NBA Power Rankings: Shake Milton and Tim Duncan’s new campaign

In this week’s NBA Power Rankings, Tim Duncan starts a campaign, Shake Milton gets his chance and more.

Last week we debuted a new format for our NBA Power Rankings, a non-traditional structure for a non-traditional era of professional basketball. The world is no longer just about wins and losses and teams are no longer the primary crucible of basketball power. So each week we’ll be dissecting how basketball power is presently distributed — between players, teams, friendships, diss tracks, aesthetic design choices and whatever else has a temporary toehold in this ever-changing landscape.

Who has the power in this week’s NBA Power Rankings?

On Monday, Chris Haynes of Yahoo!, reporting from the NBA’s bubble, tweeted that no one had used the league’s “snitch hotline” yet, pointing to any potential violations of the quarantine protocols. Either things ramped up a quickly on Tuesday, or Haynes wasn’t given the whole story because Shams Charania tweeted that afternoon that “multiple tips” had been placed and that several players had received warnings.

Normally, snitching is a morally gray area but the present circumstances present any tips with a veneer of altruism. However, it’s also a tool that could conceivably be misused. Put in an anonymous tip about an opponent and watch them entangled in a stressful investigatory process that adds stress to an already stressful situation. We don’t really know how the dynamic of the bubble will reshape competitive advantages but snitching seems like a useful, if unethical, tool.

As to why this item has an Oklahoma City Thunder logo on it, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

The Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies joined the NBA together for the 1995-96 season. It was a different time and uniforms of that era featured a different and regrettably cartoonish aesthetic.

The logos probably seemed like genius when they were approved but, in retrospect, they’re a time capsule of irrelevancy — like an “I Love Christian Slater” tattoo or a copy of Kuffs on laserdisc. They graced some of the goofiest jerseys in the history of sports but they still have their devoted fans. And those fans are going to get a treat — on Aug. 9, the Grizzlies and Raptors will play each other wearing throwbacks in these original designs. So grab your old Big Country Reeves jersey, throw it on over your giant JNCOS and enjoy.

It was reported yesterday that Tim Duncan will not be joining the rest of the Spurs’ coaching staff inside the bubble. He is staying behind with other staffers, “to help supervise the rehabilitation of forward LaMarcus Aldridge.” As a non-medical staff member, one would imagine that Duncan’s responsibilities here won’t be too time-consuming. Even if Aldridge is back on the practice court working on rebuilding muscle memory for his post moves, they could easily wrap in the early afternoon in time for some light dungeon exploration.

Duncan’s Dungeons & Dragons hobby has always been a bit of endearing nerdishness to wrap around his earnest facade. But this much one-on-one time with Aldridge could allow him to really build out that campaign he’s been working on for years, and give LaMarcus a taste for what real role-playing looks like.

Rumor has it (a rumor that I made up) that this campaign Duncan has been working on is set in a world of his own creation. It takes place primarily on a tropical island continent and concerns the malevolent machinations of a group of violent, Highlander-style demi-gods who draw their power from the island’s many volcanoes and the group of insurgent humanoid hydro-wizards who are fighting for to bring a lasting peace to the only world they’ve ever known. Aldridge would presumably play as a young apprentice hydro-wizard drawn into the world of intrigue. No word yet on whether Brent Barry will be playing as well.

According to Brett Brown, Shake Milton is the Philadelphia 76ers new point guard, a move that has been whole-heartedly endorsed by Joel Embiid. On paper, there are plenty of positives here — it keeps Embiid happy and potentially puts Ben Simmons in a position to use his passing and creation abilities more efficiently. It also adds shooting to the core rotation, splits up the Al Horford-Embiid logjam that’s been so ineffective and doesn’t sacrifice any of Simmons’ defensive value or versatility.

It also puts a tremendous spotlight on Milton who (admittedly not entirely on his own) is pushing a 24-year-old, two-time All-Star to play out of position.

Milton played just 611 minutes for the 76ers this season but he was impressive when he was on the court — averaging 17.9 points, 4.2 assists, 4.0 rebounds and 1.1 steals per 36 minutes, and shooting 45.3 percent on 3-pointers. At 6-foot-5, he’ll help the 76ers maintain the size advantage they hold over most lineups and he’s now made 39.6 percent of 341 3-point attempts across his NBA and G League minutes. Simmons is still going to handle the ball plenty and Emiid has said he wants the offense to run through him more anyway. Milton isn’t going to have responsibility for single-handedly creating offensive efficiency where it hadn’t been before. He’s going to be a secondary creator and floor-spacer who has to hold up on defense, it’s the role he was born to play.

It may seem like the spotlight on Milton will come with pressure but the 76ers are trying to shake up what was already a disappointing formula. If this doesn’t work, Brown is going to take more heat than Milton. If it does work, Milton gets to ride the narrative of him as the spackle that covered all the holes in the Embiid-Simmons foundation. It’s a win-win.

Also, the guy’s nickname is Shake. He should get a permanent spot on the rankings just for that.