GoneTrending

The cast list for Fast X is so long that Oscar winner Charlize Theron is listed last in the Wikipedia summary. That’s what happens no characters die (and the ones that do magically come back to life). The last thing the Fast and Furious movies need is more people in them — but it still would have been to cool to see Jean-Claude Van Damme doing the splits between two cars.

The Bloodsport star told the Telegraph that he was eyed for a role in a Fast and Furious movie, but Vin Diesel reportedly said, “No, I don’t want him.” Was it because Vin felt threatened by another action movie star with the initials VD? We’ll never know.

We’ll also never know who would win in a fight between Van Damme and long-time rival Steven Seagal (jk everyone but Sly Stallone knows JCVD would destroy him), because the worst host in SNL history backed out of a proposed brawl.

Van Damme recalls that Peter Guber, the former head of Sony Pictures, wanted to promote a fight between them. “They were having an idea to have a fight between me and Steven at The Mirage [the Las Vegas casino resort],” he says. “Twenty million each. He didn’t take the fight.”

The 1980s and 1990s had fun feuds, like Van-Damme vs. Seagal. We only get tech billionaires squabbling at each other on social media. The future stinks.

(Via the Telegraph)

The Western Conference is going to be absolutely brutal during the 2023-24 NBA season. Thirteen of the 15 teams are coming into the year with pretty clear hopes of making it to the postseason. One of those remaining two teams, the Portland Trail Blazers, turned Damian Lillard into a bunch of really solid pros and has an impressive young core that could end up being a nightmare to deal with. The final one, the San Antonio Spurs, have a 7’3 freak of nature who could end up being the best player in the world sometime soon and a revered head coach who is just used to winning a whole lot of games.

All of this is to say that every night in the West is going to be a blast. Only 10 team can make the playoffs and the Play-In Tournament, and there are going to be some incredibly disappointed squads because they just can’t break into that collection of teams — let alone fail to earn the 7 or 8 seed. Still, not every team is perfect, and here’s the big question every team in the West needs to answer this season.

Dallas Mavericks: Can They Piece Together Enough On Defense?

The Mavs were dreadful defensively after the Kyrie Irving trade, as they were never able to replace Dorian Finney-Smith’s presence on the wing. This year, they’ll hope Grant Williams’ addition can bring some much-needed defensive versatility on the wing, as he showed in Boston he’s capable of defending both forward spots and centers in a pinch. Both of the rookies they drafted, Dereck Lively II and Olivier Maxence-Prosper, have some questions regarding their offensive capabilities, but both could play immediately for their defensive upside — with more to come on Lively below. The return of a healthy Maxi Kleber also should help, as they rode a small-ball lineup featuring him at center in their playoff run two seasons ago, and Josh Green figures to step into a larger role as well, as he’s their best bet for perimeter defense on this roster.

There should be a baseline of a top-8 offense with the combination of Luka Doncic and Irving, which means to be a playoff team they don’t need to be elite at defense, but simply passable on that end. That wasn’t the case last year, but this roster certainly seems better equipped to be less of a sieve on that end. Jason Kidd’s reputation as a strong defensive coach will be put to the test this season, but if he can get them outside the bottom 10 in the league, this should be a pretty dangerous team.

Denver Nuggets: How Do They Replace Bruce Brown And Jeff Green?

The tricky thing about the Nuggets is that we know so much about them. The team is running it back with the starting five that got them a ring — Jamal Murray, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Michael Porter Jr., Aaron Gordon, Nikola Jokic — while head coach Michael Malone is still in town. That starting group gives them a floor that, barring injury, no other team can match.

If there is a problem, it revolves around the fact that two key pieces of the puzzle from last year are no longer here. After one season with the team, Brown cashed in on his brilliant 2022-23 campaign by signing a lucrative, 2-year deal with the Indiana Pacers. Green was ultra reliable and steady for the team during his two years in Denver, he’s now a member of the Houston Rockets. Their contributions to what the Nuggets accomplished last season can’t really be overstated, as they were effective cogs in the machine on offense who were willing to take on difficult assignments on defense.

The only major questions with the starting group revolve around whether Murray can finally get over the hump and become an All-Star and how much more room Porter has to grow. Caldwell-Pope and Gordon are as defined in their roles as they can be, while Jokic is the best basketball player on the planet. But there are real questions about replacing Brown and Green.

Golden State Warriors: How Does Chris Paul Fit In?

The Jordan Poole era coming to an end probably wasn’t a surprise — his gigantic salary was a potential handcuff on the team in terms of limiting what they could do going forward, he saw a drop-off in his efficiency after signing his new deal, and of course, there was the much-discussed incident in the preseason where he got into it with Draymond Green, which ended in Green punching him. The much bigger surprise was what the Warriors got back for Poole and a future pick: Chris Paul.

Over the course of his career, Paul has seemed to take pride in battling against Curry, Green, Klay Thompson, and the rest of the Warriors. Imagine going back to, like, 2016 and telling yourself that Chris Paul would end up on the Golden State Warriors. It just doesn’t sound right! And yet, it’s not hard to see how he can really help Golden State, particularly in the minutes when Curry is on the bench — like most teams that build their offense around an elite player, the Warriors have struggled over the years when Curry rests. Paul, in theory, can give Golden State a near-ideal option to run things when Curry is off the floor, and it’s not hard to see how having him out there with Curry would make it easy for the Warriors to unlock Curry’s ability to move off the ball.

There is absolutely a path where this works, where Paul gives the team the ball-handler and floor general to deputize Curry, where his otherworldly hoops IQ fits in perfectly, where he buys into a role (either as a full-time starter or a spot starter who is primarily a sixth man) that just fits into the Warriors ecosystem. There is, also, a path where it doesn’t, where Paul just never quite gels with a team that has been an adversary of his for years, where the slow, meticulous style that he has mastered is a cumbersome fit in Steve Kerr’s wonderfully fluid side. Could they turn his contract and a bunch of other stuff into a star by the trade deadline? Who knows! This can go in a lot of different ways, which is part of what makes it so fun.

Houston Rockets: How Big A Leap Can They Take On Defense?

The reason Ime Udoka was hired was to bring a defensive identity to a team that has been lacking one for two years. It’s also why Fred VanVleet was the target over James Harden in free agency, and why they are willing to deal with Dillon Brooks’ at times frustrating antics to bring in an All-Defense caliber wing. It’d be hard not to take a step forward defensively from last year, when they were 29th in defensive rating (per Basketball-Reference), but it remains to be seen how big that step can be.

At this point, they should have enough on the perimeter and wing to be able to always have a couple good defenders on the floor at all times, which is a considerable upgrade from where they’ve been. VanVleet and Brooks are proven pests on the perimeter, while Tari Eason and Amen Thompson have the frames, athleticism, and profile to be very good on that end, they just need the structure around them. The real question on defense is whether they have enough rim protection, as they weren’t able to land the defensive upgrade they hoped for in free agency when Brook Lopez balked and returned to the Bucks. As such, Alperen Sengun will be back starting at the five, where he doesn’t provide much in terms of rim deterrence (0.9 blocks per game a year ago) but also was not being helped much at all by a very leaky point of attack defense.

Houston will be a really interesting test of how much improving your point of attack defense can raise your defensive level overall if you still lack elite rim protection. Sengun shouldn’t be left on islands trying to cover two guys at once as much as last year and can focus more on being in the right position, which should help him be more effective, but there’s a ceiling to his impact on that end. They have a chance to be special offensively if things click for enough of their youngsters at once, but they’ll need to climb out of the bottom third of the league on defense to have a chance at a really surprising leap into Play-In contention.

Los Angeles Clippers: Will We Finally Get Close To A Full Season Of Kawhi Leonard And Paul George?

We have avoided the health question with most teams, because any injury to a top star at the wrong time will end a team’s chance of winning a title. However, in L.A. we’re entering our fifth year of the Kawhi and PG era and have never seen the two play more than 108 combined games. The good news is, the two are entering the season at full strength (with the understanding that full strength has a different meaning with two stars with their injury histories) and there is once again a bit of optimism that maybe this can be the year they can get to the postseason and have both available for a full playoff run.

That really is where everything starts for this team. That said, they also have to get to the playoffs, which isn’t a simple proposition now with the Play-In Tournament. Last year, they earned the 5-seed out West with Kawhi Leonard looking better than he ever has since arriving in L.A., but had his postseason cut short by another knee injury in the first round. Paul George was similarly sensational in his 56 appearances, but likewise missed the postseason with an ill-timed knee sprain at the end of the year. When those two are on the floor together, the Clippers play like a contender in the West. When they aren’t, the Clippers are a competitive but ultimately overmatched team. It really is about that simple. Before this experiment ends, it’d be nice to get one year where we see what they could do at full strength in the playoffs, but that’s a long way off.

Los Angeles Lakers: Did They Do Enough This Summer?

LeBron is LeBron, even if Father Time ends up catching up to him a little bit more this year now that he is officially the oldest player in the NBA. Anthony Davis is Anthony Davis, and James has made abundantly clear that he wants to hand the reins totally off to him and let the Lakers be his team. As long as those two are able to play and be good, effective NBA players, teams are not going to have a good time playing against Los Angeles.

The question, as always, is going to be the pieces around them. We have a pretty good sense of how some guys are going to fit: Austin Reaves is a legitimate third option and someone whose ability to score and make plays fits awfully well alongside those two. For his offensive limitations, Jarred Vanderbilt’s defense and ability to get hustle points on offense is a nice fit. D’Angelo Russell and Rui Hachimura aren’t perfect players, but their ability to score gives the team a much-needed boost on offense.

That’s a good, albeit not perfect, group of five or six players — that core got swept in the Western Conference Finals by the eventual champion Denver Nuggets. The goal going into the summer, beyond making sure guys in that group got contract extensions, was to build even further. Can Christian Wood finally put together a full season of effective basketball on both ends of the floor? Is Gabe Vincent able to repeat his commandeering performance in the playoffs with the Miami Heat? What does Jaxson Hayes look like on this team? What about Taurean Prince? Can any of their young guys, particularly Max Christie and 2023 first-round pick Jalen Hood-Schifino, give them anything?

The expectations are, and always will be, extremely high in L.A. James and Davis will take them as far as they can on their own, but if the team is going to do anything more than that, it’s going to require all these other pieces playing to the absolute best of their ability.

Memphis Grizzlies: How Well Can They Manage Ja Morant’s 25-Game Suspension?

There aren’t a lot of questions left for this Grizzlies team in the regular season after back-to-back campaigns, and much of what people want to see is whether they can become a more real threat to top West contenders come playoff time. However, they can only answer those questions if they’re a playoff team, and this year they will face a real challenge in securing a guaranteed playoff spot in a crowded West with the 25-game suspension for All-Star guard Ja Morant. Memphis has been very good in Morant’s absence in the past, navigating stretches without him due to various injuries, but going 25 straight games without Morant will put them to the test.

With Tyus Jones now in Washington, they no longer have their steady-handed backup able to run the show, and that means a lot is going to fall on the shoulders of Marcus Smart to pick things up quickly and establish early chemistry with his teammates. Smart is certainly capable of running the show for a playoff contender, but he’s coming from a place where he had a ton of reps and an unspoken bond with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Now he’ll have to quickly create that understanding with Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr., and there could be some hiccups along the way. In the long-run, I think the Smart trade was worthwhile for Memphis as he is an upgrade over Brooks and brings some real playoff experience and savvy to a roster that needs it. However, it’s not a guarantee that in the immediate absence of Morant things go as smoothly as they have in the past when the star guard has been out, and in what figures to be a very crowded race for the top-6 in the West, the Grizzlies will need to be able to tread water until he’s back.

Minnesota Timberwolves: Can The Second Year Of Their Big Three Go Much Better?

The Timberwolves took one of the NBA’s more ambitious swings in recent memory last offseason, as the team moved a ton of stuff to bring Rudy Gobert to Minneapolis. It was a pretty fascinating statement of intent, as the team clearly believed that a frontcourt duo of Karl-Anthony Towns and Gobert could work in harmony as Anthony Edwards ascends to become the face of the franchise. The result of that bet: 42 wins, 40 losses, needing a win in the Play-In Tournament to earn a postseason berth, where they lost in five games to the eventual champion Denver Nuggets in the first round.

Obviously there are some pretty easily identifiable reasons as to why that was the case, namely the fact that Towns only played in 29 games due to injury. Their offense wasn’t as dynamic as expected. They swapped out their point guard after 54 games, as they were part of a three-team deal with the Jazz and the Los Angeles Lakers to replace D’Angelo Russell with Mike Conley. Instead of having the sort of elite defense that teams built around Gobert tend to have, Minnesota was 10th in defensive rating. The regular season ended with Gobert getting suspended for punching Kyle Anderson during a timeout.

There were bright spots — Edwards is very good, Jaden McDaniels is an impressive player — and the team was by no means a catastrophe. Still, Minnesota didn’t go all-in on the Edwards/Gobert/Towns trio just to win one playoff game and spend the entire regular season flirting with a .500 record. Whether or not they can take a step forward as a trio is the big question for this season and beyond, and if they can’t, there are going to have to be some really difficult conversations about what they can accomplish. But the good news is that those three guys are all extremely talented, they have a well-respected head coach in Chris Finch, and their roster is filled with guys who know how to play alongside that trio.

New Orleans Pelicans: How Much Will Their Starting Unit Play Together?

With most teams I have tried avoiding going with health-related questions, but it’s impossible to talk about this Pelicans team without addressing the elephant in the room. We saw last year that when they’re all on the floor they can be an absolute buzzsaw, as they have terrific balance when at full strength. Their top-6 is genuinely among the best in the league, as Zion Williamson is an unstoppable freight train getting to the rim, Ingram has become an elite midrange scorer, and C.J. McCollum is a steady hand in the backcourt and knockdown shooter. Around those three they can go big or small, with Jonas Valanciunas, Herbert Jones, and Trey Murphy III all providing a different complementary skillset to their trio of stars.

The Pelicans even have solid depth beyond that six, but there is a ceiling on how far that can take a team if their top stars aren’t on the floor. There are already some injury concerns in New Orleans before the season even begins, but if they can get 60+ games out of Zion and Brandon Ingram each, they absolutely have a shot at being in the West playoff chase. That’s how good they are, it’s just a matter of whether they can finally sustain it for a full season or if we’re doomed to dream of what could’ve been in New Orleans once again.

Oklahoma City Thunder: Are They Ready?

Try to find one person in the basketball world who isn’t excited about the Thunder. It’s really hard! Last season, Oklahoma City was quite the surprise, as the team went 40-42, earned a playoff berth, and won one game during the Play-In Tournament before getting bounced by the Minnesota Timberwolves. Their offense is a blast, and is led by a legitimate superstar in All-NBA First Team selection Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Jalen Williams was one of the best rookies in the league last year. Josh Giddey took a leap during his second year. There’s a seemingly endless supply of promising young players, all of whom get better and better the longer they spend in Mark Daigneault’s system.

All of this is to say that the Oklahoma City Thunder are a very trendy pick to make some noise in the Western Conference — maybe not compete with the Denver Nuggets and the Phoenix Suns, but be in the playoff hunt all regular season and be a handful once the postseason roll around. But of course, any team can have hype around them. Not every team, however, turn that hype into results, and that’s ultimately the challenge that the Thunder will face.

How do they respond to that first losing streak that brings them down to earth a little bit? Can they survive a major injury to one of their key contributors? Do they have frontcourt depth in the event Chet Holmgren needs some time to get used to life in the NBA? Can they take a step forward on at least one end of the floor — the team was 13th in defensive rating and 16th in offensive rating last year, and while those numbers are solid, there is plenty of room to get better.

The good news is they have a no-doubt star leading the charge and a roster of young, hungry players. Leaps don’t have to happen, but betting on the Thunder to make one seems safe.

Phoenix Suns: Will They End Up Needing To Add A Point Guard?

The Suns are going to start the season putting the basketball in Devin Booker’s hands and having him run the offense, with the understanding there will be plenty of touches for Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant as initiators as well. As they completely overhauled their roster this summer, they focused their efforts on adding wing and frontcourt depth, trying to give Frank Vogel a variety of lineup combinations that can lean more defensive or offensive depending on the situation. However, they never really bolstered their point guard depth beyond the initial addition of Jordan Goodwin in the Beal trade, as both Chris Paul and Cameron Payne are gone from the roster a year ago. It’s clear their plan is to spread out offensive responsibilities across the roster, with Booker as the nominal point guard but running offense through Beal, Durant, and even Jusuf Nurkic as well to take some of the creative burden off of Booker’s shoulders.

What is going to be important in the first few months of the season leading into the trade deadline is for Frank Vogel, James Jones, and the rest of the Suns decision makers to be extremely honest in their evaluation of this team, because it’s very likely they’ll look just fine doing this in the regular season. However, in those bigger games and bigger moments, they’ll be keeping a very close watch on how the ball moves and how things flow offensively, because those will be indicators of whether this can work come playoff time or if they might want to take a look on the trade market for a veteran point guard just to add a steady hand to the roster.

One of the hardest things to do for a team that’s just been constructed is to make decisions that benefit the playoff roster based on regular season results, but Phoenix will certainly need to do its best self-scouting to determine if this group can reach its offensive peak as is or if they need another distributor to maximize their talent.

Portland Trail Blazers: How Does Scoot Henderson’s Rookie Year Go?

We’ll never know everything that went on this offseason, but one thing we do know is that Damian Lillard wanted Portland to turn the No. 3 pick in the 2023 NBA Draft into immediate help. The team decided to not do that, and instead used the pick on Scoot Henderson, the dynamic guard from the G League Ignite who has been pegged as a potential All-Star for years.

Putting major expectations on Henderson right away is not fair. He is, at the end of the day, a teenager who is about to make the jump to the most difficult professional basketball league in the world. But for everything that Portland got (and will continue to get) in the Lillard trade — whether that be the one that sent Lillard our or the subsequent ones involving players they acquired for him — the most important piece of the puzzle is his successor, who will now get the opportunity to spread his wings and fly from the jump.

There’s a solid core around Henderson, and those players should help take some of the pressure off of him as he finds his way in the league. That might take a while, because being a rookie point guard is just not easy. But between his natural ability and the way he’s wired, it makes sense to want to bet on Henderson in the long-term — remember, while the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NBA Draft was never in doubt, there was a school of thought that Henderson would have gone first overall in plenty of prior Drafts, as he’s the sort of guard prospect worth building your team around. This year is a chance for him to lay down a floor, and even though there are going to be obvious growing pains, the flashes he’ll probably show are what the Blazers are banking on.

Sacramento Kings: How Do They Handle A Season With Expectations?

With the playoff race in the West seemingly getting more crowded this year with expected improvements from teams like the Suns, Lakers, and Warriors, the continued presence of the Nuggets, and last year’s Play-In squads all hoping for a leap, the Kings face a tall task replicating their success from last season. Plenty of people have pointed out how much they got out of their main rotation a year ago, as their top 8 all played 73 or more games, which rarely happens in the NBA — although Kings fans will also be quick to note that doesn’t take into account Domantas Sabonis playing much of the second half through a thumb injury. However, health plays a big role for every team and I’m more interested in how this Kings team deals with being a team other teams are getting up to play.

Last year the Kings put up an historic offensive season, absolutely blitzing teams by using De’Aaron Fox’s speed, surrounded by shooters, to get out and run in transition, while also being able to dominate in the halfcourt with the Fox-Sabonis two-man game (again, surrounded by shooting). It’s rare to have that kind of balance, and it’ll be rather fascinating to see how teams approach those two differently on defense after their sensational year with two earned All-Star appearances. Slowing Fox is much easier said than done, but teams should have more defined game plans for this Kings team and will look to try and shift at least some of the creative burden to the Kings wings to put the pressure on them, especially late in games when Fox has been so dominant.

Fox proved in the postseason last year that he isn’t shaken by additional defensive attention and pressure, and that’s going to be critical for the Kings getting back into the playoffs. Teams will be much more aware when the Kings come around on the schedule this season, and Sacramento figures to have their full attention in a way that wasn’t necessarily the case for all of last year. If they can nab a top-6 spot in the West this year, that would be an incredibly impressive verification of last year.

San Antonio Spurs: How Good Will Victor Wembanyama Be Right Away?

The eyes of the basketball watching world are going to be on the Spurs this season explicitly because of Wembanyama. Even his highlights in the preseason make clear that we’ve never quite seen someone like this before — he might already be one of the 10-best defenders in the NBA, as his length, athleticism, and instincts are all things that completely change how an offense wants to attack on that end of the floor. Seriously, what on earth is this?

Just dribbling around him is a recipe for disaster, let alone trying to challenge him at the rim. But the thing that will dictate how good Wembanyama is from the jump in the NBA is his play on the offensive end of the floor. We’ll have to see just how much he’s asked to do right away, especially considering that San Antonio will presumably put him in the starting lineup with two guys who were effective scorers last season in Keldon Johnson and Devin Vassell. It’s not hard to imagine a universe where Gregg Popovich decides to bring Wembanyama along slowly, let him get his feet under him, and let him get used to the stuff that you just can’t get used to until you’re actually dropped into an NBA basketball game for the first time.

Having said that, the early returns in the preseason indicate that the Spurs aren’t going to take things easy on him. Through four games, Wembanyama (who has played in three of them) leads San Antonio in points (19.3) and field goal attempts (12.7) per game. His five attempts from three per game is second on the team, behind only Vassell. His usage percentage of 35.2 percent leads the team by a lot. It’s all small sample size stuff, and there’s no guarantee that he’ll dive head-first into being a No. 1 option once the regular season starts, but it at least suggests that Popovich is willing to let him learn on the fly. And if that ends up working out? Perhaps we will, indeed, see a rookie make an All-Star team for the first time in more than a decade.

Utah Jazz: How Much Better Can Their Young Guys Get?

Both Lauri Markkanen and John Collins will be 26 at the start of the season. Collin Sexton will be 24. A number of guys who you can reasonably expect to have roles on the team — Walker Kessler, Ochai Agbaji, Talen Horton-Tucker — are all 22 or 23. They have three first-round rookies (Keyonte George, Taylor Hendricks, Brice Sensabaugh) who are all 19. Obviously, the team will see what it has with those rookies, but as Markkanen showed last year, Utah under Will Hardy puts guys into an environment where they can grow into the best version of themselves.

Sexton, for example, is a fascinating player to watch. While it’ll be interesting to see Kessler continue to establish himself as one of the league’s most intimidating defensive presences and Agbaji try to build on his close to last year, the Jazz have questions at point guard, both this year and in the future. Sexton, the former Cleveland Cavalier who played in 48 games last year with 15 starts, had an up-and-down season in 2022-23 as he looked to get back up to speed following a torn meniscus the year prior and appeared in one game after the All-Star break. Can he, in year two of a four-year contract, find his form and establish himself as a crucial piece of the puzzle in Utah? If not, can a guy like Horton-Tucker take a step forward as a jumbo playmaker? Can George get up to speed and run the point? Will they have to rely heavily on a grizzled veteran like Kris Dunn?

No matter what, there is plenty of young talent here, and it’s a lot of guys who are not yet (and, in some circumstances, nowhere near) the prime of their careers. With how the team is building towards a future where they will compete for championships, development is the single most important thing to watch this season.

Every now and then an actor or actress will appear in a work of fiction as themselves and it sets my entire brain on fire. This is mostly a defect, to be sure, a flaw in the wiring somewhere in my head that evolution or good sense should have chewed up before we got here. But it’s infected me long enough that I’ve come to find enjoyment in it. I’ve even turned it into a game I play when I’m bored or awake or with some other sickos who operate on a similar wavelength. I’m going to go ahead and pass it on to you now. You are welcome and I am sorry.

Here’s how this works, as quickly as possible: If an actor or actress appears in a show or movie as himself or herself, then that, in theory, means everything he or she has starred in also exists in the universe of that fictional show or movie. And so do the casts of those projects. Which, if you follow the trail down the path far enough, and well past the signs telling you the terrain gets dicey ahead, can create some pretty wild little conundrums where a snake swallows its own tail whole.

There are really only four rules to any of this:

• You have to start with an appearance where an actor or actress appears as themselves on a show or in a movie
• You have to try to track everything back to the other actors or actresses in the project until the whole thing folds itself in half
• It’s not so much about how fast you can get there as it is how much fun the journey is
• Try not to use SNL or 30 Rock or any voice work in an animated project because that’s kind of cheating

An example will help. Let’s take the most recent season of Only Murders in the Building, the last show I watched that got these specific juices flowing. Mel Brooks made a brief guest appearance as himself on the show, via FaceTime. Here, look at Mel.

That’s great! I love Mel Brooks! It was cool to see him pop up in a fun show I watch!

But consider this: If Mel Brooks exists as himself in the world of Only Murders in the Building, then that means everything else Mel Brooks has done in his lengthy Hollywood career also exists in the world of the show. Like, say, Spaceballs. Great movie. One of the best. But if Spaceballs exists in the world of Only Murders, then that means its cast does, too. Which means John Candy exists, because John Candy was in Spaceballs as a half-man, half-dog hybrid named Barf. And if John Candy exists, then so does National Lampoon’s Vacation, because he was also in that movie. With me so far? Good. Because this is where things get weird.

Vacation starred Chevy Chase. Who was also in Three Amigos. With…

… Steve Martin and Martin Short… who star in Only Murders as fictional characters named Charles and Oliver. Which means, if we follow this thread, that there’s a marginally famous murder podcast on this show that is hosted by a longtime network television actor and a Broadway director who look and talk exactly like very famous comedians Steve Martin and Martin Short, who also exist in this world, and no one — not even Mel Brooks! — has brought it up in three seasons.

That’s weird, right?

Cool.

We can make it weirder.

Matthew Broderick also appeared as himself in this season of Only Murders. It was loosely fictionalized, sure, but it was very much him, the guy, who was in The Producers and everything else over his long career. Stay with me.

If Matthew Broderick exists, then so, one assumes, does Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Which means Alan Ruck, who plays Cameron in that movie, also exists. Which means so does Succession, where Ruck played one of the older Roy children and Stephen Root played a political mega-donor named Ron Petkus. And if Stephen Root exists, then so does The West Wing, because Root was on that show, too, in the final few seasons. And Rob Lowe was on The West Wing for a while, many years before he was on Parks and Recreation, a show that also featured a doofus political candidate named Bobby Newport, who was played by… Paul Rudd.

And Paul Rudd guest-starred on this season of Only Murders, too. Not as himself. As a famous movie star who was murdered on the opening night of a play he was starring in. And that means, again, based on logic (or something resembling it), that this entire season of the show was about the investigation of a murder of a famous actor who looks and sounds exactly like Paul Rudd — a real person in this world! — and no one mentions it at all, ever, not even on the podcast about his murder.

Again, it’s weird.

Again, we can make it weirder.

If Paul Rudd exists, then so does Bill Hader, which you can prove a million ways but I will do here using this Conan clip, both because it’s the quickest and because it’s fun to watch.

If Bill Hader exists, then so does the two-part episode of Documentary Now! where he played an even goofier version of Robert Evans. It’s really good. I might watch it again tonight.

Anyway, that episode also featured Anne Hathaway as herself, as a presenter at a fictional Academy Awards ceremony in the mockumentary about the fictional movie studio titan, which is a lot of fun for me to explain. Say hello to the people, Anne.

So, by tracking this all through Rudd and Hader, we now can prove that Anne Hathaway exists in the Only Murders universe.

Well, Anne Hathaway was in The Devil Wears Prada with… Meryl Streep.

Meryl Streep guest-starred on this season of Only Murders as a struggling actress named Loretta who became Oliver’s love interest.

Which means rooms full of people watched a struggling actress who looks exactly like Meryl Streep and a Broadway director who looks like Martin Short make out a little and they said… nothing about it. Think about that for a while this week.

We’re really rolling now. Let’s keep going.

Meryl Streep — the real person, who, as we have shown, basically has to exist in the Only Murders universe — starred in Mamma Mia! with Amanda Seyfried, who starred in Mean Girls with Tina Fey, who also has appeared in multiple seasons of Only Murders as a villainous blonde podcast host named Cinda Canning. And as fun as it was to type the phrase “villainous blonde podcast host” the important thing here is that Tina Fey and her blonde doppelgänger both exist on Only Murders.

And if Tina Fey exists in the world of this show, then so does the movie Date Night starring her and Steve Carell. And that means The 40-Year-Old Virgin exists because Carell is in that movie, as is Paul Rudd — we could have gotten here a few ways — and a young Seth Rogen. Seth Rogen was later in two pretty good Neighbors movies with Zac Efron. Zac Efron was in a few High School Musical movies with Vanessa Hudgens. Vanessa Hudgens was in Spring Breakers with…

Selena Gomez.

Who stars in Only Murders in the Building.

Which means there’s some struggling podcast host bumbling around Manhattan who looks and sounds exactly like international megastar and frequent paparazzi subject Selena Gomez — who, again, exists on the show via connections to Efron and Rogen and Carell and Fey and Seyfried and Streep and Hathaway and Hader and Rudd and Root and Ruck and freaking Matthew Broderick — and not one person in three seasons of the show has been like “YO HOLY CRAP IS THAT WORLD FAMOUS MUSICIAN AND ACTRESS SELENA GOMEZ???” when they see her walking down the street.

The important conclusions here are as follows:

• I’m fine and/or normal
• This game is more fun and chaotic than Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon
• I somehow did this whole thing without using Jon Hamm once, even though Jon Hamm has appeared in enough things — often as himself! — that we should go ahead and name the whole game after him

Again, you are welcome and I am very, very sorry.

Travis Scott’s Utopia: Circus Maximus Tour is underway, and set to roll into Phoenix for two dates at the Footprint Center. If you’ve got tickets or are planning to scoop some for resale, you might be interested in ride-share information for the show — especially if you want to arrive early enough to catch the opening acts (or pull up just in time to watch Travis hit the stage).

According to the Footprint Center’s official website, there are four Lyft Drop Off locations: 1st Street/Jefferson (Footprint Center Plaza), S 2nd Street (The Ryan), S 3rd Street (Phoenix Convention Center), E Jefferson Street (Hotel Palomar/Arrogant Butcher). For pickup, you can go to S 3rd Street & E Jefferson Street (Phoenix Convention Center). In general, it helps to book pickups before the show; since we know about how long the concert actually is, we’d recommend sometime a little after 11 pm, since Travis’ setlist, which includes fan faves like “Antidote,” “Butterfly Effect,” “Goosebumps,” “Highest In The Room,” and “Sicko Mode” alongside newer songs from his album Utopia like “Fe!n,” “Hyaena,” “Meltdown,” and “Topia Twins,” runs about 90 minutes long.

If you plan on driving instead of taking a ride-sharing service, Uproxx has you covered with information about where to park at the Footprint Center, as well.

We’re near the end of the year, which for music fans and social media users means one thing: Spotify Wrapped is coming. The annual round-up of Spotify users’ listening habits that takes over Instagram and everything else for a few days is on the way, but when is the 2023 installment coming out?

There’s no officially announced date for that, but based on precedent, it should be in late November or early December. Last year’s was unveiled on November 30, while the 2021 and 2020 editions landed on December 1.

For music lovers trying to intentionally shape what their year-end round-ups look like, now’s the last chance for a final push: Spotify has previously noted that in terms of the data used to generate Wrapped, only listening activity from January 1 to October 31 is considered.

If you don’t want to wait for Wrapped, there are a few third-party alternatives you can try right now. There’s How Bad Is Your Spotify?, a bot that looks over your listening data and roasts you for your music taste. There’s also Instafest, which uses your listening history to create a fictional music festival lineup poster. Spotify Pie is worth considering, too, as it takes the past month of your Spotify activity (not the whole year) and makes a nice pie chart from it.

Whitney Cummings is getting ready to drop her sixth comedy special, but this time, she’s going with the usual channels. In a first for the streaming service, Cummings’ new special, Mouthy, will be released on OnlyFans.

To be clear, Mouthy won’t be directly next to the, uh, usual offerings on OnlyFans. Instead, Cummings special will stream on OFTV, an offshoot of the streaming platform that features “safe for work” content for free. The comedian already has a relationship with OFTV where she hosts Whitney Cummings Presents, so a full-on special was the logical next step.

“Working with OFTV has been the closest experience to a live show that I can remember and they have been so supportive – especially as I made this special while 7 months pregnant!” Cummings said in a statement via Decider. “They understand that comedy fans are smart and understand nuance, and I knew they would be the perfect partner to create a special that I would typically only be brave enough to perform in a non-taped show.”

After the premiere of Whitney Cummings Presents quickly became the highest-viewed episode of any OFTV original program, OnlyFans was obviously eager to stay in the Cummings business.

“Her creativity as a comedian, and her desire to push boundaries in comedy, embody OnlyFans and OFTV’s aim to provide a space for creators to express themselves freely,” OnlyFans CEO Kelly Blair said. “This special is another example of our commitment to supporting the comedy community, to showcase their original work and grow their fanbase without unnecessary censorship.”

(Via Decider)

Does your dad say things at inappropriate times? Does he joke about how “this generation” is weak and consumed with social media? Is he balding? Then Old Dads is the movie for him, and maybe you, depending on how well your relationship is with your father and/or comedians.

Bill Burr‘s new movie Old Dads is just what the people want to see: men mildly complaining and cursing a lot. But unlike other films about men doing stuff, the comedian‘s film follows a group of “old dads” including Burr, who is determined to raise a “little man, not a f-cking p-ssy” while also calling his son’s teacher a “c-nt” so that’s the type of vibe going into this movie, which currently has an extremely divisive Rotten Tomatoes score. The movie also stars Bobby Cannavale and Bokeem Woodbine.

While some critics were into the bit, others felt like the movie didn’t quite land well and the schtick was a little overdone.

Brittany Witherspoon, Screen Rant:

It isn’t the worst directorial debut by any means of the phrase, but Burr’s raunchy comedy fails to say something meaningful. Instead, it underwhelms.

David Ehrlich, IndieWire:

The whole does it offend you, yeah? routine only works if someone commits to it, and Burr is too much of a softy at heart to go all the way. He doesn’t want to piss people off, he just wants to air his grievances about progressive culture; “Old Dads” is anti-woke comedy for people who want to shake their fists at clouds without signing up for Ron DeSantis’ stormtroopers.

Mark Kennedy, AP:

A meandering, unfunny assault on PC culture that would seem perfectly in place in the 1990s alongside “Illiberal Education” by Dinesh D’Souza and the rantings of Pat Buchanan. It’s so dated there’s even a mention of Halliburton.

Nate Richard, Collider:

You can tell that everybody on the set of Old Dads was having an absolute blast making this movie. It’s just a shame that the end product feels so directionless and bland. The attempts to be offensive fail, the emotional beats are never effective, and despite a handful of good laughs and amusing cameos, it’s never that funny. Burr is a force to be reckoned with on the stage, but his directorial debut is the exact opposite.

On the other hand, maybe the point was that Burr wasn’t the one to tell this story. Some critics believed that it was, for all intents and purposes, fine for what it is.

John Serba, Decider:

The result is a men-behaving-badly comedy that isn’t afraid to question that bad behavior, or sometimes venture into the realm of medium-heavy domestic drama. It’s uneven in its pacing, a patchwork of scenes that just barely hold together thanks to the strength of Burr’s credibility as one of the world’s best working standups, which helps cover for his lack of polish as a filmmaker

Frank Scheck, The Hollywoord Reporter:

If you find Burr’s stand-up routines funny, you’ll enjoy Old Dads, which also benefits from Cannavale’s hilariously beleaguered reactions, Woodbine’s solid underplaying and some very funny turns by a variety of comedians in small roles.

Is Bill Burr the one who should be preaching to millennials about wokeness? Probably not, but he did it anyway, so if that’s your jam, Old Dads is on Netflix now.

“…Baby One More Time” singer Britney Spears’ explosive memoir, The Woman In Me, has delivered all the nostalgic tea fans craved. Before its release, Spears shared details about her highly publicized relationship with Justin Timberlake, including their first kiss during their time on The New Mickey Mouse Club, Timberlake stepping out on her with an unknown celebrity, and the pressure she felt to terminate their unborn child.

But things weren’t always bad between the two pop titans. One section of the book outlined their more light-hearted moments with other famous folks. In the audiobook, Michelle Williams hilariously narrated Spears’ account of Timberlake fanning out over fellow singer Ginuwine during a brief run.

Read the entire passage below.

“[Justin’s] band Nsync was what people back then called ‘so pimp.’ They were white boys, but they loved hip-hop. To me, that’s what separated them from the Backstreet Boys, who seemed very conscious to position themselves as a white group. Nsync hung out with Black artists. Sometimes, I thought they tried too hard to fit in. One day, [Justin] and I were in New York, going to parts of town that I’d never been to before. Walking our way was a guy wearing a huge blinged-out medallion. He was flanked by two giant security guards. [Justin] got all excited and said so loud, ‘Oh yeah. Fo’ siz. Fo’ siz. Ginuwine what’s up homie?’ After Ginuwine walked away Felicia did an impression of [Justin], ‘Oh yeah. Fo’ siz. Fo’ siz. Ginuwine…’ [Justin] wasn’t even embarrassed. He just took it and looked at her like, ‘F*ck you.’”

The Woman In Me is out now. Find more information here.

Taylor Swift is having a major year, between embarking on the massive Eras Tour, putting out a concert film for it, and now, gearing up for the release of her next re-recorded album. After previously announcing it at her Los Angeles show, Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is finally dropping this Friday, October 27. (The original 1989 also dropped on the same day back in 2014.)

For those who are looking to listen immediately, the album will be available on Spotify at 9 p.m. PT/midnight ET.

“The 1989 album changed my life in countless ways, and it fills me with such excitement to announce that my version of it will be out October 27th,” Swift wrote on social media in the original announcement. “To be perfectly honest, this is my most FAVORITE re-record I’ve ever done because the 5 From The Vault tracks are so insane. I can’t believe they were ever left behind.”

Swift, on all her re-recorded versions, has included additional vault bonus tracks that were left off each of the original albums, as an incentive to listen to the ones she owns. The 1989 ones are “Slut!”, “Say Don’t Go,” “Now That We Don’t Talk,” “Suburban Legends,” and “Is It Over Now?”

1989 (Taylor’s Version) is out 10/27 via Republic Records. Find more information here.

The 2023-24 NBA season is upon us, and with the start of a new year comes optimism around the league. Every team believes they are ready to take a step forward, whether that’s becoming a title contender, playoff/Play-In contender, or just simply seeing it click for rising stars.

However, to make those strides as a team, there are always some key players a bit further down the roster that hold the keys to unlocking another level. While much of the conversation about teams reaching their goals is understandably focused on the stars, we’ve all seen enough to know that the top two or three players on a team cannot go it alone. They need some help from the role players, and when one of those players pops and takes their game to another level, it often elevates the team around them.

Here, we are going to explore the X-Factors for all 15 teams in the Western Conference, who might not be the first name that comes to mind when you think about each team, but we believe will play a critical role in whether those teams can achieve their season-long goals.

Memphis Grizzlies: Luke Kennard

For all of their talent, the Grizzlies still don’t have a ton of reliable three-point shooters. As a team, they were 23rd in the NBA in three-point percentage a year ago (35.1 percent), and only two of their returning players shot over 36 percent from deep a year ago. One of those is Desmond Bane, who has vaulted into stardom on the wing, at 40.8 percent from deep. The other is Luke Kennard, who shot an outrageous 54 percent from distance in his 24 appearances for Memphis in the regular season and knocked down 50 percent of his threes in their first round series loss to the Lakers. Lineups with Kennard were among the Grizzlies best last season, including in that playoff series with L.A., when five of their six best three-man lineups (out of their 25 most used) in terms of both offensive and net rating involved the sharpshooting wing.

The concern with Kennard is on the defensive end, which likely limited his minutes, but given his shooting is something they simply do not have anywhere else on this roster the Grizzlies are likely going to need to expand his role some this season, especially with the departures of Dillon Brooks and Tyus Jones. That has thinned out the backcourt rotation a touch, even with the addition of Marcus Smart, and Kennard’s ability to open up the floor is going to be critical for Memphis come playoff time when there are fewer opportunities to run in transition and push the pace. Having a more dynamic halfcourt offense is vital for the Grizzlies if they’re going to be a real playoff threat in the West, and Kennard seems like the best bet to see an increased role to help open things up.

The question is whether he can remain as effective in more minutes (which is never a guarantee as more minutes mean more expended energy) and if the Grizzlies defense suffers at all. Playoff lineups featuring Kennard (in admittedly a very small sample) didn’t feature any real defensive struggles, in part due to Kennard almost always playing alongside quality defenders like Bane and the NBA’s DPOY. It certainly seems like Memphis needs more floor balance on the offensive end, and with plenty of good defenders on the roster like Bane, Jackson Jr., and now Smart, they can keep a strong defensive presence around their best offensive weapons like Kennard and, most notably, Morant. For Taylor Jenkins, the task will be figuring out what combinations work best come playoff time to try and raise the ceiling on what this Grizzlies team can be in the West.

New Orleans Pelicans: Trey Murphy III

If we move away from the health of the Pelicans’ stars, the player who unlocks their team’s full potential is Trey Murphy III, who will be sidelined to start the season with a meniscus injury. The Pelicans do not have anyone on the wing who brings the skillset Murphy does as a knockdown shooter (40.6 percent on 6.3 attempts from three last year) and a cutter/finisher at the rim (75.9 percent shooting at the rim). His ability to space the floor and apply pressure to defenses off the ball is so important for a team with three terrific on-ball threats, and he’s continued to get better as a secondary creator and three-level scorer. Last season he took a considerable leap in terms of efficiency from every area of the floor, and his continued development is one of the things to watch this season as he can alleviate some of the pressure on Ingram in terms of wing creation.

On the other end, Murphy is a big, long defender with plenty of versatility that helps paper over some of the deficiencies on that end from their stars. Getting Murphy back on the court healthy is the first order of business for New Orleans, because they simply don’t have a replacement for all that he brings this team on the wing. If he can continue taking a step forward as an offensive playmaker, the Pelicans will be a true nightmare to deal with offensively because of the attention you have to give their top-3 already.

Dallas Mavericks: Dereck Lively II

The player on the roster who seems capable of raising the team’s floor on defense is rookie center Dereck Lively II, who was unreal defending the paint at Duke, particularly in the back half of last season. Lively has a frame and skillset that no one else on the Mavs comes close to replicating at the center position, and as such they may be more reliant on him than you typically see from a hopeful contender with a rookie. Given Dallas has serious questions about their ability to guard at the point of attack with Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic, having a high-level rim protector is a necessity to mitigate the issues that come with below average perimeter defense. While they bolstered their frontcourt rotation with guys like Grant Williams and Richaun Holmes, their only hope for above average paint protection is their 7’1 rookie.

Lively looks like the kind of rookie who can step into a pretty big role immediately and be an above average defender as a rookie, perhaps becoming this year’s version of Walker Kessler. However, in order to do so he is going to have to be able to have an impact offensively beyond the spotty production he had at Duke. The good news is, in Dallas being a productive big man means setting good screens, rolling hard to the rim to finish lobs, and being active on the glass. He’s not going to be asked to deliver points via post touches, but he will have to find his space in the flow of the Dallas offense, which means building chemistry with Doncic and Irving in order to be on the same page as they probe and drive to the paint. If he can do that, the Mavs might have found themselves an immediate impact player as a rookie. They are a team in desperate need of the exact thing he is supposed to be good at, and if he can deliver as a rim protector and simply stay out of the way on offense and do the little things correctly, he should have a very good rookie season. If not, then the Mavs will run a lot more small-ball and will probably run into the same issues they’ve had in the past when dealing with the West’s top bigs.

Houston Rockets: Alperen Sengun

Sengun holds a lot of importance to this team because they are going to need him to be at least passable on defense. It’s certainly possible he gets there with better structure around him, as he has good hands and could be disruptive in his own way without being a dominant paint defender. The reason that’s so important is because he is the one that unlocks a lot of what this team can be on the offensive end. There will, rightfully, be a lot of attention paid to Jalen Green and Jabari Smith Jr.’s development this season, as both need to take strides forward in terms of efficiency and should benefit greatly from playing next to a real veteran point guard in Fred VanVleet.

However, I think Sengun stands to benefit more than just about anyone else from having a better facilitator on the floor with VanVleet. I’d expect those two’s minutes to be paired an awful lot, because having a point guard that can get him the ball on time and on his spots will only make him a more effective and efficient scorer, while also needing to be paired with a solid screen navigator on defense. Sengun has tremendous offensive upside both as a scorer and playmaker, and I’m fascinated to see how Ime Udoka deploys him and tries to maximize his skillset this season. Playing on a team with a coherent identity should allow Sengun to show his full abilities on the offensive end. A year ago, Sengun was second on the Rockets with 3.9 assists per game, and I’d expect them to continue leaning on his playmaking abilities even more this season.

Part of what makes Sengun so important to this Rockets is they don’t really have anyone else capable of impacting the game the way he can on offense. Jock Landale is a very solid backup big man and will give Udoka an option for a solid rim protector off the bench, but is not anywhere close to as dynamic on offense as Sengun. While there are some overlapping talents elsewhere on the roster, they are banking heavily on Sengun at the center position right now. As such, if he stagnates this year, the Rockets will probably end up right around their win total projection of 30 or so wins and be a mid-lottery team. However, if he continues to grow and the structure around him improves to augment all the things he seemingly can do, that could unlock that higher level for Houston to allow them to start dreaming a bit earlier of a Play-In chase.

San Antonio Spurs: Jeremy Sochan

There aren’t as many players in the league as weird as Sochan, and this is meant to be a major compliment. Everything about his game is funky — he’s 6’9, a wonderful connecting piece on the offensive end of the floor, finds ways to put his fingerprints all over the place on defense, and plays with a kind of visible joy that is contagious. He has a pretty obvious flaw in his shooting, as he was at 24.6% on threes last year and started shooting free throws with one hand last year, but he also just turned 20 and has a ton of growing as a basketball player ahead of him.

He’s known Wembanyama for quite some time, and the two of them are interesting compliments for one another. Wembanyama is obviously the superstar, face of the franchise guy, while Sochan seems incredibly content to do whatever is asked of him to help his team win. That sort of player is invaluable if you’re an up-and-coming squad that is trying to build an identity, and seeing as how we have a pretty good understanding of what Johnson and Vassell (both of whom agreed to long-term extension with the team) are going to be as pros, Sochan’s malleability is a superpower — they even have been running some Point Sochan during the preseason. His individual development, particularly as a shooter, is going to be fascinating to watch, and it’s going to be fun watching all the ways Pop uses him to try and unlock the best version of Sochan.

Sacramento Kings: Keegan Murray

If the Kings are going to handle a full season with expectations, they will need continued growth from the guys between Fox and Sabonis. If teams are sending more attention at those two, it should open up opportunity (or add pressure, depending on your viewpoint) for guys on the wing. The player with the most room to grow is Murray, as last year’s No. 4 overall pick had a terrific rookie season averaging 12.2 points per game and hitting 41.1 percent of his threes. That said, the vast majority of Murray’s production came off of assists, and I think this year the Kings will be asking him to open up his own playmaking ability.

He’s shown some flashes of that in the preseason and there are plenty of people around the league that think he is a candidate for a major step forward this year. That said, going from being a highly efficient spot-up threat to being an efficient scorer and creator is not an easy jump to take and there figure to be some growing pains involved. However, it’ll be worthwhile for the Kings to work through those growing pains, because they need to know if that’s a role he can take on long-term. Last year’s playoff series with the Warriors showed that Sacramento’s offense needs a little more variety on the wing, because when the three-point ball goes cold those guys need to be able to alleviate some of the pressure on Fox and Sabonis, who face increased attention in the postseason. If Murray can become not just a release valve as a shooter but as a secondary creator capable of attacking defenses who have tilted the floor to slow Fox and Sabonis, that would be massive for this Kings team trying to take another stride forward as a team without making major additions to the roster.

Phoenix Suns: Jusuf Nurkic

When the Suns jumped into the Damian Lillard deal to send Deandre Ayton to Portland for Jusuf Nurkic, there were some reports that Phoenix felt the move was addition by subtraction, as it was clear the relationship with Ayton in that organization was frayed beyond repair. That may very well be the case, but Ayton’s top-level of play has been higher than Nurkic’s in recent years and the two bring very different skillsets to the table. That means there’s ample pressure on Nurk to find another gear alongside a new star trio, particularly on the defensive end.

On offense, I think the Nurkic fit could be better than Ayton, just based on what Nurkic is willing to do that Ayton wasn’t satiated in doing. Ayton wanted more touches, as happens with a former No. 1 overall pick on a big contrct, while Nurkic will be a more willing tertiary contributor. He’s a big body that sets solid screens, and while he’s certainly not the vertical roll threat Ayton was, he’s a good short roll man, with solid touch and much better passing acumen than Ayton. That passing ability figures to be where he impacts the game the most, as they can trust him to keep the ball moving, find cutters out of the high post, and run some different dribble handoff actions to apply stress to the defense with their stars all working off the ball.

Defense is where most of the concern lies with this Suns team with Nurkic swapped in for Ayton. Of their top four, Durant is the only plus defender and with Ayton gone, they are seriously lacking in terms of rim protection. Ayton’s defensive issue wasn’t skill based but engagement based, as he had a tendency to lower his effort level when he wasn’t having the offensive impact he wanted. That said, he was a rim deterrent simply by being a giant with athleticism in the paint and he was a strong post defender thanks to his size and length. Nurkic is not close to the same level as an athlete or rim protector, and it’s going to be fascinating to see how Frank Vogel crafts a defense with Nurk at the five. Vogel has long leaned on very good shot-blocking bigs as the anchor for his defenses, dating back to Roy Hibbert, but won’t have that in Phoenix this year. Finding a way to get a net-neutral defense out of this group with Nurkic at the five will be the task for Vogel, but doing so will require some creativity in lineups and a different structure than he’s usually put together on that end.

Los Angeles Lakers: Rui Hachimura

Honestly, you can take any of the non-LeBron or AD guys and put them in here. Hachimura is the one I’m going to highlight just because the absolute best version of himself — someone who is lethal on catch-and-shoot threes, is capable of creating his own shot, is willing to rebound and, as we saw against the Nuggets when he would match up with Nikola Jokic, use his size to battle with bigger offensive players. Just spelling it out like that, Hachimura is the perfect player to put alongside the two guys around whom the entire team is built.

The problem: He’s not that guy all the time, or at least hasn’t shown the ability to be that guy on a night in, night out basis. Even the start of his stint with the Lakers didn’t go especially well — Hachimura averaged 9.6 points in 22.4 minutes per game while shooting 48.5 percent from the field and 29.6 percent from three. For the Lakers to get where they want to go, he has to be better than that. Not necessarily the guy he was in the playoffs (I do not think Hachimura is going to hit 48.7 percent of his threes this season), but a consistent, reliable third or fourth option would go a really long way towards helping Los Angeles get to where it wants to go. But again, that applies to everyone on the Lakers beyond their top-2. If they can have their rotation and the roles everyone will fill all figured out come, say, the start of December, that would be gigantic.

Los Angeles Clippers: Terance Mann

The Clippers have refused to include Mann in James Harden trade talks to this point, which is apparently one of the larger sticking points in negotiations. They’ve also elevated Mann into the starting lineup alongside Westbrook, George, Leonard, and Zubac, showcasing the faith they have in their fifth-year wing. There have been flashes of it all clicking for Mann in the past, but to this point the consistent impact on a game-to-game basis hasn’t been there. However, you can also point to an inconsistent role (a rather constant issue for the non-stars on this Clippers team) as a reason for Mann’s relative inconsistency.

If he’s given a long leash in this starting spot and given the time to establish himself in this new role, we should learn an awful lot about what he can be as a player. A year ago he averaged 8.8 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 2.3 assists on 51.9/38.9/78.0 shooting splits in 23 minutes per game, but should see his minutes load increase this season. He should get plenty of open looks from three given the attention paid to his co-stars, but that also brings pressure to be a solid (and willing) floor-spacing option. His versatility on defense likewise makes a lot of sense with this starting unit, which has a ton of length and could wreak havoc on teams without multiple strong ball-handling options.

Mann has always seemed like the Clippers best bet at having a young player pop on a roster otherwise filled with veterans, and it seems like this year they are finally going to take the governor off and give him the larger role many have wanted him to have. How long that lasts is likely dependent on how effective that starting group is early in the season, but it’s at least an opportunity for Mann to put his full abilities on display.

Golden State Warriors: Jonathan Kuminga And Moses Moody

At a certain point, one of these guys has to break out and completely earn the trust of Kerr … right? The pair combined to play 222 total minutes during the team’s 13 playoff games — Moody got 161 of them, and did get a bit of run in both series. Kuminga didn’t play in three games, Moody didn’t play in one. When the chips are down, Kerr is always going to rely on Curry, Thompson, Green, Looney, and Andrew Wiggins. Gary Payton II has steadily earned Kerr’s trust when he’s healthy, and you’d think that Paul would get to that point. The youngest guy in that group is Looney, who will turn 28 in February.

Moody being able to step in and provide some shooting and wing defense would be a very nice boost. Kuminga, who was a pretty consistent bench option in the regular season, was apparently frustrated with his postseason usage. His athleticism and age (he just turned 21) are things the Warriors could really use with an older core, and would likewise provide a very nice boost if he’s able to remain in the team’s rotation. They both present skillsets this team could use, and if either (or both) can take a leap into Kerr’s circle of trust, that could be huge for the Warriors chances.

Denver Nuggets: Literally Any Young Guy Stepping Up

The one real question facing the Nuggets has to do with their depth, namely the way that they’re going to replace the minutes they got from Bruce Brown and Jeff Green. They have a few veterans coming off of their bench in Reggie Jackson and Justin Holiday, and while there is value in the fact that you can usually pencil in what you can expect from them on a given night, they’re probably not helping to raise the team’s ceiling.

If that’s going to happen, it’ll come by way of one of their youngsters blossoming in a larger role. The obvious candidate here is Christian Braun, who funny enough tied for the second-most games played last year and continued to earn Malone’s trust as the year went on — he played in every NBA Finals game and famously exploded for 15 points in 19 minutes during Denver’s Game 3 win. Maybe Zeke Nnaji or Peyton Watson’s familiarity with the team (Nnaji is entering his fourth year, Watson is entering his second) can be parlayed into more playing time — with the Nuggets heaping praise on Watson in particular this offseason, indicating he’ll take on a larger role. Or can they get literally anything out of their NBA Draft class, all of whom are old for being first-year players — Julian Strawther is 21 and turns 22 in April, Hunter Tyson just turned 23, Jalen Pickett turns 24 right before the start of the regular season.

The good news is that, barring multiple catastrophic injuries, Denver doesn’t need any of these guys to magically morph into an impact starter or anything like that. Their starting unit is so good that they have the luxury of time. But building up depth is important, and the defending champions have 82 games to do that before the playoffs roll around.

Minnesota Timberwolves: A Full Season Of Mike Conley

Another step forward for Jaden McDaniels can go here, too — man, how excited must the Timberwolves be that they didn’t have to give him up in the Gobert trade? — but we’ll show some love to an important veteran presence. No one is going to argue that Conley, who just turned 36, will play at an All-Star level or anything like that. Conley’s best days are obviously behind him, but he is still quite good at understanding the tempo of a game, getting his guys organized, and making sure his teammates get the ball in the spots that they like. He’s happy to defer to others, and has a good sense of when he has to pick his spots.

Conley started every game after the Timberwolves acquired him in a trade at the deadline last year. While this 4-man group only appears in seven games and 103 minutes together, lineups with Conley and the team’s three stars had a net rating of 9.2, per NBA.com. While they struggled against the Nuggets in the playoffs (and, who didn’t?), Conley is the kind of conductor who can really help those three players gel over the course of an 82-game season. If he can do all the stuff that has made him a great pro for years, he’ll provide a really great 1-2 punch in the backcourt alongside Edwards.

Oklahoma City Thunder: Chet Holmgren

Holmgren is probably going to end up being a good professional basketball player. It’s unclear what, exactly, that means — he could end up being a solid and reliable rotation big man who blocks shots and can score a little on offense, or maybe he’ll end up being the sort of superstar-level player who is a perfect running mate alongside Gilgeous-Alexander. The best version of him is a gigantic, two-way nightmare who earns All-Star nods and gets labeled a unicorn.

While he essentially redshirted last season due to an injury he suffered during the offseason, Holmgren is still a rookie who has to get used to all the little things that come from playing 82 games of professional basketball. There will be nights where he’s really good, there will be others where he gets put on a poster and his shot is just not falling. He should be fine no matter what, his work ethic and competitiveness have drawn praise for years, but for a team looking to be a playoff contender now, just how good — and how often — he can be matters. If he’s able to consistently be a positive piece of the puzzle for Oklahoma City, that would be absolutely gigantic, as the one thing the team could really use is a guy with his size imposing his will on a game.

Utah Jazz: John Collins

Let’s take a quick trip back to June 20, 2021. The Atlanta Hawks walked into Philadelphia and knocked off the 1-seed in the Eastern Conference in a Game 7, thanks in part to the play of John Collins. He had 14 points on 5-for-6 shooting along with a game-high 16 rebounds, and looked to be a crucial part of what was being built in Atlanta. He cashed in not long after with a 5-year, $125 million contract, and for some reason, it sure seemed like the Hawks spent every moment since then trying to trade him.

Whether it was injuries, a lesser role, or something else, Collins last year had his least productive season since his rookie campaign — his 13.1 points and 6.5 rebounds in 30 minutes per game were the lowest marks since his first year in the league. He shot 50.8 percent from the field and 29.2 percent from three, and had a usage rate of 17.1 percent, all of which were career-lows. As such, Utah opted to take a remarkably cheap flyer on him, acquiring him for the low price of Rudy Gay and a second-round pick.

Obviously, Utah doesn’t need Collins to turn into a guy who goes for 25 points and 12 rebounds a night or anything like that. But the athleticism and ability to stretch the floor that he brings should fit nicely alongside Markkanen and Kessler, he’s under contract for at least the next two seasons, and at his best, he’s a really dynamic frontcourt option. A roll of the dice on a guy like that makes a ton of sense, and as we saw last year with Markkanen, the Jazz have an idea of how to help these sorts of guys take a step forward in their careers. Getting him was the ultimate low-risk, high-reward move.

Portland Trail Blazers: Shaedon Sharpe

Sharpe’s unusual path to the NBA has been well-documented. There’s a chance he could have been in the conversation to go No. 1 overall in the 2022 NBA Draft if he played in college, but instead, he went through his only season at Kentucky without playing a single game. And while he was not perfect during his first year in the league by any stretch of the imagination, Sharpe’s flashes as a potential game-changing talent on the wing with rare athleticism were quite promising.

It’s worth noting that the Blazers’ priorities … we’ll say evolved as the year went on — they played 24 games after the All-Star break, won five of them, and Lillard was shut down for the final 10 games of the year. Sharpe’s play was a bright spot over this stretch, as he shouldered a bigger load down the stretch and responded well. Those final 10 games without Lillard were especially promising for Sharpe, as he played in nine of them and averaged 23.7 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 4.2 assists in 35.5 minutes a night while shooting 45.8 percent from the field and 36 percent from three.

He’s similar to Henderson in that the infrastructure around him is going to be important, because even though he has a year of NBA experience under his belt, the amount of responsibility that is going to be on his shoulders is increasing. The reps he gets this year are going to be gigantic for the long-term outlook of the Blazers. If he makes the most of them, Portland’s post-Lillard rebuild is going to look even more exciting.