Welcome to the NBA Hater Report: A breakdown of some of the players, teams and trends around the league that are drawing the ire of yours truly. If you’re not a fellow pessimist, proceed with caution.
Zion, Pelicans need a divorce
The New Orleans Pelicans are getting awfully close to the “it’s time to trade Zion Williamson” line, as bitter a pill as that would be to swallow. This guy, for all his talent, is just not someone to build your franchise around.
You can perhaps excuse the injuries — even if Zion has surely exacerbated his own health misfortunes with the way he has failed to keep himself in consistent shape — but at the very least he could show up on time when he actually does have a chance to play.
Nope. Apparently that’s too much to ask, too. After missing 27 games with another hamstring issue, Zion showed up late to a team flight and was suspended for New Orleans’ win over Philadelphia last Friday. It should be noted, too, that this is not the first time that Zion has been served with a tardy slip.
Chris Haynes reported that Williamson has shown up late for multiple practices throughout the season; indeed, Pelicans coach Willie Green confirmed that “several occasions that led up to [Williamson’s suspension].”
Zion needs to grow up, plain and simple. Or the Pelicans need to accept that he’s not going to and cut bait. Over his five-plus season with the Pelicans, Williamson has managed to play in just 192 of a possible 483 games. Still, the team gave him nearly $200 million hoping the availability would, at some point, match the physical ability. It hasn’t.
Zion’s 70-game season last year ended in an injury that in turn ended New Orleans’ season in the first round. He’s played in just eight games this season. Williamson plays basketball about as often as a middle-aged father trying to grab some light cardio down at the YMCA a couple times a month, and yet, on the rare occasion when he actually is healthy and available to play, he can’t bother himself to show up on time.
Maybe he’s trying to play, or not play, his way out of New Orleans. Maybe he’s just immature. Maybe it’s some combination of both. Whatever the case, the Zion experiment has just about run its course in New Orleans.
It’s tough, because the Pelicans have no way to recoup the kind of talent Williamson offers (Can they even could get much more than a future pick and some salary filler?). and there’s still a reasonable world where he goes somewhere else and turns into the kind of consistent superstar the Pelicans bet everything on him being for them. But at some point, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is, by definition, insanity. It is insane to think the Williamson/Pelicans pairing is ever going to be anything but disappointing.
The Warriors are a lottery team
I remember going on the Beyond the Arc podcast with our CBS Sports NBA insider Bill Reiter about six weeks ago and talking about the Warriors as a legitimate title contender. My have things changed.
The Warrrios, as of Tuesday, sit 12th in the Western Conference. They have dropped 18 of their last 25 games and now are under .500 for the season at 19-20. Should they make a major deal at the deadline to shake things up and try to make a run this season? Superstar Stephen Curry doesn’t think so.
“Desperate trades or desperate moves that deplete the future, there is a responsibility on allowing or keeping the franchise in a good space and good spot when it comes to where we leave this thing when we’re done,” Curry said, via ESPN. “Doesn’t mean that you’re not trying to get better. It doesn’t mean that you’re not active in any type of search to — if you have an opportunity where a trade makes sense or even in the summer free agency [move] makes sense. You want to continue to get better.”
There’s more on Curry giving the Warriors his blessing to stand pat at the deadline here.
Let’s keep this really simple: Jimmy Butler is being paid a shade under $49 million to play basketball for about seven months this season, and he doesn’t want to do it, at least not for the Heat. They suspended him for seven games for “conduct detrimental to the team” earlier this month.
Nobody knows exactly what that means, but suffice it to say Butler has made it his mission to get the hell out of Miami by, according to Jake Fischer, skipping pregame shootarounds and insisting on private flights separate from the team’s charter.
Butler went pretty scorched earth in his last postgame press conference before his official trade demand and subsequent suspension, and his play on the court that night was, to put it mildly, uninspiring. He was adamant that he was giving his full effort, but he wasn’t. He took six shots and spent most of his time lounging in the corner on offense.
He also tried to explain that stand-in-the-corner existence like Erik Spoelstra is/was forcing him into this position. Hilarious. Yeah, I’m sure one of the best basketball coaches in the world, who is already working from a talent deficit most nights, just decided to turn his one star player into an extra. Butler was out there mocking the Heat, who, again, are paying him $49 million this season.
Look at this from earlier this month against the Pelicans:
It has been widely reported that Butler is upset the Heat didn’t extend him on a long-term contract this past summer. Boo-hoo. Butler is 35 years old. Players are living in a second-apron world that has completely changed the way teams manage their books, particularly as it pertains to older player whose final huge contracts are almost certain to age horrifically. Go ask the 76ers how they’re feeling about Paul George three years down the road. Hell, ask them how they feel about him right now.
Butler, of course, believes he’s a better player than George, and he’s right about that. But that doesn’t make him right about this. Business is business. The Heat have benefited greatly from Butler, but he’s benefited from them as well, because he sure as hell wasn’t winning anything before he got to Miami.
If he was the competitor he likes to paint himself as, he would take the challenge of having a great season at age 35 and showing everyone what he can do moving forward, thereby earning his next contract for the player he is now, and can be moving forward, rather than thinking it’s owed to him for the player he used to be.
That’s not how it works. And it’s not how Butler has operated throughout his career, by the way. Every time he has felt that a team is no longer in his best interests, he has cut bait, and pretty dramatically. So why can’t a team potentially cut bait from him if it no longer feels he’s the right player for them, at least not at the price he wants?
It’s hypocritical. If Butler thinks he’s so valuable, he can pass on his $52.4M contract for next season and become a free agent. Let’s see if a team he wants to play for is willing, or even able, to pay him what he thinks he’s worth. Because I’ll tell you this: It sure doesn’t sound like teams are banging down Miami’s door to trade for Butler. That ought to tell you at least something.
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