Netflix gets a ‘golden’ NBA story. Plus, we preview the Knicks and Nuggets

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Kevin Durant wished the Mariners luck after Josh Naylor wore his throwback Seattle Sonics jersey to the ALCS. This is a great time to remind the NBA to bring back the Sonics and just expand already. !

Incredible luck

“Starting 5” gets a “golden story” for Netflix

“Everybody says that, so here I am having to defend this! No, this is not scripted. No, we don’t have the insight from the NBA.”

That was one of the first things “Starting 5” director Trishtan Williams jokingly said to me as we were discussing Season 2 of the series, which dropped today on Netflix. It follows five players from last season throughout their entire journey, and the cast could not be more perfect for what happened in 2024-25. Tyrese Haliburton, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, James Harden, Kevin Durant and Jaylen Brown, along with their respective teams and the NBA, gave unreal access to Williams and her extensive crew. 

The result is an incredibly fun and highly impressive encapsulation of what eventually leads us to Haliburton and SGA in a Game 7 showdown. As you may remember, Hali tore his Achilles early in the game, and “Starting 5” shows behind-the-scenes footage of the aftermath we haven’t seen before. So while the NBA season certainly wasn’t scripted, as I had joked, it was drama-friendly casting. Even though it might not have seemed that way at the start of Haliburton and the Pacers’ season.

“He started off horrible,” Williams reminds us, “and we’re all like, ‘What in the world is going to be? How do you tell this story?’ Which is a great story for how he ended right? So then you get the roller coaster. It’s like every ebb and flow you can think of, and he’s so honest and vulnerable the entire time, and then he makes it to the finals. It’s just a golden story, like, I don’t think we could have written it any better.”

I was fortunate enough to watch the series before it premiered, and it consumed me for two days. I couldn’t stop watching. Following the smashing success of Season 1, which featured Anthony Edwards, LeBron James, Jayson Tatum (in his first championship), Jimmy Butler and Domantas Sabonis, I had reservations about the new cast of players when it was announced roughly a year ago. And I was wrong.

While the drama of the finals matchup and Durant trade rumors definitely highlight much of the season, the most shocking and refreshing part of it is Harden’s storyline. As Jason Jones writes, Harden’s transparency drives the show. Jason is dead-on with this. Harden is a player I’ve watched forever, but whose personality I realized I don’t really know.

“What you want to do is give the viewers insight to what we don’t know,” Williams says about the Harden story. “So we want to answer all the questions. And so for the fact that you’re saying that we’ve answered a lot of the questions, and I think what we also have done is going to make the audience have empathy for him.”

The result is fantastic storytelling for all five players and what the league went through last season. “Starting 5” has two seasons in the books, and they’re both must-watches for basketball fans and even just casual sports fans or people who love documentaries. And Williams, who has been at the helm of both seasons, isn’t shy about how good Season 2 is.

“This is one of those where it’s award-winning,” she said. “I’m OK with saying that on the record. That’s how good of a job we’ve done.”

It’s so good it altered my plans of how I was going to watch it, just going from episode to episode until I had to tear myself away. If this series doesn’t win awards, I can only assume they stopped giving them.

The Last 24

The Kings are making moves

🏀 Russ signs. The Sacramento Kings agreed to sign Russell Westbrook on a one-year deal. I don’t understand this roster at all. At least Westbrook gives Kings fans something to watch.

💰 Extension SZN. The Kings also signed Keegan Murray to an extension. He’s getting $140 million over five years. 

👽 Give us the truth. I wrote about how for a day (at least), Victor Wembanyama was listed at 7-feet-5. Now he’s back to 7-4? 

🏀 Never mind. Malcolm Brogdon was supposed to be on the Knicks. Instead, the former Rookie of the Year decided to retire at 32. ☘️ Uh oh? Jaylen Brown left a preseason game with hamstring tightness. Hopefully just a precaution.

🏀 Difference makers. Fred Katz looks at the five most pivotal players in the NBA this season.

Pure embarrassment

Celtics coaches gloriously torch the media

Full disclosure: Our own Boston Celtics beat writer Jay King might be my favorite person in the NBA media. He’s a loudmouth. He’s a galvanizer of any group chat. And he’s also really good at his job. We talk endless amounts of trash to each other, pretty much daily. So when I saw that he participated in a surprise scrimmage against the Celtics coaching staff, I could not have been more locked in.

Celtics media was supposed to play a game among themselves at Boston’s facility, something teams will sometimes have media members do as a bonding experience before the season starts. But Joe Mazzulla surprised the media by making them play against the team’s coaches, a bunch of in-shape former NBA and college players. The result was an annihilation of the media in a 57-4 game. As Jay wrote in a must-read account of this: “It turned into a nightmare.”

“How did we only score four points? It was probably a miracle we scored that many. The talent gap between the two teams was like the difference between the sun and a 40-watt lightbulb.”

What Jay didn’t include in the story is that he can play. He played Division III basketball and still plays at age 38. Every Saturday morning, he peppers our group chat with a printed box score of his league game. Sadly, there wasn’t a box score for this scrimmage. But there are highlights. They also had a special viewer from the Celtics.

“It came while Celtics players, including Jaylen Brown, watched from above the court. After the embarrassment ended, Brown called down to us with a laugh, ‘Anyone want to do media?’”

Somehow, Jay didn’t score a single point, despite his experience. Not one of the four points. As a friend, it’s something I’ll remind him of forever. Jay loves being confident in his own abilities in everything. We’ve argued about whether he could take undefeated boxing champ Floyd Mayweather because Jay stood next to the 5-foot-8, 148-pound fighter long ago. After this scrimmage, Jay said this in a text:

“It was so bad it made me rethink my stance on Floyd Mayweather.”

Thank you for this fodder, Joe Mazzulla.

Ring mining

2025-26 Season Preview: Can the Nuggets win another title?

We’ve never seen anything like what the Denver Nuggets did last season. They were a top-six team in the West, and yet they fired coach Michael Malone with three games left in the regular season. Drama between him and the front office became too much for the organization, and they decided to give the keys to assistant coach David Adelman.

He wasn’t able to fix the previous issues of injuries, lack of depth and poor defensive consistency. But the Nuggets, behind the brilliance of Nikola Jokić, still challenged the Oklahoma City Thunder in the second round. Jamal Murray was banged up and Aaron Gordon hurt his hamstring, but they pushed the Thunder to seven games. This summer, they moved Michael Porter Jr. for Cameron Johnson, and Dario Šarić for Jonas Valančiūnas. They also signed Tim Hardaway Jr. and Bruce Brown. The roster issues are solved. Does everything else put them above a Thunder team they pushed to the brink? Let’s dive in!

Drama Meter: Despite being a title contender in the West, this situation is remarkably calm. Some of that is from winning it all in 2023. Some of that is the tone set by Jokić, Murray and Gordon. Some of that is looking at this roster, knowing it can take down anybody.

Hot Seat Meter: They just gave Adelman the full-time job after he became the interim with three games left. The Nuggets have a reputation for frugality, too, so they won’t be paying two coaches at once. Adelman’s seat is ice cold.

Offseason question: That question was answered with a resounding yes. The backup center issue is solved. Swapping out Porter for Johnson makes them a lot better. It also allowed them to have the flexibility to sign Hardaway and Brown. Just a massive upgrade to every roster question they had.

2026 free agents: Christian Braun (restricted) | Peyton Watson (restricted) | Bruce Brown Jr. | Tim Hardaway Jr.

Nuggets fans are hoping at least Braun’s extension happens before the season ends. But mostly, this team is set up to win another title now and doesn’t have to worry about much roster movement.

Expectation for this season: Even with OKC in the West, it should be championship or bust. Malone got blamed despite the issues with the roster. Now Adelman has to keep it together and hope for the best. A championship has to be the only goal.

Bing Bong back?

Can the Knicks rule the East?

The New York Knicks made the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in 25 years last season, and it cost Tom Thibodeau his job in another surprise coaching drama. A regime change was decided to be best for the Knicks, despite the players seemingly loving their coach. After a bizarre search where they tried to interview a handful of employed head coaches, they hired Mike Brown, the former head coach of the Cavaliers, Lakers and Kings.

Now the Knicks head into an East missing Jayson Tatum from Boston, Damian Lillard from Milwaukee and Tyrese Haliburton from Indiana. The Knicks beefed up their thin bench and could possibly be the best team in the conference. But is that enough to push them through to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999? Let’s dive in!

Drama Meter: It’s the Knicks, so it has to start at a minimum of five. At the same time, Boston and Indiana being down bad with year-long injuries is a massive relief to the Knicks’ prospects. They seem to have the best resume to get through the East. That adds pressure, but not more drama … yet.

Hot Seat Meter: It’s James Dolan, so it can’t be zero. It wouldn’t shock me if they came up well short of the finals and Dolan overreacted. But Brown should be safe.

Offseason question: We still don’t have an answer to this question, but how they adapt to Brown’s coaching system will be quite telling. We know Cleveland is a regular-season paper champ. But the Knicks have shown way more resilience in the postseason. They must stay healthy to have a shot at it.

2026 free agents: Mitchell Robinson | Guerschon Yabusele (player option) | Jordan Clarkson | Alex Len | Landry Shamet | Ariel Hukporti (restricted)

The Robinson free agency in 2026 is interesting. They needed him at various points in the playoff run last season. His defense and rebounding are big. So is his vertical floor-stretching. But the Knicks will be close to a top-five payroll in 2026-27 even without Robinson. And he’d easily put them into the second apron. Expectation for this season: I don’t know if the Knicks can beat whoever comes out of the West, but they should win the East. A healthy Knicks team is the best one left standing, as of right now. If they buy into Brown’s teachings, they’ll be the standard in the East.