ENCORES

Can [they] get [it] back?

Vengeance is Sworn; Francesco Hayez; 1851

Can [they] get [it] back?

Good morning. The NBA season is upon us. Let's basketball.

It was meant to the time of the Oklahoma City Thunder. They had one of the two best players on the planet in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a no-nonsense scorer extraordinaire who also defended at a high level and came with no drama or controversy. They had one ring secured, rollicking around entertaining series in the spring of 2025 with a cast of star-level roleplayers and young ingenues supporting Shai, with one of the most highly-respected young coaches in the league, with a treasure trove of picks and a superstar general manager. They were 26-3 despite some injury trouble.

But the Thunder had a close encounter with a basketball alien and his comrades. Well, make that five close encounters in the regular season, and they, the Thunder, lost four of them, puncturing the aura of certitude around their reign. And then that alien led his team to victory over Shai and Oklahoma City in the playoffs, a shocking result that somehow didn't feel shocking when it happened, because really, how many films end with the aliens losing?

Can Shai and the Thunder get it back?

Victor Wembanyama, said alien, isn't riding alone. What fueled his third-year (near-)triumph was not just his own basketball growth, but that of a spectacular supporting cast led by Stephon Castle, who, were he a Pokemon, would be an evolution of Russell Westbrook. There's Dylan Harper, an NBA son whose dad never shook like that. There's Devin Vassell, a textbook supplemental scorer, and De'Aaron Fox, the would-be veteran savior who is damn good but also must be looking around wondering if he fits with the youth movement. Centered amid it all is Victor, a player and person no one seems to fully believe is real until that moment when he feels like the only real thing left on this planet.

Can Wembanyama and the Spurs get it back?

A secret held not so closely among NBA sickos is that while Victor has had tons of success against almost every opponent, there's one center who gives him fits: Nikola Jokic, the other of those two best players on the planet. Jokic's gapes and nods and artistic moves with the ball have traditionally evaded Victor's tentacles, and his heft can move the lighter foe. What limits Jokic of late is some combination of failure in his supporting cast and the specter of the Minnesota Timberwolves, who have so many limbs and teeth that Denver can't escape their grasp. (For what it's worth, the Thunder beat the Nuggets in 2025 and have plenty limbs and teeth. And the Spurs, who have not yet faced the Nuggets in the postseason in this era, are replete with limbs and teeth as well.) Jokic isn't infallible – no one, nothing is – but you need a pretty good prescription to find anything wrong, just as with Shai, just as with Victor. At the same time, due to circumstances (mostly the Wolves), Jokic has not returned to so much as the conference finals since claiming the 2023 championship.

Can Jokic get it back?

Tyrese Haliburton is someone who has been to the conference finals and beyond since 2023. In fact, the story of Shai and the Thunder could be much different had Haliburton survived Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals, where he tore his Achilles. He hasn't played a meaningful basketball game since. His team remains assembled around his visionary pace, passing and shooting. Myles Turner made way for Ivica Zubac, and Pascal Siakam kept his own motor purring as an All-Star for a tank team (that's a compliment) and almost everyone else of note took it easy in Hali's absence. The easy times are over: Hali looks ready to avenge whatever it is someone like him feels he needs to avenge. He watched one of his team's biggest rivals – the Pacers sure pick up rivals, don't they? – have a boisterous parade while he fought shingles. He also recalls, without question, that he and his team were the ones to knock out those celebrators the previous two seasons.

Can Hali and the Pacers get it back?

Or will they run into a different foe, a team they've defeated that isn't the team they defeated any longer. A team that has ascended, that has found new life in a higher realm, the anointed sons of basketball Mecca, the prophets of a new era. The chosen ones, to lay it on just a bit thicker, in the event this paragraph can withstand it. The New York Knickerbockers, cursed for decades – sometimes by fate, sometimes by His Airness, sometimes by the ineptitude of their failson boss and his gross lackeys, sometimes even by Reggie Miller – threw off the shackles of their own limitations, excised their feelings of rotational misuse, exorcised whatever demons rooting in their psyches and beat the everloving hell out of all comers, including Victor, who this team somehow made a villain. Jalen Brunson became a god before our eyes, and might have scored a fadeaway middie on God if given the opportunity. O.G. Anunoby ripped through the skies like manna, Karl-Anthony Towns embodied the words catharsis and joy, Mike Brown found vindication and a city – The City – convulsed in glee like we've never seen.

Can the Knicks get it back?

The beautiful thing about basketball is that we don't know we don't know we don't know we don't know we don't know.

Let's find out.

Publishing Note

Cason Wallace and Brandon Miller landed big extensions before the deadline, and the Wolves put another year on Jaden McDaniels' deal, and the Bucks waived Kevin Porter Jr., and Ben Simmons tore his Achilles, which really, really bummed me out. We'll cover these items in future issues of Good Morning It's Basketball. Monday and Tuesday of opening week are soaked with preview content; the NBA's extension deadline is quite inconvenient for the media, and who will think of the media?