THE NBA IS SO MUCH BETTER WHEN DRAMAS ARE REPLACED BY DRIBBLES

How refreshing to focus on basketball — Zion, Ja, Steph’s injury, Mazzulla and the Celtics — after relentless distractions ranging from Bob Sarver, Kyrie’s tortured mind and an office-romance scandal

     It’s always possible, I suppose, that Elon Musk will ban NBA players from his “free speech” hub if they zing his ass on Twitter. But so far this season, all is relatively quiet in sport’s predominant Drama King circuit. The league is so much better this way, when Kyrie Irving is donating to a college student — $22,000 via GoFundMe, so she can remain enrolled at Howard University — instead of returning it to the Brooklyn Nets in an anti-vax strike, or slurring the Jewish people who attend games and help pay his salary.

     With a minimum of histrionics, we’ve been able to focus on basketball as the Christmas quintuple-header nears. Does anyone remember basketball? It’s the leather orb that Steph Curry, a near-consensus pick as Sportsperson of the Year, was continuing to shoot through cylinders like no player in NBA history until he suffered a partial dislocation of his left shoulder. He’ll be out indefinitely, meaning our eyes shift to the court, where a dynasty extension suddenly is jeopardized. Just 14-15 (a sickly 2-13 on the road) with Curry, the Warriors are looking at an arduous immediate schedule that could sink them further into the Western Conference dregs.

     At least he didn’t need surgery, which would have buried their season and placed them in the sweepstakes for Victor Wembanyama, the French prodigy who has been called a “league-altering talent” and “an alien,” among other raves about a 7-foot-4 phenom with an 8-foot-2 wingspan. Just what the Dubs need, right, another chance to re-set with “Wemby” and dominate the next two decades? But for now, he’ll be the object of tankers-in-progress ranging from the Charlotte Hornets (should owner Michael Jordan withdraw his newly minted name from the league MVP trophy?) to the San Antonio Spurs (should Donald Trump excoriate Gregg Popovich for not trying?) to the Detroit Pistons (why would a shin injury sideline Cade Cunningham for the entire season?). Curry, meanwhile, is staying in character and keeping the faith, even if this looks like another transitional hiccup for an always-evolving organization.

     “It was just a matter of making sure I didn't need surgery and (that) my shoulder will be able to heal on its own, however long that takes,” Curry said. “Because I know the surgeries are four to six months (recovery time), and nobody wants to be dealing with that.”

     So, stay around .500 until he returns? “I think where we’re at,” he said, managing a smile, “we just want to win a road game and take it from there.”

     Imagine Curry and LeBron James missing the postseason. Imagine Zion Williamson, reborn and flexing chiseled biceps instead of nursing injuries caused by an unhealthy diet, taking over the conference with a robust cast in New Orleans. Imagine Ja Morant, who really should duel Zion in an All-Star weekend dunk contest that would resurrect the art form, inheriting a lead showman role from Steph and LeBron in Memphis. You can feel the league turning on its axis. “The dude is a one-of-one player. So, there’s no guideline as to what to expect from him on a given night,” Pelicans forward Larry Nance Jr. said of Williamson. “We’ve never seen this blueprint before. I don’t think we’ve seen his best yet, which is terrifying for the NBA.”

     The season’s most overpowering moment came when Zion threw down a 360-degree exclamation point on a home victory over Phoenix. The dunk hurt the feelings of Chris Paul and the Suns, who thought he should have dribbled out the final seconds of a 128-117 victory. “In the moment, obviously, it felt amazing getting carried away,” Williamson said. “Looking back on it, I’ve got to be better than that. My step-dad and my mom taught me better than that.” Seeing how Bob Sarver still owns the Suns, as he explores sale options after his toxic-workplace scandal, please do not apologize. Just bring more jams from where they came, perhaps outer space.

     And what do we make of the scene in Memphis, heretofore the domain of Elvis? That is where fans performed The Wave — who knew it still existed? — as the Grizzlies romped to a 142-101 shakedown of Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks. Morant, Dillon Brooks and Desmond Bane were left to join the fans from the bench. “It was everyone having fun, and, obviously, we deserve it with how we played,” Morant said.

     Such are the prevailing Association narratives, hard as Draymond Green tries to hog attention by having courtside fans rejected from buildings — a behavioral improvement, it seems, from throwing a haymaker at teammate Jordan Poole. Not even Joel Embiid causes a social-media ripple when he says Philadelphia fans want to trade him, which isn’t accurate. And Russell Westbrook? The Lakers say they’re keeping him, liking what they see of him off the bench, but more likely realizing the Indiana Pacers are competitive and have little interest in trading Myles Turner in a package for Disruptive Russ. Dec. 15 brought the official start of the league’s trade season, but for several weeks, talk will be idle fodder for Woj and Shams. Yes, everyone is watching the games right now, lo and behold. Even Irving is showing up almost every night and playing well, offsetting the come-and-go volatility of Ben Simmons, whose wayward psyche actually seemed stable until a recent calf strain and knee soreness.

     “Man, let’s just go win ballgames. That’s really what the attitude is,” Irving said after the Nets’ eighth win in nine games. “We know the talent we have. This is our group. No more excuses, no more distractions, no more throwing in surprise injuries. We just want everybody to be healthy.”

     Did someone kidnap the real Kyrie? Do the Nets really have a shot in the Eastern Conference with coach Jacque Vaughn, who has anesthetized the long-term chaos as deposed Steve Nash does World Cup soccer podcasts? We might have said yes, except another new coach has done an even better job of steadying a looming collapse. The Boston Celtics could have sulked after their trusted leader, Ime Udoka, was fired for having an in-house affair with a female member of the staff. But other than a recent and well-founded criticism of the team by his jilted ex-fiancee, Nia Long, Udoka’s name doesn’t come up much. "I think the most heartbreaking thing about all of this was seeing my son’s face when the Boston Celtics organization decided to make a very private situation public,” Long said last month. “It was devastating, and it still is. If you’re in the business of protecting women — I’m sorry, no one from the Celtics organization has even called to see if I’m OK, to see if my children are OK. It’s very disappointing.”

     The firestorm passed, like it or not, as the Celtics kept winning. They own the league’s best record, 22-7, as Jayson Tatum targets The Michael Jordan Trophy — you weren’t really expecting The LeBron James Trophy, were you? The other night in downtown Los Angeles, amid a demanding West Coast journey including back-to-back losses to the Warriors and Clippers, interim coach Joe Mazzulla flashed his motivational chops. Refusing to allow fatigue into the equation, he lit into his players.

     “Joe came in before the game and set the tone for us, told us we need to get our s— together,” Jaylen Brown said.

     “He pointed me out. He basically told me it starts with me,” Tatum said. “Last game I played like s—, and he told me that. Told me the way I play, the rest of the guys are going to follow. And he went down the line, went down to JB, went down to (Marcus) Smart, said it was our responsibility and that if we want to be champions, if we want to get to that point, it’s a responsibility each and every night, and nobody’s gonna take it easy on us.”

     They beat James, Anthony Davis and the Lakers in overtime. The only drama in Boston is when the “interim” will be removed from the coach’s title.  “I just think we got so used to winning one way at the beginning of the season,” said Mazzulla, whose only previous head-coaching experience was on a small-college level. “You just have to figure out different ways to win. So we’ve won by blowing teams out, we’ve won by now coming back, and we’ve won by executing late in the game. So we just can’t get used to there’s only one way to win.”

     “He trusts us probably more than any other coach in the league,” Grant Williams said. “He understands what type of character and what type of people we are and how committed we are to not only winning, but making sure that we don’t let it spiral.”

     Only in Philadelphia might the cause unravel. When Embiid is raging — he averaged 39.2 points his last five games — the 76ers seem unbeatable. But the James Harden experiment remains in a prove-it mode, and if they again fall short of the Finals, Doc Rivers might be departing his fourth NBA team in a coaching career with only one championship, way back in 2008. Can the Sixers beat the Celtics, Bucks or even the resurgent, don’t-need-LeBron-and-Bronny Cavaliers? Right now, the doubters outweigh the believers.

     What we’re waiting for, along with suspicious upcoming maneuverings for Wembanyama, are collective bargaining discussions. Ugh, I know. The seven-year labor deal expires after next season, meaning a work stoppage could hit as soon as July 1. Corrosive issues must be resolved: Owners are tired of stars such as Kevin Durant, Harden and Irving demanding trades and playing loosey-goosey with free agency. And while the Warriors, Nets and Clippers spend without concern for luxury-tax penalties, some disgusted owners want a hard cap. The players are prepared for anything, including a lockout.

     Then there was this, from Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who says he isn’t interested in commissioner Adam Silver’s financial demand from TV partners: The league wants to triple national rights fees from the current $2.6 billion a year between ESPN and Zaslav’s TNT. “We don’t have to have the NBA,” he said. “It has to be a deal for the future, it can’t be a deal for the past.” Keep in mind, the new long-term contracts for Charles Barkley and other “Inside The NBA” panelists come with out-clauses.

     But those operas are months away, an eternity by NBA drama standards. All we hear right now is the dribble of a basketball. Isn’t it sweet music?

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.