Goeiedag, enchantée and welcome to this week's episode of Eight 2 Four presents: All-NBA Team of the Week. Now that we’re over halfway in the NBA, the focus shifts to the teams at the top of standings. We start looking at All-Star selections on those teams, potential Playoff match-ups, you name it. And often we forget to look down and pay attention to those teams lower in the standings. There are guys on these rosters who try to carry their team, week in and week out, and are left out of the conversation completely. Sometimes it’s because they’re underperforming, for others it’s because of the way their teams are set up. This week, we picked five of those guys and gave them some well-deserved airtime. I’m Peter Peake and this is your All-NBA Team of the Week!
PICK #1
Our first pick of the week is Damian Lillard of the Portland Trail Blazers. As one of the best point guards in the Western Conference in the last decade, you wouldn’t expect Dame to need any extra attention. But the Blazers have been struggling in the past years, mainly due to injuries of their main man and issues surrounding the front office. When owner Paul Allen died in 2018, part of his direction was to sell off the team, basically starting the journey of weird decisions we’ve seen over the last 5 years. In that time, they got rid of Terry Stotts, who was their head coach for nearly 10 years. While Dame was out for the majority of last season, they traded his right hand man CJ McCollum to the Pelicans. And there’s still no news on a looming sale of the Trail Blazers. We know that Phil Knight, yes the one from Nike, had offered to buy the Blazers during the offseason but nothing has come from that yet.
In the meantime, Portland is a less than mediocre team with very little upside. They started the season very well, winning 10 out of their first 15 games, but they have dropped off a cliff since, winning only 11 of their following 30 games. Look, it’s not all bad. Anfernee Simons has a bright future and 7th pick Shaedon Sharpe looks like he has a lot of potential. Josh Hart is a more than reliable role player and with Jusuf Nurkic and Jerami Grant, they have 2 potential All-Stars in their ranks, they just have to figure it out. And that’s the issue, they aren’t figuring it out. I can’t help them because I’m not sure what the solution is here either. Head Coach Chauncey Billups has his work cut out for him.
There’s one thing I do know, it’s not Dame. With 29 points and 7 assists per game, he is proving that he is not over his peak yet and still has plenty of game left in him. These last 2 weeks alone are proving just that. In his last 5 games he averaged just under 40 points per game and 7 and a half assists. What does Portland have to show for it? 2 wins out of 5, not good enough. I think it’s time for Portland to sit down with Dame and have an honest discussion. If he wants to go and win somewhere else, they have to help him do that now. If not, they have to trade some of these so-called assets away to give Dame more help now. But without a clear direction from ownership and where they are heading, the front office’s hands are tied. And the Trail Blazers are doomed to be less than mediocre until Jody Allen fulfills her brother’s final wishes.
PICK #2
Our second pick of the week is Dejounte Murray of the Atlanta Hawks. He was an All-Star last year, in a guard-heavy Western Conference against names like Stephen Curry, Luka Doncic, Ja Morant, Chris Paul, Devin Booker and Damian Lillard. That’s not something to sneeze at. He was brought to Atlanta in the offseason as the perfect partner for Trae Young, especially because defensively, he is so much better than Trae and could carry the slack for his backcourt partner. Finally we would see the Hawks return to that form that took them to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2021. Fast forward half a season and the Hawks are an average team, barely good enough to deserve a Playoff spot, and Trae Young is trying to get another coach fired.
And that seems to be their biggest problem. Trae is not an easy guy to get along with, he seems to enjoy being the villain on and off the court. Of course, I’m not in a position to form an opinion on what is happening in the Hawks’ locker room but I’m only human. It’s obvious that Trae’s performance on the court is not what it should be and it is not far-fetched to think that it would have an influence on his behaviour off the court. I mean, Trae is a perfectionist, so if things aren’t perfect, can you blame him for being grumpy. It is also up to the people around him to deal with it in a professional manner and not let Trae dictate the mood all the time.
Murray and the Hawks started the season well, winning 4 out of 5 games and moving to 7 of 10. They were fairly steady in November but December was a killer for them, losing 9 out of 14 games. Something that stood out to me in that stretch was that the Hawks results depended a lot on Murray’s play. If he was good, they won. If he wasn’t or he didn’t play, they would lose. He missed 4 games in December and they lost 3. Now the Hawks are on a 5 game winning streak and Dejounte is playing his best basketball of the season. Coincidence? I think not! Murray and Young look like they are really starting to click again, much like at the start of the season. If they can keep this momentum going, and maybe not try to get a coach fired, the Hawks could still move their way up the standings.
PICK #3
Our third pick of the week is Zach LaVine of the Chicago Bulls. The Bulls are THAT team this year, you know, the team that was supposed to do really well but ends up disappointing everyone. Every time they look like they’re ready to take off, they end up stalling again. For example, it took them until late December before they could win more than 2 games in a row and even then they stalled at 3 wins. They went on a similar run in January but again, they stalled at 3 wins. Losing streaks are no problem for them though, losing 4 in a row twice already this season. Because of it, the Bulls have a losing record, and are struggling to shake it off. Everything that worked last season is just not happening for them this year.
It’s gotten so bad that the only thing that can save the Bulls, according to mainstream media, is to blow it up and trade their biggest names away and start again, maybe to the Lakers for Russell Westbrook? That just seems stupid to me. This team worked really well last year, and the only thing that is different is Lonzo Ball. Surely, that’s something they can find a solution for? DeMar DeRozan is still playing at a high level, Nikola Vucevic gets solid numbers, even though he is overpaid. And then there is Zach LaVine. He’s not necessarily having a bad season, but everything is just a little bit less than usual. And that in a year that he is supposed to become the man in Chicago. Especially after signing a max contract before the start of the season.
But it is not all bad. Since the new year, Zach has put up some more than decent performances. He single-handedly killed Philly putting up 41 points and followed that up with 36 points against the Jazz. He made 38 points against Washington and just this week, against Detroit he finished with 30 points and a season high +19 in the +/- boxscore. It looks like LaVine is finally getting out of his “new contract slump”, and hopefully the Bulls will be better for it. At the end of the day, they’re only 3 games behind a spot in the top 6 so nothing’s decided yet for the season. They don’t need to trade away any of their assets, at least not to blow it up. They can turn this around and potentially do better than their top 6 finish, round 1 blow-out in the Playoffs last season.
PICK #4
Our fourth pick of the week is Kyle Kuzma of the Washington Wizards. It’s probably the first time in ten years but Bradley Beal is not the best player in Washington this season. A lot of that has to do with the fact that Beal has missed almost half of all the games played so far this season, but we can’t use that alone as an excuse. Kyle Kuzma and Kristaps Porzingis are carrying the Wizards this year in Beal’s absence. Now, there’s a massive caveat with “carrying” because the Wizards sit well below the Play-In games in the Eastern Conference, struggling to even win half of their games. They seemed to have turned it around towards the end of December, winning 5 games in a row but they’ve only won 3 games since.
But Kuz won’t let it get to him, he’s having a career year, averaging 21 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists per game. Since playing for the Wizards, and especially this season, he has taken a massive leap and is finally justifying the attention he gets in the media. The biggest criticism he received in the past is that he wasn’t actually a good enough player for the attention he got, he was only portrayed that way because he was a Laker. Not only is he not a Laker anymore, he’s actually playing a lot better than when he was in Los Angeles. He has been the most consistent player for Washington, only missing one game so far this season, and has embraced that bigger role. He is getting more scoring opportunities, especially when Beal is not playing, and is profiling himself around the league as one of those players that could be a missing piece to win a championship.
And that brings us back to LA. Of course Kuz has been included in trade rumours and the biggest one is a trade back to LA. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate trade flop, if the Lakers bring Kuzma back? Flipping him and others for Westbrook to only bring him back after it all has fallen apart. I’m not even sure if Kuz would be excited to return to LA, at least not to play. The Bulls have interest as well, but what makes most sense to me, is that the Wizards trade some of their other, less important pieces, and use the cap space to re-sign Kuz to a new contract in the offseason. With Beal, Kuz and KP they might not have the big 3 that will win a championship but it is something and even that is more than what Washington has had in the last decade.
PICK #5
Our fifth pick of the week is Pascal Siakam of the Toronto Raptors. The Raptors are one of the most curious teams in the league right now. Hovering around those Play-In game positions, they have two options. They can either completely blow it up and trade away some of their older pieces, like Fred VanVleet, OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam, to bolster their chances in the lottery and get another high draft pick to put alongside Scottie Barnes. Or they could go the other way, throw some of their draft picks and younger assets on the market and see if they can lure another superstar to Toronto, like they did with Kawhi. Now, I’m not saying that the Raptors are only a piece away from being a contender. What I am saying is that Siakam is having an amazing season and the Raptors have nothing to show for it results wise. Either beef up the roster and get into the Playoffs or take advantage of his superform and bring in some substantial draft capital.
Because Spicy P is definitely having an amazing season. So far, he’s averaging 25 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists. Those numbers are much higher than when he was selected for the All-Star game back in 2020, the year after he won the title with the Raptors as the second best player on that roster, behind Kawhi. Siakam plateaued after that season, and wasn’t able to carry the Raptors on his own. The Raptors slowly started slipping each season, with the year in Tampa as an absolute low point. But that did give them Scottie Barnes with the fourth pick in the 2021 draft, Rookie of the Year and the start of a new beginning.
Last season, we got some flashes of what the Raptors could be in the future, finishing in fifth, falling in the first round of the Playoffs against the Sixers. Young talent, like Barnes, surrounded by experienced vets like VanVleet and Siakam, they were heading in the right direction. But this season is disappointing. They started the season alright but since December they have only managed to win 9 of their last 26 games and they plummeted in the standings. Not all is lost yet for the Raptors, but they need to make a move. Like I said before, they can move in either direction, as long as they do something. Because this Raptors team is stale and needs some new blood. If not, they’ll have wasted a year in the development of Scottie Barnes and potentially a career year of Pascal Siakam.
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!
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