All-NBA Team of the Week - Happy New Year!

Goeiedag, enchantée and welcome to this week's episode of Eight 2 Four presents: All-NBA Team of the Week. It’s been a rough ending to 2022 for me personally, and I’m glad we got to ring in 2023. I have not been able to follow the NBA, or any basketball for that matter, up close and I'm playing catch-up to everything that’s been going on so far this season. Not at all how I imagined Season 3 of this podcast to go. But hey, life goes up and down and we have to take the good with the bad. And at the very least the NBA season has been really good so far! Luka is proving to be Wilt Chamberlain reincarnated, putting up some wild stats in December! He averaged 35 points a game throughout the month, the highest scoring in any month, EVER! Not to mention his wild 60 point, 21 rebound triple double. The Brooklyn Nets are fantastic, that’s another one I didn’t expect so early on in the season. They haven’t lost a game since the start of December, and have won 11 games in a row up to now. They’re doing it with all their guys too, KD is unreal, Kyrie is back to his Cleveland days, Ben Simmons seems reborn and all their role players are clicking. Their biggest wildcard is TJ Warren, if he can get back to his form he had back in the bubble, they are set to win it all. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This week, we’re going to look at the five teams that have surprised me the most so far this season, and the players who are behind that success. I’m Peter Peake and this is your All-NBA Team of the Week!

PICK #1

Our first pick of the week is Tyrese Haliburton of the Indiana Pacers. He is just getting better and better, game by game, week by week, year by year. He’s averaging a double double this season, with 20 points per game and 10 assists per game and he is leading his team in both categories. His trajectory so far is pretty similar to the Point God himself, Chris Paul. In his third year in the league, Paul was also averaging a double double, with 21 points and 11 assists. It was also the year of his first All-Star selection and considering the Pacers are sitting in a Playoff spot at the moment, chances are that Tyrese could be looking at a selection himself this year.

The Pacers are doing much better than I anticipated at the start of the season. I picked them to be the second worst team in the Eastern Conference, behind Orlando. Boy, did they prove me wrong. It has gotten to the point where the Pacers might need to consider trading to get better this season instead of trading to get worse. That was the plan at the start of the season, to trade Myles Turner and Buddy Hield into more assets for the future. Instead, they should look at flipping some of those assets they already own and add some more quality role players to this roster.

That is their biggest problem right now, is their depth. With Turner, Hield and TJ McConnell they have 3 vets on the roster that have been in the league for quite a while but then there’s a huge gap to their younger players on the roster. With Chris Duarte last year, and Andrew Nembhard and Bennedict Mathurin they have picked 3 winners, maybe even a potential Rookie of the Year, but these guys need more time in the league to become winners. It will be very interesting to see what the front office will do with this roster when we’re closing in on the trade deadline. It is always possible of course that they go on a bit of a losing streak and stick to the original plan. But it would be more exciting if they decide to go for it.

PICK #2

Our second pick of the week is Jalen Brunson of the New York Knicks. Even though the Knicks were linked to Donovan Mitchell for quite some time, it was written in the stars that Brunson would end up at Madison Square Garden. They hired his dad as an assistant coach and had his contract done and ready for signing well before negotiations were allowed to start. It was so obvious even the league decided to step in and give the Knicks a slap on the wrist by taking away their second round pick for the 2025 draft. Not sure if that will scare anyone off to stop tampering in the future but Adam Silver seems to think so. But I’m not here today to pick on the league, that's a podcast for a different day.

Signing Brunson was a great move by the front office, even though most Knicks’ fans would have been looking at Mitchell’s 71-point game with some form of regret. No, it WAS a great signing, because finally the Knicks have a primary ball handler worthy of that task. Brunson is averaging 20 points and 6 and a half assists per game, contributing a great deal to the Knicks’ winning record so far in the Eastern Conference. I thought they would absolutely bottom out this season but they are quietly pushing for a spot in the top 6. That would be an incredible achievement, but a spot in the Play-In games is not looking so crazy right now after all.

Mainly because the others around Brunson are playing at a high level too. Julius Randle is playing back at the level he was when he was selected for the All-Star team. RJ Barrett is playing consistently at the level we have come to expect from him. He will never be one of the greats but he is a very good player, who plays an important role on this team. And Quentin Grimes, the man they didn’t want to trade for Donovan Mitchell, is proving why the Knicks wanted to hold on to him. The Knicks are not a flashy team, far from it, but it seems like the front office overhaul a couple of years ago is finally showing its merits. They still have a lot of building to do, but the Knicks are heading in the right direction, step by step.

PICK #3

Our third pick of the week is Lauri Markkanen of the Utah Jazz. The Jazz have by far been the biggest surprise for me this season. In my predictions, I had them finishing dead last in the league. Instead, they started the season 10 and 3, sitting at the top of the Western Conference. They have tumbled down the standings a fair bit since, but even now, nearly halfway into the season, they already have 19 wins. To bottom out and end up where I thought they would, they have to lose every single game from here on out. And that’s unlikely, even for a team that wants to tank.

The engine behind Utah’s success is Lauri Markkanen. The 25 year old from Finland is having a career season, making massive improvements on all aspects of his game. He’s shooting over 50% from the floor and nearly 43% from deep on 7 attempts a game. And with nearly 9 rebounds a game, he’s almost averaging a double double for the season. Finally, we see him play like the guy we thought he could be when he entered the league. He dropped off the radar in Chicago and once he got traded to Cleveland and then Utah, it seemed like he would become one of those trade assets. You know, one that people like to include in trades but not ever use on the court. We’ll have to wait and see what the Jazz are planning for Lauri in their future, but even if he gets traded, at least he’s proving to be a valuable asset for any team that wants him.

And that, of course, is the most likely scenario the Jazz will take. They are slowly dropping down the standings, now fighting for a Play-In spot. But I don’t believe that Danny Ainge is aiming for the Play-In games. His goal will be to keep dropping down and get higher odds to pick in the top 3 of this year’s draft. With the Lakers and the Timberwolves, there’s at least 2 more teams keen to climb the standings, so the Jazz should be able to drop a bit lower again, so those odds are looking good for the Jazz right now. Can Ainge nab Victor? Watch this space!

PICK #4

Our fourth pick of the week is Zion Williamson of the New Orleans Pelicans. The Pelicans are ahead of schedule, and it’s exciting! In my preseason predictions, I had the Pelicans sitting in 5th in the West, just outside home court advantage in the Playoffs and I thought I was way too high on them then. It has never been so much fun being proved wrong. Everything I hoped for the Pelicans has come to fruition. Zion is amazing, CJ McCollum and Brandon Ingram, when he was healthy, are both playing at All-Star levels and the young guys around them are just fantastic to watch. I mean, that game against Phoenix, when Zion nearly broke the ring but definitely broke the Suns’ minds, that has been my moment of the season so far for the Pelicans.

Of course, I have to be careful that I don’t get too excited. As per usual, the Pelicans are injury prone and it’s catching up with them again this season. Ingram has been sidelined since the end of November, without any indication on when he could return from his toe injury. And the man himself, Zion, injured his hamstring in the game against Philly just now. He’ll be out for at least 3 weeks, possibly much longer. All of a sudden, this team looks like it could start slipping down the standings if they struggle to win games in the next month. But there’s always the young guys. Herb Jones, Jose Alvarado, Trey Murphy, Dyson Daniels, they all have already shown flashes of what they could grow into. Now that they are looking at more time on the court, their progression could be sped up again.

And even if it isn’t, this is still a transition year for the Pelicans and we have to look at it that way. Much like the Grizzlies last year. With some luck, this Pelicans’ side could go far in the Playoffs, but even if they don’t, it will be a valuable learning experience. Next year is when it counts. And that could potentially be an earth shattering year, with the Pelicans having control over the Lakers draft pick this year. The Pelicans can swap, if they chose to, so if the Lakers have another horrible season, and it seems like they have, the Pelicans could potentially end up with the number 1 pick whilst making the Playoffs. And then we would be looking at Zion and Victor in New Orleans next year. Did that shatter your brain? It surely blew me away!

PICK #5

Our fifth pick of the week is Domantas Sabonis of the Sacramento Kings. I saved the biggest surprise for last, the Kings are a winning team and are on track to get into the Playoffs this year. Even though I liked most of the moves the Kings made recently, I still didn’t believe that they would actually be a competitive team. But De’Aaron Fox, Kevin Huerter, Harrison Barnes, Malik Monk, Davion Mitchell and Keegan Murray seem to be jelling exceptionally well, led by big man Sabonis, who is again playing at his All-Star level. Whether he’ll actually make it into the All-Star game is a different question, because the front court spots are limited, especially in the West.

But with nearly 19 points per game and a league-high 12.4 rebounds per game, he definitely has the right to make a claim on one of the spots. His shooting is better than ever, shooting over 60% from the floor, including 40% from deep, although he doesn’t really take many threes in a game. He’s more present under the basket, probably because he doesn’t have to share that spot anymore with someone like Myles Turner and he’s been dishing out more dimes than ever before, averaging nearly 7 assists per game. Sabonis managed to do what many before him failed to do and that is to bring your game to Sacramento instead of letting the Sacramento game take over.

And that has been crucial for the players around him. Fox finally looks like he is turning into that All-Star guard he could be, scorers like Huerter and Monk are hitting their strides and rookie Keegan Murray is proving that the Kings did not make a mistake picking him over Jaden Ivey. New head coach, Mike Brown, has injected his defensive strategies into this team and all of it just works. On top of that, the Kings now have some pieces they can use to make a few moves. Richaun Holmes does not fit into the picture anymore and surely they can flip him for something useful, whether it be another player or a draft pick. The future looks beaming in Sacramento, and I’m starting to become quite positive on them finally breaking their 16 season Playoff drought.

This is our All-NBA team of the Week. Please share our podcast and give us 5 stars. If you have any questions, you can contact the show on eight2fouroffice@gmail.com. Thank you for listening, ballers out!