Five NBA Things I may or may not have Liked: Return of the T's, Mardi Gras Miracle, Bucked, Thunder Roll
Return of the Rí*
Jayson Tatum has returned. First reported by Shams Charania of ESPN, Tatum is poised to make his season debut on Friday, March 6th. His return has predictably shocked the prediction markets, and the Celtics are now the favorites in the Eastern Conference.
While the confidence in the Celtics is reasonable, we still have no idea what level Tatum will be at when he returns. I wrote an article over the summer that analyzed how players return from Achilles injuries, but for simplicity’s sake, it was split by seasons, not months.
The general trend was that players were not as good after an Achilles injury, but it was hard to tell if it was due to the injury or age-related decline. If the primary demise for players post-Achilles injury is that they’re a year or two older, then Tatum’s return could be a boon for the Celtics. He turned 28 on March 3rd, and averaged 27.5 points per game over the previous five seasons.
Even if Tatum never reaches his previous levels, he doesn’t need to turn the Celtics into a monster. They’re 41-21 with a net rating of +7.7, despite having $54.1 million in salary sitting on the bench. So, let’s do some back-of-the-envelope math to see just what type of boost he could bring.
Over the previous five seasons, Tatum posted a 5.0 Box Plus/Minus, which is an estimate of points per 100 possessions a player produces over an average player. Let’s say Tatum comes back at half-strength this season, in BPM terms, and is a 2.5 BPM player. He’ll almost certainly play power forward and push Sam Hauser and Jordan Walsh’s minutes down a tad. Hauser has a 0.5 BPM, and Walsh comes in at -0.1.
Since Tatum will almost certainly be on a minutes restriction, let’s just say he plays half of the Celtics’ remaining possessions, with Hauser playing the 33% and Walsh 17% of the remaining power forward minutes. That nets out to a 1.38 BPM from the power forward position, which is a stark improvement over the 0.6 BPM they’ve gotten from the Hauser, Walsh, and Josh Minott trio. None of this is rigorous or serious math, but it highlights just how big a boost a half-strength Jayson Tatum playing half of the Celtics’ remaining minutes could be.
*Rí is Irish/Gaelic for king and is very similar to the countless Celtic languages that have been moderately preserved into the modern day, if you’re into that type of thing
Trae the Wizard
Speaking of returns, Trae Young returned from injury to make his debut for the Washington Wizards, and everything went exactly as you would expect. In 19 minutes, Young scored 12 points and dished six assists. His efficiency wasn’t great, but I’d expect him to shoot better than 20% from three and 50% from the free-throw line going forward. Despite his shooting inefficiency, he absolutely had the impact on the Wizards’ offense that they had hoped for.
With Young on the court, against the hapless Jazz, the Wizards produced an offensive rating of 135.14. I don’t care who you’re playing, that’s elite offense. Unfortunately, Young’s defensive frailties were also on display. Ace Bailey and Isaiah Collier torched the Wizards for 32 and 27 points, and with Young on the court, the Wizards produced a defensive rating of 124.32.
The Wizards were already a bad defensive team; they were without Alex Sarr and Anthony Davis, and the Jazz shot 42.9% from three, but Trae Young remains a half-eaten lollipop coated with dog fur on defense. Still, if he can continue to juice the Wizards’ offense, and Sarr and Davis can clean up his mistakes on the other end. The Wizards might have something cooking in the cauldron.
Pelican Belief
The Pelicans have had a disastrous season. And while I won’t rehash the crimes of their offseason, just know, they’re 20-44 and sending someone their first-round pick. That being said, one of the advantages of not owning your first-round pick is that you can try to win meaningless games in February, March, and April, and that’s exactly what the Pelicans are doing.
Since February 6, the Pelicans are 7-4 with a net rating of +1.7. Yes, four of their wins came against the Jazz and Kings, but they also beat Minnesota, Philadelphia, and Golden State. Is it entirely possible, highly likely even, that without those four games against Bing Crosby, the Pelicans would be 3-8? Absolutely, but that misses the point.
The Pelicans were 13-40 with a net rating of -6.4 entering this stretch. For their fans, these guys must look like the 2014-15 Atlanta Hawks. While none of these games mean anything in the grand scheme of things, having a respite from suck still feels good.
To add some regional flair, February 6 was when Mardi Gras season kicked off in earnest. If you’re unfamiliar with New Orleans’ unending quest to parade its population into a fatty liver, there are like two weeks of daily parades before the actual Fat Tuesday. Could it be that the Pelicans, through the magic of the King Cake Baby, are divinely powered by Mardi Gras festivities? Yes, 100% yes. You heard it here first: the Pelicans won’t win a title until Mardi Gras goes from November through June.
Bucking Around
What are the Bucks doing? I’ve found myself asking the question far too often in recent years, but this one is really wrinkling my brain. As I’m sure you’ve heard, Giannis Antetokounmpo did not ask for a trade; he just wanted to explore other teams. And when other teams were unwilling to completely upend their roster to obtain a player with an injured calf, he reaffirmed his love for Milwaukee but reiterated that you never know what the future holds. Or as Joe Mazzula would put it, “I go to bed questionable, and wake up probable.”
The whole song and dance has become about as charming as a romcom between RFK Jr and Pam Bondi. The writing is on the wall, the ceiling, a note on the fridge, and probably in the kitty litter, but for some reason, Giannis and the Bucks want to pretend that they can save the marriage. So, true to form, they’re making the absolutely dumbest decision possible.
On Monday, Giannis made his return to the court. The Bucks were 26-33 and solidly in 11th place in the East. They’d need to make an exceptional run just to make the play-in, but the playoffs weren’t a total pipe dream. Then they played the game.
The Celtics, without Jaylen Brown and Neemias Queta, blew the doors off the Bucks 108-81. Giannis played 25 highly ineffective minutes and looked nowhere near right. Okay, first game back, the Celtics are a good team, it’s excusable. In game two, they played the Hawks and got absolutely demolished 131-113, and were outscored 65-42 in the second half.
The Bucks are a bad team. Giannis is still compromised. Why is he playing? Only bad things can happen. If he looks great and leads them to the playoffs, he’ll hurt their first-round pick’s value, which remains their most important asset, aside from Giannis. It could provide them with a solid young player for a post-Giannis world. It could be packaged to upgrade the roster around Giannis. And it could magically land around the top of the draft, but below the Pelicans’ pick, and provide them with a young star to pair with Giannis.
On top of that, playing Giannis when he still looks less than 100%, after he has suffered multiple calf injuries this season, is insanity. If his Achilles pops, the entire franchise is fucked. The best thing for the franchise and Giannis is for him to head to Greece, buy a few more apartments without working heating, and continue rehabbing. I’m sick and tired of all this Bucking around.
Roll of Thunder
The Oklahoma City Thunder are almost all the way back. Since the All-Star break, the Thunder are 7-1 with a net rating of +9.5, with their lone loss coming on the road to the Detroit Pistons without Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. It has been a nice palate cleanser after the Thunder struggled to an 18-13 record with a net rating of +7.0 between December 10th and February 12th.
Unfortunately, the Thunder’s epic start to the season has made their follow-up feel a bit underwhelming, but that was always going to be the case. It feels like ancient history when the Thunder blitzed the league to a 24-1 start with a net rating of +17.2. No team in history was going to keep that pace up because it would require them to be the greatest team by a comically large margin.
However, the Thunder look to be getting back to their world-conquering form. The +9.5 net rating they’ve posted over the past eight games is elite, and they’ve done it despite an incredibly meek 111.0 offensive rating. With Shai Gilgeous-Alexander back, Jalen Williams return looming, and the addition of Jared McCain, there’s no reason to believe that the Thunder can’t marry the best defense in the league with an elite offense once again.
Their midseason wobble, where they were deemed vulnerable, was always a content grift. They set an impossibly high standard, and a bored public tried to create a narrative out of it. The Thunder are rolling again and can still attain a higher plane of existence. This is, has been, and will be, the best team in the league by quite some margin. That doesn’t mean the playoffs are a foregone conclusion, but it also doesn’t mean the Thunder are vulnerable.
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