My Ten Favorite Non-Sixers This NBA Season
A truly stunning #1.
Andrew Unterberger is a famous writer who invented the nickname 'Sauce Castillo' and is now writing for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the 'If Not, Pick Will Convey As Two Second-Rounders' section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard.
Andrew's writing is brought to you by Kinetic Skateboarding! Not only the Ricky's approved skate shop, but the best place to get Chucks, Vans, any apparel. Use code "DAVESILVER" for 9.1% off your order.
The holidays are usually one of the happiest times of the year for me, though not because I go anywhere or do anything or see anyone. Just the opposite, actually: I've long loved the holiday season because I don't have to go into my office, I have few if any social obligations, and I can just basically stay at home and watch basketball for two weeks -- taping every game regardless of who's playing and just speeding through them one at a time, basically until it's time for new basketball again. But in this season, of course, it's a global pandemic, where I don't go into the office at all anymore, I never have any social obligations, and there's absolutely nothing for me to do except stay at home and watch basketball start-to-stop every day. So basically, it's the holidays every week. Hooray sort of!
Anyway, bottom line is that I've watched even more non-Sixers ball than usual this year. Having a fantasy team on a furious year-long revenge tour after the league wrapped last year just as my squad was starting to come together (what the hell kind of NBA fantasy league holds its playoffs in February, Mike Saponara??) helps hold my interest, of course. But so does finding dudes around the league to place my emotional investment in when the Sixers aren't involved -- some for honorable reasons, some for petty ones -- of which I've amassed a decent number at this point. Here's a list of my ten favorite non-Sixers this season -- with "non-Sixers" of course meaning "never a Sixer," as we still claim Thaddeus Young, Jrue Holiday, Jerami Grant, Christian Wood, and every other Process-era Sixer currently spreading the Gospel around the Association. (May need a separate list for them soon, along with my ten least-favorite players.)
10. Andre Drummond
I know, I'm as surprised as you -- one of Joel Embiid's oldest foes, who Embiid seems to dodge playing against now just so there's no chance the overmatched former Piston ever has a strong game against him. But I think it's sort of fun watching Drummond on this Cavs team, scoring and rebounding a lot and doing way too much on offense and blocking Jarret Allen in the starting lineup and just generally fucking around with a "yeah I don't get why I got left here either, but Imma do me until someone comes and gets me" smirk on his face. Supposedly the Brooklyn Nets might end up being the team that comes and gets him; that could be fun too.
9. Lu Dort
Trying not to include too many super-obvious NBA Twitter guys, but I like this overachieving-despite-themselves Oklahoma City Thunder team -- tanking with a smart GM ain't for everybody, dudes! -- and I enjoy how designated defensive stopper Lu Dort solved the problem of "How can this team survive with him on the court when he's a cartoonishly bad offensive player?" simply by deciding to no longer be a cartoonishly bad offensive player. I mean, did anyone ever tell JaKarr Sampson he was allowed to hit 36% of his threes? Who knows how much different the world would be right now if they had?
8. Jeff Green
Really don't love having a Net on here, but my long-simmering affection for Jeff Green has resurfaced with this Brooklyn team. It's hilarious that he ended up here, the third wheel of a triumphant Thunder reunion, the fifth starter on a team with four dudes averaging 15 a game. And it's a match: Green has a true shooting percentage of 66.6%, top ten in the entire league, staggeringly good for a guy who used to exclusively like long pull-up twos and missed layups. For nearly a decade and a half, basketball fans have wondered what the ideal fit was for the perennially frustrating, constantly overpaid Green, and now we have the answer: being an off-ball guy hitting wide-open shots in a lineup full of greater offensive talents.
7. Nicolas Batum
I mostly enjoy Nicolas' work because I picture how livid the Charlotte Hornets fans must be anytime he does pretty much anything. I mean, can you imagine? It's annoying enough watching Al Horford shoot 42% from three this year with OKC -- now picture that feeling if he had been here for *the entire length of his contract.* That's basically as long as Nic Batum was in Charlotte, at over $20 million a year for four years, before finally just getting waived and stretched after he picked up the option on his fifth year. Last year, he started 3 of 22 games played for the lottery-bound Hornets while averaging 3.6 points a game on 35% shooting from the field (29% from three); this year, he's started all 24 games for the contending Clippers and averaged over 10 points on 50 percent shooting (46% from three). He already has nearly four times the number of triples (53 to 14) that he did all last year, but still hasn't turned the ball over as many times (18 to 22).
He's playing better for the Clippers than he ever did in four years at near-max money for the cap-strangled Hornets -- and he's basically doing it for free. It's rewarding to see a talented veteran player finally find their perfect landing spot, and even more rewarding to picture that player's former fanbase tear their collective hair out in response.
6. Wayne Ellington
Seems like every 2-3 years, Wayne Ellington emerges from obscurity, scorches the nets like Liu Kang for like a month, then promptly returns to washedness. Did you know that he had seven straight games of at least four made threes this year? Did you know he's just the eighth player in NBA history to do that? (You might, actually, but only because at least five of those games came against the Sixers.) It's wild stuff for a guy who couldn't reliably crack the rotation for the Knicks last year -- but maybe a little less so now that he's 0-7 from distance in his last two games and is currently out till question mark with a strained calf. We legitimately might not hear from him again until 2024. I look forward to it.
5. Zion Williamson
Somehow both an obviously transcendent talent and also kinda underwhelming most of the time? I'm fascinated by him. Plus, love a thick dunker, one who makes teams break out the Pacers Sports and Entertainment levels. Feels so iconoclastic in 2021.
4. Mike Conley
I can't ever totally root for a team patrolled by Officer Donovan Mitchell, but there are few things more gratifying in the NBA than a player whose career you've enjoyed at length proving reports of his demise to be ultimately premature. After first year of struggling with injuries and fit in Utah, the preternaturally solid Mike Conley Jr. is now (at age 33) having a year as good as any he had in Memphis, averaging 17 and 6 on solid shooting, conducting one of the league's most efficient offenses, posting absurd on-off numbers and generally becoming the darling of the advanced stat community. The hype train for his All-Star campaign is maybe running a little too fast and furious -- and I have no idea how he ends up third in the entire league in Estimated Plus-Minus -- but he's been such a joy to watch this year that it just reminds me how annoying it is that his old Grizzlies grit-and-grind partner Marc Gasol got traded to Toronto and immediately became an Enemy of the Process, ruining any chance I ever had of loving him again. (BTW, sure there'll be public outcry if Conley gets snubbed for All-Star again, but I personally think it's cooler being the consensus Greatest Player to Never Make an All-Star Team that a one-time All-Star towards the end of his career anway.)
3. Ja Morant
Predictable as it comes here, but man, I get starstruck watching Ja Morant play. I can't remember another point guard like him -- one who looks like a fairly classic point guard 95% of the time, running a smart offense, probing and distributing and finishing well, heady Chris Paul-type shit, but who two or three times a game, makes a play of such breathtaking power and athleticism that he suddenly morphs into young LeBron. It's not like he's the only backcourt player to ever be a perpetual lob threat, but he looks so physically unassuming compared to say, early Dwyane Wade, that every time he takes flight for a thunderous finish you kinda have to remind yourself, "Oh right, he can do that." Plus he just looks cool, like he happened to choose sports but could be a star in any medium. Imagine missing out on Zion by one pick and maybe ending up feeling like you actually kinda lucked out in doing so.
2. Julius Randle
I love Julius Randle. I love Julius Randle. Love. Have since Kentucky, during the one season where I pretended to know anything about college basketball and prospect evaluation and predicted he'd be an All-Star one day. Certainly didn't expect that day to come eight seasons and three teams deep into his career, after it looked like he'd tapped out as a player with an absolutely disastrous first season in New York. But that's unquestionably the level he's at now, looking revitalized and in better shape than ever under new coach Tom Thibodeau, averaging a wait, what? 23/11/6 stat line on 48/40/80 shooting splits -- all except FG% career highs by fairly laughable margins. He's playing defense, he's making clutch plays, he looks fucking legit, man. Between him, RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley, the Knicks have been shockingly fun to follow this year; all of which is at risk of cratering at any moment, and perhaps doubly so now that they've traded for Derrick Rose for no reason. But Randle really should be an All-Star this year, and I appreciate the extremely late and unexpected validation.
1. DeMar DeRozan
I feel very deeply for DeMar DeRozan. It's hard to picture what it must feel like to be very possibly the most productive and accomplished player in a franchise's history, and for that franchise to win at a level well beyond what you could ever manage immediately after the player they traded you for shows up. He's the Raptors' all-time leader in points, games and minutes played, and his ultimate legacy in Toronto is still probably as "The guy who helped get us Kawhi for one season." Tough stuff, which he hasn't exactly managed to shake off perception-wise since arriving in San Antonio, where he's yet to win a playoff series, and may indeed be overseeing the team that ends legendary coach Gregg Popovich's career mired in mediocrity, a middle-of-the-pack squad whose ceiling is a first-round exit in the West.
Still... DeMar DeRozan is really fucking good! It's incredibly satisfying watching him surgically dissect a defense in the half-court, figuring out ways to get to his spots and either connect on his automatic mid-range jumper or whip the exact correct pass to one of his teammates on the perimeter. He's top ten in the entire league in assists this season, something that would've been unimaginable in Toronto, but feels right for his San Antonio incarnation. You can absolutely build a good offense around DeMar DeRozan -- just probably not a great one, since he still barely ever shoots threes, and occasionally runs into a team good enough to figure out how to deny him his spots, and ends up disappearing entirely. Still, I enjoy watching him attempt to build a legacy in San Antonio, one 22-7-9 game at a time, getting closer and closer to the 20,000 point mark (just about five games away from 17k!) that will make his Hall of Fame case a lot more interesting than you'd ever expect it to be. Part of me wants to see him traded to a contender -- though he has such a weird player profile for 2021 that I have no idea what good team would even really want him -- but mostly I want him to see it out in San Antonio, to try to be more than he's ever been, and to find character in the failure.
Anyway, I can't wait to root for him in the playoffs. The Spurs will lose in five, but the one win will be awesome.