - YouTube

And the earlier tech Green got against Beal? That's what I thought. That was Beal responding to multiple cheap shots, one of which had already gotten Draymond a tech.

Yep, Ball is going to need to get a heck of a lot better scoring off the dribble to ever come close to 20 PPG... He's basically an OK spot up shooter right now and not much else scoring-wise.

20-12-9 looks like a realistic line for Simmons, especially if the Sixers keep surrounding him with shooters.

I think people forgot how good Ben Simmons is.

Ah yes... there are the Clips I remember.

The Warriors defensive gameplan was based entirely around getting the ball out of Blake's hands and making other guys beat you. Seems to me that every team is going to be doing that the rest of the season...

Simmons was knocking down elbow jumpers today for the Sixers, that's a scary sign.

Btw, we haven't faced a murderer's row of opponents and I expect the shooting percentages at least to tick back up some, but I have been very pleasantly surprised with Kyrie's defensive effort so far. Celtics overall are #1 in dRTG and "Through 7 games, Kyrie has a 97 defensive rating (by far his lowest), leads the NBA in total steals, opponents are shooting 43/29% against him, he’s 4th in the NBA in deflections per game (3.7) which also leads the team, he’s 5th in the NBA in loose balls recovered per game, and he’s contesting more shots as a Celtic than he did as a Cav."

76ers declining Jahlil Okafor's $6.3m player option for next year. Even if you're trying to trade him doesn't picking up that option make sense? Idk, Simmons & Embiid look great when on the floor this year, Redick was a nice signing, but every other decision Philly has made post-Hinkie has been very questionable.

I'm glad the Celtics didn't part ways with Jaylen in any of the offseason deals.

I feel like if Jaylen went to anyone of maybe 95% of the other teams in the league in the draft, he'd barely register on anyone's radar right now. Celtics have done a great job developing his skills to the point where they are starting to catch up with his physical abilities.

Brad Stevens is a wizard at creating spacing and our system definitely helps wings with borderline shooting & handling look their best (hey Jae Crowder, how's Cleveland going!), but he's smart, hard-working, a physical specimen, could get to the rack and draw FT's from day one and his form was never so bad I questioned if he could hit enough open spot up 3's. The analytics HATED him at Cal, but whenever I watched it just seemed like a very poorly coached team. If you flipped him with say, Kris Dunn, Dragan Bender, or Marquese Chriss I still think Brown would look like a clear rotation player and the best of the 4, though maybe not by quite this margin.
Or Terry Rozier for a deadline rental like Serge Ibaka or PJ Tucker!

Jazz (come on, of course i adopted them as a team to follow now ... ;) ) at 5-3 despite still kinda figuring out their identity and how to integrate Rubio's playmaking into their system leading to uncharacteristically low Assist and high turnover number. In the meantime he's gone and registered 3 straight 20+ point games on solid percentages including 30 last night against Portland. Seems to be very comfortable shooting the ball, continuing the trend from last season. Still not 100% consistent with his form, but getting there. The rainbow 3 over a big on the fastbreak yesterday was awesome.

Yeah makes zero sense and drops his value to basically a top 40 protected 2nd rounder.

Re:Ball

Just by virtue of being a superstar(maybe) and having the ball in his hands so often, that's worth maybe 4-6 points a game at the line. I don't think 20ppg in 3-5 years is that much of a stretch. He'll play 40mins a game.

Jason Kidd managed nearly 19 one season and that was when the average team scored well over 10 ppg less than today.

Suns are 3-1 since sitting Bledsoe and firing Watson (including a win in Washington last night). They are still young, but this team is playing very well together. It's a different star each night - last night it was Warren getting 40. It's nice to have a watchable Suns team again.

I think the days of seeing anyone sniff 40 mpg is over.

Alternatively, you could say Jason Kidd only averaged over 17ppg once, and made 5 all-star teams when averaging 13ppg or less. Unless your name is Russell Westbrook or Tom Thibodeau is coaching you.

Could you imagine if Thibs coached Westbrook? :eek:

That's a workload level that would even scare former starting pitchers for Dusty Baker!

Not even sure he's the best 1st rounder from the 2017 draft on the Lakers roster at this point. <*slight tongue in cheek*>

0 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists in 28 minutes tonight is... not so great. I expect Ball to end up having a decent year, but I still see a lot of Carter-Williams in him at this point - jack of all trades, master of none. If you take the crazy Suns game/layup drill out of the equation, he's averaging 6.2 PPG 6.1 RPG 6.3 APG on .274/.222/.571 over 7 games. Including that game bumps his scoring up to 9.1 PPG and his shooting numbers to .326/.278/.556, but to be honest I'm still feeling pretty good about listing Fox as my #1 PG this last draft even though he has been a bit up and down as well.

Kuzma on the other hand is carrying over his preseason form and looks sensational.

This Lebron guy is pretty good.

No question. But while I know I know it's every year, at what point should we seriously question Cleveland's defense and move them from overwhelming East favorite to slight Eastern Conference favorite? IT's coming back and should greatly help their nightly compete level, but he won't help on that end.

Somewhat relatedly, you know what else is pretty good? This Celtics 25 & under core ;) Al Horford was indispensable and Aron Baynes great again tonight, but man Kyrie was cooking in that 2nd half tonight & everyone else except Morris (who not too surprisingly was terrible tonight in his first game back) is 23 or under.

Finally, I agree with Zach Lowe etc that the Kyle Kuzma future MVP hype train has gone to typical Laker excess, but how did he fall through the cracks that much? I recall watching some late night PAC-12 games where he was Utah's best player, but he certainly didn't jump off the screen like you'd think someone who can seamlessly fit in as an NBA rotation rookie would.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - the NCAA system right now is far from the best place to develop NBA players. Kentucky is the major exception.

Simmons with another casual triple tonight, 14-11-11.

Andre Drummond may have actually figured out free throws. Last season was 38.5, through 9 games he's at 77.8 including 14-16 tonight.

When it comes to a player like Jaylen Brown who looked better as a HS senior than at Cal sure, but that's a much different topic. Kuzma went from 3/2 to 11/6 to 16/9 in his 3 seasons at Utah - I think he developed as a player while there. The question is why player evaluation failed so much - I guess pre-draft profiles harped on his inconsistent defense and inability to hit outside shots in college? NBA draft profile: Kyle Kuzma is an enigma to basketball scouts and experts | Deseret News

This draft looks like it'll have insane depth - TJ Leaf, John Collins, Jarrett Allen, OG Anunoby & Caleb Swanigan were also all picked between 18 & 27 and look like rotation players at a minimum (and I still could see Harry Giles breaking out) - but I'd love to sit down with the scouts who thought DJ Wilson or Tyler Lydon was better than Kuzma and figure out what led to that thought process. I don't claim I saw Kuzma being this good (Swanigan was the one there I was banging the drum for), but I did see Wilson & Lydon play more & thought not an NBA player pretty quickly.

That would be one of the more shocking turnabouts in this regard.

The closest i can think of is Chris Webber. He shot about 55% his first 5 seasons, then an ungodly 45% in his 6th and then 75% in his 7th, staying on average above 70% the rest of his career.

EDIT: In the "gradual improvement category" the winner might be Karl Malone. He went from 49 to 60 to 70 to 77 in his first 4 years and then stayed between 75 and 80 most seasons the rest of his career.

Phoenix Suns finalizing deal to send Eric Bledsoe to Milwaukee Bucks

Bledsoe to Milwaukee for Monroe and a 1st. I guess that's something.

I completely whiffed on Monroe, but did get Bucks and 1st as one of two best possibilities right (though I really thought he would go to Denver)

Reaction from Bucks fans seems to be elated that they didn't have to part with Brogdon or Parker.

Center is now a big gaping hole for the Bucks as anybody with a little muscle can push Thon Maker and John Henson around.

A powerhouse Celtics lineup of Larkin/Rozier/Brown/Tatum/Baynes comes back from a double digit deficit to beat Charlotte. I love Brad Stevens.

GIANNIS SHOULD PLAY CENTER-POINT

What is the deal with Henson? When he plays he seems to do well but his minutes are always so limited. Just kind of wondering why a coach has never just went with him 25-30 minutes for an extended period to see what he can do.

His per 36 minute numbers are 14.3 points, 9.8 boards, and 2.9 blocks in his career with a .534 shooter percentage. Seems like a much better option than Maker.

The loss of CP3 has truly revealed how bad of a coach Doc Rivers is now. He won in Boston on the strength of superstar leadership. But ask him to win more games than his team is talented, that is too much.

Haven't checked the numbers, but Twitter tells me Simmons could miss his next 110 shots and still have a better FG% than Lonzo.