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Here’s something crazy: If Chris Paul averages 15 assists over his next 246 games, the 39-year-old point guard would finally pass John Stockton for the most assists ever.
Stock Report!
Denver lost to whomst!
It’s Monday, which means it’s time to check in on the teams and players heading in the right and wrong directions before weekday action. There have been some impressive turnarounds and troubling spirals. We’ve got big injuries and big dunks. And we’re still looking for an explanation of how Denver managed to lose on Saturday. It’s the NBA Stock Report!
📈 Timberwolves (12-11): Remember nearly two weeks ago, when the Wolves lost to the Kings, and it prompted Anthony Edwards to call his team “soft”? That semi-risky bit of publicly vocal leadership by Edwards seems to have done the job. It has sparked a Wolves turnaround, as their defense has been reminiscent of what we saw a season ago, and Minnesota put up four straight wins before losing to Golden State on Sunday night. During that streak, the Wolves kept their opponents under 95 points for four straight games for the first time since 2012.
📉 Nuggets (12-10): Nikola Jokić dropped 56 points in a game, the most he’s scored in an NBA contest. It was against the Washington Wizards, who hadn’t won a game in over a month. They were enduring a 16-game losing streak … but the Nuggets lost this game. And, yes, Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon missed it. You know who didn’t miss this game, though? The Wizards. They played in it. And they won by nine. Denver … how?
📈 Hawks (13-12): That’s right! Back-to-back weeks with the Hawks trending up in the NBA Stock Report. The Hawks simply don’t go through sustained highs like this — almost ever — but we have to recognize what is finally happening with this team. Trae Young had 31 points and 20 assists in an overtime win over the Lakers this weekend. And the Hawks went 3-1 last week and won six of seven. Atlanta has actually been playing defense too. (Still, they lost by 30 to those otherwise downward-trending Nuggets last night.)
📉 Lakers (13-11): We’ve looked at LeBron James’ struggles, but it goes much deeper than that in L.A. The Lakers are in a bad spot right now. After starting 10-4, they’ve lost seven of their last 10 games. During this stretch, L.A. is getting outscored by 18.3 points per 100 possessions with LeBron on the floor, and outscoring opponents by 3.4 points per 100 without him on the floor. No, those numbers are not mixed up. The Lakers are.
📈 The Mavericks (16-8) are the hottest team in basketball right now, with seven straight victories and wins in 11 of their last 12 games. Luka Dončić has only played in six of those 12 games. Kyrie Irving has been excellent. Dallas has been the second-best offense, eighth-best defense and most dominant team since Nov. 15.
📉 Spurs (12-12): San Antonio has dropped four out of its last six games with losses to the Lakers, Suns, Bulls and Kings. We were just praising the Spurs last week, and then, they lost by double digits in three straight games. On Friday, the Kings lit them up for 140 points in a 27-point loss by San Antonio. Their effort has either gone toward a clicking defense or a clicking offense in this stretch, and they haven’t had much balance.
📈 Ja Morant dunking: The Grizzlies superstar infuriated and frustrated so many of us this past week when he claimed he was done dunking. Morant is one of the most impressive athletes we’ve ever seen, and his highlights on the court are tough to rival — which is saying something. So, we were upset at his responsible approach to our entertainment. Then, against the Celtics, Morant did this:
My lord! That is shades of Dominique Wilkins and Shawn Kemp on that dunk! Avoiding 7-foot-3 Kristaps Porziņģis at the rim by bringing the ball down to his quads with both hands and then still bringing it back up for the reverse dunk is absurd. I’ll remind you Morant is 6-foot-2. I’m glad he’s sticking with us.
The Last 24
Jordan Poole’s new celebration is awful
🏀 Cade’s moment at MSG. Cade Cunningham had a big triple-double to fuel the 10-15 Pistons’ win against the Knicks on Saturday. Read about how he did it.
🫂 Back in Boston. Marcus Smart was welcomed in the way you’d expect in his playing return to Beantown. It was pretty cool.
🩼 Another Pelicans injury. Brandon Ingram is injured again after he suffered a bad ankle sprain this weekend. Bad times in New Orleans.
📺 Don’t miss this game tonight. Knicks (14-9) at Raptors (7-17), 7:30 p.m. ET on NBA TV or Fubo. I know you’re questioning why this would be the game not to miss tonight. It’s the only game on the schedule.
🤣 New Jordan Poole celebration? When the Wizards guard lit up the Nuggets for nine 3-pointers and 38 points, he introduced the “drowning in the Poole” celebration. It’s terrible. By the way, Washington (3-19) currently has the NBA’s worst record.
Now You Don’t …
Oblique? More like, “Oh, bleak!” for the Magic
When Paolo Banchero’s impressive season was halted by a torn oblique muscle at the end of October, we discussed here whether the Magic would be able to tread water until he got back in December. After losing their first four games without Banchero in early November, Orlando started to take off. The Magic won 13 of their next 15 games going into their game against Philadelphia last Friday.
Then, more bad news hit. After their 102-94 loss to the 76ers, the Magic (17-9) announced Franz Wagner is joining Banchero in the torn oblique club. The team said he’s out indefinitely and will be re-evaluated in four weeks. Banchero, who was projected to be out four to six weeks back on Oct. 31, is entering his sixth week out. Hopefully, Wagner will be back soon, but we’ll be waiting at least a month for an update on his return timeline.
During that 15-game stretch of success, Wagner was averaging 27.4 points, 6.7 assists, 5.9 rebounds and two steals. He also made 46.5 percent of his shots and 89.8 percent of his 6.5 free-throw attempts per game. The Magic are plus-12.7 points per 100 possessions with Wagner on the floor, but still a plus-4.6 per 100 without him. Extrapolating that into a full 48 minutes of success is going to be tough.
Orlando sits third in the East, and head coach Jamahl Mosley has done an incredible job with this team over the last two and a half seasons. The Magic have had some success during those 15 games with lineups that didn’t include Wagner, but they’ll need to make games even uglier with their defense — and hope Jalen Suggs turns into a superhero. It happened Sunday night in a 115-110 win over Phoenix. They’ll need to keep it going, at least until Banchero is back.
Achievement Talk
Chris Paul moves to second all-time in assists
While so many of us are marveling at LeBron James being so good in his 22nd NBA season, there’s another all-time great playing well in his respective twilight: Chris Paul is new to the Spurs this season, but he’s not new to being an all-time great point guard. It didn’t take long into his career for that to be established, as he was orchestrating the New Orleans Hornets for his first six seasons.
Last night against the New Orleans Pelicans, Paul made even more history. With an inbound pass to Victor Wembanyama for a made 3-pointer, CP3 passed Jason Kidd for second place in all-time career assists. Paul now sits at 12,099 dimes. Only John Stockton (15,806) has more in his career. The point guard position has mostly been for smaller players on the court, but CP3 measures just 6 feet and 175 pounds. He’s always been one of the smallest guys on the court, and yet, it’s rarely affected his vision and ability to create for others.
Let’s take a look at his assist and turnover numbers for each stop:
- Hornets: 4,228 assists, 1,065 turnovers | 3.9:1 ratio
- Clippers: 4,023 assists, 959 turnovers | 4.2:1 ratio
- Rockets: 930 assists, 280 turnovers | 3.3:1 ratio
- Thunder: 472 assists, 161 turnovers | 2.9:1 ratio
- Suns: 1,848 assists, 423 turnovers, 4.3:1 ratio
- Warriors: 393 assists, 76 turnovers | 5.1:1 ratio
- Spurs: 205 assists, 43 turnovers | 4.7:1 ratio and counting
At almost every stop of his career, he’s flirted with a 4:1 assist-to-turnover ratio or better. Paul has also scored over 22,000 points for his career while shooting 47.1 percent from the field and 36.9 percent from deep over 1,296 games. And he’s third all time in steals. But Paul never made it deep enough into the playoffs to contend for a championship and has often been ridiculed for coming up short in the postseason.
Still, everybody knows just how incredible he’s been in his career. He’s one of the greatest point guards in a long lineage of NBA greats at the position. And his longevity at his physical stature is unheard of in this league. Congrats to CP3 — and amazingly, he’s not done yet.
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(Top photo: Ronald Cortes / Getty Images )
