(Approximately) 30 Thoughts On 30 NBA Teams, 2023-’24 Edition

Welcome back. Depending on how you count the attempt at satire written in the midst of an early life crisis in 2014, and with apologies to the time in between the 2019-’20 season and 2020-’21 – spacing more questionable than the 2013-’14 Knicks, incidentally, but with a much more logical explanation – this is the tenth time we’ll be previewing every NBA team, so for those of you here from the jump, I must express some measure of appreciation.

A reminder, and a reintroduction: if you don’t know but you’ve been here this long, Robert Horry’s name is pronounced with a silent-H (‘Orry). His name is his name. He has more rings than Jordan, if that’s your thing, and he hit several of the most important shots in league history, with apologies only via volume in both directions to Kings fans and the Kyrie hive. 

Getting back to the point: you heard about him for years in the French leagues too, right? And even before that? Ah, so you saw what his wingspan could end up being? Not unlike the Burger King jingle that mutates each fortnight but remains an earsore in every iteration, the midseason tournament is coming for all of us: growth is the only mindset.

Watch your own fire burn as mine does. A model like yours? Nothing better. Just you wait and see:

Atlanta Hawks: Justice (not Winslow, though you knew that based on spelling) for John Collins, finally gone after being the league’s foremost trade tease for several seasons. With that out of the way, go tell it on Stone Mountain: Trae Young alone is not enough for this team. An incendiary player and splendid playmaker, Young’s assist rate nevertheless took a dip in 2022-’23, and it isn’t doing the Hawks any favors to leave everything to him. A franchise cornerstone, certainly, but it seems like we’ve all known for a while that he can’t be the best player on a championship team.

Boston Celtics: *makes the sign of the Cross before saying this, but* I like Jaylen and Jayson together, and Robert Williams does for them what they need for him to do so long as he’s healthy, and more (Not trying to be flippant; he’s just everywhere he needs to be almost all of the time. He moves a little to the left, or the right, or upward, or downward, or in ways that the elevator hasn’t yet moved, and the game moves with him, somehow). Was it worth moving Marcus Smart, though? I don’t know that Jaylen Brown ever needs to have been the highest-paid player in basketball history, but he got there. Losing Grant Williams is not going to feel good under any iteration of these Celtics on defense. Jaysom Tatum may very well be the MVP this year. They retain more than enough to expect an Eastern Conference Finals appearance, at least. 

Brooklyn Nets: (Waiting for Villanova to send out the right alumni magazine, the one that has Mikal Bridges asking the right questions about what he’s supposed to do with an apparently lost Ben Simmons, when just across the river there’s–).

Charlotte Hornets: [Number one: get Miles Bridges out of the league, immediately. Number two: Hope the best for Kai Jones. Take “importantly” with a grain of salt here.] LaMelo was supposed to be the ticket. Is he? More importantly: can they act around him if he is sort-of IT, but not all the way a franchise standpost? Most importantly: Can they build around him now, assuming he is a franchise talisman on par with Damian Lillard (back in his Portland days). His health is the most important consideration going forward, not unlike his oldest, not older, brother, currently languishing in Chicago (please hold for the shortest time possible on that, no breaths held). Notably, Michael Jordan is out on the franchise – not all the way, but he’s divested, which mostly means LeBron stans and anybody else who holds an extremely specific grudge against Mike will have some jokes aging rapidly at parties they’re trying to leave anyway.

Chicago Bulls: These morons did it again! They led the league in midrange shot attempts for the second year in a row! Stop doing that! (Their roster suggests they cannot and will not stop doing that).

Cleveland Cavaliers: Tristan Thompson is 32 years old, which is the exact age as the person typing this right now. On the one hand, I feel like I’ve lived several thousands of lives already; on the other: Tristan Thompson is the same age. I don’t know that he’s going to be worth much more than a few rebounds and some rim defense. Given that those were the exact missing pieces in the Cavs’ first round playoff exit following what was otherwise the best season since Bron went Horace Greeley, though, this might once again be the perfect situation for him. Also: Evan Mobley is going to be a Defensive Player of the Year. I don’t know if it’s this year or not, but that will happen if he locks in a little more, and a little more consistently.

Dallas Mavericks: An offense unto himself, Luka Doncic is, without question, That Dude, or Him, or the guy who has That Dog In Him. The problem, though, is that he’s also Inverse Iverson: a points-generating machine playing from farther down the lane with an eye for flair, incomparable passing vision and the glaring weakness of the other end, rendering it difficult to construct the complementary pieces around him necessary to consistently compete. The Mavs have dealt with something like this before; they figured it out then. Can they do that again?

Denver Nuggets: The defending champions enter the season with targets on all of their backs – something that, after a couple of MVPs and fierce barroom debates tied to them, Nikola Jokić something to which he has become accustomed. Bruce Brown is gone, but the rest of the cast remains. Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter Jr. showed out in the playoffs, but Jamal Murray’s form down the stretch kept the system together. Jokić being the lone All-Star in the starting lineup won’t last long: Murray makes his first appearance this year.

Detroit Pistons: A broken record on the turntable reminds me of what I suggested of Cade last year – which is not what the Pistons would be this year, assuming his health. With plenty of talent and the type of hyper-spontaneous fun (you don’t expect it out of them offhand, but only because you haven’t thought of them doing that successfully, and neither did they, really, but they’d run the play in practice once and thought it was fun, and so maybe this one time up 56-43 on the Nets in the third quarter in a December game you’ll see something you’ve never seen before, and then you’re impressed; the play itself goes viral via many blacktop and AAU-adjacent videos across platforms) that makes you put your glass down and look up, the Pistons could get themselves into the play-in: next year. The style will carry.

Golden State Warriors: Try as he might to affect the star-forward attitude of his pal Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul is coming off the bench. That’s the only way this works. He’s a tactician, so he probably knows this already, but his defining competitiveness held steady at the introductory press conference. They might try Klay as the sixth man intermittently or if he has a slow start to his season, but size matters for this edition. 

Houston Rockets: Now that we’ve gotten Kevin Porter Jr. out of the league, we can talk about Jalen Green. Building on a quite promising freshman campaign, he will look to take a small leap. Fred VanVleet’s addition should help, as should that of Jeff Green, the latter fresh off a championship run and the former a hero of the Raps’ championship in 2019. Even if this particular iteration of the team isn’t especially good – something around 31 wins is the expectation in a tough conference – the Rockets should run some clever plays, and they’re almost guaranteed to be pests in the best possible way (that is, unless a certain someone makes a return to this place).

Indiana Pacers: Scream it from the mountaintops: TYRESE HALIBURTON! He’s been standing at the podium, stumping on the idea of pushing the tempo and making that team’s name stick, and it’s been working. The Pacers finished fifth in the NBA in pace last year, and they’ve added Bruce Brown, fresh off a run as the most versatile bench talent they could’ve asked for. A personal challenge to both of him and Bennedict Mathurin: what weirdo reverse pick-and-roll variation can you and Bruce run? What haven’t we seen before?

Los Angeles Clippers: Has the Western Conference passed the Clippers by? We’re about to find out – extension season is looming, and handing the likes of Kawhi Leonard (~40 games played per season with the Clippers, perhaps unfairly but also fairly including an entirely missed 2021-’22 gap in his resume) and/or Paul George (~47 games per season in the same time frame) max extensions seems like a landmine situation. The supporting cast is good, but the stars need to be there to hold everything together. This is their last chance to get this franchise in a fine romance with the Larry O’Brien trophy. Windows may be for cheaters, but theirs is swiftly slamming shut (Yes, of course I’m proud of how Russell Westbrook did post-trade for the Clippers, and when he’s happy, I’m happy. The overall fit, though, remains a bit unconvincing).

Los Angeles Lakers: There is so much to like about the Lakers’ offseason that you will immediately forget LeBron James’s status as the oldest player in the league – just kidding! All of the stakeholders in broadcast rights will never allow you to forget that he is that, so long as he is that. All of, ahem, that said, Austin Reaves is a boon of a complementary player to Bron and Anthony Davis – sharpshooters with defensive chops never hurt the cause – and bringing back Rui Hachimura, D’Angelo Russell and Jarred Vanderbilt should do enough to facilitate the exact balance between continuity and ad-hoc alchemy that LeBron has always tried to thread when giving advice about constructing a championship team. If they end up in trouble come late January, it’s enough to get by on parts sold – but that should never enter their minds.

Memphis Grizzlies: Marcus Smart is the Tony Allen replacement that Dillon Brooks never could have been. He will be a perfect addition in Memphis, the kind of vet presence that, with any luck, will beget a cohesive locker room while the team awaits Ja Morant’s return. 

Miami Heat: 

(No disrespect to Jimmy at all on this, of course. He might end up being an MVP candidate. Someone with the Heat screwed the offseason up, whether it was Pat Riley or Spo or or or or, but.)

Milwaukee Bucks: I like when Giannis says the things that are on his mind. He’s discerning. That’s how he ended up alongside Damian Lillard. It is fantastic to arrive in the States, exceed expectations and, in so doing, get a bag. It’s better – or, at the very least, more fulfilling, and isn’t it something to have those two ideas meet each other under unexpectedly convenient circumstances – to do so on your own terms. It’s probably not possible in the NBA – apologies to Jrue Holiday, who simultaneously lands softly and with the utmost of expectations on his shoulders – but this team, Giannis leading from the front, has gone all the way in working out a perfect, imperfect union. Somewhere, presumably, Oscar and Kareem smile.

Minnesota Timberwolves: The trade for Rudy Gobert fucked up the market for everybody else. [This originally also said: “Why is Damian Lillard going to remain a Blazer?”]. Why is Jimbo Harden going to ruin Joel Embiid’s best chance at a title, somehow, inevitably? Simple: the architect of the Denver Nuggets, Tim Connelly, went ahead and traded a king’s ransom of five picks and five players for Rudy Gobert (obviously, Connelly is also formerly of Fordham University, the Jesuit university of New York, though he did not matriculate there). This, from a man who stated that “the whole idea of trading people is kind of gross to me. It doesn’t sound right, it doesn’t sit well with me.” Here’s a guy who took St. Ignatius of Loyola’s whole “go forth and set the world on fire” mentality to limits at opposition with one another. Speaking of which: this is Anthony Edwards’ team, and the sooner Karl-Anthony Towns realizes that, the better off they (and he) will be. The Naz Reid extension was a nice, and necessary, touch – and it will be an excellent band name for a hardcore group out of St. Paul. 

New Orleans Pelicans: Will we ever see a healthy Zion Williamson for more than 30 games at a time? The answer to that is what stands between a potential Conference Finals appearance and (yikes) blowing the whole thing up.

New York Knicks: It’s put up or shut up (i.e., get traded for pennies on the dollar and then become an All-Star elsewhere) time for RJ Barrett. The consolation prize from what was presumed to be a two-player 2019 draft, Barrett’s inconsistency may be the one thing keeping the Bockers from something like competitiveness. Re-signing Josh Hart was a necessity, and Jalen Brunson’s electricity gave the Knicks the spark they needed to overcome missing out on Donovan Mitchell last year and then, heh, overcoming Mitchell himself in the first round of the playoffs. Barrett, though, is the key to anything further. We know what Julius Randle can be, and what he isn’t – maybe he does too, now. The clock is approaching midnight on Barrett. Let’s put it this way: if FIBA Melo was a thing, FIBA Barrett appears to be the opposite.

Oklahoma City Thunder: Did you forget they had Chet Holmgren? Shame. They’ve been coming, and they may very well arrive this season. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was hitting on all cylinders last season and was the linchpin for Team Canada’s victory in the FIBA World Cup; now is the time for Josh Giddey, Jalen Williams and the rest of the jolly next-up bunch to hit in unison. We’ll see how Holmgren might fit into the NBA’s best young core; a standard-issue playoff appearance, finishing in the top six, seems attainable if some things break their way.

Orlando Magic: It’s Franz Wagner time – meaning he will very likely be an All-Star soon. Let’s hope it’s this season. Orlando is a year or two away from being something else, but Wagner and Paolo Banchero provide enough offensive promise that the Magic are already in the in-between stage going from League Pass fodder (don’t bother – with League Pass, I mean, not with the Magic) to giant-killer. In all likelihood, this is a play-in team, but with the right breaks, this is also a seven-seed capable of undoing the giants of the East – maybe not a series win, but giving a team such as, oh, let’s say the one immediately below just enough of a scare that they lose some faith in themselves…

Philadelphia 76ers: …not that that would be a problem as currently constructed, but this may be that team. Embiid is finally the defending MVP, finally, but: James Harden’s crusade against Daryl Morey feels contrived, and the fact that he made his weirdo PR move in front of a crowd of Chinese kids suggests that, perhaps, he has ulterior motives, and so did state media – lest we forget Morey’s tweet in support of Tibet. Regardless, Harden’s never made it clear that he cares about basketball, despite being one of the game’s foremost offensive talents, and if I was Joel Embiid – while the Sixers do have a history of burners, I must assure you that I am not Joel Embiid – I wouldn’t be terribly confident in the scene around him. Also, crucially, the Sixers could win the championship, and it wouldn’t surprise most.

Phoenix Suns: It’s been long enough since Bradley Beal was last on a competitive team that his addition here is an actually novel idea. The midrange army that the Suns have assembled should be a conference finalist, although…Kevin Durant’s age now matches his jersey number. He hasn’t played more than 55 games in five years. While Devin Booker’s ascent continues, Durant’s availability down the stretch and into the playoffs will dictate how far the Suns can go.

Portland Trail Blazers: Damian Lillard made my defense of his loyalty from a few months ago immediately OBSOLETE, but the Blazers have earned themselves a near-term pass from fans with the haul. By drafting Scoot Henderson and then trading Lillard, Portland has moved on from a team that made the West Finals – remember when? – only four seasons ago. Only four seasons is a mighty long time in NBA time, though, and trading Lillard yielded some fine rewards. Deandre Ayton, Robert Williams and a boatload of draft picks have the Blazers course-correcting for a new, age-appropriate window of contention. 

Sacramento Kings: Playoff KANGZ was great. They finally did it. The Beam is a perfectly ridiculous stunt, but they played into it with aplomb. Now then: what can De’Aaron Fox and Domas Sabonis do with some playoff experience?

San Antonio Spurs: Last December, some people you know and I took in a Spurs-Thunder game in Oklahoma City. Gregg Popovich was ejected early in the second quarter. Apparently, Coach Pop enjoys his free time around the holidays. While all the hype surrounding Big Vic – and a fittingly ridiculous preseason to meet it in full – will propel interest in the Spurs this season, keep an eye on Pop in December, throwing theatrical fits in an effort to get to the wine cellar sooner.

Toronto Raptors: This is a team that is about to hit a breaking point of some kind. Darko Rajaković is in. Pascal Siakam and O.G. Anunoby have been dangled in trade offers; they remain, and if this team starts winning behind Scottie Barnes, they may end up sticking around.

Utah Jazz: Lauri Markkanen’s breakout season helped quell the unease of breaking up a Rudy Gobert-Donovan Mitchell core that was never quite going to work – but the draft picks definitely help. Justice (not Winslow, though you knew that based on spelling) for John Collins, finally freed of the longest-running, slowest-simmering trade rumor in the NBA. Walker Kessler is a captivating running mate next to Collins, a second-runner up for Rookie of the Year with immediate credentials on the boards and defensively. On the other end, Collins’s spacing has made some regressions – in the shortened bubble season, Collins shot 40% on the largest volume per game of his career; last year, that fell below 30% on similar propensity. If Collins picks that back up, the Jazz could find a disruptive opening in a Western Conference that has so many good teams that, essentially, they can’t all be that good. Maybe Utah sneaks through.

Washington Wizards: At the beginning of each season, it’s worth simply Googling “Washington Wizards” and seeing where it goes. Let’s check on that: 

So the Beal-Kuzma-Porziņģis Big 3 didn’t quite work out – so what? While that lineup was the best three-man thing the Wiz had going a year ago, any combination of those players with others landed at a plus-3.3, with average Wizards net ratings shorting out much at much lower efficiency.