Lakers stumble early as Warriors and T-Wolves lock down franchise players

Welcome to the first week of the NBA season, or as it’s best described: small sample size theater. With each team having only played a handful of games it’s difficult to make very many definitive statements about the near-embryonic season. This week we only really learn things we’ve already really known, in our heart of hearts, since before the season began. In this case, things about the Lakers being in trouble, the superiority of the Western Conference and the fragility of Derrick Rose.

Lakers flirt, shamelessly and aggressively, with disaster

In their first game of the regular season, the Lakers lost even their ability to fantasize about the future when first-round pick Julius Randle broke his leg in a 108-90 loss to the Houston Rockets. It was a horrific harbinger of what could be an especially depressing year for the Lakers, who have started their season 0-5 for the first time since their days as the Minnesota Lakers (they have two more losses to go to match the start of the 1957-58 squad).

Randle was supposed to be one of the few bright spots in a season that was already going to be a trying one. Kobe Bryant is coming off a major injury that caused him to miss most of the 2013-14 season. Steve Nash is gone for the year, most likely retired. Carlos Boozer and Jeremy Lin were their big offseason acquisitions. They looked bad on paper coming into the regular season, the 0-5 start isn’t making anyone recalculate their opinions.

Of course, there might be something else going on here: the Lakers could very well be tanking. This is not a team designed to go deep in a very competitive Western Conference and they actually have ample motivation to avoid doing so. The Phoenix Suns own the Lakers’ first-round pick this season, it was part of the deal to acquire Nash that looks especially putrid now, unless it ends up being a top-five pick. With this roster, with these season-ending injuries and with this kind of start, Los Angeles is clearly in position where a top-five draft pick is a distinct possibility.

Certainly it would explain the hiring of Byron Scott, a defensive coach who has coached terrible defensive teams and the NBA’s last holdout against the effectiveness of the three-point shot. If the Lakers are not careful, the less “secretly” tanking 0-4 Philadelphia 76ers could try to steal him away.

Rubio, Thompson, other guy get extended

The second-guessing began before there was even time for first-guessing the unexpected four-year, $55m contract the Minnesota Timberwolves handed to point guard Ricky Rubio and his 36.8 lifetime shooting percentage on Friday. It didn’t come off as a complete miscalculation: after trading away Kevin Love to Cleveland in the offseason, Minnesota clearly felt the need to establish Rubio as the face of the franchise. Still, despite his astounding passing skills – Rubio’s one of the most fun players to watch in the game – it seems like a basketball team would prefer their star attraction to actually get the ball into the basket on occasion.

It wasn’t the only deal made before Friday’s contract extension deadline. The Golden State Warriors’ Klay Thompson received a four-year, $70m contract, one that has garnered somewhat less criticism than Rubio’s. Now, the Warriors’ season is merely three games old, but Thompson’s league-leading 29.7 points per game to start off the young season shows, at the very least, that he has very good timing.

The Golden State Warriors were also dealing with PR fallout from the Summer of Love, and probably couldn’t escape giving Thompson a big deal after refusing to include him as part of a deal for the all-star power forward. That basically set his value.

Maybe they know best. Thompson’s game works best in tandem with fellow expert marksman Steph Curry – that Splash Brothers nickname alone is probably worth some serious cash to Golden State by this point. Given this context, he might be worth more to the Warriors than any other team.

Meanwhile, the third major player to get an extension before the deadline was Utah Jazz shooting guard Alec Burks, who received a four-year deal that will equal around $42-45m, depending on incentives. This didn’t quite happen with the same fanfare as the Rubio and Thompson deals, probably because it involved the Utah Jazz and, well, Alec Burks.

OK, Utah, like many teams around the league, you are excited about the salary cap going up after the NBA’s latest deal with ESPN and Turner Broadcasting. That’s understandable. Here’s the thing, though: Alec Burks is talented but is almost the textbook definition of the kind of “just a guy” player that teams overvalue because they’re theirs. Maybe he has potential that other teams don’t see, but this seems like a sign of settling, a sign that you’re not confident about acquiring players via trade or free agency any time soon.

Eastern Conference continues to be lukewarm

There are no more unbeaten teams in the Eastern Conference. With their 108-91 defeat of the Miami Heat on Wednesday night, the Houston Rockets took care of that, while upping their record to 5-0. The Houston Rockets remain on top of the Western Conference early on, with the 4-0 Memphis Grizzlies and 3-0 Golden State Warriors right behind them. Once again, it’s looking like the best teams reside in the West this season.

It’s not a too bad start for the now 3-1 Miami Heat, though, thanks to the hot hand of Chris Bosh. After four years of being stuck behind LeBron James and an increasingly ineffective Dwyane Wade, Bosh is now the team’s clear top option and finally free to be Toronto Raptors-era Bosh again. There might be more Eastern Conference Player of the Week awards in his near future.

Miami are certainly doing better than James’s new (old) team, the Cleveland Cavaliers who are now 1-2 after Tuesday night’s blowout loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. In fact, the Cavaliers needed overtime, and a timely injury to Derrick Rose (see below), to notch their only win of the season so far, a 114-108 victory over the Chicago Bulls.

It’s not too much of a concern yet, this seems to be a pattern with James’s teams. It took a few months for James, Wade and Bosh to all get on the same page when they first began playing together on the Heat. Likewise, it will take a while for James to find rhythm with new team-mates Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving. Luckily, they’re in the Eastern Conference, where time is plentiful, the competition is lukewarm and a 1-2 start is absolutely no reason to panic.

Now, the 1-4 Oklahoma City Thunder, stuck in the Western Conference with no Kevin Durant and no Russell Westbrook in their immediate future? They are totally allowed to panic.

Chicago Bulls once again worry about Derrick Rose’s ankles

It was supposed to be an Eastern Conference Finals preview, instead it was yet another scare for Derrick Rose. On Friday night, the Cleveland Cavaliers took on the Chicago Bulls in a battle between what could be the last two teams standing in the East come the postseason.

The Bulls looked like they were going to hold off the Cavaliers when Rose seemed to have suffered an on-court ankle injury and then disappeared for the rest of the game, which Cleveland won in overtime. Considering that Rose missed, essentially, the last two full seasons with knee injuries, Bulls fans held their breath. As it turned out though, Rose didn’t hurt his ankle during the game.

He hurt both of his ankles during the game.

Rose and the Bulls aren’t making a big deal about the ankle sprains (oh god plural). The Bulls may tell us that they have kept Rose out of the last two games as a precaution, just a precaution, and the scoreboard will tell us that Chicago won both the games Rose has sat out. There’s no reason to worry here, they will continually say.

That’s not going to prevent all of us from freaking out, thosewho are still optimistic enough to believe Rose will one day return to full health and at least 80% effectiveness. When basketball fans last saw Derrick Rose as a full-time player he was coming out of a MVP season and looked like the only one in the East with an outside shot of beating LeBron James in the postseason.

Then, Rose tore his ACL in that very first playoff game. Although we’ve seen him play sporadically since, with rare flashes of old Rose on occasion, injuries have mostly kept him off the court but not out of our minds. No matter how Rose’s career goes from here, every on-court injury, no matter how mild, will be fretted over and replayed and re-examined. Worse, every explanation for a missed game will feel like it’s just delaying an inevitable “out for the remainder of the season” announcement.

Rarely has it been so painful to watch such a fun player, a player whose every move, no matter how skillful and flawless, feels like a prelude to disaster. It looks like Rose is playing basketball but it feels like he’s perpetually skating on the thinnest of ice.

Other things we’ve learned

• Ladies and gentlemen, Run-DMC. That stands for Dirk (Nowitzki), Monta (Ellis) and Chandler (Parsons) of the Dallas Mavericks, of course. The Run stands for … Well nothing, but the hip-hop nickname wouldn’t have worked without it.
  

• Brooklyn Nets owner Mikhail Prokohov’s comments on former head coach Jason Kidd heading to the Milwaukee Bucks in the offseason mean that we might actually get a fun storyline in Milwaukee this season:
  

— Darnell Mayberry (@DarnellMayberry) November 3, 2014

Highlight of the season: Mikhail Prokhorov just said "Don't let the door hit you where the good lord split you" when asked about Jason Kidd.

• New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony celebrated a milestone by joining the 20,000 point club on Sunday. We have spent plenty of time discussing Anthony’s deficiencies as a player in this space, so in the issue of fairness we should note that Melo is one of the greatest pure scorers the game has ever seen. It’s been an honor to see his prime get wasted by the Knicks.

• Things That Seem Like They Should Have Happened Already Department: Chris Paul got his first triple double as a member of the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday.

• And now the greatest sign that the NBA is back, the Gerald Green Dunk of the Week! (Caveat: it may only count as half a dunk because it’s against the Lakers’ defense.)