Welcome to the NBA Shootaround, the Ringer staff’s weekly run through the league. In honor of Wednesday’s loaded Christmas slate, let’s unpack all five games and examine their ripple effects heading into the new year. After all, Christmas is our day!
Victor Wembanyama has arrived. When will the Spurs?
Isaac Levy-Rubinett: If Christmas is the unofficial start to the NBA season, then Knicks-Spurs was Victor Wembanyama’s opportunity to unofficially put the league on notice. Wemby’s 42 points, 18 rebounds, and four blocks in his Christmas debut showcased everything that makes him a generational talent—but other than the size of the stage (and the corresponding Mickey Mouse hoops), there was nothing new about the work-a-day 30-footers or the futuristic bag he put on display. Still, to even the most fully fledged Wemby believers, Wednesday’s performance should stand out for two reasons.
First, Wemby is putting it all together at a frankly alarming pace. Already this season, he’s compressed his own development curve such that it only seems like a matter of time until he crashes the NBA’s truly elite tier. His offensive growth over the first quarter-plus of 2024-25 mirrors his defensive advancements during his rookie year, when he progressed from an overmatched 4 to arguably the greatest defender on earth. The second notable aspect of Wembanyama’s holiday performance is that it occurred right as the NBA’s transactional machinery has begun to whir. On Christmas morning, Shams Charania reported that Jimmy Butler would like to be traded from Miami before the February 6 deadline. Meanwhile, the Kings are in free fall and De’Aaron Fox seems to be reaching for his parachute.
If it’s only a matter of time until Wemby rules the NBA—or at least until the Spurs return to perennial contention—the question that emerged after Christmas Day is: OK, when? That’s been the undertone to Wembanyama’s entire Spurs career thus far, but it takes on a new urgency with each successive breakout. Not for nothing, San Antonio lost 117-114 on Wednesday, to a team whose third-leading scorer dropped 41 points and hit every big shot down the stretch. As the Spurs' offense ground down late in the fourth quarter on Wednesday, it was hard not to let the mind wander to Fox-to-San Antonio trade possibilities; the Fox-Wembanyama dribble handoffs practically draw themselves up. I found myself wondering: What’s a better hypothetical duo, Fox and Wemby or Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns? The Spurs have long been loath to swing for the fences on the trade market, but if there was one takeaway watching the Spurs bomb away from 3, finish fastbreaks with alley-oops, and stuff opponents into the rim, it's that these aren't the Spurs of old. The new Spurs feel closer than ever.
The Wolves and Mavs are as confounding as ever.
Howard Beck: Julius Randle picked a good day to force a reassessment—just slightly, for at least a minute or two—for all of our early season narratives. That he was a poor fit in Minnesota. That his ball-stopping ways would surely sink the Timberwolves. That the offseason swap of Karl-Anthony Towns for Randle and Donte DiVincenzo was already, indisputably and irrevocably a disaster. All of that might yet prove true—but Randle at least gave the world (and hopeful Wolves fans) a new data point to consider in Wednesday’s 105-99 victory over the Dallas Mavericks.
Randle scored efficiently, putting up 23 points on just 13 field-goal attempts. He took, and made, more free throws than all the bigger stars (Anthony Edwards, Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving) combined, going 8 for 10. And he dished out a season-high eight assists. He admitted afterward that it’s all been an adjustment, to be more of a facilitator and less of a scorer, than he’d been for five seasons in New York. “That’s really been the biggest change,” he said afterward. “You’re somewhere for five years, playing a certain way, and I come here and it’s a little bit different.”
Fair enough, although all of Randle’s worst tendencies—the ball-stopping, the defensive indifference, the poor body language—have been evident for some time, through good years and bad, in multiple cities. It seems unlikely he’ll shed them overnight, in deference to Edwards and the Wolves. But a performance like this provides a glimmer of hope for a Minnesota team that still hasn’t come close to the highs it reached last season, when the Wolves met the Mavericks in the Western Conference finals.
The truth is, neither of these teams are making a convincing case for a repeat as the calendar year comes to a close. The Wolves are just 15-14, with the NBA’s no. 23 offense and a defense that, while solid enough, has eroded considerably since last spring. The Mavericks have the West’s fourth-best record, at 19-11, but have had a weird season and just lost Doncic again to injury—this time to a calf strain that, according to ESPN, could sideline him for “an extended period.”
But then, it’s a strange year in the West, period. The Oklahoma City Thunder have been the clear favorites since the summer, without a clear challenger. Is it the up-and-down Mavs, who won the West last spring? Is it the wildly inconsistent Denver Nuggets, who won the championship in 2023? Is it the resurgent Memphis Grizzlies? Could it possibly be the upstart Houston Rockets? Or the great-when-healthy (but rarely healthy) Phoenix Suns? Could the Wolves still make a run? We’ll start the new year without any clear answers to any of it.
The Sixers need Paul George to start playing like Paul George.
Michael Pina: Celtics-Sixers was downright strange. Joel Embiid stepped on a security guard’s foot during warmups and twisted his ankle. Kristaps Porzingis turned his ankle in the first quarter and only played 13 minutes. Caleb Martin—who entered the game averaging 0.8 made 3s per game—tormented the city of Boston once again by going 7-for-9 behind the arc. Payton Pritchard—who’s currently one of the most accurate high-volume outside shooters in NBA history—missed all eight of his 3-point attempts.
And despite Wednesday’s 118-114 victory being Philly’s biggest win of the season, it contained yet another disconcerting stinker from Paul George. The 34-year-old finished with 12 points on 4-of-15 shooting. He went 0-for-7 from deep and was minus-16 in 34 minutes. The Sixers’ offense generated a team-low 102.8 points per 100 possessions with PG on the court, too. None of it was an aberration. After being arguably the most significant free-agent signing in franchise history, George has either been hurt or astray since he moved to Philadelphia.
It’s more than missed shots. (Though, with the lowest effective field goal percentage of his career, that’s a lot.) It’s the type of shots he’s taking. Here’s one example from the first quarter, a 2-on-5 pull-up jumper from 16 feet that’s contested by Jayson Tatum. The Sixers are shorthanded but no Celtics are at the rim. It’s a bad shot. George fires it up anyway.
It’s also a pattern of avoidable miscommunication on defense. This one, seen below, came after he missed a 3 and then decided to stop guarding Jaylen Brown in transition because he didn’t know Embiid was behind him, already tracking Al Horford to the corner.
None of these are isolated incidents. Right now George doesn’t know when or how to exhibit the type of aggression Philly needs. There’s obviously still plenty of time for him to turn things around and produce like a nine-time All-Star on the first-year of a maximum contract. Chemistry doesn’t happen overnight; his two-man game with Embiid is a work in progress that should eventually become a dangerous action in Nick Nurse’s playbook. But so far the Sixers produce just 94.1 points per 100 possessions when those two are on the court; this version of George has a ton of ground to make up if he wants to help lift the Sixers where they want to go.
The troubling catch of another classic LeBron-Steph clash.
Zach Kram: Forgive the strained holiday analogy: If the first Christmas game presented the ghost of the NBA’s future, via Wembanyama, then the evening Lakers-Warriors clash offered the ghosts of the NBA’s past. LeBron James and Steph Curry put on a primetime show in San Francisco, as LeBron tallied 31 points and 10 assists and Curry poured in 38 points, the last six of which came on a pair of clutch 3s that erased a Lakers lead and elicited a rare Mike Breen double bang:
Amid nagging, nonstop discourse about NBA ratings—particularly next to a brazen Christmas Day challenge from Netflix and the NFL—the Lakers’ 115-113 win presented the NBA at its best. This was a slugfest between two heavyweights with a history, which offered holiday delights all the way through its dramatic final moments. Few games this entire season will pack a better punch from start to finish. “I love the NFL, but Christmas is our day,” LeBron said after the game, which Austin Reaves—who finished with a 26-point triple-double—won with a scoop layup with one second left.
But ultimately, the Christmas Carol metaphor was missing one key ingredient: The ghosts of the NBA’s present were absent, at least as far as the Western Conference was concerned. LeBron vs. Steph received top billing—and it might again in April, if the Lakers face the Warriors once more in the play-in round. But while the teams that entered the day seventh, eighth, ninth, 10th, and 11th in the Western standings all played on Christmas, the West’s top three teams were suspiciously off.
Those three leaders all have an average age below 25 (24.5 for the Rockets, 24.6 for the Thunder, and 24.9 for the Grizzlies), and they were all upstaged by the NBA’s old guard. Heck, they weren’t just upstaged; they weren’t on the stage at all. So it goes in the current NBA, even though neither L.A. nor Golden State, as currently constructed, has a legitimate chance at a championship. The two fringe contenders have a combined 2.6 percent chance to reach the Finals, according to ESPN’s BPI, and a combined 0.7 percent chance to win the title. The Warriors have slumped since a hot start, and Dennis Schröder isn’t fitting in great, while the Lakers’ winning record belies a frightening minus-2.5 per-game point differential.
None of that broader context really matters during such a classic contest—the yelps at Curry’s clutch 3s are as loud as ever!—and I don’t want to wade into ratings discourse after a fantastic day of basketball. But where LeBron and Curry once waged their formative battles in the Finals, they’re now fighting to avoid the play-in tournament, as the two aging leaders of middling teams. The entertainment level in this rivalry is as high as ever. The stakes, however, are not.
It’s Deal or No Deal Time for the Denver Nuggets.
Matt Dollinger: It can get pretty bumpy while trying to land at Denver International Airport. The wind, the mountains, the Front Range, you get it. So maybe Santa just said screw it this year and decided to skip the Mile High City. Not only did the Denver Nuggets lose 110-100 to the Phoenix Suns on Christmas night, but Aaron Gordon got hurt again, Jamal Murray turned in another tour de meh performance, and no holiday miracles materialized to give Nikola Jokic hope this won’t be a lost season.
Granted, the Nuggets are 16-12 and could still eke out a playoff spot off Jokic elbow grease alone. But something’s just … not right. Denver can’t even lean on the old NBA tradition of blaming Russell Westbrook for all its problems (he’s been great!). A trade is needed. It’s time for a reboot. The Western Conference is an utter crapshoot this year and the Nuggets boast the NBA’s best player by a mile. Jokic is basically averaging a 30-point triple-double and Denver is running him into the ground while trying to carry a roster that offers as much support as a Hampton Inn pillow.
It’s going to be hard for Denver’s front office to sit on its hands leading into the Feb. 6 trade deadline. But the Nuggets are also going to have to get pretty creative to get a meaningful deal done. Jimmy Butler might sound nice, but he’d only make the Nuggets’ 3-point phobia (a league-low 30.9 attempts per game) even worse. Could Zach LaVine be an answer to their problems? Honestly, maybe! He would be manna to their offense, as he's hitting 43.6 percent of his 7.5 3-point attempts per game. And the Bulls might be desperate enough—and the market might be barren enough—for them to sell low. There isn’t exactly a ton of empirical evidence he’s a winner (take this advanced stat: LaVine has played in 606 regular-season games and just four playoff games), but he’s also been stuck in some tough situations. Can Calvin Booth pry him away without giving up too much?
Either way, something has got to give. Jokic (37.2), Murray (36.4), and Porter Jr. (34.5) are all playing career highs in minutes and have painfully little to show for it. Those numbers aren’t sustainable. They’re more like a cry for help.