Geoff’s FIVE-OUT: Zion’s inevitable change of scenery, jokic’s brilliance, & Desmond Bane’s Turnaround
Many believe that time flies; I’ve always felt the opposite.
This NBA season is only twenty-four days young, and it really feels like it’s been an eternity since Houston and Oklahoma City treated us to that double-overtime classic on opening night. So much has already happened, but there’s still so much of the season to go. So what’s new around the league? Let’s dive in.
Desmond Bane Is Imminent
If you missed the first of our two episodes this week, allow me to catch you up: Desmond Bane is really, really good at shooting the basketball. In his entire NBA career he has shot 42% on open 3-pointers and 45% on wide-open 3’s. He has never shot worse than 38% from three in any of his college or professional campaigns.
Yet in his first eleven games wearing a Magic uniform, Bane shot just 27.7% from three. Some were taking victory laps while many Magic fans panicked. Could this be another Kentavious Caldwell-Pope situation?
There are no guarantees in this world. Perhaps Bane will continue to shoot multiple standard deviations worse than he ever has in his adult life. But the overwhelming likelihood is that Bane has not forgotten how to shoot and is merely experiencing a small slump over a small sample size. The odds say positive regression is coming.
It started Wednesday night, as the Magic easily defeated the Knicks 124–107 and Bane shot 3-for-6 from beyond the arc.
Bane’s shooting wasn’t the only interesting Magic happening on Wednesday. Paolo Banchero left early with a groin injury, forcing Head Coach Jamahl Mosley to adjust the offensive strategy and put the ball in the hands of Bane and Franz Wagner at a higher frequency.
Could this be a blessing in disguise for Orlando?
Mosley has come under fire for how little Wagner has been initiating offense for the struggling Magic, while Bane has been trying to balance finding his own rhythm with fitting into a new team with many mouths to feed. Is it possible that Banchero returns to a Magic team more willing to run the offense through its stars and the Desmond Bane Orlando traded four first-round picks for?
Time will tell.
Scottie Barnes and Immanuel Quickley’s Underrated Two-Way Synergy
It’s easy to forget, but a little under two years ago the Raptors acquired Immanuel Quickley to be Scottie Barnes’ running mate.
The logic was sound. Barnes, just 22 at the time, was the Raptors’ jack-of-all-trades rising star who represented their future. Toronto wanted to pair him with a guard capable of handling primary initiation duties without demanding them. Someone equally capable of running the show as he would be playing off the Barnes they envisioned. Quickley, who had spent his first 3.5 seasons playing off guys like Julius Randle and Jalen Brunson, was an ideal candidate.
The vision hasn’t exactly gone as planned.
For starters, Quickley has played less than half of the games, battling a multitude of inconvenient injuries. The Raptors also traded for Brandon Ingram, which has shifted the roster dynamic. Still, Barnes and Quickley represent the malleability and connectivity a roster filled with one-dimensional players and redundancy desperately needs.
Barnes is the team’s best defender and a guy who can work both ends of a pick-and-roll. He can be a play finisher inside the paint or beyond the arc, while being plenty capable of initiating possessions. After disappointing out of the gate, Quickley has begun to show the off-ball defensive impact that made him an advanced-metrics darling in New York. Offensively, he can fill whatever role a possession requires. He can set the table, but as the team’s best 3-point shooter and best off-ball mover — watch how he weaponizes random ghost screens to create chaos — he is perfectly suited to play off others’ primacy.
This has always been the appeal of Barnes and Quickley together. Want to put them with Ingram and RJ Barrett, two guys more dependent on having the ball in their hands to accrue impact? Barnes and Quickley can play supporting offensive roles while carrying the defense. Stick them in a lineup with more additive players — Gradey Dick, Sandro Mamukelashvili, Ochai Agbaji, Jameson Battle, or Jamal Shead — and Barnes and Quickley can scale up offensively while maintaining their defensive impact.
The two can interact on both sides of the ball. Barnes can screen for Quickley and vice versa. Barnes can hound the opponent’s best wings while Quickley thrives as the weak-side low man just waiting to sniff out a stunt-and-recover. Synergistically, they are theoretically ideal.
Thus far in the 2025–2026 season, the Raptors have turned theory into actualization. Head Coach Darko Rajaković, put in an extremely difficult situation with this year’s roster construction, has done a nice job staggering the starters and mixing up lineup combinations in an attempt to see what works and what doesn’t. Thus far, much of what’s worked has been the bench — who are dismantling opponents — but Barnes and Quickley are offering stability to the lineups they play in.
It’s too early to throw in the towel on the starting lineup. In spite of the fit concerns, there’s logic in seeing if their four most talented players can work together. But Toronto also shouldn’t try to jam a square peg into a round hole if it’s coming at the expense of their best players.
Toronto is playing good basketball. It’s their responsibility to avoid complacency and understand why.
Jordan Ott’s Magic Trick
Does anybody outside of Arizona know what the Phoenix Suns are doing? No, I don’t mean the whole playing rock concerts at halftime thing. The Suns are blowing the league away in one very specific area: shooting the 3-pointer off the catch. But it’s not just what they’re doing — it’s how they are doing it.
The Suns are passing on 46% of their drives and assisting on 12% of them — both best in the NBA. They’re averaging 1.25 points per possession on spot-ups, also best in the NBA. They’re second in the NBA in total catch-and-shoot points and catch-and-shoot effective field goal percentage.
Big deal, right?
I want you to close your eyes and imagine an assisted 3-pointer. Not the ball swinging around the perimeter, but a drive and kick-out. Be honest: you pictured the pass coming from the paint, right?
That’s the funny thing about Phoenix. They don’t get to the rim. At all. They’re second to last in the NBA in shots inside five feet. Look up and down their roster and you notice one glaring limitation: nobody gets to the rim.
How can a team put an opposing defense in rotation if they don’t create rim pressure?
The Suns have as much shooting talent as any team in the NBA. Grayson Allen, Dillon Brooks, Collin Gillespie, and Royce O’Neal are all around their career highs in volume 3-point attempts. Even Jordan Goodwin is getting in on the action.
What Ott has the Suns doing is anticipating where the defense plans to send help from, and the second that defender leans, making the first pass. Sometimes you’ll see the “driver” kick the ball out to a shooter just inside the 3-point line. In a way, it’s genius. The Suns looked at their roster, identified a weakness, and figured out a way to mask it. But opponents will figure this out, right? Is there a contingency?
Good news, Suns fans. Jalen Green’s middle name is contingency (just kidding, it’s Romande).
In Green’s first four seasons in the NBA, he’s fallen between the 73rd and 80th percentile in rim attempts per 75 possessions every season. Booker surrounded by shooters is great, but what about when you add in a shooter who can also force collapses inside the paint relentlessly? We saw the blueprint in Green’s first game against the Clippers. Booker and Green occupy different spots and are both capable enough shooters to play off one another (Green attempted 13 threes!).
Some may scoff at this. But you have to understand: Phoenix appeared dead in the water mere months ago. Now, all of a sudden, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Jalen Green has found a place he can be maximized. The question remains: will he allow Jordan Ott to maximize his overwhelming talent in unison with his already thriving teammates? We’ll find out soon enough.
In the meantime, I’m just going to enjoy watching this squad.
Nikola Jokic Is Making Two-Pointers Cool Again
What else is there to say about Nikola Jokic?
He’s won three MVPs. There’s a decent argument he should have won the last five. He’s a center who can shoot 3-pointers who also happens to be the league’s best passer. I also have it on good authority that he’s over twice as impactful a defender as Victor Wembanyama (just kidding, X).
The praise is as effusive as his collection of gifts is rare. So what can I add to the discussion? How about the little-discussed fact that Jokic is leading the second-best offense in NBA history without overly relying on the 3-point shot?
Thus far this season, Denver is 25th in 3-point attempts and 17th in 3-point efficiency. Despite Jokic himself shooting almost 42% from three on 4.6 attempts per 75 possessions, he isn’t getting much help. Cam Johnson and Christian Braun are both shooting a ghastly 21% from three. Tim Hardaway Jr., Aaron Gordon, and Bruce Brown have chipped in nicely, but those team stats do not scream “second-best offense in the NBA.”
Fortunately for the Nuggets, Nikola Jokic has found another way. Jokic is shooting 87% at the rim, 68.2% from the short midrange (best in the NBA), and 100% from the long midrange. But it doesn’t stop there, because Jokic also leads the NBA with a ridiculous 8.9 rim assists per 100 possessions.
It’s almost like an elite 3-point shooting offense would make things too easy for Jokic.
Zion Williamson Takes His Talent To…
This is inevitable, right?
Derik Queen is much better than even the Pelicans expected him to be so soon (despite how awful they are, they’re shockingly competent with him on the court). Queen is giving Pelicans fans something to be excited about. And with 25-year-old Trey Murphy continuing to ascend and Jeremiah Fears waiting in the wings, Zion Williamson may return from injury to a team finally ready to go in a different direction.
So where should he go?
To understand the best fit for Zion, you first need to truly understand him as a player. For starters: Zion is a big wing. It may be enticing to try to pair him with a ball-dominant guard and attempt to form some sort of interactivity between the two. But Zion has skirted that at every opportunity. He wants to start possessions and create advantages, not facilitate the creation of those advantages for somebody else.
It’s easy to forget — Zion Williamson is a tremendous offensive player when healthy. Dunksandthrees’ oEPM has ranked him between the 86th and 96th percentile in offensive impact every season of his career. There’s a strong argument he is the most valuable creator of what is still the most valuable shot in basketball: the rim attempt. Zion has led the league in rim frequency every season of his career coming into this season, and he’s never once been below-average efficiency. All of this despite never having an optimal roster construction around him.
So what exactly does Zion need? This is where it gets tricky. While Zion is incredible at certain things, he also has glaring limitations that require players with specific skill sets around him. Zion needs a team light on creation talent that also happens to play fast. Oh, and the cherry on top? They need a rim-protecting center that can shoot so that Zion has maximum space to operate on offense but isn’t responsible for protecting the rim on defense.
What team checks all of those boxes? The Miami Heat.
You know Miami is always looking for star talent. Zion and the Heat could be a match made in heaven. Miami has caught opponents off guard, but they’re really missing a true number one who can break defenses down inside the arc without setting a screen. Tyler Herro is coming back, but I’m not sure about him as your top guy. And if the Heat were able to acquire Zion without trading Herro, he has proven he can play off other ball-dominant stars.
Zion is still just 25 years old. If — big if — he can find a way to stay healthy, he has plenty of prime years left. The Heat are playing above their heads relative to their talent and have the best coach in the NBA. Realistically though, they’re one piece away from meaningful contention.
Could Zion be that piece?
