NBA Rewind: Luka Dončić takes on the Mavericks, and the Spurs face big questions

We haven’t had many games to go off of since the All-Star break ended, but we do have plenty of stories and headlines being thrown our way. Maybe you missed all of the bad news surrounding the San Antonio Spurs. It’s possible you’re wondering if the rookie class isn’t that bad after all. There’s also a chance you’ve given up on certain teams or you are just anticipating the dramatic revenge game of Luka Dončić against the Dallas Mavericks. We have it all for you right here.

Here’s your latest NBA Rewind!

NBA Stock Report extended

The post-All-Star break lull makes it a little tougher to find significant movement with teams. That doesn’t mean we can’t check in on players or things we’ve thought up until this point. That’s exactly what we’re doing in this week’s NBA Stock Market section. Some players are thriving. Certain concepts are teetering. These are the trends you should know:

📈 The floor of this rookie class: Like many pundits, I’ve been very down on this rookie class. We knew there was going to be a downward trend between the Victor Wembanyama class in 2023 and the upcoming 2025 class that promises to be franchise-changing for a few teams. Even though I’m still very doubtful we have any stars in this current rookie class (Stephon Castle is the only one who could sway me), we are starting to see a lot of guys look like they can definitely be rotation pieces on good teams. Of the top-10 picks, only Reed Sheppard, Ron Holland II, Tidjane Salaune and Cody Williams look inconsequential so far. Holland’s poor rookie season might be because he doesn’t have opportunities on a surprisingly good team. Here are some first-rounders outside the top 10 who look like legitimately good role players for hypothetically good squads moving forward:

• Bub Carrington, Washington
• Kel’el Ware, Miami
• Jared McCain, Philadelphia
• Dalton Knecht Charlotte Los Angeles Lakers
• Tristan Da Silva, Orlando
• Ja’Kobe Walter, Toronto
• Yves Missi, New Orleans
• Ryan Dunn, Phoenix

That doesn’t even include Jaylen Wells (Memphis), AJ Mitchell (Oklahoma City) and Quinten Post (Golden State) from the second round.

📉 Me believing in the New York Knicks this season: It’s time to let the dream go, at least for me. I’ve envisioned the Knicks finding enough continuity and health to challenge both Cleveland and Boston in the East. But even with OG Anunoby back, Josh Hart getting healthy and the imminent return of Mitchell Robinson, I don’t see this team correcting its 3-point defense enough to contend with the best in the East. This team flat-out can’t defend from beyond the arc. The Knicks are the worst in the league at it. When they win games, they’re still the seventh-worst team at defending the 3-point line. When they lose, nobody gets lit up in a loss like the Knicks. They give up 44.9 percent from deep. Typing this, I initially forgot the decimal point in their number, and it still looked correct based on their defensive performance. Yes, they made a valiant comeback against the Celtics on Sunday, but it was never close enough. If you can’t defend the 3, then you can’t hang with the best in the East.

📈 Amen Thompson, Houston Rockets: This isn’t a surprise to anybody who has been paying attention to the Rockets the past couple months, but I wanted to highlight just how incredible and sustained Thompson’s play has been. Since the calendar turned to 2025, Thompson has played 22 games. He’s averaging 16.8 points, 9.6 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 1.9 steals and 1.5 blocks during this stretch, while making 54.0 percent of his shots. Let’s play the game of extrapolating that throughout an entire season. It’s been done only five times in NBA history: Kevin Garnett (twice), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Alvan Adams and DeMarcus Cousins (in a 48-game season).

📉 D’Angelo Russell, Brooklyn Nets: The DLo reunion in Brooklyn hasn’t been amazing in terms of Russell making shots. Did you know there is a fervent DLo online fan base? It’s kind of bizarre, but he’s definitely one of those players — flashy and good enough to expect stardom from. It just hasn’t translated consistently in the NBA, other than the one year he made an All-Star Game as a member of the Nets. Russell has struggled with making shots since his return to Brooklyn in the middle of the season. He’s hitting just 38.1 percent from the field and 31.8 percent of his 3-pointers. He’s playing only about 24.0 minutes per game, so his 13.8 points and 5.8 assists don’t look as eye-popping. And the Nets have been playing good basketball lately, even as Russell has been even less efficient (35.3 percent overall, 27.1 percent on 3s in February).

📈 The Sixers protecting their first-round pick: Recently, I implored the 76ers to punt on the season, get Joel Embiid the surgery and extra rest time he needs to have a chance of extending his stardom/prime, and protect their top-six protected first-round pick. While the Embiid surgery hasn’t happened, the Sixers are currently in the bottom six of the league standings. That comes after Brooklyn beat them on a buzzer-beater tip-in, and yes, Embiid, Paul George and Tyrese Maxey played in that game. These Sixers might be bad enough to not have to openly tank to keep their pick from going to the Thunder. They should still shut Embiid down and do what they can to get his knee ready for next season.

📉 The Nets embracing the tank: I mentioned the play of Russell above, but it hasn’t hindered the Nets at all. They’re currently 11th in the East. The Nets are only a half-game behind the Chicago Bulls and playing some really good basketball. That’s what makes them trending down so concerning. Sure, they could get to the Play-In Tournament, and I don’t think the bottom half of the East is good enough for the Nets to have zero shot of winning the No. 8 seed. It would be great for their pride but terrible for their lottery chances. The Nets are in search of a future star, and this is the draft to end up with a top-five pick. Their tanking has been nonexistent most of the season, and that won’t help them land Cooper Flagg or one of the Rutgers phenoms.

Big Story: The next Spurs era

Shortly after we tapped in with the betting odds for the major individual awards this past Thursday, everything changed for multiple awards and for the basketball landscape in general. At least, that’s the case for the short term but hopefully not the long term. We found out that Wembanyama has a deep vein thrombosis, which will cost him the rest of the season. For those of you who don’t know medical terms off the top of your dome, a DVT is a blood clot. Wemby’s blood clot is in his shoulder, and the possibility of it being career-ending is on the table in the early moments of finding out someone has this condition.

We saw Chris Bosh’s career end early because of multiple blood clots in 2015 and 2016. He had to stop playing at the age of 31, two years into a five-year, $118 million deal. The concern was Bosh would have to be on blood thinners to manage the clot, and that’s dangerous in a contact sport where players get cut and bleed often enough. There are also positive examples of players getting blood clots and resuming their careers. It happened with Toronto Raptors forward Brandon Ingram in 2019, and with both Detroit Pistons wing Ausar Thompson and Lakers big man Christian Koloko in 2024. Ingram resumed his career the next season after missing a month of action in the prior campaign. Thompson and Koloko were both diagnosed in early 2024 and returned to action this season.

The messaging out of San Antonio is on the optimistic side of potential outcomes. Nothing is decided, but it doesn’t look like Wemby’s already-historic career will be threatened much more than missing the rest of this season. The key for his long-term health and playing career resides in this being an isolated incident for blood clots, rather than an underlying condition that has the clots coming back multiple times. Here’s a reminder of what the 21-year old Wemby has done through just 117 games in his first two seasons:

• Career averages of 22.5 points, 10.8 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 3.7 blocks.
• One of 14 players to average at least 22 points and 10 rebounds over their first two seasons.
• One of five players to average at least 22 points, 10 rebounds and three assists over their first two seasons.
• One of four players to average at least 22 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks over their first two seasons.
• The only player to average at least 22 points, 10 rebounds, three blocks, and three assists over their first two seasons.
• Seventh player to average at least 22 points, 10 rebounds, three blocks and three assists in any season, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (seven times), Hakeem Olajuwon (three), David Robinson (three), Shaquille O’Neal, Patrick Ewing and Bob Lanier. Lanier was the previous youngest to do it, accomplishing the feat at 25.

So, not only is Wemby important to the Spurs organization and their future, but he’s also integral to the future of the NBA. He already projects to be an all-time player and someone who has bent the game of basketball like few have ever been able to do. Again, he just turned 21.

That wasn’t the only blow to the Spurs, though. ESPN reported Spurs legend Gregg Popovich is not expected to return to the sidelines this season and that his coaching future is uncertain. Popovich suffered a mild stroke in early November after coaching only a handful of games into his 29th season as San Antonio’s coach. This report is consistent with what Joe Vardon wrote about a month ago, when RC Buford stated something similar about Pop with the Spurs playing in Wemby’s homeland:

Legendary San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is “attacking his rehab with the same resilience” after suffering a stroke in November that he’d shown on the bench, chief executive RC Buford said, but his return to the team this season remains in question.

“His improvement continues to get better, (but) I don’t know that we have any way to judge the clock,” Buford said in Paris Wednesday, where San Antonio will play the Indiana Pacers twice this week. “Predicting what’s to come is just a function of where Pop’s rehab goes.”

As you can see, there was hope and optimism, but never a declaration that Popovich would be back. No matter who you are, even a mild stroke is a serious medical event. And coming back to any profession following a stroke of any magnitude is not easy. To come back to a job like NBA coaching feels like a monumental task. The stress and rigors of coaching are immense for anybody, let alone a 76-year-old. Hopefully, Popovich is going to be fine health-wise. Obviously, that’s the most important thing about this entire situation. He doesn’t need to coach anymore, either. He’s as accomplished as any coach we’ve ever seen, and there’s an argument he’s the best coach in history. Here are his superlatives:

• First all-time in NBA regular-season coaching wins (1,412).
• Third all-time in playoff coaching wins (170).
• Tied for third all-time in coaching championships (five).
• Coached Team USA to a gold medal (2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo).
• Three-time NBA Coach of the Year (2013-14, 2011-12, 2002-03).
• Never fired or replaced.

Whether it’s now or in the near future, the Spurs will eventually have to make a new coaching hire. Assuming the early optimism around Wembanyama’s situation is prescient of what’s to come, the Spurs will have one of the most attractive coaching positions in league history. Assistant coach Mitch Johnson has done a fine job after being thrust into the role in an interim status, even though he hasn’t been named the interim coach during this time. He’s just taken over for Popovich while the latter rehabilitated following the stroke.

The Spurs could hire internally with Johnson or someone else in the organization. Or they can open it up to Popovich’s coaching tree. Coaches like Mike Budenholzer, Ime Udoka, Quin Snyder and Taylor Jenkins have all come from Pop’s system. Doc Rivers and Steve Kerr both played under Pop. Former coaches like Mike Brown, Brett Brown and Monty Williams coached under Popovich too. Mike Brown was recently fired from the Sacramento Kings, and Brett Brown is back on the Spurs bench as an assistant. Most of the branches from Pop’s coaching tree would have to at least have a conversation about joining up, whether they tried to find their way to those sidelines or not.

And then, there are all of the other options in the NBA, head coaches and assistants, who would be more than intrigued by attaching themselves to the Wemby era of the NBA. With Wembanyama and De’Aaron Fox along with a lot of young talent around them, this is a coach’s dream. There’s also the fact that the Spurs haven’t made a coaching change in nearly three decades. Historically speaking, if you do a good job and excel in this position, you don’t have to deal with the drama almost every other NBA coach sifts through.

The Week Ahead: Revenge game SZN

The biggest showdown of the week comes on Tuesday night when the Dallas Mavericks head to Los Angeles to face the Lakers. As you may remember, the Mavs shocked the sports world by trading Dončić to the Lakers with nary a trade request or murmur that the 25-year-old superstar was on the block. It was a secret deal that nobody knew about until everybody had to know about it. It’s sent shockwaves through the Mavericks’ world, with season-ticket holders being furious, fans in general protesting constantly against executive Nico Harrison and Mavericks ownership, and a lot of drama surrounding fans getting ejected from the Mavericks arena for publicly showing their displeasure. 

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a fan base flip so hard on a franchise, especially in-season. While Anthony Davis won’t be available to play against his former Lakers teammates, Dončić looks like he’s gotten into form at the exact right time. After splitting two games against Utah before the All-Star break, Dončić looked pretty rough. To be fair, he was just out for a month-plus with a calf injury, so he had to work off the rust. Then, he sat against Charlotte, and the Lakers lost at home to an abysmal Hornets team. Saturday night, the Lakers went into Denver, and Dončić looked like himself again. He had 32 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists as the Lakers demolished a hot Nuggets team 123-100.

It was the right time for the Lakers to get right and the wrong time for the Mavericks to see the Lakers get right. The Mavericks won’t have Davis, Daniel Gafford or Dereck Lively II. They’re playing Moses Brown and P.J. Washington at center right now. Considering the Lakers don’t have much of an interior presence, the Mavericks won’t exactly get to show off their new identity. The funny thing to imagine is you’ll probably see a lot of Mavericks fans actually rooting for Dončić and the Lakers to win this game Tuesday night. They probably want the Mavs to be dealt another lesson on why you don’t trade Dončić as he’s entering his prime.

Tuesday night is going to be a circus, and we are here for a basketball circus.

(Top photo: Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)