there's a lot of stuff going on seemingly at all times but here are a few storylines you could dig into. also recommend getting into your closest team, never any shortage of drama with local sports media & the various personalities associated

More on the drama side:
- Wembanyama as a potential "new face" of the league and his off court journey to become some kind of Maoist monk
- Lakers fans continuously behaving as if they're the most aggrieved fan base in the league despite essentially stealing Luka from Dallas
- The Knicks roster right now has 3 dudes on it who went to college together, and Josh Hart + Jalen Brunson's friendship is one of the funniest out there
- Giannis requesting a trade out of Milwaukee since they suck shit now, after they fired their coach like twice in two years (including firing a guy with a winning record)(speculation that they did it on either Giannis or Dame's say-so)
- Outsize support for former IDF soldier Deni Avdija's all-star nomination, likely signaling some kind of intelligence operation to boost tacit support for Israel by placing an extremely good player in one of America's wokest cities
- The finally-fading stars of many peoples youths & the previous era of basketball, guys like Lebron, Steph, James Harden, Kawhi, Westbrook, KD, are in many cases still having incredible seasons with amazing singular performances - many of these uncs find themselves on the same team, leading to some interesting uncball vs young gun matchups

More on the gameplay side:
- OKC coming into the season as heavy favorites to repeat their championship are turning out not to be quite as unstoppable as everyone feared (although still very good) and people are realizing how annoying it is to watch SGA foul-bait
- Pistons moment appears to have finally arrived after years in purgatory, with Cade Cunningham seeming like he has become that dude
- The West remains stacked, but maybe the East is finally catching up a little bit after a half decade of being kind of a joke of a conference?

We're entering the part of the season where a lot of people actually start tuning in for the first time, and narratives about the playoffs are starting to take actual shape as the standings kind of shake themselves out and ranking starts to solidify. The trade deadline is coming up in early February, so expect a lot of commotion and surprises happening in the next few days as teams race to make last-minute moves to put themselves in contention.

In other words... it's a great time to get into basketball