Our favorite basketball things...

As we close 2022, the Yahoo Sports NBA team takes a look back at their favorite basketball things from the year that was — from the NBA All-Star Game to the NBA and WNBA Finals to the NBA draft and more.

Ben Rohrbach: A joyous moment with Stephen Curry at the NBA Finals

The last two years have been rough on everyone. For the NBA, the sport abruptly shut down in March 2020, returned four months later in a bubble, and fans could not even fill the arena at greater than 50% capacity to watch the eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks until after their first-round playoff series in June 2021.

For people who suffer from anxiety and depression, uncertainty over our own versions of shutdowns and bubbles during the COVID-19 pandemic made mental health struggles more difficult to overcome. I find clarity comes with presence, whether sipping my coffee, petting my dog or playing with my kids. Focus on the now, and depression over the past and anxiety about the future can melt away, even if just for a time.

Cassandra Negley: The too-lit Las Vegas Aces' coronation

Kelsey Plum would later admit she was lost and looking for her teammates in Mohegan Sun Arena, a boom box the only thing weighing on her shoulders after the Las Vegas Aces clinched their first WNBA championship. As she exited the visiting locker rooms, where a half-inch of champagne pooled on the plastic-covered floors in part because A’ja Wilson had sprayed incoming media with it, a few of us trailed behind her.

“Plum Dawg” walked with a purpose past the curtained-off area for news conferences — she was definitely lost — and I ducked around it, sliding into a front-row seat to what became my favorite thing of 2022. Welcome the too-lit Las Vegas Aces, featuring none other than champagne-wielding league MVP Wilson and Plum, who did eventually find her friends.

Vincent Goodwill: Embrace the petty

Even the days of being back in the locker room, where context is so important beyond the quotes, is critical to coverage. And seeing some of the raw emotion is a welcome sight to bring to fans. But back to the petty.

Pettiness opens the door to rivalries, which are sorely missing in today’s NBA. Perhaps it’s free agency and lack of roster continuity, or maybe even the league’s culture in making it through the pandemic, it seemed like the petty meter dropped significantly. Now, it seems to be back on track.

Zion Williamson giving the surly Phoenix Suns something they can feel with a 360 dunk with seconds remaining and a win assured seemed to start things back up, then Devin Booker followed it up nights later by attempting a meaningless triple from 30 feet at the buzzer, with 58 points already on the stat sheet, felt like normal.

Dan Devine: Ja Morant became him

This wasn’t Ja Morant’s first time in the postseason. He’d lost in the play-in game in the bubble, and won the play-in tournament to earn the eighth seed the year after. It was his first time as a playoff favorite, though, after spending the previous six months styling and profiling, hitting the Griddy, soaring and talking David Mamet monologues’ worth of smack to anyone within earshot.

That was his right; it comes with the territory when you blossom into an All-Star starter, All-NBA selection and tip of the spear for a 56-win monster. On this night, though, Morant was knotted up at two games apiece in the opening round of the playoffs, in the proverbial Pivotal Game 5™, and his Grizzlies were losing — down 13 in the closing seconds of the third quarter to a Minnesota team that had already scored one win in Memphis and was sitting just a quarter away from putting the Grizz on the brink of a brutally early exit.

Jake Fischer: LeBron James' All-Star weekend

February's All-Star weekend quickly turned into LeBron James' All-Star weekend. The appeal of James returning to Cleveland, as the Cavaliers threatened to make their first postseason appearance without him, was obvious intrigue alone. But then the four-time MVP used that Saturday's media session to openly flirt with returning to the Cavs and set the stage for his desire to team with his oldest son, Bronny, should their careers overlap in the NBA in the near future.

Cleveland boasted two All-Star selections in Darius Garland and Jarrett Allen, and to this day, the key piece clearly missing from this Cavs rebuild is a two-way wing who can consistently uplift Garland, Allen, Evan Mobley and now Donovan Mitchell. With James known for the intentionality of his public musings, league personnel certainly viewed James' comments as an olive branch for a potential exit ramp from Los Angeles, or at least a search for legitimate leverage entering extension conversations with the Lakers — even though he ultimately re-signed for two years and $97.1 million over the summer.

Krysten Peek: The mystery around the 2022 NBA draft's No. 1 pick

There are some NBA drafts where fans and NBA executives know who the No. 1 overall pick is going to be well ahead of the draft in June. In 2019, it was Zion Williamson. This upcoming year, it will be Victor Wembanyama. For the 2022 NBA draft, there were three options at the top: Jabari Smith Jr., Paolo Banchero and Chet Holmgren. Numerous publications (including Yahoo Sports) had Smith going No. 1 to the Orlando Magic. The Magic were one of the worst 3-point shooting teams in the league and Smith was the best-shooting big in the draft.

The Monday before the draft, things started to get interesting. The Vegas moneyline made a drastic jump in favor of Banchero. Banchero’s odds to be drafted No. 1 shifted from +900 to +200 on BetMGM in just 24 hours.