All-Star Weekend is the unofficial halfway point of the year, but we’re actually much closer to the conclusion of the 2023-24 NBA season than you think.

It’s basically a 25-game sprint from here, and once the league builds momentum for the stretch run, there’ll hardly be time to breathe. So before things pick up speed ahead of the playoffs, now is a great time to get our bearings.

We’ll do that by highlighting a handful of winners and losers to this point in the campaign.

Teams, players and execs are fair game, and it’s important to note that none of these judgments is final. The next two months could turn winners into losers and vice versa.

Let’s dive in.

Minnesota Timberwolves president of basketball operations Tim Connelly gave up four unprotected first-round picks, a first-round swap and Walker Kessler (picked No. 22 in the 2022 draft) in a package to acquire Rudy Gobert prior to the 2022-23 season, and the initial results of that deal appeared disastrous. Gobert looked nothing like a three-time Defensive Player of the Year as Minnesota went just 42-40 and made no playoff noise—not an ideal return on a drastic, future-mortgaging move.

Everything looks much better now.

Gobert is running away with what’ll be his fourth DPOY honor this season, captaining Minnesota’s top-ranked defense while an ascendant Anthony Edwards shines on the other end. Karl-Anthony Towns is spacing the floor as a 4, Jaden McDaniels (who signed his own pricey extension) is locking up everything that moves on the perimeter and Mike Conley is bringing A-plus “adult in the room” energy at the point. Even the bench is stellar, with Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Naz Reid, Kyle Anderson and the recently acquired Monté Morris rounding out a deep rotation.

Catastrophe (KATastrophe?) may still be looming on the horizon when the tax bill comes due on this exceptionally expensive roster. That’s an offseason problem. Let’s focus on the present.

The Wolves are atop the current West standings and on pace to win just under 60 games, an enormous relief for the team itself, its fans and, most of all, the executive who put this group together.

Connelly’s “winner” status is probationary. If Minnesota comes up empty in the playoffs, the Gobert trade may yet go down as one of the biggest transactional flops in memory. At the moment, though, the Wolves’ outlook is infinitely rosier than it was this time a year ago.

For our first loser, we could have gone with any number of players negatively affected by the new rule requiring they log at least 65 games to win certain awards.

Joel Embiid was the odds-on favorite for MVP before a meniscus injury shelved him, officially eliminating him from contention for what might have been his second straight honor. Much of the discussion around the wisdom of the 65-game minimum focused on him, but Embiid’s injury would have made it hard for him to appear in enough games to get consideration whether there was an official cutoff point or not.

Tyrese Haliburton is in a different situation entirely.

If he misses out on an All-NBA nod because he falls short of the threshold, it could cost him an estimated $54.1 million, the difference between a 25-percent max salary and the higher 30-percent tier. That, folks, would be a capital-L “Loss.”

As it stands, Haliburton has to play in 22 of the Indiana Pacers’ final 26 games to hit 65. He’s already come back early from a hamstring strain, struggled through a minutes restriction and even had a re-injury scare. With such a ridiculous amount of money at stake, the closing stretch of Indy’s season will be as much about Haliburton keeping himself on the floor as it will about making sure the Pacers finish in the East’s top six.

In fairness, we should save our deepest sympathies for someone who doesn’t have a guaranteed $200 million coming his way over the next half-decade. All the same, Haliburton may lose out on a massive additional amount of cash because of a new rule that wouldn’t have affected him last season, when Giannis Antetokounmpo, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler and Damian Lillard appeared in fewer than 65 games but still earned All-NBA honors.

It seems the third trade request was the charm for James Harden, whose embrace of a reduced role with the LA Clippers has him succeeding in ways that would have seemed impossible as recently as one year ago.

It’s difficult to overstate how far-fetched this version of Harden once seemed. A player who twice led the league in usage rate and dominated the ball like few others in NBA history is playing a supporting role and enjoying wild success. Harden’s 20.3 percent usage rate with LA is the lowest since his second season in the league and about half of what it was in his most ball-dominant year with the Houston Rockets.

Harden is now a pick-and-roll facilitator shooting the ball less often but making those shots at his highest efficiency in over a decade. That he’s turned into this type of player so soon after pouting about being left off the 2023 All-Star roster, souring on sacrifice and essentially giving up on the Philadelphia 76ers is one of the most surprising developments of the season. A former superstar who showed less willingness to accept age-related limitations than anyone since Russell Westbrook is now transitioning into his post-prime years…gracefully?

Better still, Harden’s contributions are a big reason the Clippers put together a 25-5 stretch this season that ranks as the best 30-game performance in team history. Just two games back of the West-leading Wolves, LA has a real shot to enter the playoffs with the conference’s top seed.

Skeptics can smirk about Harden conveniently changing his stripes in a contract year, and it’s true that much of his motivation to get to LA was tied to an expectation that the Clips will pay him more than other teams would have this summer. But if Harden winds up cashing in because he showed he could sacrifice for the greater good, well…that’ll be a win, too.

Consider this loser designation rescinded if All-Star MVP and three-point champ Damian Lillard winds up earning a title with the Milwaukee Bucks. If that comes to pass, it won’t matter that he switched teams and, perhaps, even ran from the grind—the very things he long pledged not to do and for which he criticized others.

Lillard held out longer than most stars, giving the Portland Trail Blazers 11 years of loyalty before making the trade request many expected much earlier. While some would say landing with Giannis Antetokounmpo was a blessing, the fact remains the Milwaukee Bucks weren’t Lillard’s first choice.

And it’s not just that Dame didn’t get to play for his preferred Miami Heat. It’s that the version of the Bucks he joined wound up being less stable than anyone imagined. After replacing former head coach Mike Budenholzer with Adrian Griffin, Milwaukee’s once-dominant defense fell apart. Some of the struggles were on Griffin and his curious decision to change up the tactics that had worked so well for years. Some stemmed from Lillard and Malik Beasley combining to be one of the most defensively impotent backcourts in the league. Some had to do with a roster thinned by the trade that brought Lillard aboard.

Griffin eventually got his walking papers, the Bucks replaced him with Doc Rivers and the top-end talent (mostly Giannis) limited the standings slippage.

Still, Lillard is producing his worst Box Plus/Minus and Player Efficiency Rating in a decade (excluding his 29-game, injury riddled 2021-22 season), the Bucks are closer to the Play-In section of the standings than they are to the No. 1 seed they earned last year and a defense that ranked in the top 10 four of the past five years sits 19th at the All-Star break.

Portland is rebuilding, and Lillard wanted no part of that process. He’d probably be less fulfilled if he were still with the Blazers. But this? He didn’t sign up for this.

You could categorize Jonathan Kuminga’s unsubtle demand for more playing time as evidence of immaturity. You could call him impatient, even entitled. When young, mostly unproven players publicly express (through agents or other back channels, of course) discontent with their highly successful coaches, it can come with a heavy reputational cost.

Kuminga, though, came out the other side with nothing short of total vindication.

Voicing his discontent triggered what many Golden State Warriors fans had been clamoring for since Kuminga was a rookie in 2021-22: more minutes for a player who’d shown breathtaking flashes of athleticism and skill. Since head coach Steve Kerr entrusted the bouncy forward with a starting gig and generally loosened the reins, Kuminga has been a star.

Since Jan. 5, when Kuminga sat out the final 18 minutes of a loss to the Denver Nuggets, he’s averaging 31.4 minutes per game, second among Warriors to Stephen Curry. Add to that 20.6 points, 5.7 rebounds and 2.8 assists on a 56.9/40.0/77.4 shooting split, and it’s clear the 21-year-old is at least ready to take on second-option duties on a winning team.

That the Dubs also often slot Kuminga on the opponent’s most dangerous offensive player (three of his top four most frequent matchups this season are Devin Booker, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Kawhi Leonard), and that he’s legitimately dominated multiple games with his forceful athleticism only bolsters the case that Golden State had a special talent hiding in plain sight all along.

The haircut had nothing to do with it. Kuminga simply bet on himself, earned the trust of teammates and made his status as a potential future superstar undeniable.

Just in time for a possible max extension this summer.

Why did the Chicago Bulls sit out their third consecutive NBA trade deadline, punting on the chance to begin a long overdue rebuild by selling off DeMar DeRozan, Alex Caruso, Andre Drummond and anything else not firmly bolted down?

“We would take a step back, which we don’t want,” vice president Arturas Karnisovas told reporters. “We want to stay competitive. We have an obligation to this city to stay competitive and compete for the playoffs.”

Sure. Great. Absolutely.

Quick question: Does “stay competitive” mean “flounder around below .500, risk losing free agents for nothing (or worse, overpay to keep them), have no chance at winning a playoff series and enter next year worse off for the trouble?” Because if so, Karnisovas’ intentions, which fly in the face of the leaguewide trends that say hitting bottom is the best way to bounce back up to the top, make perfect sense.

If you use the conventional definition of “stay competitive,” Karnisovas’ plan is baffling.

Zach LaVine is out for the year, and his albatross contract looks worse than ever. Not moving him at the absolute nadir of his value was logical. But failing to trade others in an effort to accumulate assets postpones the reconstruction process that should have started years ago. Managerial malpractice is not too strong of a term.

A full teardown isn’t easy. The short-term pain is real, and trusting in the draft and cap space offers no guarantee of success. Just ask the Washington Wizards, who spent several years operating like the Bulls before finally moving Bradley Beal and starting a true rebuild. Maybe the Bulls will win a few more games than Washington or a handful of others who’ve started over, but they’re almost certainly farther away than any of them from real contention.

Ironically, the Bulls rank as one of this season’s biggest losers because they’re afraid of losing.

Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@gt_hughes), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report’s Dan Favale.