Eastern Surprises

Nobody's shocked that Detroit won 14 of 16 to start the season. Surprised, surely, but not put off by the Piston ascent. This team was good last season, won some close games in the regular season before losing some closer ones in the playoffs.

But everyone improved, and quickly, which I did not anticipate because I'm daft. The Pistons should win on Monday, taking down the Pacers, a 15-2 mark is beyond even Michigan's wildest anticipations. But we're nearly there, proving nothing healthy should knock Detroit out of the top-three in the East in 2025-26. That's a surprise, especially once we stack all these box scores.

The Pistons are, infamously by this point, third-to-last in three-point attempts. Fifth-worst in makes, a passable No. 18 in percentage, and yet a top-ten offense. Nobody lives at the free throw line, there are no Hall of Famers to brush with two free points. Rather, buckets. And second chances at buckets, eagerly eagerly accumulated: Jalen Duren (No. 4), Isaiah Stewart (23rd) and Ausur Thompson (No. 45) are in the top-50 in offensive rebounding rating.

These are not blowout wins but comfortable ones, Detroit throws Pistons at the opponent until the other team wears out. Teams load up on Cade Cunningham dribbling around pylons and teams are correct to, the problem is teams have a tough time stopping those pylons once they turn to life and grab the loose ball.

The Pistons have a nine that cannot be beat, plus Caris LeVert and Tobias Harris switching in and out as their podiatrists suggest, plus whatever we're getting from Jaden Ivey this season, he scored ten off the bench in his debut.

Yo, that's a lot. Especially in this East.

The Ivey case is curious, I watched a lot of this guy in college and wasn't completely bowled over, while acknowledging that the athleticism on these sorts of scenesters (Dwyane Wade's 2003 spring at Marquette falls to mind) sometimes catches up on me. Ivey's athleticism did not catch up or catch down on the NBA in his first three seasons, and then he broke his leg.

But he's a coach's kid, he was hitting threes (63-154, over 40 percent) in 2024-25 before the setback, and Jaden is only 23. Most importantly, he's worked with Cunningham since the beginning, even if the injuries often separated the two. Ivey's only professional experience is alongside Cade Cunningham, and then Ivey got to watch Cade Cunningham's emergence from the sidelines. Ivey knows what he has to do to fit in, thrive. This isn't some stranger they just traded for.

This is no fluke, this is not a group learning its way through fitful games and waiting for Malik Beasley to show them where the orange goes. This is a deep and talented group which hasn't even begun to get silly with lineups. Ron Holland, friends. Ron Holland defends five basketball positions at an age when most young men (likely including Ron) cannot defend their own wardrobe. Or facial hair designs.

The NBA's second-best defense is in place because Duren stays out there. Teams are still afraid of his fouls, a motivation which is wonderfully heightened when Jalen shares the starting floor with Isaiah Stewart, a notably powered forward. Daniss Jenkins' off-ball size and shooting (47 percent from deep) carried a few wins, but similarly beneficial is the way Jenkins and Duncan Robinson (44 percent on threes) hold serve defensively. There is nothing out there J.B. Bickerstaff has to yank off the floor.

Plus Paul Reed. PLUS BASKETBALL PAUL.

SURPRISED

Big ratings!

Not just better ball, though that's the prime reason, social media teemed with NBA wows-em-overs during October and November. But fun TV.

More people stream, apparently. More people have these apps than a basic cable service, and the numbers of television viewers unable to watch TNT or TBS on their sets – sorry, screens – grows by the day.

New networks provided fresh energy. Not simply the newly-signed personalities on set but the production ideas behind the broadcast. The techniques and the colors and the framing and thank goodness Peacock leaves a camera on huddling players during visitor introductions.

Turner wasn't doing anything incorrect with its approach, but it had been doing it for a long time. ESPN? Repeatedly incorrect with its approach.

Save for one move.

SURPRISED

They took SAS off NBA Countdown.

It is always a good bet to believe that those with power will keep it, but ESPN is bigger than SAS, taller in ways which lets ESPN see the future. Don't give them credit or this. You wouldn't give MTG credit for her attempts at foresight, don't hand it to ESPN.

Smith doesn't know and doesn't care about the NBA. ESPN realizes this, hurries him off somewhere comfortable before Kendrick Perkins turns insufficient at barring the door from the roiling outside crowd.

We're gathering, Kendrick.

Even front-running doofuses and idealess corporations get the clue sometimes, witness the flights we're watching outta Washington. SAS can get away with this schtick with NFL fans because he enjoys the NFL, knows the names of the players and occasionally watches NFL games, NFL fans respond to this. NBA fans tuned him out back when Isiah ran the Knicks when it became apparent SAS did not have League Pass.

This man's legacy should age like a Raisinete stuck between grills of a heating vent. If "playing solitaire at press row during an NBA Finals game" isn't in the first 100 words of his obituary, well, they better have someone to bar that door that can stop my broad shoulders.

I broke into a house once, my own basement apartment in Roscoe Village. I'd left French bread with Buddig ham under the broiler and locked myself out taking the trash out to the alley. Convinced the building was about to explode, I lowered my shoulder and thought of the my football coach from fifth grade. I wonder if he thinks of me, I wonder what epithet his wife still lets him use for me.

SURPRISED

Toronto.

Watch college football? Ever been in the middle of a rather satisfying early-season win for your club? A 28-10 thumping of a visiting opponent who is rarely ranked? Every other Saturday is a challenge but today is one-sided, 28-10, the most your team will win by all season. Something to feel proud over in spite of the limited pigskin competition behind those ten points.

Then you spot the ticker. Some No. 4 team from the SEC is beating its similarly unheralded opponent 58-3, essentially doubling your team's efforts.

Why can't that ever be your club, winning by 55 over a trash team? I don't want to give too much away, Wayne told me not to, but this is what inspired Don and Walt to write "Deacon Blues."

The Raptors beat Washington by 30 on Friday night, clearly delineating the difference between the two. Toronto crushed on the glass (not typically a strength), stayed at the line (same). Wizards worked like the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

The Raptors are No. 5 in Net Rating after Sunday's Net win.

Turns out teams are really good when every player appears in every game: Brandon Ingram, R.J. Barrett, Immanuel Quickly and Scottie Barnes haven't missed a contest yet, while 2024-25 standout Ochai Agbaji (minutes per game halved) barely rates.

They get what they want, nightly. Players get to their spots and appear eager to help others find their best shots. Sorry for only watching the offense but offense is way more entertaining than defense. Less to learn.

Top-ten defense and top-five offense, and Toronto can only barely chalk this one for continuity: Brandon Ingram is a significant chunk of What They Do.

That Raptor sets spring as if Ingram has been around since 2019 is to the credit of Ingram, his teammates, and Toronto's coaching staff. Seamless integration and good, they had nearly a year to prepare for his debut.

So the schedule gets "harder," they've already worked 10 games away from home and rung out a 12-5 record. Apologies for leering here, but there is also room to tighten up the back end of this rotation via trade, draft picks and unused swingmen.

Toronto can't claim prescience: Orlando dumped four first-rounders for Desmond Bane when it saw an easier trip to the Finals, the Raptors moved for Ingram months before the East fell apart. What Toronto can claim is a strong-enough roster, currently, to make a play for a second-round postseason appearance.

SURPRISED

Double-digit .500 East teams. Up until (8-9) Milwaukee dropped its last two without Giannis Antetokounmpo, the top-11 teams in the East were all over .500. The East isn't simply picking up wins over each other, the East ain't bad. Ain't great, but ain't bad.

There's a word for in-between, there, but I'm not using it.

Yes, the bottom of the East stinks, but it didn't supply its middle with all its wins: Washington gave the middle five wins (Philly, Boston, Milwaukee, Chicago, Orlando), the Nets four (Atlanta, Orlando, Philly and Boston though Brooklyn stole a Celtic win back), Indiana two (Hawks, Bucks), Charlotte thrice (Philly, Orlando, split a pair with Milwaukee).

The Bulls wear teams down and win, Milwaukee beats the clubs it is supposed to, Orlando still owns its Finals chance, Jaylen Brown hasn't missed a short jumper all season, Tyrese Maxey is the next Wilt Chamberlain. I will go to all lengths of hyperbole to keep from calling the middle of the East "good."

A LITTLE SURPRISED

At what sodium metallic titanium processing did for MY descaling problem.

NOT SURPRISED

The East's bottom is so Bached.

In those season previews I had to talk myself out of giving the Hornets, Wizards, and Nets fewer wins. Kept reminding myself of the post-trade deadline bump, when all the 20-year olds are 21, when teams start tanking, backing into wins they can't help.

Right now, this Eastern trio backs into losses the same way the Thunder back into wins. Each try to keep the curve normal but cannot. Everyone here legitimately wanted to run for 28 wins, two will fight to earn half as much.

Nobody tried to Process. The Nets have five rookies but are otherwise full of primed players, Washington brought in two vets to cool close games, the Hornets are in Year Seven of this rebuild. No Hinkie-types here, nobody is auditioning tenth men, none of these groups is lost.

But they are not winning games at the moment, and don't figure to until opponents begin valuing wins less.

NOT SURPRISED

The Nets knew who they were getting from Michael Porter Jr. and his follows, and likes.

The Nets front office requires future draft picks, and someone to play basketball while four of the five rookies watch from the bench. If the Nets can deal that someone for further picks, more palatable veterans (Porter is injury-prone and defensively deficient), wonderful.

They don't need his off-court infamy growing larger than his trade value. They need Michael Porter Jr. to remind other teams of the exact sort of player they need to win a title, not remind them of their Online Cousin they have to sit across from at Thanksgiving.

No 48-year old man should say "based" that much. Grandma really enjoying her Britbox is not "based." That red wine is not "based" simply because it is from Argentina.

SURPRISED

I've said "what's your tipple, Kon Kneuppel?" out loud several times over the last month.

I don't drink, my wife eschewed alcohol in November, I have no reason to say "what's your tipple, Kon Kneuppel?" over cocktails. So it crossed over into what I answer my mewing cats with, when met with the choice of Poultry Platter or Sea Captain's Choice, upon the opening of a cupboard door.

I said it to myself while approaching the seafood freezer at the grocery store. I said it out loud at a diner in Andersonville in front of my wife and our friend and a server, all three do not know there is a person out there named "Kon Kneuppel." It was 10 in the morning, nobody was tippling. But everyone wanted to, after I unleashed a "what's your tipple, Kon Kneuppel?"

I don't know if this – what's your tipple, Kon Kneuppel? – will end anytime soon. This is like in college when a buddy of mine and I started using "irregardless" as a way to make fun of a dormmate from Connecticut we didn't like (way before that SNL sketch). Then that summer I'm back home and at work packing someone's groceries and out it springs sincerely in all its Nutmeg State skittishness, irregardless.

NOT SURPRISED

That it is before Thanksgiving and I'm adding LaMelo Ball's name into the trade machine. Ball is a routine All-Star if he dedicates himself to preparing himself for the rigors of an 82-game season, as Stephen Curry managed a decade ago while playing golf every afternoon.

At the moment Ball a game-losing project. He can't be traded for anyone important to anyone's plans, and a team has to have an idea of what's going on in Ball's head, some form of whispered intelligence guiding a light. He needs a new town, sure, but for what reason?

If you don't know what's keeping Ball from being his best, then decline the option, even if he does have All-NBA First Team potential.

If you think you have a bead, take a dive. The contracts will only get bigger, but then again, you've got that bead. And if it takes Los Angeles to get LaMelo Ball to like basketball again, let's try L.A. (Clippers). John Collins and Bogdan Bogdanovich and Bradley Beal and an unprotected 2030 and 2032 swap for LaMelo Ball and Grant Williams. Charlotte pulls in two tradeable players on expiring contracts who can contribute to a Play-In push because they're in a different scenario, plus Beal. Those picks plus those contracts can be rerouted for some Right Now Help in February.

The Clippers only win if the other team slows down long enough to let L.A. get clever. The Clippers are the guy at the courts who seems really enthused about deciding the "half or full"-court conundrum before picking teams.

Here are the rest of the teams which likely do not have a "bead," but would take this type of chance.

Bucks, after Dec. 15, for Kevin Porter Jr. and Kyle Kuzma and Bobby Portis with a 2031 unprotected? I don't know what the market is, it may take that little to pry Ball from Carolina. Perhaps he's off to the Suns (with Grant Williams), for Khaman Maluch, Jalen Green and Ryan Dunn (plus that convoluted 2028 first-round pick, least favorable of Nets, Knicks, Suns and Wizards).

The Kings? Ball and Williams for Zach LaVine, Nique Clifford, and the Spurs' 2027 unprotected first-rounder. Trading it all to Sacto for the No. 29 pick in 19 months doesn't seem like much, but LaVine can be bundled, Clifford is 23 and ready to play, and we want Grant Williams' contract off the books. We could further explore the theme, Kings adding Dario Saric and Keon Ellis (each expiring, Ellis is good and still in and out of Sacto's rotation) to the mix in exchange for Josh Green's $14.7 million 2026-27 commitment.

The Bulls would be the sort of team to deal into Ball's excuse, a large contract it can excuse. It doesn't count as the same word if you say it differently.

Chicago's front office could dig into the "action" of making a move they've spied for three seasons. The issue is familiarity, literally, did the Bulls move off the Lonzo Ball off-court experience and determine they wanted a different chance with the same sorta guy? Same sorta guy, but with hands that know how to aim a basketball at a goal?

NOT SURPRISED

We begin 2025-26 reeling with the thing we ended 2024-25 with.

Teams and fans and players alike worry over superstar overuse leading to calf strains resulting in Achilles tears. Only one of the three – fans, who will gladly trade in an 82-game season if it meant the reliable availability of the league's greatest stars – want to do anything about it.

I won't bore you with retelling of my plan to save NBA wear and tear and also the environment and the sport itself, so instead I'll wow you: Adam Silver and his corporate partners need to develop a miniseries schedule which completely eliminates one-nighters. Send every star to every town twice, make money off it, take time off the players and travel out of the air.

They'd have to add another week to each end of the season, fine, 82 games for them, fresher legs for us. The NBA isn't supposed to enjoy encroaching upon MLB territory in early October but I'm not supposed to care: Adam Silver can outfox Rob Manfred simply by telling Rob he heard an ice cream truck and letting the imaginary bells do the rest.

I use two full colons on Silver because he is throwing capital down the toilet by continuing to sell a league beset by inactive performers and the resultant inconsistent programming.

TODAY IS D.B. COOPER DAY

There will be a lot of bad information out there on social media but you'll have to look past it, dig into what you know.

Cooper survived the jump – each of the copycat skyjackers, including those using a parachute for the first time, survived their jumps. Cooper launched into drizzly autumn weather in clothes that, while somewhat inappropriate, were far from a hindrance, let alone a danger. Cooper also came and left with a bag (contents unknown) beside the briefcase which carried the bomb, a satchel to contain gloves, compass, survival rations. The cash was strapped to his body by a parachute he tore apart before jumping.

The jump point is certain, cleared of water and dense forest, idling down Vector 23 around 8:15 PM Pacific, and they found no body or chute or money. The likely landing point was not wooded, but mostly pastured and nearly suburban. The idea that Cooper jumped into a heavily-forested mountain range is a myth propagated by that book with the small chapter on D.B. Cooper that we all checked out of the library in fourth grade about a guy who hijacked an airplane with a bomb the night before Thanksgiving.

Investigators didn't make the area until several days later, long after Cooper got away. He could have napped through Thanksgiving and Black Friday with enough time on Saturday and Sunday to walk his way toward a stashed getaway car or even rowboat, unseen.

He isn't Richard McCoy – McCoy used a gun and took over his plane in a completely different fashion, with wigs and disguises and the passengers aware of the ongoing hijacking, whereas Cooper's passengers did not know they were hijacked until leaving the plane. The Cooper witnesses shooed photos of McCoy away, he was 20-years too young and his ears were 20-times the size of D.B. Cooper's. There are witnesses pinning McCoy to positions on the 24th and 25th, impossible to make it to the landing zone and back in time. The parachute recently "unearthed" as McCoy/Cooper's is a completely different one from the two types provided to Cooper. McCoy had a lisp which was not hidden from the hijackers, who thought he was affecting an accent. I could go on, but I'm running out of time to point out that D.B. Cooper also isn't Robert Rackstraw, no matter what Stephen Colbert's brother tells you.

D.B. Cooper is not cool – he is the only uncaught skyjacker in American lore, but what kind a jerk hijacks an airplane? The passengers were not aware of their danger, but two flight attendants had to act as Cooper's mouthpiece throughout the ordeal.

No, the employees were not in on it – the money was never found, a bunch of flight attendants and pilots and parachuting accomplice Dan Cooper did not secretly launder $200,000 worth of $20 bills. The pilots and (especially) flight attendants were the only victims in this case and should be treated with the sensitivity they've earned.

I don't have a lead suspect – nobody even ahead of the others, really. Many are capable, especially when figuring in local Boeing layoffs and/or ex-Air America jumpers. Motive and means are there, surely, but then they gotta go to Portland the day before Thanksgiving and jump out of a 727.

There is slim physical evidence, no DNA, only metal particles on Cooper's clip-on (J.C. Penney) tie which could have been purchased used at a thrift store on his way toward the airport. I think the case will be solved someday, but it will take another major breakthrough.

Why am I into this – I got a bad cold in August and caught up on everything. Then I helped my mother-in-law move out in September and pulled up some podcasts and caught up on more than I should.

Everything could mean nothing, or everything – the tie's particles could be a fluke, or direct evidence. The name Cooper gave the ticket counter, "Dan Cooper," is the lead character in a Benelux comic book. This could mean the hijacker spent time in France and read the book and enjoyed Dan's exploits, or "Dan Cooper" could just be some random name the hijacker chose.

Cooper could have exquisite knowledge of jumbo jets and parachuting, or he coulda perused a periodical and lifted the idea from a hijacker from 12 days before. Again, copycat hijackers with zero parachuting experience survived the same jump amid far more adverse conditions, one at nearly twice the speed and from a greater height.

The $200,000 he demanded was readily available from a local bank, in cash, nearing closing hours on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Could mean everything, nothing.

BREAKAWAY

Thank you for reading!

NEXT: WEST SURPRISES, BUT NOTHING ABOUT D.B. COOPER.