Police are investigating a burglary at the home of Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

Officers responded to a call at approximately 7:45 p.m. on Thursday evening as Gilgeous-Alexander was playing a game for the Thunder against the Washington Wizards. No one appeared home at the time and the suspects fled before police arrived.

No arrests have been made, according to KOCO News, and it’s unknown is anything was taken.

[Get more Thunder news: OKC team feed]

An increased police presence will be visible in the Oklahoma City neighborhood of Nichols Hills, where his home is located, for Halloween on Friday and in the coming weeks, police said, and that there is “no reason to believe the public is in any danger.”

In February, federal authorities charged seven men who allegedly burglarized the homes of Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Joe Burrow, among other athletes. According to the complaint, the men, all Chilean nationals, are part of a South American theft group that targeted professional athletes, stealing more than $2 million of property.

Athletes including Ketel Marte, Andre Johnson, Olivier Giroud and Luka Dončić, among others, have also seen their homes burglarized in the past year.

The 27-year-old Gilgeous-Alexander was selected 11th overall by the Charlotte Hornets in the 2018 NBA draft. A draft-day trade sent him to the Los Angeles Clippers, where he played one season before being dealt again the following offseason to the Thunder. The Toronto native is a three-time All-NBA first teamer and was the 2025 NBA scoring champion and league MVP, as well as NBA Finals MVP after leading Oklahoma City to its first NBA title last season.

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Even evaluators on the high end of Milwaukee’s maneuvering this offseason — the earth-shaking decision to waive Damian Lillard, stretch the balance of his contract over the next five seasons, and use the present-tense savings to snatch Myles Turner away from the Indiana Pacers — had to be at least a little worried about the Bucks’ backcourt mix.

After bidding farewell to Lillard, himself brought in to replace longtime lead guard Jrue Holiday, the Bucks roster was devoid of proven starting-caliber point-guard play. On one hand, that meant Doc Rivers was going to have to redistribute more touches and playmaking responsibility to incumbent eater of worlds Giannis Antetokounmpo — a pretty sound strategy, considering that dude has . He picks up full court, hounding opposing ball-handlers all over the floor — his breakout performances came while also taking primary defensive responsibilities on All-NBA stalwarts Curry and Jalen Brunson — while holding his matchups to 37.3% shooting, 9.2% below their expected field-goal percentage. According to NBA Advanced Stats, that’s the 11th-biggest differential among 109 players who’ve contested at least 50 shots this season.

That type of active, effective defense against high-level opposition got Rollins’ foot in the door in Milwaukee. An advancing ability to knock down perimeter shots — 40.8% from 3-point range last season, including 43% on catch-and-shoot looks and a 65.4% cash-out rate on passes from Antetokounmpo — kept it there.

Replicating the kind of all-around offensive performances he just turned in against New York and Golden State, though — the kind that some optimisticdraftniks saw the potential for him to generate coming out of Toledo — might just kick it open.

After beginning the season as an under-the-radar bellwether in Milwaukee, this stellar start — 18.6 points, 5 assists, 3.6 rebounds and 2.4 steals in 31 minutes per game on 52/44/88 shooting splits — could cement the 23-year-old not only as a rotation regular for Rivers, but potentially as a bona fide building block for a Bucks team that could really use more offensive juice next to the big fella.

Rollins is explosive off the dribble, able to beat the first line of defense to get into the paint. He’s averaging nearly 10 drives per game, second on the Bucks behind Antetokounmpo, and taking nearly 40% of his field-goal attempts in the restricted area; he’s making the most of them, too, converting 85% of his point-blank tries, according to Cleaning the Glass.

He’s also adept at spraying the ball back out to the perimeter after those paint touches. Fifteen of his 25 assists this season have generated 3-pointers, according to PBP Stats — more than all but nine players in the league thus far (LaMelo Ball, Davion Mitchell, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Tyrese Maxey, Draymond Green, Devin Booker, Cade Cunningham, Antetokounmpo and Jimmy Butler).

Combine the threat of those drives with the threat of him splashing a jumper off the bounce outside the paint — Rollins shot a respectable 41% from midrange last season and is 6-for-12 on pull-up 3s so far this season — and you’ve got a recipe for keeping defenders off balance. Sprinkle in a sense for when and how to change pace, create space and maneuver through layers of defense, and you’ve got a north-south ball-handler who can consistently put pressure on the rim. Give that guy a 40-plus-percent success rate on catch-and-shoot triples, and he sounds like a pretty perfect complement to Giannis, doesn’t he?

“He’s been playing incredible,” Antetokounmpo told reporters after the win over the Knicks. “Defensively, he’s one of the most annoying guards, probably, in the league. He’s making the right reads. He’s able to play with me, come off the bench, pretty much does everything. I love playing with him.”

As arguments for sustained NBA job security go, “Giannis loves playing with me” ain’t half bad. (Shouts out to Thanasis.) By earning more minutes and seizing the opportunity to ball out in a bigger role, Rollins has done one of the hardest things there is to do in the league: forcing his way from the fringes of an organization toward the center of its present and future plans. Now, he has to do something even harder: stay there.

“It’s just the start for me, man, that’s how I look at it,” Rollins told reporters Thursday. “Just a good platform to me get situated, and then I just go from there. Keep doing what I’m doing that got me here. Just keep growing.”

The early portions of a new NBA cycle — I’m talking late offseason, training camp, preseason — usually arrive with the same platitudes.

Player A has either gained 15 pounds of muscle, or has lost 20 pounds, and finds himself in the best shape of his life. Player B has tweaked his jumper mechanics and now has a quicker, smoother release.

Team C wants to be more aggressive defensively this year, really set the tone. Team D wants to play with more tempo and incorporate more ball and body movement.

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You’ve seen it, you’ve heard it, and you’ve likely joked or rolled your eyes about it at some point. Heck, you probably thought about some other examples while reading that.

Most times it’s a blip on the radar before the vaunted norm settles in with a larger sample; but sometimes, players and teams actually mean it. We actually get an aggressive shift from the year prior. Something’s different. It’s tangible. Fresh. Effective.

Yes, I’m talking about Jaime Jaquez Jr.

OK, I’m not exclusively talking about Jaquez — he’ll get his flowers in a bit — but I could be.

We’re really here to talk about the Miami Heat as a whole, who look and feel much different than last season. They’re 3-2, coming off a 107-101 loss to the Wemby-led San Antonio Spurs on Thursday night, but they’ve been one of the league’s most fascinating stories of the young season.

Picking up the pace

Long ago, basketball legend Pat Riley established a mantra for the Heat franchise he was looking to turn around. There wasn’t just a demand for excellence: They were to be *clears throat* the hardest-working, best-conditioned, most professional, unselfish, toughest, meanest, nastiest team in the NBA.

What you don’t see mentioned, among all those terms, is anything related to speed.

The Riley-led Heat were fine grinding games to a halt and controlling the flow with physical defense. Erik Spoelstra has largely followed the same script; since becoming the head coach ahead of the 2008-09 season, the Heat have never had a top-10 finish in pace. They’ve almost always had a high-level defense, though.

As of this writing, not only are the Heat on pace (don’t yell at me) to finally crack the top 10, they lead the league in that category so far. Their average possession length is roughly 12 seconds, also tops in the league.

It’s been an emphasis since training camp that certainly carried over into the preseason. The early hit-ahead passes and quick advancements up the court, after misses and makes, popped early on film, but it was fair to question just how much of it would carry over to the regular season.

So far, there’s been a high level of buy-in from the players to push the tempo and get into their offense earlier. They’ve all been empowered to bring the ball up if the opportunity presents itself.

“I mean the game’s evolving,” Bam Adebayo recently said.

“Everybody’s trying to play fast. To be a part of a team with this much pace and this much speed, where we get that ball in transition, this is probably my first year where we’ve been emphasizing playing this fast. And we’re playing the right way. That’s what I love about it. We’re sharing the game. And everybody feels involved. We’re all bought into the system.”

So, what is the system?

Getting the ball up the floor quickly is only the first phase of Miami’s attack. Similar to the Memphis Grizzlies early last season, the Heat have been deprioritizing — not to be confused with eliminating — traditional two-man actions.

Per GeniusIQ tracking, the Heat are averaging a shade over 20 pick-and-rolls per game (19.1 per 100 possessions), easily the lowest mark in the league. The Utah Jazz, who rank 29th in that category right now, are doubling them up in volume (40 per game, 39.1 per 100). Shoot, the Heat ranked just outside of the top 10 in pick-and-roll usage (67 per game, 69 per 100) last season.

There’s been a similar downshifting of dribble-handoff usage. After averaging roughly 22 per game, with Adebayo often at the center of those, the Heat are averaging a league-low 5.8 handoffs per contest.

Instead, we’ve seen more one-on-one attacks with a high volume of space-clearing cuts to create room for those exploits. The cuts are the real key in this; if you’re going to drive and/or isolate as much as the Heat have — only the Rockets (36.3) are logging more isolation possessions than the Heat (31.8) — you better make sure the context is optimized.

The results have been positive so far this year. In large part because of how the Heat have worked to space (and re-space) the floor around their drive-and-kicks, they’ve seen help defenders present on only 60% of their drives, the lowest figure in the league.

The non-stars are thriving right now

This is where we can get into some Jaquez praise.

First, he just seems healthier and more explosive than he was during last season’s disappointing campaign (8.6 points on 54.3% true shooting). That, plus the empowerment he’s received to grab-and-go and the spacing setup, has led to an electric start to the season.

Even accounting for a quieter outing against the Spurs on Thursday (6 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists), the third-year forward is off to the best start of his young career. He’s averaging 16.2 points while converting an absurd 68.9% of his shots inside the arc. The Heat are generating an elite 1.2 points per possession on trips featuring a Jaquez drive, placing him ahead of notable names like Jaylen Brown (1.11 PPP), Cade Cunningham (1.10 PPP), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (1.07 PPP) and former Heatle Jimmy Butler (1.00 PPP).

The intrigue with Jaquez heading into the league was the marriage of his frame, physicality and advanced footwork. He’s generally been able to up-fake and pivot his way into solid looks; that certainly popped during his rookie year. With a full head of steam — and a spaced floor around him — he’s been able to gain early advantages more often and turn them into wins.

In a similar vein, Heat guard Davion Mitchell has been able to use a blend of speed and shoulder-nudging to puncture the paint and create advantages (1.12 PPP on drives). Mitchell has done a solid job of reading when he should call his own number, when he has a big available, or when he should jumpstart a chain reaction with a kick-out pass.

To the kick-out point: Only five players — Shai (40), Austin Reaves (33), Deni Avdija (31), Tre Jones (31), and Pascal Siakam (29) — have logged more kick-out passes on drives than Mitchell (26), and the Heat have scored at an elite clip (1.39 PPP) on those possessions.

There’s a complementary aspect to all of this

While the offense is structurally different, it’s worth noting the Heat are sprinkling in just enough traditional stuff — particularly off the ball — to keep defenses on their toes.

We haven’t seen Norm Powell in the last two games as he recovers from a groin injury. But when he was on the floor, the Heat were intentional about setting a reasonable amount of wide pin-down screens — or staggers (two screens) — for him to shoot or attack from.

[Get more Heat news: Miami team feed]

Simone Fontecchio has gotten similar usage when checking in, and those trips have been wildly fruitful. Only Michael Porter Jr. (1.43 PPP) has produced more efficient offense after receiving a wide pin-down than Fontecchio (1.42 PPP) among players with reasonable volume on that specific action (min. 20). Shooting the leather off the ball (59.3% on 5.4 attempts) certainly helps matters.

As mentioned earlier, the Heat aren’t sprinkling in many handoffs. It’s notable, though, that Andrew Wiggins leads the team in volume while also receiving a higher rate of off-ball screens than he did last year. Wiggins getting the ball with some sort of head start or tilted defense has always been the most productive version of him.

Adebayo has certainly had to adjust in this environment — with a much lower dosage of ball screens and handoffs, he’s often spacing the floor. He’s currently shooting 36.1% from deep, a moderate improvement on last year’s mark (35.7%), while almost tripling his volume (2.8 to 7.2) from last year. How the Heat balance his perimeter exploits, his screening talents and his hub work — he’s averaging 5.8 elbow-area touches this year, down from 12.2 last year — will be something to track all season.

This doesn’t work without the defense

The Heat are playing incredibly fast. They’re scoring a ton of points. They’re driving and cutting all over the place. Defenses have often been on their heels against this unit.

The moments where the Heat have looked their shakiest — late fourth quarter of their opening loss to Orlando, pockets of the first half against the Knicks, Thursday night’s Spurs game — have been when they’ve consistently had to work against set defenses.

Getting stops will be key to jumpstarting the early attacks they’ve had much success with. The Heat have ramped up their switching and activity from last year, and are once again crowding the paint to prevent attempts at the rim. I’d worry a touch about the rate of corner threes they’re giving up (14.1% of shots, most in the league), but this isn’t new for a Spoelstra defense.

The Heat’s half-court offense has been elite to this point — their 101.2 offensive rating in that context ranks fifth league-wide, per Cleaning The Glass — but it’s also worth noting they’re sporting the ninth lowest share of half-court possessions in the league (76.9%, league average is 78.3) right now.

Their two losses (Magic, Spurs) just so happen to be the only two games this season where they’ve logged 80% or more of their possessions in the half-court. Not every team has the collective size of the Magic, and no other team but the Spurs has been blessed with Victor Wembanyama, but that is something to monitor moving forward. Their play-type balance will (and should) be under more of a microscope in those types of games; in order for the Heat to build a level of sustainability, they have to press the right buttons when 1) the game slows down and 2) when teams take away their initial drive.

If the Heat are able to build reliable counters, this could be the best — or at least the most unique — offense of the Spoelstra era. If they don’t, we could see a similar swoon in offensive efficiency as we saw with last year’s Grizzlies (though there’s a lot of injury-related context to add there) as the sample grew.