Chapter 1: What is the latest update on Nikola Jokić's injury?
Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily. I'm Dave DeFore here with Zena Keita. Happy New Year's Eve, everybody. Coming up, we got some good news about Nikola Jokic. Weird to say because he's going to miss a month. And the Sixers and Grizzlies had a heck of a game. Turn back the clock night for Ja and Embiid.
Dan Wicke is here to talk about the Lakers and their struggles and what they might do with the deadline. Good morning, everybody. Happy New Year. Hey, Zena. It's New Year's Eve. I'm assuming you got huge plans for New Year's Eve.
Huge plans. Number one, waking up at 9 a.m. to do pregame for the Warriors playing Charlotte. There you go. What a great day. It's a great day to start off that way.
You know, listen, we probably sounded insane on yesterday's show. Yeah. I just want to come out and apologize. Were we melodramatic?
Chapter 2: How did Joel Embiid and Ja Morant perform in their recent game?
I was going to say y'all were going through. We were. I mean, it was a shocking turn of events. You know, you just don't see Jokic wallowing in pain like that. But we got some good news, Xena. We got the report he's only going to maybe miss about a month, six weeks or so with a knee contusion. Same injury that Cam Johnson is also out for about a month with.
Chapter 3: What challenges are the Lakers facing this season?
Again, good news compared to what it could have been. But bad news for the Nuggets. Bad news for Nikola Jokic's MVP case. Bad news, in my opinion, for the MVP race in general and the NBA, because I think that the 65 game rule, as we've seen already in the last couple of years, it really throws a wrench in the entire narrative arc of the regular season.
You know, I want to start with the Nuggets first, OK? If it's a month, it's 18 games. They got February 1st circled on the calendar. That's the first game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Maybe he's back for that. Let's just we'll live in that world. But man, that's a long time being down. You know, there are four starters right now. Maybe they get a little bit healthier this week.
But how are they going to make do here in the next month?
It's a really good question. We've been crediting the Denver Nuggets for finding gems within their roster in the midst of these absences. Like how are they still winning games without Christian Brown, without Aaron Gordon? Like they've been able to find some extra special help in Spencer Jones and Bruce Brown and all these folks stepping up. And of course, Jamal Murray has been excellent.
But now the main reason that we've been able to see Jamal Murray be excellent is because of the gravity that Nikola Jokic provides him to be able to maneuver around the court with a little bit more freedom. We know that he can create, but now that he's going to be the number one option on the scouting report, what does that look like? What does that look like once they clamp down?
And so I'm actually genuinely curious. It's a really good question. I'm not sure how they're going to figure it out, but they've been pretty resilient this year so far.
Yeah, I mean, look, it'll give us an opportunity to see Deron Holmes. I mean, he missed his entire rookie year. So, you know, he played eight minutes in the game that Jokic exited with the injury. So I'm sure we'll see more run out of him. Christian Brown, Aaron Gordon due back soon. You know, if not here in the next week, now that Jokic is out, I just don't know.
But I do want to swing it to the MVP race because I think that this is an important thing to talk about. Like we mentioned it the other day when we talked about the Thunder kind of dropping off, not being this special team that we thought they might be, 70-plus wins, and what it did for the MVP case for Shea Gilgis-Alexander.
Well, if Jokic misses an entire month, you can only miss 17 games, and it would be 18 games. So he would be ineligible for not just the MVP, but awards in general. Right. And, I mean... Trying to explain the story of this season, Zena, without him even being on an all NBA team would be absurd because he, as we mentioned, he's having statistically the greatest offensive season in NBA history.
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Chapter 4: How does LeBron's birthday performance reflect on his career?
I didn't agree to this. And the main person that was really against it was Joel Embiid. And we remember Joel Embiid before what we've seen, of course, with all of his injuries. But he was also someone that was impacted by this negatively. I think it's going to blow it up because it's genuinely making you have to look at these things. Unbelievable performances from a perspective of calendar math.
The thing is, you know, we were already doing this stuff. If a guy missed 20 games, 25 games in a season, we already split those hairs when when absolutely we were having the debate. To me, it's it's not even this. It's it's not even the MVP. Because I do think that availability for MVP is very important. And Shea is going to play 78, 80 games this year.
And Jokic maybe be in the low 60s now that he's going to miss some time. That's going to weigh into my consideration. But that's part of my process and all of our process when we're thinking about these awards. But Jokic would still be All-NBA regardless because I look at that differently. And I do think, like you said, this might be the thing that blows it up because it is so high profile.
The defensive player of the year has been blown up. You know, last year it would have been Wemby. He didn't hit the 65 games. You know, a lot of guys were ineligible for awards the last couple of years, and it has been. Odd for the narrative of these seasons. So I do think this is something that's going to be addressed.
I don't know if we need like a special session of the board of governors or anything like that to do it this year. But it is going to be there's going to be an asterisk, I think, when we look back, if we don't recognize the individual season he's having. Speaking of Embiid. I'm glad you brought him up because Joel Embiid looked good last night. Did he?
I've been skeptical of the way he has looked. I've even thought maybe they need to bring him off the bench, set this, you know, like a 20 minutes limit. Just use him like a guy who's like a closer. Maybe if he's got it going, you have him close games. Well, he played 38 minutes last night. That's a season high. And Zena, this is only the fifth time he's done it since the start of the 2023 season.
So I'm going to take this as a positive sign. All the shots were dropping. He was hitting the mid-ranger. Zena, talk to me about Embiid because it was a little bit of a throwback night for him in a Sixers win.
Yeah, it's important to get that stat line out.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of the Lakers' current roster decisions?
34 points, 8 assists, 10 rebounds. This is the thing that's so important about Joel Embiid when you're trying to evaluate, is he back yet? Because it's easy to just look at the physical caliber of his game. Is he jumping as high? Is he running as fast? And let's just be real, all season long, he's been looking a little bit in molasses, like just a little bit slow to react.
Not quite the same game, but what we saw last night, turnarounds, post-passes, rebounding shot blocks, huge, big, big shot blocks. And as you mentioned, the 38 points high usage, and that's really, really big being able to come back off injury, basically almost having a triple double, um,
you get excited about having that level of an anchor in Joel Embiid, especially when you see Tyrese Maxey doing the things that he's doing. At this point, and oof, I don't know if Philly's going to rock with me on this one, but it's Tyrese's team, in my opinion. This is Maxey's team.
And I feel Joel Embiid would be cool with that because he's putting up these ridiculous numbers and he's running circles around defenses. But having Maxey have a secondary partner, to offset what he's doing inside, internally, is such a boon for this Philadelphia Sixers team.
So I just, I'm so excited for Embiid, not only for him to be able to return to his scoring prowess and what he can do internally, but really just being available, getting to play. That's the biggest thing for him.
And look, he had a couple blocks. The defense looked better. It's still an issue.
And in that first half, it was rocky. Yes, he warmed up. He looked much better in the second half.
And he played overtime, which I was impressed by. I should say, the Sixers won this game on a Vijay Edgecombe game-winning three. This guy's a rookie. Hey, this rookie class, Zena, is kind of insane.
You're talking about the other rookie on the other side.
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Chapter 6: How does the MVP race change with player injuries?
I will stand on this hill. I do not think that there has been something categorically different in the way that John Morant is playing from when we saw him earlier this season other than He is now hitting shots. He is now finishing in the paint in a way that he wasn't at the top of the season.
And the assists that he's making, there still is crazy, crazy shots, crazy passes, crazy things he's doing in transition. But his teammates are finishing. Let's just be real. Jaron Jackson Jr. looks better, too.
He was better last night. He only had four points in the second half in overtime. That's true. Again, I hate to use their contracts against them, but the truth of the matter is when you take up that salary slot, you got to be a max guy. And Jaron hasn't been that this season.
He hasn't been that.
That's right.
But whenever whenever you're seeing John Moran succeed when he's I mean, 40 points last night is crazy. But when you're seeing him succeed, it's because, one, he's setting up his teammates first. And the first few plays that he made weren't about him. They were about players in transition. Cedric Howard was the recipient of a few passes in transition.
You saw him getting into the paint, as you mentioned, and being able to kick it out. And then that's when the game comes to him. But I like this. I like that John Moran is now getting basically being the beneficiary of the work that he's putting in.
Playing like more of a chaos agent, which is exactly what he needs to do.
And that's his brand.
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Chapter 7: What strategies can the Lakers use to improve their performance?
But it's ridiculous what he is doing. Like this is unparalleled in this sport to do it at this level.
So I was talking today to some like NBA cameras that are on a games and they ask like, you know, for for for B-roll or whatever interview or something like that. And it occurred to me that like like the generational nature of LeBron's age, right, is that let's say you're a shooter, right, who enters the NBA this year.
And like there's I would say like a decent chance maybe your favorite player is Klay Thompson, right? LeBron played against him like it had epic battles to play Thompson. Klay Thompson's favorite player growing up was Kobe Bryant. And guess what? LeBron James played against him, too.
you know and so he played against your favorite players favorite player multiple times and I think like it is a it's just like one of those things where you can like do it like the iPhone wasn't invented you used to have to download his games on Napster or whatever I mean I'm just you can make up like whatever sort of cultural reference MTV still showed videos there was TRL on I was still in college
Yeah. When LeBron started. I mean, it's pretty incredible that he's played 23 years, 23 years.
And like, I think this year more than any, you've heard people around LeBron and around his team talk about uncharted territory. And like, I've sort of struggled to, like, understand why this is different. I know that nobody's ever played a 23rd NBA season before. Okay. Whatever. That seems sort of arbitrary to me. Nobody was doing what LeBron was doing in year 21 either. Or year 20. Or year 19.
Or year 18. It feels like we've been down this road a long time with him. But even though the people around him still sense that or at least the way they talked about it was that something would be different with this. And There are nights when it absolutely looks like it. And there are other nights where it doesn't as much.
And maybe the frequency and sort of those like vacillations is like the surest sign of age. There's inconsistency, you know?
I mean, it sure is for me.
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Chapter 8: What are the long-term prospects for the Lakers this season?
Because in addition to being incredibly hard working, he has been like touched by the gods physically. Like, right. Like this guy is like just an incredible,
incredible athlete like an all-time athlete right and so he like sort of owes it to those gifts to try and get everything out of it right none of these things are bad or they're wrong um they're also inherently stunting for the other people around and um they're what like I think is like a real a real contrast in that with this current Lakers team, the very obvious needs it has, right?
And their inability probably to solve them. Those things are all related. So maybe that's the story.
That's part of what I was going to ask, is that as LeBron James continues to cement what he's capable of doing, it feels like each year that he remains with the Lakers, it's harder to figure out what to put around him to be successful. We're seeing the starting lineup today with Jake LaRavia being put in it. We've seen different iterations of this, but
Their top lineup, or what is supposed to be their top lineup, with Luka and LeBron and Aiton, Rui and Austin, they've played 85 minutes this year, and they're negative 29 together. Their offensive rating is terrible. Their defensive rating is even worse. Like...
you would think when you've got that consistency and that anchor in a LeBron, it feels like, okay, we know exactly what should go around. Like, what is happening with the Lakers in terms of, we saw this start, this strong start, especially with LeBron out. He's inserted back in. We've seen a little bit of up and down. We saw JJ Reddick go off. More than once. More than once.
But he's saying it's about effort. And he's saying it's about desire and will to want to play better. For me, it feels like it's a fit issue. Does it feel like this team fits together? They don't coagulate just yet.
What do you see? So I think it's two things. I think, and I want to come back to this, but I want to answer the second part of it first. But remind me, I take some issue with the word consistency there because 85 minutes with your starting lineup 31 games in the season is not consistent.
No, not at all. LeBron is consistent. I'm saying LeBron is... He should be, right?
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