Good morning.

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Since it’s just a few days after Christmas, I thought now would be a good time to check back in on the N.B.A. Christmas, after all, is perhaps the most celebrated day of the regular season, and a signal that we are almost halfway through it.

So I asked one of our N.B.A. experts, Marc Stein, to give us a little update on how California’s four teams are doing. He told me something surprising and raised an intriguing question: This is the 34th season in which California has housed four N.B.A. franchises — and the state is 0 for 33 when it comes to sending all four teams to the playoffs in the same season. Could this be the year that the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers and Sacramento Kings finally conspire to end that drought?

As Marc pointed out, all four teams have winning records. Here’s his quick take on where each of them stands:

Warriors (23-13)

The champs are 15-5 when their four best players (Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson) have been healthy enough to play together — so no one is deeply worried about them just yet. But Green and Thompson are mired in shooting slumps, depth and advancing age are two more concerns and the team’s marquee off-season acquisition, DeMarcus Cousins, has yet to appear in a single game. It’s a good thing for the Warriors that the rest of the West, while ridiculously deep with competent teams, doesn’t appear to house a consensus threat to the overwhelming preseason favorites.

Clippers (20-14)

L.A.’s “other” team is thriving amid all the attention (and pressure) heaped upon LeBron’s Lakers. Little was expected of the Clippers before the coming off-season — when they plan to make their own aggressive free-agent pitches to the likes of Kawhi Leonard and Durant — but flashes of All-Star potential from Tobias Harris combined with the gritty group of veterans on the roster around him have put the Clippers on a surprising 48-win pace.

Lakers (20-15)

The struggles of Houston and Utah have helped the Lakers make an unexpected bid for a top-four slot in the West in James’s maiden season in Hollywood. And L.A.’s Christmas performance, especially after losing James, offered the latest evidence that his inconsistent supporting cast might be better than skeptics think. The big second-half question: How will the Lakers’ young stars (Kyle Kuzma, Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball and Josh Hart) cope with the rising volume (and scrutiny) surrounding management’s plans to pursue New Orleans’ Anthony Davis and other elite players?

Kings (19-16)

Sacramento ranks up there with the West-leading Denver Nuggets as the league’s foremost Cinderella story as it bids to bring a halt to the league’s longest active run without a playoff berth (12 seasons). Maintaining this level of success will be difficult in a Western Conference in which 14 of the 15 teams harbor legitimate postseason aspirations, but the fast-paced Kings — led by the speedy point guard De’Aaron Fox — have already defied doubters for nearly three months after being picked to post one of the league’s worst records.

California Online

(Please note: We regularly highlight articles on news sites that have limited access for nonsubscribers.)

• The police say the man who they believe killed a Newman police officer is in the country illegally. President Trump has called attention to the manhunt. [The New York Times]

• The officer, Ronil Singh, was an immigrant himself, and had been working overtime on Christmas night to provide for his family when he was shot. [The Modesto Bee]

• After years of wildfires linked to power lines, the California Public Utilities Commission has begun the process of evaluating whether Pacific Gas and Electric should be split up. [Bloomberg]

• A team of our reporters and editors built a beautiful interactive story that takes you through Paradise and offers a window into the continuing recovery. [The New York Times]

• California’s bullet train is pumping billions into the San Joaquin Valley’s economy. So why is it so unpopular? [The Sacramento Bee]

• With Republican influence in California on the wane, is Proposition 13 still untouchable? [The San Francisco Chronicle]

• Mr. Trump wants a border wall. We show you what’s already in place. [The New York Times]

• Facebook has closely guarded rules that detail what sort of speech is forbidden. We looked at 1,400 pages from these guidelines — and found some problems. [The New York Times]

• Our columnist Kevin Roose has give out his 2018 “Good Tech Awards” in a year those word have not often gone together. [The New York Times]

• In some parts of the Bay Area, workers with a high school diploma have lower unemployment rates than people with bachelor’s degrees or higher. [The Mercury News]

• Thomas Keller has opened a taqueria in Yountville. [The New York Times]

• Is this odd to anyone else? A new Food and Drug Administration report advises consumers to wash avocados before preparing and eating them. [The Sacramento Bee]

And Finally …

Earlier this month, we published The Year in Pictures 2018.

It was stunning to see so many arresting images together in one place. I’m a breaking news reporter, but even for people who don’t deal with the news directly, looking back on the year that was can be overwhelming.

There were pictures from the Winter Olympics (yes, they were this year): Remember screaming when it became clear that Chloe Kim had won gold? There’s a photo of Judge Brett Kavanaugh staring intently ahead and straightening his tie. And then of course there were California’s fires; the elections; Thousand Oaks and so many other events that changed our country and the world.

“The images here compel us to look closely, look twice, look slowly,” Valeria Luiselli writes in the text that accompany the pictures. “And in doing so, we can ask ourselves: How do we react to what we see — not only in the moment we look at it, but in our daily lives? How does that reaction prepare us for the way we will face the future?”

I encourage you to look closely, look twice, look slowly too.

California Today goes live at 6 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: [email protected].

California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.

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