National Basketball Association

What to look forward to in the 2016-17 NBA season, Part 1

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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Before we know it, the NBA regular season will be here. In some ways, that doesn’t even matter. We all know the Golden State Warriors have already won 83 games. Russell Westbrook has already traveled to Mars, cloaked himself in red war dust and vanquished all his real and imaginary borders. And LeBron, well, LeBron will hold steady. The Eastern Conference is his Vale; he waits behind mountains with an army of shirtless warriors. He is all that exists between Steve Kerr’s aquatic brotherhood and everything else.

The problem is not so much what will happen, but how to fill the time until the arrival of what is certain. Here’s how I plan on doing so.

Rookie to follow

I’m not claiming these are going to be the most interesting or informed choices, but I plan on watching the Lakers more this year than last year. I want to see Brandon Ingram’s rookie year more than I wanted to see Kobe’s farewell tour. Of course, I want to see Ingram’s first season because it follows on the tails of Kobe’s last. Naming a player more intense than Kobe Bryant is practically impossible. On the other hand, naming a player more relaxed than Brandon Ingram might be just as hard.

Seeing him at Duke was like watching a jazz prodigy whose proximity to a trumpet inspires apathy. I’m not saying Ingram is apathetic, but that his demeanor lacks the signature tells that denote intensity. He posts up like a man taking a nap on a park bench. He rolls to one side or the other, and there is barely a whisper of newspaper. He is all subtlety, and yet forever present. When he sits up, or steps behind the arc, when he stretches those long arms of his, there are shades of Sam Perkins lurking in those bird hollow bones of his.

I don’t know how good he’ll be, but I’ll stay awake to watch him rise or settle.

Now that you found yourself

As if Tim Duncan’s retirement didn’t make the issue clear enough, Shaq and Yao went into the Hall of Fame at summer’s end. Thus, in light of a seemingly diminished Dwight, the age of big men is behind us. Enter into the discussion Giannis Antetokounmpo and Karl-Anthony Towns. One will play point guard this year; the other will line up at the traditional five spot. However, only an inch in height and about 20 pounds separates them from being mirror images of one another.

Perhaps, then, the big men are not done — they’ve just been freed to roam wherever and whenever.

Can you picture it? Giannis bounds towards the hoop, and a lurking KAT rolls to meet him at the rim. Twitter explodes. The universe is new. And then the next time down the floor KAT switches onto Giannis at the arc. Giannis attempts to drive right. KAT shifts his feet. Giannis attempts to drive left. KAT shifts his feet. The universe stalls. A whimper. A bang. A whimper. A bang. What have we done to physics?

Of course, I’m assuming Giannis makes the grade as a point guard. Furthermore, I want it to happen, so just as the KG versus TD debates rage on in the afterlife, the Giannis experiment and the KAT foundation can cause similar factions to form. I really hope this works out like I’m picturing it. If not, I’ll have to settle for John Wall and Bradley Beal throwing shade at one another.

What better time than now?

Did I mention Tim Duncan retired? Anyway, he did, and now Gregg Popovich has no one to deliver carrot cake to on road trips. The notion is that even with Duncan gone the Spurs will not suffer an identity crisis, that they can rely on the veteran acumens of Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. Makes sense. Each of them possesses four championship rings apiece.

Yet, isn’t the future really about either LaMarcus or Kawhi becoming the team’s leader? I don’t mean that the team exactly needs an alpha in the mold of Kobe, that’s never been the Spurs way, but LaMarcus has to be something other than sullen and Kawhi has to be more than a mime. After all the talk the last couple seasons about more plays being run for Kawhi on offense, the team is actually his now. LaMarcus is 31 and already shirked this role in Portland. Kawhi is 25, seemingly improved every year, and it would be cool to see him develop a leadership style that is uniquely his own.

On the downside

Chris Paul is 31-years-old. Blake Griffin is 27. DeAndre Jordan is 28. The future for the Clippers could still be on the horizon, and yet it feels already too late. Playing in a league with the Warriors and where your own players always seem hurt in the playoffs can do that.

CP3 has been arguably the best and most consistent point guard since he entered the league in 2005. Last season was his highest scoring in four years. He averaged double digit assists for the third year in a row and the fifth season in his career. He shot 50.1 percent from inside the arc. He didn’t shoot his best from outside, but it wasn’t his worst either. But you just sort of feel he’s constructing a cat’s cradle with a fraying ball of yarn, and you start to wonder how long he can hold all this that is Lob City together.

I’ve never really rooted for Paul, not even in his days at Wake, but when I look at the clock on his career and hear its tic a bit louder these days, I start to think what a shame it would be for one of the best at his position to never make an NBA Finals. He’s presided over the most successful era in Clippers history, by far, but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of justice in it.

Last Straw

How does one not love Dirk Nowitzki? Not saying there isn’t somebody in the league’s history to match, but who has played with a wider variety of sidekicks? When I ask myself who Dirk’s partner in crime is, the first name that pops in my head is Steve Nash, but they haven’t played together in 12 years. I know there were guys like Jerry Stackhouse, Jason Terry, Tyson Chandler and Shawn Marion, but these guys were all sixth men or very expensive specialists. I don’t say this to knock these guys, but that so much of Dirk’s efforts, especially of late, were held together by his talent and very expensive duct tape.

And as he chugs along into retirement, his ability to carry a team, unlike an aging Duncan, and to still keep that same team on the verge of relevancy, unlike Kobe, is something all its own. When he’s done, the league will lose both a unique source of productivity and levity. It will lose a special individual, and I don’t think will see anything quite like him for some time. And, to be honest, maybe that will be when we truly recognize just how good he was. After all, he belongs in that best-player-of-his-generation debate.

Lastly, I just looked at the standings: The Warriors have already won two championships this year.

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