Basketball is not a sport, it's a way of life.

LeBron doubling-up greatness, Domas doing damage, Luka likes being used...

Before we get started, just a few points of order:

- This newsletter is always best experienced through the Substack app. That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it via e-mail, just that the optimized experience is through the native source.

- As an artist myself, I want to honor other’s work, so still images will now be a smattering of my personal gallery. While I acknowledge that I forfeit some visual impact, I hope to work towards creative solutions.

• Last week, I spoke about the general shift in positioning on the offensive end of the floor for NBA big men. Perhaps no player has taken better advantage of this change than Sacramento Kings center Domantas Sabonis. Sabonis, who entered the league from Gonzaga as a bit of a 'tweener, too slow of foot and too poor a perimeter shooter to play the four, while being too little in physical stature, at least based on height, to play the center position. And both criticisms are still true. Sabonis’ footspeed in terms of quickness could be described as lumbering at best, glacial at worst. While his lack of positional height—he’s listed at 6’10", which is about an inch and a half of generosity (get your mind out of the gutter, or at least get mine out)—really hurts Sabonis on the defensive end, where he rarely offers much opposition as a rim protector. His .6 blocks per game this season rank him 60^th amongst just centers in the NBA. Yet, what these justifiable criticisms never accounted for is that Sabonis’ combination of bullish strength and high basketball IQ would allow him to carve a niche as a dominant offensive hub, physical liabilities be damned. Again, this is due to the fact few centers have better embraced the shift to operating at the elbow more than Sabonis, whose 8.5 touches per game from there rank second only to the Joker’s 10.9. Sacramento’s offense comes in two versions, both of which involve Sabonis as the literal center of the action, either leading the break as the primary ballhandler, or trailing possessions only to receive the ball at the elbow extended and getting the Kings into their halfcourt action. This often relies upon Sabonis allowing traffic to coil and spin around him as though he were the hitching post for a game of ring around the rosie. The other Kings players revolve around Sabonis as their offensive sun, at some point likely receiving a hand-off that gets one of Sacramento’s many ballhandlers downhill. This hand-off play has become the bread and butter of Sacramento’s offense, which they run as a rub action, essentially handing off into a pick and roll. In fact, three Kings players—Kevin Huerter (27.7%), Keegan Murray (20.6%), and Malik Monk (15.3%)—rank first, second, and ninth respectively in the league in frequency of being involved in hand-offs. While Sabonis’ 354 screen assists this year actually lead second-place Rudy Gobert by a whopping 74. All throughout this movement, Sabonis is directing traffic and looking to distribute, which he has done to great success as his career-high 8.4 assists per game are good for fourth in the league this season. And if all else fails, and Sabonis cannot find an open player, it’s time for him to drop his substantial shoulder into his defender’s breadbasket and charge hard to the rim. If the description of the action seems a bit clumsy and forced, that’s because it feels an apt means to describe these possessions. Not much Sabonis does would be regarded as aesthetically beautiful, but the eighth-year center’s old school, “grab your lunch pail and hard hat” game has become as productive as any player in the league. Sabonis leads the NBA in triple-doubles (21), double-doubles (55 in 59 games; including a current streak of 42 straight), and in rebounds per game (13.2), while in addition to assists, his 17.0 PIE also ranks fifth in the league, and his 61.4% from the floor is good for ninth.

• Congratulations to LeBron James on being the first player in NBA history to eclipse 40,000 career points. To qualify just how impressive that is, 20,000 points is ostensibly the line of demarcation for players gaining entrance into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Much like Kobe’s number 8 and number 24 careers, we can basically cut LeBron’s career in half and he would make the hall twice. Of the 55 players to score 20,000 or more points (this includes ABA scoring), the only retired/inactive players not in the Hall of Fame—or in the case of Vince Carter not about to be inducted—are Antawn Jamison (20,042), Tom Chambers (20,049), Joe Johnson (20,407), LaMarcus Aldridge (20,558), and Carmelo Anthony (28,342). Aldridge and Anthony are shoe-ins once they are eligible. Of the other three, Iso-Joe—who isn’t eligible until next year—very likely gets in as a player who had a lot of moments and was a 7-time all-star. Jamison seems like he’ll back his way in eventually, as even though I’m citing the hall as an indicator of excellence, the dilution of that notion has led to the inclusion of just very, very good players as well. In terms of Chambers, I’m not sure who he pissed off, but seeing as Mo Cheeks got in after 25 years, and that he has been a finalist recently, there is some hope that he finds his way there eventually as well.

• I will freely admit that I have my biases. I’m not only regrettably human, but also a coach’s son, raised in a basketball ethic that clearly shaped my own sense of hoops values. Watch a game of basketball, and there’s a reason that a coach’s son can be identified about two minutes into the action of play. He’ll be the guy obnoxiously directing players offensively, shouting out way too much communication defensively, and trying to draw charges in an outdoor game of three-on-three. Guilty as charged on all accounts. So of course I have a notion in mind of what the most beautiful brand of basketball is. If you need to see it in real-time, watch this sequence of ball movement by the 2014 Spurs, who played the prettiest brand of ball movement of my lifetime. Sorry ’86 Celtics, I was three.

  This substantial preamble was a setup for my acknowledging that I much prefer the symphonic beauty of team basketball over the singular splendor of a solo performance. So, heliocentric basketball—that in which the team’s offensive action revolves around the ability of a singular player to break down his man—has never really been my jam. I’m not denying its efficacy for the Harden Rockets, the Iverson Sixers, or Giannis’ Bucks; it just doesn’t fit my paradigm of beautiful basketball. But beauty is of course in the eye of the beholder, and most coaches would tell you that they don’t give a damn about beauty when it comes to winning. Win pretty. Win ugly. Either way it’s a mark on the left side of the column. This is where I have to fully admit my bias against Luka Dončić. It’s not to say I don’t enjoy watching him work, ‘cause damn, when he gets going he’s about as entertaining a single-talent as the league has had. My basketball brain marvels in watching him diagnose the floor in a way that only elite hoops supercomputers like his can. Conversely, I struggle watching Luka dribble the air out of the ball only to take a bad step-back jumpshot far too often in Dallas’ halfcourt possessions. To give you an impression of just how much Luka is dominating the ball for Dallas this season:

-  Leads the NBA in frequency of shots taken after 7 dribbles or more at a whopping 45.5%, which is nearly 3% more than Jalen Brunson in second at 42.6%.

-  First in usage at 36%; Shai & Antetokounmpo are tied for second at 32.9%

-  First in field goal attempts at 23.6

-  First in time of possession at 8.6 seconds

-  Third in touches per game at 91.9

-  Third in isolation frequency at 23.2%

Now, what Luka is doing with all this opportunity is damn impressive:

-   First in scoring at 34.5 points per contest, which is 3.3 points more than Shai in second (31.2)

-   Second in Player Impact Estimate (PIE) at 20.3, trailing only The Joker (21.3)

-   Second in threes made at 3.9 per contest, trailing only Steph (5.0)

-   Third in assists at 9.7 per game, behind Tyrese Haliburton (11.4) and Trae Young (10.8)

-   19^th in rebounds per game at 8.9, which is actually first amongst all non-centers

What this all amounts to though is the ultimate question. All the individual accomplishments in the world are impressive, but Luka’s eventual place amongst the NBA all-time greats will be measured by titles. And titles just aren’t won on the sheer offensive brilliance of one player—well, except maybe for one player. If Luka were to maintain his current rate of usage this season, he would own three of the top-15 seasons in terms of usage percentage all-time. Of the players on the top-100 of that list, the only one to win a title in such a season are Michael Jordan, who managed to do so five times (’92, ’93, ’96, ’97, ’98). Moreover, the only players to even advance to The NBA Finals—excluding MJ—with a usage percentage over 32.75% is Allen Iverson (35.9% in ’01).

To put a bow on all this, Luka has only had one season below 35% usage—30.0% his rookie year—and his career average is 35.7%. Meaning that were he to continue his current ways, either he breaks the mold and finds a way to will his team to a title on his own—possible, but extremely unlikely given the history of the league—or Luka’s career seems headed towards that of James Harden’s, another player whose name is studded all over the usage percentage leaders list. Harden, who is a surefire hall of famer and a former MVP (‘15), has an individual statistical profile that is damn good to look at, but his team’s success will never win prettiest in show.

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IF YOU HAVE THE TIME…

On Thursday night, we were privileged to witness the third professional head-to-head matchup between Chet Holmgren and Victor Wembanyama. Players, who through their combination of age and their rarely seen skill at a look at me height, are poised to be inextricably linked throughout their careers. It was a wonderful clash of two of the league’s up-and-coming—really, they are both pretty much already here—stars. Anyone fortunate enough to have watched the game may have noticed a few things: