Welcome back to the NBA Star Power Index -- a weekly gauge of the players who are most controlling the buzz around the league. Reminder: Inclusion on this list isn't necessarily a good thing. It simply means that you're capturing the NBA world's attention. Also, this is not a ranking. The players listed are in no particular order as it pertains to the buzz they're generating. This column will run every week through the end of the regular season.
It's looking more and more like LeBron James is going to miss the playoffs for the first time since 2005. The Lakers have lost three straight and trail the West's No. 8 spot -- currently occupied by the Spurs -- by five games in the loss column with 18 games to play.
There are so many layers to this ever-developing debacle: The ill-fitting and flat-out subpar roster Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka put around LeBron. The always preposterous claim that somehow the Lakers were going to remain patient this season and wait to make their big move this upcoming summer, only to have Magic haul Luke Walton into the principal's office less than 20 games in. The trade deadline debacle. Significant injuries to Lonzo Ball and LeBron. The one that's impossible to ignore: Just how much of LeBron's eight straight Finals appearances can be attributed simply to the conference he was lucky enough to play in?
Fifty percent? More?
The bottom line is LeBron has not been great enough, nor durable enough, for a Lakers team that was constructed in a way that depended on him to be everything he's been in the past, and perhaps more -- all the while in a better conference -- in his 16th season. All the subtle (or not-so-subtle) digs LeBron takes at his teammates, which for so long could be validated as successful motivational tactics with the built-in luxury of virtually guaranteed results in the Eastern playoffs, are now just looking like added cracks in a fractured Lakers team.
At this point, the Lakers are almost certainly better off, if we're being completely honest, tanking the rest of the season. They apparently agree as the team reportedly plans to limit LeBron's playing time for the rest of the season. That's where we're at in LeBron's first foray through the Western Conference. Entering Tuesday, the Lakers, assuming the ping-pong balls fall on schedule, were slated to have the 13th pick with a one percent chance of getting the top overall pick -- but they were just 3.5 games away from being in the No. 7 spot, which would give them a 7.5 percent chance at the top pick and a 31.9 percent chance of a top-four pick. The higher pick the Lakers get, the more attractive it will look in the inevitable package they try to re-offer the Pelicans for Anthony Davis.
Harden just might have pushed himself past Giannis Antetokounmpo in a neck-and-neck MVP race in Houston's win over Toronto on Tuesday night. Indeed, this race feels close enough to start swinging almost night to night with big-time performances from either guy in big-time games. Harden wasn't great by his standards -- 35 points and three assists on 12-of-30 shooting -- but winning is the main feather in Antetokounmpo's cap (his own statistical marvels notwithstanding), and the higher Houston climbs in the West, particularly with signature wins on the road, the more Harden is going to tighten his grip on his second straight MVP.
Entering play Wednesday, the Rockets have won six straight and seven of their last eight to vault into the No. 3 playoff spot out West via current tiebreakers over both Portland and Oklahoma City. This is thanks almost entirely to Harden. On Dec. 8, Houston was 11-4 and dying. Since that time, it has the second-best record in the league behind only -- you guessed it -- Giannis' Bucks. But ... given the injuries the Rockets have endured, if they can stay in the top three, or perhaps even threaten Denver for the No. 2 seed, it will be basically impossible to deny Harden the award. His stats are just too ridiculous to combine with that kind of winning, in the face of that kind of adversity, and come up with anything other than MVP. Harden's scoring outputs over his last three games: 58, 42 and 35. It's so routine now it's silly.
Speaking of what a difference one game can make, the Celtics played perhaps their best game of the year, against the best team in the league, in a 128-95 road rout of the Golden State Warriors. Dare I say the Celtics looked ... happy playing together? They were active defensively, inclusive and energized offensively. Irving was perfect -- balanced, in control, deferring to hot teammates (did the real Gordon Hayward just stand up?) without compromising his own aggression en route to 19 points on 7-of-15 shooting to go with 11 assist and five rebounds.
Look: Happy Kyrie!
A week makes all the difference pic.twitter.com/LEMpDnkrk2
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 6, 2019
Don't just kind of chuckle at smiling Kyrie and dismiss it. That is more important than any bucket he got or assist he dished against Golden State. Everything trickles down from Irving, and if he's playing with joy and having fun and that energy and confidence gets into everyone else, look out for Boston. Regular-season malaise can be rendered moot in a heartbeat with a team this talented.
Andre Iguodala made some headlines when he stated after the Warriors' win over Philadelphia on Saturday that Stephen Curry not only continues to be underrated in terms of the impact he has on defenses and games, but that he is also, in Iguodala's mind, the second-best point guard in NBA history already.
#latepost remnants from postgame Philly: context (some not shown here) on Andre saying Steph is the “2nd-best point guard ever.” Started re Curry’s 9 straight Q4 pts which then led Iguodala to convo he had w/ KD about MJ, then asked what it’ll take for Curry to be not under-rated pic.twitter.com/ErYqJyt7lL
— LetsGoWarriors👌💛💙 (@LetsGoWarriors) March 4, 2019
Iguodala's top point guard in history, as of now, is Magic Johnson. It's a bold statement, debatable for sure, to put Curry this high on the all-time list at just 30 years old and in just his seventh season, at most, of truly elite play. That said, it's certainly within the realm of pretty strong reasoning when you look at just how historic these last seven years have been for Curry -- who, for his part, said he doesn't think about legacy yet, but that he will someday. With any kind of reasonable projection for what should be at least four or five more years of pretty prime production for Curry, not even Magic might be able to stay ahead of him when it's all said and done.
Wade authored perhaps the shot, and moment, of the year when he banked in a desperation 3-point buzzer-beater to stun the Warriors in Miami last Wednesday -- in his first day of eligibility to make this week's Star Index, no less!
DWYANE WADE buries the #TissotBuzzerBeater for the @MiamiHEAT victory! #ThisIsYourTime #OneLastDance pic.twitter.com/wxAFaxNn6X
— NBA (@NBA) February 28, 2019
I did my best to describe the madness of this moment, but If you weren't in AmericanAirlines Arena last Wednesday night, there aren't really words to describe the scene on the court and the pure child-like joy of the players.
"God that was amazing," second-year Heat center Bam Adebayo told CBS Sports. "I feel like everybody in that arena was so lucky to be here to see that. It felt like everybody was down on the floor celebrating with us. To see him make so many of those shots, growing up just being a fan of D-Wade, and then to be a part of this game, man, I might not sleep tonight. I'll remember this forever."
What's great about Wade's farewell tour is that it's not just a farewell tour. The man can still play, and often still performs as the Heat's best player on the court. In this win over Golden State, Wade scored 10 of his 25 points in a back-and-forth fourth quarter. A few nights later he went 10 of 17 for 23 points in a win over the Hawks, again scoring 14 points in the fourth quarter as Miami's go-to player in the clutch.
"To be able to still have moments and still be a player that Coach trusts to go to down the stretch, and my teammates trust to find me, that means a lot to me because I still work very hard on my craft," Wade said after his game-winner vs. Golden State.
Young went nuts in an absolutely bonkers four-overtime game vs. Chicago on Saturday -- posting 49 points, 16 assists and eight rebounds in a 168-161 defeat that went down as the third highest-scoring game in NBA history. This is the kind of shot Young was hitting all night:
CLUTCH. TRAE. YOUNG.#TrueToAtlanta #NBARooks pic.twitter.com/UIGS6uWSxO
— NBA (@NBA) March 2, 2019
Forget just rookies, Young became just the second player in NBA history to score at least 49 points and dish out at least 16 assists in a single game. The other is James Harden, who went for 53 points and 17 assists in 2016 against the Knicks. Pretty good company.
Young's rookie season is shaping up a lot like Stephen Curry's did back in 2009-2010, when Curry went pretty wild down the stretch and turned what looked to be a runaway Rookie of the Year race into at least a conversation (shout-out to the rightful winner, Tyreke Evans). Young isn't going to win ROY -- Luka Doncic is a lock for that -- but he's putting his name in the hat and, more importantly, like Curry, is giving us the first extended glimpse of the greatness that could be in store.
