Timberwolves point guard Mike Conley has been named the NBA’s Teammate of the Year for the 2023/24 season, the league announced today (via Twitter). The Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year award “recognizes the player deemed the best teammate based on selfless play, on- and off-court leadership as a mentor and a role model to other players, and commitment and dedication to team,” per the NBA. The award isn’t voted on by media members. A panel of league executives select the 12 finalists (six from each conference) for the award, while current players vote on the winner. Players receive 10 points ..read more

The NBC is making a strong play for the right to broadcast NBA games beginning in 2025/26, according to Joe Flint, Amol Sharma, and Isabella Simonetti of The Wall Street Journal (subscription required). People familiar with the situation tell the WSJ trio that Comcast’s NBCUniversal is prepared to pay $2.5 billion per year for a package of NBA games. As we wrote last week, Amazon Prime Video is in strong position to become a broadcast partner for the NBA, with ESPN/ABC (Disney) also making good progress in talks. After operating with just two partners (ESPN/ABC and TNT) in its current med ..read more

Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens has been named the NBA’s Executive of the Year for the 2023/24 season, the league announced today (via Twitter). In his third season as the Celtics’ head of basketball operations after eight years as the team’s head coach, Stevens put together a dominant Boston roster that posted a 64-18 record, easily the best mark in the NBA, along with a +11.7 net rating, the third-best mark in league history. The Celtics were coming off a 57-win season in 2022/23, but Stevens shook up the roster drastically last summer, trading away longtime defensive ..read more

The Clippers‘ acquisition of James Harden during the opening weeks of the 2023/24 regular season was met with mixed reviews at the time of the trade, then major skepticism after the team lost its first five games with the former MVP in uniform. However, as Mirjam Swanson of The Orange County Register writes, Harden has been indispensable in the first round for Los Angeles with star forward Kawhi Leonard ailing. Harden has played over 39 minutes in each of the Clippers’ four playoff games so far. He leads the team in postseason scoring (26.0 PPG), has been L.A.’s top play-maker (7.0 APG), has a ..read more

The Suns will take “a hard look” at a coaching change after being swept out of the playoffs by Minnesota, sources tell Shams Charania and Doug Haller of The Athletic. If Frank Vogel is retained, management will consider making adjustments to his staff, according to the authors, who add that general manager James Jones will be kept in his current role. Vogel still has four seasons remaining on the $31MM contract he received when he was hired last June. He was 49-33 in his first year with Phoenix and the team made a late charge to claim the sixth seed in the West, but there were concerns by the ..read more

While there has been some chatter about Mike Brown‘s contract situation since the Kings‘ season ended last week, Brown denied on Wednesday that the issue is “top of mind” as he enters the summer, according to Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee. “It’s not, really, at the end of the day,” Brown said. “I have one year left on my deal. Everybody knows that, but I’m excited about being here. I’m excited about our future, so I’m going to go into this summer trying to figure out how we can be better next year.” Brown technically has two years left on his contract, but the 2025/26 season is a mutual ..read more

Kings head coach Mike Brown told reporters, including Sean Cunningham of Fox 40 KTXL (Twitter link), that assistant coach Luke Loucks will move to a front-of-bench role after Jordi Fernandez‘s departure to Brooklyn. Brown added that assistant Doug Christie will likely coach Sacramento’s Summer League team, though that isn’t set in stone. After winning a tiebreaker with Golden State, there’s now a 92.9% chance the Kings will end up with the No. 13 overall pick in June’s draft. GM Monte McNair said Sacramento is “excited” about the prospects who could be available at that spot, but the team wil ..read more

Timberwolves big man Naz Reid has been named the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year, the league announced on Wednesday evening (via Twitter). A former undrafted free agent, Reid averaged 13.5 PPG, 5.2 RPG and 0.9 BPG on .477/.414/.736 shooting in 81 games this season (24.2 MPG). The other two finalists for the award were Kings guard Malik Monk and Bucks big man Bobby Portis. Monk appeared in 72 games this season for Sacramento, all off the bench. He averaged 15.4 PPG, 2.9 RPG and 5.1 APG on .443/.350/.829 shooting in 26.0 MPG. Portis, who also finished third last season, averaged 13.8 PPG and 7 ..read more

De’Aaron Fox says it’s impossible to think of this Kings season as anything but a major disappointment, he told Hunter Patterson of The Athletic. Sacramento was bounced in the play-in tournament. “You want to continue to play for more,” Fox said. “I don’t think we were bad this year, but obviously the West got tougher and I don’t think we stepped up to that plate. … We took a step backward a little bit as a team. We still have things we can continue to get better at as a group.” In the same story, Patterson notes that Keon Ellis and Kevin Huerter could have a spirited battle for the Kings’ st ..read more

Tiebreakers among teams with identical regular-season records were broken on Monday through random drawings to determine the order for this year’s draft prior to the lottery. The results are as follows, according to a press release from the league: Charlotte Hornets (No. 3) over Portland Trail Blazers (No. 4). Note: The Hornets will get one more lottery ball combination (out of 1,000) than the Trail Blazers. Sacramento Kings (No. 13) over Golden State Warriors (No. 14) Note: The Kings will get one more lottery ball combination (out of 1,000) than the Warriors. Note: The Warriors will send ..read more