Going into the 2022 NBA Draft, the Chicago Bulls will end up having a lot of options.

One of those options, rumored lately, is the Bulls packaging their no. 18 pick with guard Coby White to try and move up in the draft or even for a veteran contributor. One thing that this rumor has told us, whether or not they trade their pick, is that the Bulls are ready to move on from White.

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With the 2022 NBA Draft set to take place in just three days, the offseason madness is just getting ready to cut loose. The Chicago Bulls have been one team in plenty of rumors and headlines over the past couple of weeks, so buckle up.

Some of the many rumors regarding the Bulls have included a potential trade for Utah Jazz All Star big man Rudy Gobert, a possible trade including guard Coby White and their 18th pick to move up in the draft, as well as the return of Zach LaVine being locked in at this point.

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Thursday night, the Chicago Bulls have an opportunity to infuse even more talent into this roster. The 2022 NBA Draft takes center stage, where the Bulls have the 18th overall pick.

One of the areas the Bulls could look to address during the draft is in their front court. Returning to the Bulls this next season will be starters Nikola Vucevic and Patrick Williams, barring any trade of course.

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There are moments on the court when Chet Holmgren seems less like a basketball player than a figment of a fevered imagination. These moments generally occur after Holmgren either a) blocks a shot and snatches the ball out of the air with a dismissive nonchalance, or b) grabs a defensive rebound. Following these relatively mundane events, and only when the spirit strikes, Holmgren accelerates up the court, each dribble covering about 20 feet, and doesn’t stop until he has slammed the ball through the hoop on the other end.

Holmgren, the most unique and overly dissected player in this year’s NBA draft, is 20 years old and 7 feet tall and weighs less than 200 pounds. He looks like he could raise his hands over his head and shower in a garden hose. His arms extend to a condor-like wingspan of 7-foot-6. When he sits on the court before the game and stretches, soles of his shoes together in front of him, elbows pushing down on the inside of his thighs, his knees drift far enough away to appear disembodied. But this body, in those moments, travels the distance from one hoop to the other with both grace and power, two of the last things you’d guess by looking at him. And that is why, after those moments unfold, it can feel as if the ground is opening to reveal the rarest thing: something entirely new.

For instance: a game against the University of San Francisco, late in Holmgren’s only year at Gonzaga. He grabbed a rebound and took an observational dribble, surveying the court without betraying his intent. Seeing that nobody was taking him seriously, he began to accelerate, suddenly becoming the world’s skinniest big rig. The USF players, who did not at this time believe in the power of limitless possibility, didn’t seem interested in stopping him, each apparently assuming Holmgren would eventually see the ridiculousness of the act and simply stop himself. And so they watched him cross half court, and they watched him cross the free throw line, and they watched him gather himself, hold the ball with both hands, leap into the air and throw it through the hoop with primal force.

Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren, at 7 feet tall and less than 200 pounds, is the most overly dissected player in this year’s NBA draft. He’s also a consensus top-three pick. The1point8 / Carlos Gonzalez For ESPN

These moments are wild, and weirdly difficult to define, and always followed by a period of collective introspection. Holmgren’s kinetic energy is multiplied exponentially by the element of surprise. Nothing in physics accounts for the audacity of an act. As always, the expression on Holmgren’s angular face never changes. Even as everyone around him practices their personal expressions of incredulity — and basketball games provide a master class in performative incredulity — he retains the heavy-lidded, loose-jawed look of the eternally unimpressed.

It always feels like an experiment: What happens if the tallest and most obvious player on the court decides to play the game as if he’s the only one in the gym?

Holmgren, who averaged 14 points, 9.9 rebounds and nearly four blocks per game at Gonzaga, is a consensus top-three pick in the draft, along with Auburn’s Jabari Smith and Duke’s Paolo Banchero. Most prognosticators have Smith going first to Orlando, and Holmgren second to Oklahoma City, but pre-draft posturing is the lingua franca of the NBA. Besides, there are players like Smith and Banchero in every draft: smooth-shooting, sturdy-looking plug-and-play guys who promise to be Harrison Barnes for the next 10 years. There is not, and maybe never has been, anything like Holmgren: a 3-point-shooting 7-footer who handles the ball like a point guard — OK, let’s say a 2-guard — who could play on the wing on offense and lead the league in blocked shots for the foreseeable future.

Talent evaluators and suite-level decision-makers face the same issue as the USF Dons and many others before them; they’ll be forced to wrap their minds around what they’re seeing. In the parlance of the industry, Holmgren is the ultimate high-ceiling/low-floor player. If he plays to the talent, which he did in spurts at Gonzaga, where he followed his high school and AAU teammate Jalen Suggs, he’ll be generational. If his narrow frame gets tossed around the court by the types of large men who get paid fantastical sums to do such things, he could be relegated to roam the game’s exurbs, where his skills would be minimized.

You will no doubt hear the word unicorn a lot on draft night; it has become the easiest and laziest way to describe the uniqueness of Holmgren’s physique and skill set. Unicorn is meant as a compliment, but it is dismissive and unfair, a rhetorical surrender; unicorns — apologies to Kristaps Porzingis — don’t exist. Holmgren is here, flesh and blood and bone and very little fat, and the teams at the top of the draft must deal with the reality of his existence, and what it all might mean.

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The story of Chet Holmgren’s evolution as a basketball player might as well begin at the beginning, when legendary Minneapolis-St. Paul AAU coach Larry Suggs — father of Magic guard and last year’s No. 5 pick and single-season Gonzaga star Jalen Suggs — got a call from a friend who said, “I’ve got just what you need: a 6-foot third-grader who can really play.”

“Tell me more,” the elder Suggs said.

“The kid’s fearless. He can climb trees. He’s always on top of the roof of his house. Linebacker on his football team. He has no fear.”

“Sounds like my type of kid,” Suggs said. “Six-foot, climbing trees, hanging out on the roof, not scared of anything? I’ve got to see him.”

Suggs is sitting in his backyard in a leafy St. Paul neighborhood. He laughs and rolls his eyes. “So then he shows up,” he says, clapping his hands and settling in for a good story. “First of all, this kid wasn’t 6 feet tall. Tall, yes, but not 6 feet tall. And second, think of your worst grammar-school buddy who couldn’t play basketball. Right away in two-line layups you know. Couldn’t make a layup. Couldn’t dribble. He was air-balling.”

Not only that, but Chet Holmgren may or may not have arrived at the gym for that first practice wearing cargo shorts — teammate and friend Cole Ewald says he did — but there’s no question he was gangly and awkward and 8 years old.

“I thought I was good because I played rec league before,” Holmgren says, “but then I walked in there, and everybody was actually good. I realized pretty quickly: I wasn’t good.”

Team Grassroots Sizzle — God love AAU team names — was full of 8-year-olds who played and won tournaments against 11- and 12-year-olds. (Remarkably, eight of them would go on to play Division I football or basketball, and next year two — both top-5 picks, almost assuredly — will be in the NBA.) Holmgren, to his credit, tried as hard as he could during this first practice. He didn’t appear to be discouraged, which was another plus, and Suggs says he detected a flicker of understanding in the way Chet watched the other players, like Jalen, and understood the talent differential.

Holmgren, who averaged 14 points, 9.9 rebounds and nearly four blocks per game at Gonzaga, is as comfortable on the wing as he is in blocking shots. The1point8 / Carlos Gonzalez For ESPN

At some point Suggs became aware of a presence in the doorway. David Holmgren, all 7 feet of him, stood there watching his son. Larry Suggs looked at David, and then back at Chet. Possibilities that didn’t exist seconds before suddenly became possible.

When practice was over, Suggs asked Chet, “So, do you think you can play at the level these guys play at?”

Chet looked him in the eye and said, simply, “No.”

Suggs was impressed by the kid’s self-awareness — “I wouldn’t say I was self-aware at that point in my life,” Holmgren counters, “but I was wired to understand what was happening.” Still cognizant of how the air in the room changed the moment the 7-foot dad entered the gym, Suggs asked the kid one more question:

“Do you want to be as good as these guys?”

“Yes.”

“Then come every day and I’ll teach you the game of basketball,” Suggs said. “But you’ve got to listen.”

David Holmgren played two years at the University of Minnesota, his career cut short by chronic knee issues. He is as lean as his son, and just as tall, and looking at him it’s easy to imagine Chet in roughly 35 years, including the ponytail. David carries himself with a distinct countercultural vibe, and he remembers chafing every time he would get a rebound and a coach would instinctively tell him, “Get it to a guard.” If his son was going to become anything in basketball — and the jury was clearly out at this point — he at least wanted him to learn to do more than stand with his back to the hoop, his hand in the air and a defender behind him. In other words, David didn’t want Chet to become David.

Time and place aligned perfectly. Thanks mostly to the European way of coaching and playing, the basketball world was just beginning to welcome 7-footers who could handle the ball, shoot 3s and defend on the perimeter. Dirk Nowitzki was an MVP. Kevin Durant was the future, and Larry Suggs was a man who believed every player needed to be trained and coached like a point guard.

“He’s not going to be Shaq,” David Holmgren told Suggs. “Look at me. This is what he’s going to be.”

People familiar with Holmgren and his game say he has even more moves off the dribble, more face-up jumpers, and more range that will benefit from the spacing of an NBA offense. The1point8 / Carlos Gonzalez For ESPN

Chet Holmgren was in eighth grade, in the process of growing from 6-2 to 6-10 over the course of a single year — an inch every six weeks! — when Suggs began telling anyone who would listen that this kid would someday be the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft.

Suggs didn’t dash off this prediction without thought. He says Chet was “terrible, just terrible,” for several years before the growth spurt met the drive and everything came together like a lucky laboratory accident. Suggs studied the list of players who would graduate in Chet’s year, and he couldn’t see anyone he would project to be better.

He had watched Chet play endless games of one-on-one with Jalen after practices, and he saw the talent gap close every season as the competitive fire — at times verging on vengeance — grew. He and Brian Sandifer coached Chet to play by their unique philosophy — “European basketball with the iso game of the ’80s,” Suggs says — which meant the tallest kid on the court was often the Sizzle’s point guard. Sandifer was the tough one, bringing a mentality typified by team T-shirts that read, “We Want All The Smoke.” Sandifer watched the crowds and opposing teams and coaches, who were nearly all Black, look at Holmgren skeptically before being won over by his game and toughness. “Chet worked his ass off,” Sandifer says. “If you can play, people respect you. And at the end of the day, if you’re white and you’re that good, you stick out like a sore thumb.”

Sarah Harris, Chet’s mom, says, “David’s been telling me for years that Chet was going to be very good and very special. I kept rolling my eyes. Of course you’re going to say that, you’re his father.”

“I saw it in fourth or fifth grade,” David Holmgren says. “He started doing things with the ball that guards do — fluidly. He was still raw, but at that moment I knew he was going to be pretty good.”

David Holmgren drove Team Sizzle to tournaments across the Midwest and beyond: Milwaukee, Memphis, Chicago. He took the smelly sneakers out of his van and placed them on the roof every time they stopped for food or a bathroom break. “We weren’t spoiled,” Chet Holmgren says. “We were nine-deep in seven-seat cars, five people packed into hotel rooms, air mattresses on the floor. That was the culture — it wasn’t going to be handed to us.”

Ewald recalls a player being offered a spot on the team and choosing to join a different AAU team because it offered better gear. “He went to a team that got shoes,” Ewald says. “We beat them by 20.”

Suggs enlisted a local trainer, Aaron Delaney, to work with Holmgren, and his first words to Delaney were, “I want you to work with an eighth-grader who’s going to be the first pick in the NBA draft.” Delaney, who has trained professional and college athletes in multiple sports, said, “Cool. If he quits on the workout, I won’t work with him again.”

He watched Holmgren walk into the gym for the first time — pale, thin, a little bit hunched — and had one thought:

This is one tall-ass dude.

“I saw it in fourth or fifth grade,” Holmgren’s father, David, says. “He started doing things with the ball that guards do — fluidly. He was still raw, but at that moment I knew he was going to be pretty good.” The1point8 / Carlos Gonzalez For ESPN

But a future first overall pick? This kid? The only thing that kept Delaney from laughing was his respect for Suggs, whose basketball acumen was such that many believed he could see the future.

“I had it planned out: I was going to make him quit,” Delaney says. “I’m just going to break him today and not waste any more of my time. This could all be hype. I needed to see.”

The workout — stability and balance work, muscle-isolation work, Bosu ball work, ending with resistance training — was planned for an hour and 15 minutes. But Holmgren was still going strong, so Delaney added 15 minutes. He looked a little sluggish, like he might be on the verge of breaking, so Delaney added another 15 to push it to an hour and 45 minutes. Holmgren stayed with it, never complaining, and Delaney thought, I like this kid. I can work with him.

From that day forward, for 180 straight days, a streak broken only when Holmgren left to play in the Iverson Classic, he worked out with Delaney. They worked on functional strength and balance without obsessing over weight gain. “You can’t put on more than 10 to 15 pounds safely without losing a step or risking injury,” Delaney says. “And Chet is way stronger than he looks.” Delaney has a video clip on his phone of Holmgren doing a 61-inch box jump, and when he’s asked if Holmgren would be able to bench-press 185 — the amount Durant famously was unable to lift in pre-draft workouts — Delaney says, “Oh, yeah — comfortably.”

In a pre-draft interview with the NBA’s social media team, Holmgren was asked to identify the biggest misconceptions about him: “I actually do lift weights and I actually do eat food.” His parents laugh at the idea that he doesn’t eat. “He never stops eating,” David says. “It’s all metabolism.”

Told that Delaney was trying to make him quit that first day, Holmgren says, “He never told me that part of the plan, but if that’s what he was trying to do, it was never going to work.”

Around the same time Larry Suggs began predicting that Holmgren would one day be the No. 1 pick in the draft (ESPN currently has him in the top three), he began telling anyone who would listen — including Holmgren — that he was destined to be the best American-born white player since Larry Bird.

“He’s said that a bunch of times,” Holmgren says, “and the first time he brought it up to me, I was in middle school. I don’t have a reaction to it, and I wouldn’t say that’s a role that needs to be filled. Nationality and race don’t change the game. What changes the game is skill.”

Holmgren and Magic guard Jalen Suggs have a long history, growing up and playing together in Minnesota and being coached by Suggs’ father, Larry. Orlando has the first pick Thursday. Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

David Holmgren is sitting in his living room, surrounded by dark wood walls and ceilings, a grand piano on one side and a bookshelf filled with hardcovers on the facing wall. There is a “Refugees Welcome Here” sticker on the sidelight of the front door of the six-bedroom, 6,600-square-foot, 107-year-old Georgian Colonial that seems to meet the layman’s definition of mansion. Sarah, who owns her own real-estate consulting firm and is an executive for a local nonprofit that works to provide affordable housing, is on the phone from Santa Barbara, visiting Chet with one of their two daughters — Chet is a middle child — and “trying to bring him some normalcy” while he works out in preparation for the draft.

The house is about four blocks from downtown Minneapolis, in a neighborhood interspersed with apartment complexes and business. A group of Somali women are walking their children to school as I walk up to the front door. David, a painting contractor, grew up near what is now George Floyd Square, a four-block area that radiates from the spot on the pavement near the corner of Chicago Avenue and East 38th Street where Floyd was killed by police. One of David’s high school jobs was at a drugstore in the very same building, the one that eventually became Cup Foods.

In late May 2020, in the aftermath of Floyd’s murder, protests and unrest rage a block away from the Holmgren house. They could smell tear gas from the backyard. Chet, who had just turned 18 and was a junior in high school, refused to stay home. Parents, coaches, friends — they told him not to go out. You’re 7 feet tall and known throughout the city, they told him. You’re going to be a target. But David says his son’s “frustration and anger” overrode the pleas.

“I hoop with everyone in the city,” Chet says. “All my friends and everybody I’ve played with — we’re all of different nationalities and races. Obviously, I can’t put myself in other people’s shoes in every circumstance, but I can sympathize with everybody. I definitely know how different people feel, and I know certain things are wrong and shouldn’t happen.”

Chet left the house alone, wearing all black, and eventually marched across the Interstate 35W Bridge with hundreds of others just minutes before a semi-truck barreled across the closed roadway and narrowly missed taking out a wall of protesters.

Sarah and David were home, watching it live on television. They knew Chet was with that group of protesters, and Sarah calls it “my most terrifying moment as a parent.” Seconds after the truck stopped, Chet called David to pick him up at a gas station. He had left the bridge minutes before.

“I just felt like I had to be out there,” Chet says. “This is part of my community, and it’s because I’m 7 feet and everybody knows me that I needed to associate myself with trying to help and to inspire others to jump in and help. Within my community, people obviously supported that I’m looking for change.”

Orlando, with the first pick, has the opportunity to reunite Holmgren and Jalen Suggs. (“All the way around it makes sense,” Sandifer says. “The basketball makes sense, the business makes sense. Biggest thing since Penny and Shaq.”) Holmgren and Suggs were teammates in AAU from third grade, and for four years and three high school state championships (the fourth was canceled because of COVID-19, but Holmgren won four because he played varsity as an eighth-grader) at Minnehaha Academy. They each played a year at Gonzaga before entering the NBA.

“Jalen’s had as much to do with Chet’s development as anybody,” David Holmgren says. “You know, kids are kids, and when Chet walked into the gym for the first time, it could have been, ‘What’s this geeky white kid doing in here?’ But from the beginning Chet would go straight to Jalen after practice and say, ‘Let’s play one-on-one.’ Jalen would always say, ‘Let’s go.'”

“Jalen is like a big brother to Chet,” Sarah says.

Talk to enough people who knew Chet Holmgren from the beginning, and they’ll each say the same thing: The college game restricted his movement and limited his repertoire, even at Gonzaga, which Holmgren chose in part to play in Mark Few’s high-octane offense. There’s allegedly a lethal George Gervin-style finger roll latent in the skill set, ready to awaken. There are more moves off the dribble, more face-up jumpers, more range that will benefit from the spacing of an NBA offense.

“Just wait,” David Holmgren says. “You’re going to see something a whole lot different than you saw in college. Trust me.”

Any discussion eventually devolves into an endless search for comparisons. Scouts and decision-makers, not to mention commentators, partake in it endlessly. Who does a player remind you of? Who could he possibly become? We have a compunction as a society to know What It All Means, the sooner, the better. Is Holmgren the latest iteration of Kevin Durant? If so, he’s KD with the shot-blocking ability to alter shots and change game plans. Is he Porzingis, tall and skinny and relegated by the game’s sheer mass to a life away from the basket?

So many questions. Has the game finally found, in Holmgren, its utopian ideal of positionless basketball? Or is this moment — the promise, the hope, the horizon-length vision of what Chet Holmgren could be — destined to be the main event?

“He’s always succeeded at every level,” David Holmgren says. “I’ve watched him dominate kids who are 2 years older and 50 pounds heavier. It’s never made a difference, ever. I’m not saying he might not struggle at the beginning, but there’s no way he’s not going to succeed.”

Each of the questions can be distilled down to one: What are we looking at? At this point, Chet Holmgren is an experiment without a working hypothesis, a subject without a valid comparison, a true party of one. And that, no matter how it turns out, is already something entirely different.

Holmgren was photographed at The Maybourne Beverly Hills in California.

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The NBA Finals wrapped up only a few days ago, but The Association’s calendar stops for no one.

This week, the next generation of players will be welcomed into the league when the Orlando Magic begin the 2022 NBA draft Thursday night at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. From there, free agency and summer league will follow, as teams begin blueprinting how they can catch up to the defending champion Golden State Warriors.

Will some of the biggest names worth watching this summer — including Zach LaVine, Bradley Beal and Jalen Brunson — remain with their current teams? Where is the Deandre Ayton saga headed with the Phoenix Suns? How will the Los Angeles Lakers retool around LeBron James and Anthony Davis after last season’s failed run to the playoffs?

Here’s a look at the top 10 questions facing the NBA heading into what should be, as always, an eventful offseason.

Mock draft: First-round changes and lottery movement

1. How will the Warriors reload for their title defense?

Golden State emerged from two seasons in the wilderness by claiming a fourth title in eight years and reestablishing its dynasty. A fifth title, though, will require some expensive decisions.

Kevon Looney, whose interior defense and offensive rebounding played a critical role in the Warriors’ run, is likely to get a significant raise from $5.2 million in 2021-22. The same could be true for Gary Payton II, the Warriors’ defensive ace who, after years of fighting to gain a solid foothold in the NBA, seems set to get more than the minimum for the first time in his career.

Extension decisions also await the Warriors, specifically with Andrew Wiggins, who has one year left on his deal, and Jordan Poole, who is a year away from restricted free agency. After spending a record $350 million in combined payroll and luxury tax payments in 2021-22, the Warriors are on pace to hit $400 million in each of the next two seasons.

2. How will the Lakers retool around LeBron James and Anthony Davis?

When LeBron came to Los Angeles, he had reached the playoffs in 13 straight seasons. In four seasons with the Lakers, he has now missed the playoffs twice — and L.A.’s 33-49 mark this season was the worst of his career. Changing those fortunes will require a lot of work this summer. It began with hiring former Milwaukee Bucks assistant Darvin Ham to replace Frank Vogel as head coach.

Next up? Figuring out how to fill out a roster that, once Russell Westbrook and Kendrick Nunn opt into their deals, as expected, will be sitting right around the luxury tax line with only six players under contract. (That’s presuming Westbrook will remain in Los Angeles next season, which at the moment seems the most likely path forward.)

Like last summer, the Lakers will be forced to fill the remaining nine roster spots with minimum players and the taxpayer’s midlevel exception. That may not be enough to keep one of their few bright spots from last season, unrestricted free-agent guard Malik Monk.

And by the way, James himself has a decision to make in August: whether or not to extend his contract. If he chooses not to, he can be an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2023.

3. Which direction are the Jazz headed?

Utah was expected to face a tumultuous offseason after losing to the Dallas Mavericks in the first round, and that began with coach Quin Snyder resigning from the Jazz after eight successful seasons.

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Now, following two straight disappointing postseason exits, the focus will shift to how Jazz CEO Danny Ainge will reshape this team in his first full offseason in charge — namely whether that will include breaking up the All-Star partnership of Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert after five seasons together.

Without a pick in Thursday’s draft, the Jazz don’t have many options to dramatically change the roster. And of course, there’s the decision Ainge will make on who will succeed Snyder on Utah’s bench, one of two remaining coaching openings in the league. (Charlotte has the other, after Kenny Atkinson accepted the job last week only to reverse on that decision a few days ago, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.)

After 76ers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey was reunited with James Harden at the 2022 trade deadline, it was expected to begin an extended partnership in the City of Brotherly Love.

And while that is still likely to be the case, a disappointing playoff run leaves both sides with decisions. Will Harden choose to opt into his $47 million player option or will he survey the free-agency landscape? Will the two sides agree to a longer-term contract for a lesser number to create some more financial flexibility moving forward?

Elsewhere on Philly’s roster, Danny Green, likely out for all of next season with a knee injury suffered during the playoffs, has a $10 million expiring contract that can be used as a trade chip — along with the No. 23 pick in Thursday’s draft, after Brooklyn opted to take next year’s first-rounder instead as part of the Harden-Ben Simmons trade.

Irving and the Nets have the same set of options as Harden does in Philadelphia.

The Nets, meanwhile, have plenty of decisions to make beyond that, as they try to improve on last season’s disappointing first-round sweep at the hands of the Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics.

Patty Mills has a player option for next season, while one of the team’s best defensive players, Bruce Brown, will be an unrestricted free agent. Nic Claxton, a rim presence at both ends who fills a need in which Brooklyn is in short supply, is a restricted free agent.

The Nets, who must also fill several spots at the end of the bench, are expected once again to be one of the most expensive rosters in NBA history.

6. Will Deandre Ayton remain with the Phoenix Suns?

What a difference a year makes.

In June 2021, the Phoenix Suns were enjoying their first trip to the NBA Finals in nearly 30 years, and Ayton was being praised for his integral role in helping the franchise get there.

But after a second-round exit against the Mavericks thanks to a blowout loss in Game 7 — Ayton was benched for most of that second half — the future of the 2018 No. 1 pick is unclear.

Will Phoenix agree to a sign-and-trade deal with Ayton to reshape the roster and move on from him? Or will he sign an offer sheet elsewhere that would likely lead to the Suns matching?

7. What will Zach LaVine, Bradley Beal and Jalen Brunson do?

The three guards in their mid to late 20s will be unrestricted free agents next month.

LaVine is coming off knee surgery this offseason but is likely to have his choice of max contract offers — though a return to the Chicago Bulls, who traded for him five years ago, seems the most likely outcome. The odds are that Beal will make a similar decision and re-sign with the Washington Wizards once he opts out of the final year of his contract between now and June 30.

The more interesting situation lies in Dallas, where Brunson — a critical part of the Mavericks’ run to the Western Conference finals — will be an unrestricted free agent at 25 years old. After agreeing to a trade for Christian Wood last week, a deal with Brunson could push the Mavericks deep into the luxury tax.

The New York Knicks — a team to which Brunson has many ties, including his father, Rick, who was hired to Tom Thibodeau’s coaching staff this offseason — could make a healthy offer to lure him away. So could the Detroit Pistons, who would provide an intriguing fit for him next to last year’s No. 1 pick, Cade Cunningham.

8. How will the top of the NBA draft shake out?

The top three picks in this year’s draft, per ESPN’s Jonathan Givony, are projected to be Auburn’s Jabari Smith, Gonzaga’s Chet Holmgren and Duke’s Paolo Banchero. The order, however, remains a bit unclear.

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Givony projects Smith to be the Magic’s selection at the top, followed by Holmgren going second to the Oklahoma City Thunder and Banchero going third to the Houston Rockets.

After the top three, things get unpredictable in a hurry. The Sacramento Kings, Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers, Portland Trail Blazers and New Orleans Pelicans have the next five selections.

9. What will the combo guard market look like in free agency?

One of the more intriguing aspects of free agency is how four fairly similar players, restricted free agents Anfernee Simons (Portland) and Collin Sexton (Cleveland Cavaliers) and extension candidates Poole (Golden State) and Tyler Herro (Miami Heat), wind up being paid. All four are explosive offensive players with, shall we say, questionable defensive abilities.

Simons is likely to stay in Portland, particularly after CJ McCollum was dealt midseason to clear a spot next to Damian Lillard for him. Sexton’s free agency will be interesting, as he missed virtually the entire season after undergoing meniscus surgery — and Cleveland already has lots of money on its books moving forward.

Both Poole and Herro will be fascinating extension candidates, as they both have played big parts in Finals runs — Poole in Golden State’s title run this year, and Herro helping Miami make the Finals two years ago.

10. How many of the top players in the 2019 draft class will be extended right away?

The Memphis Grizzlies and Ja Morant will all but certainly agree to a max contract extension at the start of free agency. But three of the other top five picks in the 2019 NBA draft — Zion Williamson (New Orleans Pelicans), RJ Barrett (New York) and Darius Garland (Cleveland) could have slightly more complex negotiations.

Both Williamson and Pelicans vice president of basketball operations David Griffin have talked about re-signing with New Orleans, but after playing a combined 85 games across his first three NBA seasons — including zero in 2021-22 — there could be some negotiating surrounding potential guarantees in the deal as protections for New Orleans moving forward.

Barrett could become the first Knick to be extended off his rookie contract since Charlie Ward in 1999. Despite Barrett making improvements across his first three seasons, it could be a complicated negotiation ahead for both sides, particularly if Barrett is looking for something close to a max extension.

Garland, on the other hand, will be looking for something in that range after a breakout third season that saw him make his first All-Star Game and finish third in Most Improved Player voting.

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By now you know the Golden State Warriors defeated the Boston Celtics to win the NBA Finals in a six-game series that was almost as unpredictable as Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid‘s Twitter activity. What you might not know: How you’re going to fill the gaping hole in your evening plans where watching elite-level basketball used to reside.

While we can’t help you with that particular conundrum, we can make you feel even more nostalgic for the 2021-22 season by regaling you with some of the defining #NBATwitter moments of the past nine months — we’re already in our feelings, so might as well go full send.

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If you’re not familiar with the mammoth sports community that is #NBATwitter (weird, but OK), some of this might be news to you. If you are well-versed in the space, most of this will likely be a refresher. Either way, you can think of the following as an #NBATwitter yearbook of sorts. HAGS … that’s “have a good summer” for the untrained eye.

The birth of Bing Bong

Linsanity walked, so “Bing Bong” could run. The New York Knicks‘ season was off to such a strong start … until it wasn’t. The subway doors-inspired rallying cry — which was adopted by fans and took on a life of its own — lasted longer than the Knicks’ winning record, but all the “Bing Bong” hoopla still made for some fun nights on NBA Twitter.

On this particular night, after Orlando handed New York its first loss of the season, it was probably a little more fun for Magic fans.

You really do hate to see it.

Sweatergate

It was a choice. Kyle Kuzma took a (large) risk when he decided to step out in an oversized, pink sweater on Nov. 22. Fashion-forward (and sometimes outlandish) fits have long been ingrained in the fabric of the Association, but this was something else entirely.

To say #NBATwitter took notice would be putting it mildly.

The Raf Simons sweater, priced at a cool $1,360.94, also elicited feedback from the Washington Wizards forward’s former Los Angeles Lakers teammates.

“Ain’t no f—ing way you wore that!!!” LeBron James commented on Kuzma’s Instagram post. “I’m not pressing the like button cause this is outrageous Kuz!” Anthony Davis echoed LeBron’s sentiment, writing “You’re outta line sir!!!!”

Now you’re just somebody KD used to know

Listen, the basketball gods did James Harden no favors in letting news of his trade from the Brooklyn Nets to the Philadelphia 76ers break the same day as the NBA All-Star draft. Meanwhile, team captain Kevin Durant did his former teammate no favors in passing on selecting him seven times.

Durant using his last pick on Rudy Gobert instead of Harden? Wildly uncomfortable. LeBron’s reaction? Priceless.

Troel Embiid has entered the chat

Speaking of salty reactions from ex-teammates, Joel “Troel” Embiid had thoughts about the trade that sent Harden to Philly along with Paul Millsap in exchange for Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, Andre Drummond and draft picks.

The king of cryptic tweets enlisted the help of a Twitter meme to make his formerly diplomatic feelings perfectly clear about Simmons, who was once viewed as his forever running mate.

On the off chance you’re not eternally online, the photo originated from an Instagram user who posted that he showed up at “one of my biggest haters’ funeral” just to ensure his hater was deceased.

Embiid’s Simmons send-off wasn’t the only time Troel raised eyebrows online this season. During Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals between the Celtics and Heat, he turned to Twitter fingers to lament Miami’s need for another star.

Given the Heat had eliminated the 76ers in the previous round of the playoffs — and Embiid’s close relationship with ex-Philly teammate and current Miami star Jimmy Butler — the response from #NBATwitter was fast and frenzied, with many fans convinced Embiid was eyeing a move to South Beach.

LeBron’s deleted tweet … and other musings

The thing about the internet is you can’t really take something back. Even if you change your mind or think better of a tweet a few hours later, once you hit “send,” it’s out there — this lesson rings especially true if your name is LeBron James and you have over 51.5 million followers.

So was the case with the following message LeBron shared on Aug. 4, 2021, about the Lakers’ offseason moves: “Keep talking about my squad, our personnel ages, the way he plays, he stays injured, we’re past our time in this league, etc etc etc. Do me one favor PLEASE!!!! And I mean PLEASE!!! Keep that same narrative ENERGY when it begins! That’s all I ask.”

If the above hadn’t already been deleted by LeBron, it would have no doubt been fodder for @OldTakesExposed and the like as the Lakers’ season imploded.

For King James’ sake, here’s hoping his April 22 tweet in which he vowed to never miss the postseason again during his career ages better.

Tee Morant has a series

While being the father of up-and-coming Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant is a cool claim to fame in its own right, being a dead ringer for Usher makes for a better party trick. It’s also more useful for being featured on a “Look-Alike” cam.

On April 16, a tweet likening Morant’s father, Tee, to the eight-time Grammy-winning R&B singer had #NBATwitter doing a double take. The only thing left to do was to get Tee and Usher in a room together. On April 26, the Grizzlies delivered.

The uncanny Usher resemblance was just one of the reasons Tee took center stage during the postseason. Earlier in Memphis’ first-round series he made a wager with Minnesota Timberwolves star Karl-Anthony Towns’ father that called for the losing dad to wear the jersey of the winning son.

Not only did Morant win the bet, he quite possibly scored some Usher tickets in the process. Not bad for a series’ work.

The saga of the ‘Luka Special’

Underestimate Luka Doncic at your own peril. It’s a lesson Devin Booker & Co. learned firsthand during the Western Conference semifinals. The series between the Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks was heated from the start. But one particular Game 5 moment would become a gift that keeps on giving for the #NBATwitter faithful.

In the third quarter, as the Suns were blowing out the Mavs, Dorian Finney-Smith fouled Booker as the Phoenix guard was driving to the hoop. Booker went down on the floor and stayed there to sell the foul. As a courtside fan captured, he wasn’t injured, rather having a laugh. He then proceeded to call what he was doing the “Luka Special.”

As you’ll recall, the Mavs went on to win Game 6 and force a Game 7 in which the +6.5 underdogs blew out the Suns 123-90. Dallas was led by Doncic, who had 35 points, 10 boards and 4 assists in only 30 minutes in the win. “You can’t get this smile off my face right now,” Doncic said after the victory. “I’m just really happy.”

Once fans unearthed a photo of Luka uninhibitedly smiling at Book in Game 6, the “Luka Special” took on new meaning.

The Dallas Fort Worth airport even got involved.

Nothing says “taking an L” quite like getting trolled by a public transportation hub.

Pat Bev slanders CP3

DBook wasn’t the only one taking flak after the Suns’ untimely exit from the postseason. On the morning after the Game 7 blowout, Timberwolves guard Patrick Beverley joined First Take and Get Up! to share his thoughts on what happened — and did he ever.

Beverley, who admittedly has had beef with Chris Paul since high school, held absolutely nothing back. He even went as far as to compare the 12-time All-Star to a practice cone.

#NBATwitter came alive in support of CP3, with the general consensus being: You don’t say that.

Curry predictions

Not to reignite the ol’ Stephen Curry vs. LeBron James rivalry, but in a tale of two proclamations, one aged considerably better than the other. While LeBron’s defense of the Lakers’ shift to a relatively older roster was for naught, Curry’s declaration after being eliminated by the Grizzlies in the play-in tournament in 2021 proved to be spot on.

But long before the Warriors hoisted the Larry O’Brien Trophy for the fourth time in eight seasons and Steph earned a previously elusive Finals MVP award, it was Candace Parker who was manifesting for the Golden State star. Ahead of the Warriors’ Nov. 8 game against Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks, Parker said Steph would have a 50-piece.

A casual 50 points and 10 assists later, and the Chicago Sky star was looking prophetic.

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PRACTICE BEFORE GAME 2 of the NBA Finals had not begun yet but rookies Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody took a moment on the Golden State Warriors bench to soak up the rare atmosphere inside Chase Center.

Everywhere their young eyes turned, there was a not-so-subtle reminder of exactly where they were. Flashing repeatedly on the gigantic big screen, on the LED board that wraps around the arena, on the scorer’s table and even on the seats they were sitting in, the NBA Finals cursive-script logo and Larry O’Brien Trophy were impossible to miss.

“What do you think?” Kuminga asked Moody as they looked at the Finals signage.

“What do you think when it’s us running this team one day?”

While Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green were fortifying the Golden State dynasty by winning their fourth championship in eight years and defeating the Boston Celtics, the Warriors were also doing something that no champion in recent memory has done. As coach Steve Kerr put it, the Warriors were also “raising” two 2021 NBA lottery picks during this title run and hoping the championship masterclass Kerr and his Big Three delivered each day of their quest left a permanent imprint on the pair.

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“They’re going to have to [eventually] chart their own course, and fight their own fight,” said Bob Myers, the Warriors’ president of basketball operations. “They’re lucky that they get to see what it looks like.

“Steph, Klay and Draymond never got this advanced kind of scouting on what the Finals is and the playoffs. They had to go through it and find a path. This is why it’s huge for young guys to just taste it, see it and hopefully crave it.”

Kuminga and Moody will be parading down Market Street in San Francisco with the Larry O’Brien Trophy during Monday’s Warriors championship parade, nearly a year after they were drafted.

Kuminga and Moody are the first rookie lottery-pick teammates to play in the NBA Finals, and they are the youngest pair of teammates to win a championship, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Add on 2020 No. 2 overall pick James Wiseman — who missed this past season because of a knee injury, though Myers says he is expected to go through contact soon and participate in next month’s summer league — and Golden State returns a trio of lottery picks in their third season or less for the title defense.

The tradeoff of going through the misery of losing Thompson to two devastating injuries and Curry to a wrist injury, enduring 50 losses in 2019-20 and not making the playoffs for two straight seasons is a championship core and a new generation of lottery talent to groom in Wiseman, Kuminga and Moody. Along with 23-year-old Jordan Poole, the young players will push for more significant roles next season.

Green had his doubts earlier this past season about whether this was the recipe for another championship: a combination of experienced vets and young first-round picks to develop.

“When you look around at how championship teams have historically been built, unless it is a super young team like the Warriors early on that had veterans around us, then you just really haven’t seen it before,” Green said. “Historically, we just hadn’t seen it work.”

Golden State resisted the urge to trade away its future to add more experience after it started the season 27-6, and the Warriors made it back to the NBA mountaintop again. While most defending champs have to find creative ways to keep key players and improve, the Warriors next season will boast a pair of homegrown lottery picks who enter their second year with invaluable playoff and Finals experience, no matter how little they played.

Now, the Warriors’ championship DNA also flows through Kuminga and Moody.

“Most people spend their career chasing that,” Green said. “And worried like, I need to get to this team, I need to be around these guys, we need that coach. If you are not a loser, which we have a bunch of come through this league, then you worry about that your entire career.

“For them to not have that worry moving forward, like you already have that stamp of ‘I’m a champion.’ Now everything you do from there, you can do it from a different space. You are not chasing anything or really wanting for that, which some people never get.”

THE INTOXICATING AROMA of champagne can be detected down the hallway from the visitor’s locker room in TD Garden after Golden State’s triumph over Boston in six games. Kuminga and Moody are soaking in something no rookie lottery-pick teammates have ever experienced.

As Warriors players go to take professional photos with the championship trophy, Kuminga, 19, holds it like a baby, nestling it into his left arm. Moody, who turned 20 last month, holds the greatest prize in the sport like an expensive guitar.

The Warriors’ grizzled veterans hope that this moment isn’t lost on the duo they’ve been trying to raise all season long into NBA champs.

“They’re 19-year-old kids,” said Andre Iguodala, who started his pro career in 2004, two years after Kuminga was born. “They’re supposed to be on college campuses learning about themselves, who they are as people, what they like instead of these guys making five-plus million dollars a year, got all the pressures, the madness of having money and being in the spotlight. You can become jaded. You can start taking these things for granted.”

This was Iguodala’s seventh NBA Finals. And he made sure to tell Kuminga and Moody to record this moment, even “take pictures.”

Articulating these tips to teens without sounding like a parent can be tricky at times with the generational gap.

Green noticed earlier this past season that every time he saw Kuminga walk by him, the teen would “start laughing.”

“I’m 32 and he’s 19,” Green said. “And what I like to do may just not be cool to him. … Imagine when you see one of the old heads doing something. … You’re really laughing at the fact that that’s so old-school that it’s funny.

“That’s how I feel like he was looking at me, like, ‘Dude, you’re just old. You move old. You look old.'”

Kuminga — a raw forward from Congo drafted No. 7 overall after playing one season with the G League Ignite — has had to be more patient than some of his lottery peers. Kuminga played a total of eight minutes in the NBA Finals. He averaged 9.3 points in 70 regular-season games and 5.2 PPG in 16 playoff appearances.

The Golden State Warriors beat the Boston Celtics 4-2 in the Finals.

GAME 6: GS 103, BOS 90
o Curry captures first Finals MVP
o Stars hit social media to congratulate Warriors

GAME 5: GS 104, BOS 94
o Whatever it takes: How Warriors won G5
o Warriors are suffocating C’s game plan

GAME 4: GS 107, BOS 97
o Curry’s epic game changes series
o Celtics, Warriors need their big men

GAME 3: BOS 116, GS 100
o C’s use size, quickness to regain control
o Curry in unfamiliar underdog territory

GAME 2: GS 107, BOS 88
o Steph was a problem for the Celtics
o C’s lament more third-quarter woes

GAME 1: BOS 120, GS 108
o Boston’s win one year in the making
o Celtics beat Dubs at their game

“I learned that he was a freakish athlete,” said Warriors center Kevon Looney, who will be a free agent along with Gary Payton II and Otto Porter Jr. “He’s one of those different type of athletes … like the best athletes in the NBA, Andre at his peak, guys like LeBron.”

The 6-foot-7 forward started 12 games as a rookie and played some key playoff minutes in the second round against Memphis when Green was ejected in Game 1 for a flagrant foul 2, and in Game 2 when Green needed stitches after being hit in the eye. Kuminga also scored 18 points in Golden State’s blowout win over Memphis in Game 3 and 17 points twice in blowout losses against Memphis and Dallas, respectively.

While other rookies such as Orlando’s Franz Wagner (No. 8 overall) and Sacramento’s Davion Mitchell (No. 9 overall) logged more minutes in the regular season on non-contenders, Kuminga had to bide his time and learn.

But unlike the other lottery picks, Kuminga and Moody now have championship experience.

“I never really worry about whether we’re playing, not playing,” Kuminga said. “As long as I’m still here, learning, getting better every day. When my moments get called, I know I’ll be ready. … Everybody here [is] just helping me, way more than dudes [other rookies around the league] are, wherever they are right now.”

Moody, who was drafted after one season at Arkansas, is the more polished rookie. But the shooting guard is still learning from two of the greatest shooters in the game in Curry and Thompson. He also has the emerging Poole ahead of him.

Still, Kerr played the 6-6 Moody in the Western Conference finals against Dallas, and the guard’s 65 minutes were the most in a conference finals by a teenager since Kobe Bryant’s 87 minutes in 1998. Like Kuminga, Moody played sparingly in the Finals, seeing a total of 10 minutes. During the regular season, Moody averaged 4.4 points in 52 games.

Curry, though, repeatedly lauded Moody’s approach and habits, noticing how the rookie works like an experienced veteran every day with the same intensity no matter how little playing time he was getting.

“It’s amazing to see the result in just one short year,” Curry said. “Him coming into a playoff series in the middle of the Western Conference finals and making an impact.

“That’s the stuff you’ll probably look back on and be really proud of because there’s a lot of instability around this league. Not everybody has the infrastructure and the presence to bring guys along like that.”

IN THE MIDDLE section of the Warriors’ team plane on their flight to Boston for Game 6, Myers saw Curry, Thompson and Green sitting together at the same table, laughing and joking.

Myers couldn’t help but appreciate the rarity of the moment. A trio of All-Stars, still enjoying each other’s company after a decade on the same team.

“I think they see it,” Myers said of Kuminga, Moody and Wiseman. “I hope it registers. I’m sure it does, but it might register differently with each of them. They’re all different too. Just like Steph, Klay and Draymond are different. … It’s almost like a band, that the personalities complement each other and that’s how you stay willing to sit next to each other when you don’t have to.”

Perhaps Kuminga and Moody will produce the same championship hits as their predecessors once it is their turn. All they know is, they are world champions already.

“If you give a pig a pancake, then he wants some syrup,” Moody said. “Once I get the championship, you’re going to want something else.”

As for when their turn will come to run the Warriors, Kuminga and Moody will have to wait before the Curry, Thompson and Green era is ready to hand the reins over.

“Eventually, years from now, they’ll pass the baton and see what the other guys can do,” Myers said.

“But it’s a tough act to follow, I’ll tell them that. It’s about as tough of an act to follow as you can find, whoever’s next in line to try to carry that baton.”

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Of course, Duncan Keith is one of the greatest players to ever play for the Chicago Blackhawks. In fact, there is a case to be made that he is the best defenseman in franchise history. Not many people would argue with it. However, there is a chance that he could hurt his old team this offseason.

The Blackhawks traded Duncan Keith to the Edmonton Oilers last summer. He had a really nice year with his new club as they reached the Western Conference Finals before being eliminated by the Colorado Avalanche.

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