A wild December of basketball has brought a new challenger to the forefront, as the San Antonio Spurs have firmly planted their flag as not just the home of a future face of the sport in Victor Wembanyama — but of a team that's championship-ready right now. Meanwhile, one of the month's hottest teams was one you'd least expect, a loyalty legend seems to be on his last legs and one of the NBA's most intriguing duos still remains a mystery.
The last few weeks have given us plenty to overeact to. But what's noise and what's not as we get ready to ring in the New Year?
1. Only the Spurs hold the keys to beating the Thunder
News flash: The Oklahoma City Thunder can bleed. And what felt like a fluky loss in the NBA Cup semis now feels like a real chance for the Spurs to go for the regular-season sweep against the reigning champs. To pile on, Oklahoma City's Christmas Day loss probably exacerbated the urgency from the 20-point beatdown the Thunder suffered against Wemby just two days previous. To quote reigning MVP and Finals MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander after losing to the Spurs on Dec. 25:
""“You don’t lose to a team three times in a row in a short span without them being better than you.”"Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Christma also marked Oklahoma City's third loss in five games, a potential death knell to their '73-9' hopes — and for other championship hopefuls, a potential chink in the armor. Could their offense really be mortal without SGA on the floor? Are they already gassed?
The short answer: No. The long answer: The Thunder's recent stretch says much more about San Antonio than it does about OKC. Two of the Thunder's three losses during that five-game stretch came against the Spurs, and even after all this turbulence, they still boast the highest net rating in league history. And we can talk about the Thunders' dependence on SGA all we want, but they still run deep enough to rest him for the final frame most games, despite having the second-highest box +/- in the league.
To make Christmas Day about OKC is to poo-poo the Spurs. Wemby is fully unique on his own, but their three-guard rotation is the real key to putting pressure on Oklahoma City's perimeter, and no team in the NBA, including the Thunder, can boast a trio the likes of Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper and De'Aaron Fox when all three are clicking. And contrary to popular preseason sentiment, they are clicking a lot.
So yes, Oklahoma City can be taken down. But the only team that has a likely chance to do it over a seven game series is the San Antonio Spurs.
2. The Nets have a Coach of the Year darkhorse candidate
Jordi Fernandez will not catch Detroit's J.B. Bickerstaff in the Coach of the Year race. In fact, no coach likely will. But if one other name deserves a bit of a shout out through the month of December, it's Brooklyn's head man. Under his watch, the Nets have started on a bit of a spoilerish tear, headlined by a 16-point win over Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves over the weekend.
Their win over Minnesota has put Brooklyn on a three-game win streak, up to a 7-3 record for the month. And while that can largely be chalked up to the star turn of Michael Porter Jr. (25.8 PPG, 7.4 RPG, 3.2 APG), it's eye-popping that the Nets' defense has been the best in the league in points allowed per 100 possessions over the last two weeks. Note that the stats compiled by Cleaning the Glass also show that in that same span, Brooklyn has also posted the league's third-best point differential. This has all come, by the way, with the team largely lining MPJ up alongside at least two of their rookies for heavy minutes.
But the real coup that came against Minnesota was Brooklyn's use of Cam Thomas in his return from a 20-game absence. Not only did Thomas go off (30 points), he did so with hyper-efficiency off the bench (20 minutes, 9-of-15 shooting, 43% from 3). Fernandez has seemingly solved the thorny problem of Thomas' place on this team, at least for the time being. And Brooklyn's rookies are all showing signs of legitimate development. These aren't just small things, particularly for a team that many reasonably picked to post a single-digit win total by season's end. Give Fernandez his flowers.
3. The Bucks will miss the playoffs
Here's an interesting stat from Milwaukee's season: As of the start of Week 11, they are 4-0 when Giannis Antetokounmpo logs at least 15 minutes and Ryan Rollins scores 20 points or more. Simple, right?
Except Giannis has already missed 14 games this season, the Bucks are six games below .500 over a third of the way into the season and Rollins' body of work has yet to offer a sample size that would paint a picture of him sustainably averaging north of 20 points per game. Even in the weaker Eastern Conference, 13-19 would not cut it if the playoffs were to begin today, and Milwaukee has yet to string together three straight wins on the season. (A span that includes their time with a healthy Giannis in the lineup.)
Milwaukee's only hope to stay in the playoff hunt, even if Antetokounmpo doesn't end up getting traded, lies in the muddy scrum for the Eastern Conference's play-in slots. Even with Giannis' recent words on how desperate he and his team are willing to get in order to reach the postseason, it's simply too hard to see Milwaukee's supporting cast having enough firepower to catch up with the rest of the East. My bet is that they don't, unless another star completely implodes.
4. The Banchero/Wagner pairing will be just fine
The only question for this season is whether the pairing will be fine enough for the Magic to be true contenders right now. And to be fair to most critics of the two young wings, the answer to that question is likely a "no". Neither Banchero nor Wagner are efficient shooters (22.5% and 36% from 3, respectively), and both have an equally high usage rate of just around 26%. Banchero's numbers are particularly damning, considering his higher draft capital relative to a 2025-26 PER of 16.1 — just north of league average. Throw in his injury history and Orlando's 7-3 record in his early-season absence, and the frustration is palpable for Orlando fans.
However, I would go as far to say that the frustration is a good thing for this team. Regression is never a good thing, but Banchero has been long ahead of schedule his entire career. Relative to his meteoric rise to the top of the NBA, frustration is warranted. But an injury-curbed 2024-25 season, that still shows signs of lingering to this day, has clearly slowed his development down a bit — which, for any other 23-year-old, would be met with much more understanding.
And even in this diminished state, Banchero is part of a starting lineup that outscores opponents by 18 points per 100 possessions, just south of OKC's starters (18.3). It is easy to chalk Orlando's record in his absence, then, up to the acceleration of Desmond Bane and the rest of the supporting cast (and by the way, don't forget that the Magic's putrid start to the season was also when Bane was at his coldest).
Orlando is still revving up, and they simply have too much top-to-bottom talent to even slip into Play-In territory. As the season goes on, don't be surprised if Banchero stays a little hot and cold, as it seems that the injury that sidelined him in 2024-25 might still be affecting him. But even then, to distrust the Magic's ability to accelerate even a little bit seems a little to rich for my blood. The gelling will come, mark my words.