Jimmy Butler and Carmelo Anthony are the controversial protagonists of the last weeks.
After we had dedicated the cover of the last edition to Denver, the Nuggets sank into a whirlwind of four consecutive defeats. On whom will the curse of 'Three Points' break down now?
Certainly not on poor Caris LeVert, simply because we had not talked about it yet ... The best player of this Brooklyn Nets start of the season was the victim of an injury terribly similar to those suffered by Paul George and Gordon Hayward, and in all probability not it will be seen in the field until the autumn of 2019.
The past week has seen yet another milestone won by LeBron James, who has won Wilt Chamberlain in the fifth all-time spot of the NBA filmmakers (with Michael Jordan in the viewfinder), and the resounding +50 inflicted by the Dallas Mavericks to the unfortunate Utah Jazz . The last days have also been marked by a series of 'cases'. The most recent is the one that involved Draymond Green, suspended by Golden State for an exaggerated dispute with his teammate Kevin Durant, to whom Green has not inexplicably given the ball in the decisive possession of the game lost against the Clippers. That such an event could compromise the present and future of the Warriors appears more a vain hope of the adversaries than a real possibility. But it is yet another demonstration of how many variables can affect an NBA season.
To win a double placement in our column is instead the story concerning Jimmy Butler, passed from Minnesota Timberwolves to the Philadelphia 76ers. Beyond that, we will take care of the curious developments of the partnership between Carmelo Anthony and the Houston Rockets. Of course, no one, outside the direct interest, can claim to know the truth about these vicissitudes: the title of this edition (but also the concepts expressed, after all) is simply a tribute to The Truth About Harry Quebert, by Joel Dicker , one of the most beautiful novels of the last years. Suggested reading. But now just preamble, let's go!
1 - Jimmy Butler - Minnesota: what it leaves
Thus, the telenovela is over. The major flaw of the controversial case-Butler is certainly the timing with which it broke out, a few days before the start of the training camp. After missing the media day and the preseason waiting to be sold (on his explicit request), Jimmy Butler found himself 'forced' to take the field with the shirt of the Timberwolves. On the parquet you have not seen a player 'lazy' and with his head already elsewhere, but a real wrestler, a driver able to always give a good example through his actions on the pitch. An attitude that does not go well with the image of 'capricious star' that has been repeatedly given to him in recent weeks. Are you sure the 'fault' is all on one side?
While Butler honored the top 10 of the 13 games played by the team, traveling to 21.3 points and 2.4 steals balls in average over 36 minutes of play, the alleged leaders of T'Wolves, the 'good' of the story, fatigue enormously. It's true, the 15-game champion is still insufficient to make definitive judgments, but so far both Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins appear abundantly below their usual standards. The Canadian is at a minimum in career in all statistical categories, while KAT has done worse than the average 20.3 points in his rookie year. Beyond the figures, the two, arrived at the fourth (Towns) and fifth (Wiggins) NBA season, have not yet proved to be the reference players of a deductible. First of all, the results say: just think of last year, when Butler's injury caused the Timberwolves to fall from the third to the tenth place in the Western Conference. Only the return of Jimmy was able to straighten the season, with the playoffs conquered all'overtime dell'ottantaduesima game, against Denver.
In these first remnants of 2018/19, the two young people showed no signs of growth, both - as mentioned - on the statistical level and, above all, on the attitudinal one. The total lack of leadership has emerged, once again, in games played without Butler. In those three races there were two losses, one against Dallas and a terrible -30 against Portland, with the plus / minus of Towns and Wiggins playing, respectively, -16 and -29. The only victory was the one against Utah, especially thanks to the legendary 50 points of Derrick Rose.
Here, when the best player of an emerging team is a very unlucky thirty year old desperate for a way out of a tunnel of physical and psychological trouble, maybe it means that the team is not so emerging. Now Wiggins and Towns, who will receive almost $ 53 million in the next season, will be free from the suffocating pressure of Butler's compulsive desire to win, and will have the opportunity to inflate their statistics and take more shots and possess more. Will they manage to bring the team back to the playoffs?
At their side, now, there are also Dario Saric and Robert Covington, arrived as counterparts in the trade-Butler. While not a superstar, the two will certainly be comfortable with Tom Thibodeau. The former is back from a non-exciting season start in Philadelphia, the latter is a reliable player on both sides of the field. Both are rightly framed as "system players", but the question in this case is: what system is there in Minneapolis?
2 - Jimmy Butler - Philadelphia: what is it
The fact that Philadelphia has sacrificed two precious elements of the quintet as Covington and Saric to get to Jimmy Butler is yet another confirmation that, in the Eastern Conference, the concept of "everything and immediately" is very fashionable. If the Toronto Raptors have bet heavily on an expiring Kawhi Leonard, Phila has played her chips on the guard from Tomball, Texas, which next summer will have, like Leonard, the chance to break free. The renewal (hypothesis at the moment more probable, with decidedly important figures) or the farewell of Butler will represent a crucial crossroads for 'The Process', now close to its definitive fulfillment. With one of the best two-way players in the league alongside an area dominator like Joel Embiid, a great penetrator and game maker like Ben Simmons and a 'sniper' like J.J. Redick, there are all the conditions to be able to make the road in an increasingly competitive Conference (at least on the upper floors). But it will take some adjustments to the roster, perhaps in the long department, impoverished by the farewell of Saric.
The lame start of the season of the Sixers (9 wins and 7 losses) had raised more than a doubt that the young group of Brett Brown, as it was, was actually ready to compete for the NBA Finals. While Joel Embiid is playing a monstrous 2018/19, a serious MVP candidate (27.6 points and 13.4 average rebounds), on the other Ben Simmons seems roughly the same player seen in the wonderful rookie year. Of course, his 14.5 points, 9.1 rebounds and 7.6 assists of average are so much stuff, especially for a twenty-two, but a very exciting debut can only hope for further and sudden growth.
However, these are marginal problems for the time being. The pair of aces of the Sixers, unlike that of the Timberwolves, has already shown the technical and attitudinal skills necessary to drag a team to the playoffs, even without Jimmy Butler. The biggest worry, if anything, concerns Markelle Fultz. Stopped for most of the rookie season due to one shoulder trouble, this 2018/19 is showing that it has not yet overcome those physical problems. But in the extreme difficulty with which he started his NBA career there seems to be more. On the other hand, it is not for everyone to live with the enormous pressure generated by a first choice (however indisputable, on the eve of the first stone who, in 2017, would have selected Jayson Tatum or Donovan Mitchell in his place). In this start of the season, coach Brown is trying to involve him as much as possible, alternating in quintet (alongside Simmons) and driving the second unit (with Redick owner), but the results are quite erratic: at the moment his figures speak of 8.9 points of average in 24.1 minutes, but to worry more are the bad shooting percentages (43% from two, 30% with only 13 attempts from three, the media fury against his shooting mechanics, in these cases, it does not help) and the language of a boy's body entangled in a situation he was not at all prepared for. With Butler's arrival and the playoffs approaching, Fultz could see his minutage drop drastically, and his young career could run aground prematurely. We hope that time will give us back the phenomenon we so much anticipated.
3 - fault of 'Melo?
In addition to Jimmy Butler, the other great protagonist of the week was Carmelo Anthony, in this case just outside the field. It would seem that, even a month after the start of the regular season, his adventure at the Houston Rockets is already over. Waiting for the official, a statement by the general manager Daryl Morey has announced his intention to terminate the contract that links the player to the franchise by consensus until next June. According to some hypotheses, ventilated by the NBA insiders, it would have been the same 'Melo, through his entourage, to ask to be left on the sidelines in order to evaluate the hypothesis of a buyout. According to other versions, the 'case' would have exploded after the coaching staff and the Rockets management would have expressed their dissatisfaction with the player's performance.
The only thing certain, in this paradoxical affair, is that the Houston of this start of 2018/19 seems a bad imitation of the one that last year had dominated the regular season, closed with the best record and the best attack of the league . Now the offensive rating of Mike D'Antoni's men is eighteenth in thirty, even lower than that of teams like Brooklyn, Sacramento and Dallas, but looking at the average points, the attack of the Rockets is the fourth in the league. The current record (7 won, 7 lost) places the Rockets in twelfth place in the Western Conference. However, a significant improvement, considering that the team had collected 4 losses in the first 5 season races. The avalanche of criticisms rained down from everywhere at number 7 seem to issue a unanimous sentence. Paraphrasing a controversial passage by Vasco Rossi: 'Melo's fault. It's really like this?
Without a doubt, the former star of the New York Knicks is managing in the worst way the last phase of his career. The stark failure of the experience with Russell Westbrook and Paul George in Oklahoma City would perhaps have stirred in him the awareness of no longer being the amazing player seen at the Knicks and, even before, the Nuggets. Instead, apparently, Anthony is still convinced of being a top player and, as such, deserves a leading role in a playoff team. It would be the scarcity of minutes and responsibility the cause of the precocious bad mood of Carmelo, the same player who, a little over a year ago, had loudly mocked the hypothesis of starting from the bench for the Thunder. The sudden conclusion of his experience in Houston is a very bad assumption for the future of the player, now branded by most as 'unsuitable', if not even 'harmful'.
That said, these Rockets are far from the 'perfect symphony' seen last season, and to indicate Anthony as the main (if not the only) accused of such worsening would be an extremely superficial analysis.
First of all, it is necessary to remember that 'Melo did not arrive in Texas in exchange for Trevor Ariza and Luc Mbah in Moute. The two defensive specialists, who certainly could not be replaced by the number 7, left Houston because there was no more room for them. Last summer, very specific choices were made at the wage level. With James Harden, who had already signed a four-year $ 160 million extension in 2017, the contracts of the other two pillars of the team were to be renewed. Clint Capela has 'settled' 90 million in five years, while Chris Paul has signed on the same supermax contract signed by Harden. As a result of these maneuvers, the roster is necessarily changed and there are no margins to reinforce it significantly, even in the medium / long term: in the 2020/21 season, the three will perceive the beauty of 100 million dollars. For the record, Carmelo Anthony's salary does not exceed 2.4 million. The uncle of Peter Parker, one of the characters created by the cartoonist Stan Lee (who died these days), had been clear: "great powers (or salaries, in this case) derive great responsibility".
To further compromise the position of Harden and Paul (Capela is maintaining the usual standards) there is the fact that both are making visibly less, compared to last year. Leaving out the average points and percentages, however in drastic decline, in this start of the season seems to be missing the 'hunger', the spark that had led the Barba to win the MVP and CP3 award to conquer the aforementioned 'contract'. And if they were their highest goals?
And above all, if this season were to prove that the gap with the Golden State Warriors remains unbridgeable, what will happen to the future of the franchise?
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