All-NBA Team of the Week - This Is Basketball

Goeiedag, enchantée and welcome to this week's episode of Eight 2 Four presents: All-NBA Team of the Week. All-Star Weekend is finished, we’re in the final stretch of the season with only 20 to 15 games left to go until the end of the regular season. Things are getting more serious and finally, we start to see some real basketball on the courts around the NBA. The MVP race is heating up, with Embiid making a huge case for himself, and Jokic and Giannis doing what they’ve been doing all season. The Suns are climbing the standings and the red-hot Knicks all of sudden are losing some of their shine, dropping 3 games in a row. We see battles heat up for Playoff seeding, Play-In games positions and even the lottery teams are winning unexpected games. This week we dive into 5 players that are leading their teams to wins on top of wins and want to finish the season strong. 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. Haliburton’s birthday is February 29th, he is a leap year child. And his basketball skills improve in leaps as well. He officially turned 23 on March 1st and his stats since then have been pretty impressive: 32.6 points per game, just under 3 rebounds a game and, get this, 15 assists PER GAME. Haliburton is a special specimen, he proves that over and over again, and he will be one of the best point guards in the league for pretty much his whole career. And he will lift any franchise he is a part of to a higher level, much like Chris Paul did in his entire career. Obviously, the franchise right now is the Indiana Pacers, and they would be crazy if they let him walk out that door any time soon.

The Pacers are not going to make the Playoffs, that’s becoming clear, but it’s not like they’re blatantly tanking either. They have a young core that they’re building around with Haliburton, Myles Turner, who is still only 26, Bennedict Mathurin, Aaron Nesmith, Andrew Nembhart, Jalen Smith and a whole heap of other young players. With Buddy Hield, TJ McConnell, Daniel Theis, George Hill and James Johnson, they have a good group of vets walking around the locker room as well. The Pacers have a solid roster with a lot of room to improve and grow, without having to take big chances. They have never really been a tanking franchise and again, they have put themselves in a position where they’ll be competing for a Playoff berth soon enough.

It will be very interesting to see how the front office will tackle this offseason. Are they drawing the card of the youth once more and move on from some of the vets? Or will they surround Haliburton and the rest with some more experienced players to give them a good shot at a spot in the top 6 next season. The Pacers are at a very interesting point in their journey, they’re not quite a juggernaut yet, and still have a lot of work to do to get there, but if they play their cards right and build properly around Haliburton, they could be reliving the Reggie Miller and Paul George Glory Days soon. And as far as legends go, those names are not bad company for Haliburton to be part of. He has a lot to live up to for Pacers fans.

PICK #2

Our second pick of the week is Josh Giddey of the Oklahoma City Thunder. Granted, Giddey is not the best player on OKC, and living in Australia, there probably is a bit of bias involved in me picking Giddey over SGA in this week’s show but I don’t really care, I am thoroughly impressed by this guy. Especially the game against Golden State earlier in the week, Giddey was special. With 17 points, 17 assists and 11 rebounds he has put the league on notice, again. Giddey will be a force to be reckoned with as he grows in this league. He’s not the high volume scorer like SGA, who finished that same game with 33 points and clearly is the cornerstone of the OKC franchise, but Giddey is the engine that makes the team go on the court.

This season he’s averaging 16 points, nearly 8 rebounds and 6 assists per game, including 3 triple-doubles for the season. Add his 4 triple-doubles from last season and the only other player ever to record more triple-doubles in their career before their 21st birthday is none other than Luka Doncic, Giddey is tied with Magic Johnson but still has some time left before his birthday to add some triple-doubles. And it all comes naturally, he reads the game so well, sees the openings on the floor and reads the play better than just about anyone else. Even LeBron gave Giddey praise during the All-Star Weekend. “Josh Giddey is really, really good man,” he said. He said a lot more, but that was the important part. Giddey is a crucial part of this OKC rebuild and I think that next year will be the first time we will really see this Thunder team unleashed.

With Giddey, SGA, Dort, Jalen Williams and next year the return of Chet Holmgren, OKC has an incredibly young and talented core to move forward with. And that’s not it, guys like Isaiah Joe and Ousmane Dieng are impressing everyone coming off the bench and if they lose a few more games towards the end of the season, surely they’ll end up with another top 10 pick in the draft this season. I doubt they’ll end up with a top 2 pick, for either Victor Wembenyama or Scoot Henderson, but I’m sure they’ll come up with some sort of surprise during draft night, whether they trade up or completely out of this year’s draft, anything is possible with GM Sam Presti. But one thing is for sure, Oklahoma City will be home to exciting basketball for quite a few years to come, it really starts to bring back memories of the KD, Westbrook, Harden days.

PICK #3

Our third pick of the week is Kevin Durant of the Phoenix Suns. KD is a monster, no matter where he plays, when he plays, whether or not he was injured, if he has played with his team mates before, he always is the best player on the court. And because he loves the game of basketball so much, he does not feel like he needs to be the best player on the court and is more than happy to make the right plays and feed his team mates. In this short time with Phoenix, 3 games to be exact, he has already proved that fitting in won’t be an issue. Of course, I know that he injured himself again, after that stupid trip during the layup lines, and he’ll be out for at least a couple of weeks. Chances are that we won’t see him again until the Playoffs start but based on the three games we’ve seen him play so far, Phoenix is going to be a force to be reckoned with.

26 points per game, 7 rebounds, 3 and a half assists and a block per game in 3 games, all wins. That’s the verdict so far for KD in Phoenix so far. They started him off slowly in his return from injury against the Chicago Bulls, playing him less than 30 minutes and ramped him up to play nearly a full game against the Mavericks in game 3. That was another incredible KD game. He finished with 37 points, off 70% shooting from the floor, including 3 out of 5 from deep. He played really well with the starters, Devin Booker finished that game with 36 points and 10 assists and Deandre Ayton grabbed 16 rebounds. It was still a close game against the Mavs, with both teams tied 30 seconds before the end until KD iced the game with a mid range jump shot and a couple of free throws. With KD and Kyrie on both ends and the beef between Luka and Booker, I really hope we’ll see this match-up return in the Playoffs. That is going to be a fantastic series to watch!

And it’s quite possible these teams will see each other in the first round. Dallas currently sits in 6th and the Suns sit in 4th. This could be a 3-6 match up or a 4-5, depending on how the last 15 games of the season progress. The Suns have traded away their depth to bring in KD, so without him, it could get tough in the next few weeks. But then again, Devin Booker has been playing out of his mind. In his last 4 games, he averaged 38 points, 5 rebounds, 7 assists and a league-high +20 per game. I said at the beginning of the season that the Suns’ window for a Championship was closing, it might have been closed already. They have gone all-in with this KD move, and they know it. They have a chance to win it all this season, but even if they don’t, they have time now to make things happen, they extended their window. KD has a contract for another 3 years and Booker is only 26 years old. Surely, they’ll get really close at some point.

PICK #4

Our fourth pick of the week is Anthony Davis of the LA Lakers. It’s the worst kept secret in the NBA, but nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody, except Kevin Garnett. Garnett called it on his own podcast, KG Certified. Basically, LeBron and AD are not the closest at this point in time. Neither LeBron or the Lakers franchise believe that AD is willing to carry this franchise, now or in the future, and the next few weeks are a test for Davis. I won’t touch on the severity of LeBron’s injury, I would only be guessing, but it seems convenient that he would sit out just after All-Star Weekend until about the end of the regular season. If the Lakers make the Playoffs in this stretch, it’s clear that AD is capable of carrying this team. If they don’t make it, it is likely that AD will be moved during the offseason, and we’ll probably see Kyrie come to LA at some point.

But, for now, AD is stepping up to the challenge. The Lakers are 4 and 2 in the games since LeBron has been ruled out, and AD is averaging 28 points and 12 rebounds in that stretch. The Lakers are only one game away from being a 50% win team and have climbed the standings to 9th. They’re only 2 games away from a spot in the top 6 so really anything is possible at this point in time. Mind you, they’re only a loss away from dropping back out of the Play-In spots so it can literally go either way. But this team is different from earlier in the season. We can’t blame everything on Westbrook but being able to trade him for multiple pieces has made it easier for the players on the court and for head coach Darvin Ham, who now has some depth on his roster.

Based on their current form, I strongly believe that these guys will get into the Play-In Games, and eventually even the Playoffs. And if they’re up against a team like the Sacramento Kings in Round 1, with a healthy LeBron and a motivated AD, that almost guarantees them a spot in the next round, where they could be up against the broken Grizzlies or the Warriors, who are almost guaranteed to lose every away game. When you think about it, it’s not unlikely for this Lakers team to make it all the way to the Finals, if the seeding works out and they have a bit of LeBron luck along the way. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, while it is possible, I still think that there are at least 5 other teams better placed in the West to get to the Finals. But do we really bet against LeBron? Argh!

PICK #5

Our fifth pick of the week is Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers. I’m sure he didn’t mean to, but I think that Kendrick Perkins has decided the MVP race already. By making it personal and calling out white voters as racist if they vote for Jokic, I’m afraid it will create the opposite effect of what he was hoping to get. JJ Reddick called him out, accusing him of creating unexisting narratives, and he is absolutely right as far as I’m concerned. I’m not a voter, so my opinion doesn’t matter but after that whole debacle, as a white man, all of sudden my preference moved more towards Jokic than it did before. By bringing race into the conversation, I’m worried that Perkins has allowed for race to be the deciding factor in the MVP race, because surely some voters will now vote for Jokic, just to prove a point.

And that will put Embiid in second spot again, for the third time in a row, even though he is having another cracker of a season. Averaging 33 points, 10 rebounds and 4 assists per game, he is the driving force of Philly. In the last 4 games along, he averaged just about 38 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 blocks per game. Philly has won all 4 games and are 7 and 3 in their last 10 games. They sit in third in the East, 2 games behind the faltering Boston Celtics, so it is likely they can move up a spot before the end of the regular season. It is so unfortunate for Embiid that Jokic is having another impossible season statistically, otherwise this MVP race would be a no-brainer. Giannis and Tatum are both worthy as well, but at the end of the day, Jokic and Embiid are the 2 most dominant players in the league. Giannis and Tatum are better surrounded, in my opinion.

What Embiid needs is a win in the postseason. If Philadelphia can win the NBA Championship and next season he plays half decent, he’ll win the MVP, I can guarantee you that. But, and I think this will affect him in this season’s voting too, are the Sixers capable of winning the Championship. With James Harden and Doc Rivers, the Sixers have two of the biggest chokers in the league, as a player and as a coach, on their roster and we’ll have to wait and see what happens if the Sixers are playing Boston in a Game 7 in round 2 of the Playoffs. If they can get past their demons, obviously anything is possible. But until then, we have to keep that in the back of our heads when we’re making predictions.

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!