Delightful surprises

The NBA and its sweet charmers

Here’s the fun part about overarching parity and outsized NBA scores — pleasant surprises!

Your favorite team never scored so much, rarely been so relevant (NOTE: Charlotte, Detroit, and Washington cannot scan this claim). There is a point to the overwhelming majority of NBA games, even if NBA superstars don’t take part. There are 25 teams with motivation to lunge for wins at the moment, plus whatever mounds San Antonio and Portland mold. Cheerful stuff.

Orlando — two pillars (Wagner and Banchero, which is how Becker and Fagen were introduced onstage while backing up Jay & the Americans) with an emerging third: Jalen Suggs looks more precocious by the minute, borderline All-Defense by age 22. A young team working up inappropriately ripened basketball: Cole Anthony and Paolo Banchero nose into free throws, Franz Wagner lusts for the extra pass, Suggs thinks defense first, second, thrice, and thrice again.