TAKES FOR EVERY TEAM: PART TWO

It has been about two weeks since the first of our preview articles, which you can find here. Since part 1 we’ve seen potentially the highest upside player of all time hit the court in the form of Victor Wembanyama, as well as a late contender for off-season scandal of the year when Draymond threw a haymaker at Jordan Poole. 

Now, as someone who has repeatedly praised Jordan Poole and who also identifies as a Draymond Green apologist, this was a tough story to process made worse by some very difficult footage.There’s no winner in this situation, and the best outcome is a team which functions more like the office jobs we are all forced to endure until we get to the age of 80, our backs fuse and our eyes explode. The Warriors take will need to wait until part 3 as the team remains in damage control, so you’ll have to wait another few days to see my photoshop of Steph on the Iron Throne. 

This week, it’s the Toronto Raptors, Atlanta Hawks, Los Angeles Lakers, Indiana Pacers, Utah Jazz, San Antonio Spurs, Philadelphia 76ers, Detroit Pistons, Sacramento Kings and Miami Heat under the spotlight. Next week, we’ll finish covering the rest of this absolutely massive league. 

Toronto Raptors 

IN: Otto Porter & Juancho Hernangomez
OUT: Yuta Watanabe

The Raptors are Everything the Knicks Wished they Were

You probably already know this, but production companies never actually film in New York, they film in Toronto and pretend. The Raptors right now are what New York pretends to be: an undersized but dynamic point guard, a young defensive stud and future superstar, a versatile big who can stretch the floor and run pick and roll, a defensive-minded genius coach, and a keystone celebrity fan with worldwide influence. 

If you watched any Raptors game last season, you would have come away with one impression: holy fuck Scottie Barnes is good! Enough people recognised this to award Scottie Rookie of the Year over Evan Mobley, and were justified in doing so. The Raptors put the fear of God into the 76er’s that they might become the first team to ever blow a 3-0 lead in last season’s playoffs, and can only improve from there. 

Toronto remains one of the best coached teams in the league and didn’t spend the off-season getting any worse. Not only that, they managed to pick up Otto Porter Jr, who was an absolute dead-eye shooter in the limited games he was available last season, and Juancho Hernangomez, aka Bo Cruz! Following the debut of Juancho’s unexpectedly great acting debut in the summer, he went and killed it at Eurobasket, making 5/7 from deep to close out the final against France. 

Porter and Juancho are exactly what coach Nick Nurse needs. Last season, the Raptors starters averaged the most minutes of any starting unit, with month-long stretches where Siakam and Fred VanVleet averaged over 40 minutes a game. Nurse has always been able to get the best of long players who are capable shooters (outside of Fred that’s basically all of Toronto’s roster), and giving him another two reliable guys will give the big names some much needed rest. 

Defensively, Toronto’s collective length is great enough to reach across the width of the court, and they boast some of the league’s best individual defenders in Barnes, OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam. Siakam and Anunoby have been in countless trade rumours the last few seasons, but those settled down after Nurse decided to have them run a marathon every night. 

The only question mark over the Raptors and how much they can improve on their solid ‘21-’22 season is whether they can continue to balance their offense as Barnes takes a larger role.

Barnes can create his own shot and is a much better playmaker than you expect, he’s got great vision in pushing passes in the the passages he creates when he drives and drags defenders towards him. Barnes deserves the ball in his hands more often, but so does Fred, and so does Siakam, and so does Gary Trent Jr, and so on and so on. This is one of the headaches a coach wants to have and Nurse will relish the opportunity to solve it. 

In an improved East, it will take plenty of fight to make the playoffs, and Toronto are ready to push themselves back into the top tier of the conference. They’re like a better behaved Eastern Conference version of Memphis from last year – I can’t wait.

Atlanta Hawks 

IN: DeJounte Murray, Justin Holiday & Frank Kaminksy
OUT: Kevin Huerter & Danilo Gallinari

Why address your personality defects when you can just do steroids?

Atlanta were a complete let-down last season: underperforming all regular season, qualifying as the eight seed via the play-in tournament, then getting completely monstered by the Heat in round one. One of the many difficulties that Atlanta faced in that series was how quickly and easily the Heat could stunt their offense by throwing all of their defense at Trae Young. 

Atlanta played to Young’s strengths last season, spamming pick-and-rolls and attempting to cut up defenses with Clint Capela’s smart screening, John Collins’ athleticism and Trae’s laser shooting. During the regular season, that was good for the second-best offense in the league behind the Jazz. That all hit a snag when suddenly Trae would get around the screen to find all of Bam Adebayo’s 6-foot-9 frame taking up the space that should have been there. 

The Hawks remained porous on the defensive side of the court, giving up 113 points a game – making them the 26th ranked defense in the league. Trae is basically not there on defense and if his man gets the ball (which is every possession) he’ll immediately attempt to steal the ball then find himself a step behind his man. 

So, what should an offensively-biased team who are committed to their superstar point guard do? Trade five first-round picks for DeJounte Murray, that’s what!

Young and Murray are vastly different players, but it’s a strange proposition that a team would unload nearly all of their future draft equity to get a guy in the same position as their number 1 guy, especially when that team’s small forward can’t stay on the court.

Murray was in charge of a funky offense in San Antonio that was heavily reliant on ball-movement and Murray’s passing skill. He averaged 9.2 assists last season, good for fourth behind his new teammate Trae at third, who averaged 9.7. Murray is nowhere near the scorer that Trae is, but he managed to average a touch above 20 points per game last season.

Defensively, Murray is a marked improvement to the Hawks perimeter defense, leading the league in steals and deflections last season. He’ll probably improve that mark for the amount of times he’ll have to leap into the air to stop the opposition’s attempt at cherry-picking against a Hawks team that routinely fails to make it back following a fast break. 

Soon after Murray was traded, he announced the new Atlanta version of himself in a series of summer games where he, Trae and John Collins destroyed a bunch of guys on their lunch break, throwing lob after lob. He then got in a weird fight with Paolo Banchero that seems to have resolved itself, but hopefully not. The most interesting thing about this Magic season might be a Murray-Banchero push and shove. 

Atlanta are going to get out and run this season; be prepared for multiple highlights where Trae throws a lob to Murray, who then throws one to Collins, who then commits what would ordinarily be considered a crime outside the confines of a basketball court. The Hawks looked at their measly point differential of 1.6 per game and thought “why does it matter if we allow a million points if we can score a billion points?”

Put another way, the Hawks have spent the off-season eating plain chicken and broccoli out of microwavable containers, injecting copious amounts of trenbolone and constantly doing chin-ups. What do you mean they’ve done nothing to address their underlying issues and have instead embraced the worst part of themselves as some kind of protective blanket?

How dare you. Atlanta are at 3% body fat and they look fantastic, even if they would bleed to death from a papercut.

Los Angeles Lakers 

IN: Darvin Ham, Patrick Beverley, Lonnie Walker IV, Juan Toscano-Anderson & Dennis Schroeder
OUT:  not Russell Westbrook (yet)
EXTENSIONS: LeBron James (2 years, $97m)

The Lakers are going to keep banging their head against the wall until they break through or knock themselves out

The Lakers are running it back baby! After last season ended in disaster, the Lakers are attempting to convince themselves that Darvin Ham can make the LeBron, Davis and Westbrook trio work together, despite the overwhelming evidence they do not.

Now you might argue ‘hey, those three only played 21 games together last season, they haven’t had enough time to figure it out yet’. That would be a valid criticism if the season only went for 21 games, and there weren’t another 57 games which showed that Russ does not fit on this roster. For the Lakers’ faithful, there is no sample size large enough to make a proper assessment of their Big 3, but at the same time the team could suddenly click and all their problems will be solved tomorrow.

I refuse to believe any statement about Anthony Davis’ good health, or how he’s spent the off-season getting stronger, or how he’s ready to take over the offense, or any of the other platitudes that the Lakers have trotted out during every media day for each of Davis’ three years in LA. In any case, Davis has fallen out of the top tier of big-men in the league. Jokic, Embiid and Giannis are all superior bigs, and AD finds himself closer to the Karl-Anthony Towns, Bam Adebayo, Pascal Siakam tier. That still makes him a really good player, but if you’re a Lakers fan, are you not concerned that it remains an unresolved question whether he’s better than a 37 year old LeBron? 

No take about the Lakers is complete without LeBron – after all he’s the most important player of the last 20 years. LeBron averaged 30 points per game last season, the most he’s averaged since he was 21, along with 8 rebounds and 6 assists. The fact that he did that at age 37 is incomprehensible, and the likelihood that he’ll probably do the same at age 38 is insane. This dyed in the wool LeBron hater is starting to feel slightly sorry for the big guy, he’s giving everything to achieve nothing in what might be the most talented version of the league in his entire career. The end of LeBron’s career is far closer than the beginning, but he still looks immortal for now, and capable of making something special happen.

What’s bizarre about this Lakers team is the way that they’ve abandoned typical thinking of how to build around LeBron. The formula has always been LeBron plus shooters, this was the case with the Lakers bubble championship team. For whatever reason, the Lakers decided that one championship was enough and immediately after winning that it was time to blow up the team and replace all the three and D players with guys who can’t shoot or defend. 

Looking at this year’s lineup, Kendrick Nunn can shoot but can’t defend, Dennis Schroeder can kinda shoot and Kinda defend, at Bev can defend but can’t shoot, Juan Toscano-Anderson is a useful livewire off the bench, but where is the traditional 3-and-D player that has always worked alongside LeBron?

The Lakers return with an entirely new bench unit, complete with two new point guards ready to go if LA can find a trade for Westbrook. Patrick Beverley is the best of their new acquisitions and brings some much needed dawg to this team. Bev has never been devoid of confidence and is walking into a team with LeBron James on it like he’s the number 1 guy.

If you can limit the amount of times that Bev has the ball in his hands, he’s a useful and effective player. Left to his own devices, he’ll play you out of games. Memphis were more than happy to allow Bev to run riot through three quarters, then blow a gasket in the fourth and start throwing the ball away. Given how many guards the Lakers have, there may not be enough minutes in the rotation for Beverley to shoot himself in the foot. 

To make a rare fair and unbiased point, it looks like Darvin Ham is a really good coach. Sometimes it’s hard to tell on superstar teams whether the coach is actually doing anything, so it’s easier to judge a coach on how the team looks when the bench is out there. Watching the way the Lakers bench has run plays in the pre-season, it looks like Ham is doing good things with this roster. 

Most, but not all, of the Lakers problems this season are Russell Westbrook shaped. Russell was more than happy to sign on for the last year of his contract at a clip of $47.1m, which TBC exclusively reported was communicated to the Lakers in a meeting which went for exactly 14 seconds. The Lakers Russ-wishlist is, in order: he accepts a buyout of his contract, he is willing to come off the bench, or he makes changes to his game which suit the team’s offense. The likelihood of any of those events is precisely zero.

This is year seven of the ‘Russ just needs to shoot less/play off-ball/set screens’ argument, which has never been heard or heeded by Westbrook, who would rather sprint into the lane as fast as possible and slam a dunk attempt against the rim. There is no reason to expect that to change, no matter what Coach Darvin Ham says, and he’s saying all the right things so far.

The Lakers have their 2025 and 2027 first round picks available to trade, when LeBron and AD may no longer be involved with the franchise, a point where they could absolutely suck. Some unreliable rumours reached TBC that those picks became available as a condition of LeBron’s contract extension. If the Lakers are in turmoil by December and a team is willing to throw away a year on Westbrook, there’s a great chance to snag some A-grade draft assets.  

Even if the Lakers manage to trade Russ, his attitude is symbolic of this team’s willingness to continue banging their head against the wall, as if they’ll break through to the other side before they knock themselves out. 

Indiana Pacers

In: Bennedict Mathurin (#6 pick), Aaron Nesmith & Daniel Thies
Out: Malcolm Brogdon & TJ Warren
Extensions: Jalen Smith (2 years, $10m)

Everyone sit down and sing Kumbaya – NOT YOU MYLES!

It’s time for everyone in Indiana to get to know each other. After a major shake up last season, trading Domantas Sabonis for Tyrese Haliburton at the trade deadline, this is a new Indiana team that don’t know each other very well yet. There’s basically no expectation on them and there hasn’t been much thought spared for the Pacers outside their own organisation.

Indiana made a play for DeAndre Ayton early in the off-season, forcing the Suns to match their 4-year, $133m contract. They also bid farewell to their faithful, but often injured soldier, Malcolm Brogdon, taking on Aaron Nesmith from the Celtics. Nesmith is an offense-only player who had limited opportunities in a crowded Boston backcourt, and it will be exciting to see what he can do in Indiana. He can also go 3 months without hitting a shot, which might be why he found himself on the outer in Boston. 

If you run an eye down this roster, it’s more talented than you might think, and it comes at an absolute cut-price cost. With two notable exceptions, none of Indiana’s players are making more than $9m this season. The Pacers are $30 million under the salary cap this year and have plenty of young talent including their marquee player Haliburton (paid $4.2m this season), the underrated Jalen Smith ($4.6m), the impressive sophomore Chris Duarte ($3.9m), and springy rookie two-N Benn Mathurin ($6.5m). The only guys earning actual NBA salaries this year are Myles Turner ($18m) and Buddy Hield ($21.2m).

Ever since Turner put on his Indiana cap on draft day, the Pacers have been looking to trade away their big man. Now in the final year of his contract, Turner is a starting quality role-player who can contribute to a team now and give them some cap relief in future. Turner isn’t going to reverse the fortunes of a struggling franchise, but he can help a fringe team get over the hump. Turner and his contract are a very significant trade asset for a Pacers team with plenty of cap space for other teams to dump their bad salaries into. 

As well as Turner, Buddy Hield has found himself in trade talk his entire career, which hasn’t changed since he was moved along with Halliburton to the Pacers last season. Current wisdom is that Hield and Turner are available right now in exchange for Russell Westbrook and the Lakers 2025 and 2027 first round draft picks. If there is a team that can suffer a year of Russell Westbrook doing absolutely whatever he wants, it’s the Pacers. Rick Carlisle’s already lost his hair, what’s the worst that can happen?  

So why doesn’t everyone gather around a fire while Rick Carlisle breaks out his guitar and everyone sings Kumbaya –  MYLES TURNER THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO YOU GET BACK TO WORK.  

Utah Jazz

IN: Malik Beasley, Talen Horton-Tucker, Lauri Markkanen, Kelly Olynyk, Collin Sexton & Jared Vanderbilt
OUT: Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert & Bojan Bogdanovic

Is this the worst that Utah has to offer? 

The Jazz made the right decision to blow up their franchise and trade away Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell. After four successive playoff failures, each elimination more humiliating than the last, the cost to fix Utah’s issues was much greater than the cost of replacing them. 

For the longest time, Utah was every NBA nerds favourite team. They were well-coached, they had players that were statistically elite, no one really cares about them. But now it’s all blown up and now nobody has to care about them for a little white. Also, the new jerseys are absolutely awful. This season, they will play worse and look a whole lot worse. 

The problem is, when you trade guys like Gobert and Mitchell, who are both on massive contracts, you have to take back a lot of what those guys salaries cost. As much as the Jazz would have been willing to take on 10 different $3m a year players from the Timberwolves, that’s not possible, and theyve ended up with Malik Beasley and Jared Vanderbilt. The same for Mitchell, with the Jazz taking on Collin Sexton and Lauri Markannen. They also got a boatload of draft picks from Minnesota, to the point that it ruined the entire trade market (more on that later).

This team is still going to suck, but there’s only so many ways that you can write ‘Wembanyama good, teams should tank,’ so stay with me here. 

Collin Sexton is among the most competitive guys in the league; in his college days, Sexton’s team was once reduced to 3 players after a brawl, so he scored 31 points while playing 3 on 5. He has a psychopathic drive to win and will not be content to wait for theoretical draft picks to materialise and start receiving his passes.

Sexton is comfortably the best player that the Jazz acquired this off-season, but Vanderbilt and Beasley aren’t slouches, while Markkanen has his moments. Horton-Tucker is difficult to read; the once coveted prospect that the Lakers refused to trade for Kyle Lowry was thrown onto the scrapheap for Pat Beverley and other pieces this summer. Another guy who’s shown flashes of starting quality talent, Horton-Tucker is still only 21. Not to mention, Utah still has Jordan Clarkson and Mike Conley on the roster too (though Conley is pretty busted at this point).

If Danny Ainge is going to shape a team in his own image through the draft, he’s starting with a team whose talent is surplus to requirements. There’s no point being in the middle ground in the NBA, you’re either competing for a championship or trying to draft the guy who can win you one. 

The Jazz aren’t going to light the world on fire and storm into the playoffs on the back of a Sexton-Clarkson centric offense, but they’re not going to roll over every night like some might expect. In a weird Tuesday night game in Utah, the Jazz might blow the doors off some unsuspecting contender on the back of a 30 point, 15 assist game from Sexton. 

As a final note, and this pure longshot gambling, Leandro Balmora never did anything in his time at the Timberwolves, but the Argentine prospect had plenty of potential coming out of Barcelona in 2020. Could he find himself a role in the Jazz side? 

San Antonio Spurs

In: All of Atlanta’s draft picks & Jeremy Sochan (#9 pick)
Out: DeJounte Murray, Lonnie Walker IV, Jock Londale
Extensions: Keldon Johnson (4 years, $80m)

Just let Gregg Popovich go on leave this season

Let’s keep this quick – no one needs to spend 5 minutes reading about the Spurs. They have no intention of doing anything but measure up a potential locker-room space for Victor Wembanyama. 

Having moved on from DeJounte Murray and finding themselves the owners of a whole bunch of picks, the Spurs are going to tank for only the second time in franchise history. The first time they did that, David Robinson missed the entire year through injury, the Spurs went 20-62 and won the Tim Duncan Sweepstakes. You can bet that Gregg Popovich and RC Buford are rummaging around the Spurs offices, looking for spare change to buy extra tickets in the Wembanyama Super-Multi-Powerball. 

If I can appeal to the record-keepers: don’t let this season count towards Pop’s career winning percentage, which sits at an absurd 64% in his more than 2000 games as coach. Pop is a colossus in the league and deserves some leeway when he’s deliberately playing Jakob Poeltl at point guard. Anyway, Pop would enjoy himself a whole lot more this season if he was allowed to spend it all in Positano. 

San Antonio will trot out a typical Spursian offense this season, and they’re not completely devoid of talent: Keldon Johnson is SNEAK ATTACK – IT’S TIME TO TALK ABOUT THE SIXERS!

Philadelphia 76ers

IN: Montrezl Harrell, PJ Tucker & De’Anthony Melton
OUT: Danny Green, DeAndre Jordan & Paul Millsap
EXTENSIONS: James Harden (2 years, $68.6m)

Please welcome your Philadelphia Ship of Theseus’ers

You don’t need the reminder, but just in case: the Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment about the nature of identity. The story goes that, in Ancient Greece, the Athenians preserved the ship that Theseus used to escape the Minotaur and, over centuries, replaced the decaying parts of the ship. After all that time, the question became, is this still the same ship? Bit of Age of Empires stuff.

Applying that to the Sixers, who fell apart at the seams last season and return in vastly the same form, isn’t this just the same team? Doc Rivers is still the coach, right? I can’t understand why Philadelphia are considered among the contenders this season.

For the last two years under Doc Rivers, and for the previous seven under Brett Brown, Philly have run the same blurgh offense. Philly might run some interesting options throughout the regular season, sprinting up and down the court when they beat the Knicks by 30 points on a Thursday night in MSG, but when it comes to the big games, Philadelphia revert to the same ‘break in case of emergency’ offense.  

Whoever is the ball handler takes almost the entire 8-second clock to bring the ball past half court, the big who isn’t Embiid sets a screen on the weakside for Tobias Harris, who either fails to break into space or is completely ignored. Meanwhile, Joel Embiid has walked to the top of the key, where he’s given the ball with 12 seconds to create. It just so happens that Embiid is more than capable of putting the ball in the hoop within those 12 seconds.

I am not deceived by any of the very good things James Harden has said lately about his own fitness nor his intended role on the team as second-in-charge behind Embiid. Harden’s dodgy hamstrings haven’t held up for 82 games for the last 3 years now and he’s a year older and a step slower than he was. While Harden may claim the only thing between him and the MVP is his own health, Philly needs him to make Embiid the MVP more than anything.

Harden may not be able to hit seven step-back 3’s a game anymore, but he possesses an underrated and impeccable feel for the game, his passing vision has seen him topping the assists table the last few years. The Harden-Embiid duo has shown spates of insane scoring, but all of that brilliance fades when it comes to crunch time and Doc loses his mind all over again.

Philly’s greatest variable is Tyrese Maxey, the breakout third year player and perhaps the fastest player in the league. Maxey impressed in his sophomore season and has established himself as starting point-guard, sharing playmaking duties with Harden.

Maxey presents the opportunity to mix up Philly’s options, he’s an absolute blur on offense who shoots 45% catch-and-shoot from deep and has a great set of disruptive hands on defense which make him one of the best get-out-and-run point guards in the league.  

However, there are far too many occasions where Maxey makes a break and sprints to the other end before the rest of the Sixers can jog past half court. If the defense can make it back before Philly can plod there, the opportunity is lost. Expect to see Maxey at the free throw line plenty of times this season, when he’s given no choice but to attack his defender.

On the wing, Tobias Harris is … a part of this team. What do you want? Faced with a choice between Harris and Butler, the Sixers chose the wrong guy and every Harris minute is a reminder of that fact. 

So, what’s changed between this season and last? What makes this iteration of the Sixers so different from the one that just got bounced in the second round? What are these new planks patching up the holes? There’s a few, but not enough to ruin the analogy.

First is PJ Tucker, who accepted a three year, $30m deal from the Sixers at the age of 37. There’s two reasons this deal is interesting: one; holy fuck the Sixers are going to pay a 40 year old $10m, and two; Philly must estimate that Tucker’s impact this year is so significant that it doesn’t matter if they overpay him the rest of the way. NBA front offices are nothing if not problem gamblers, and going all-in on PJ Tucker is the equivalent of a 10-leg multi attempting to pick every winner at Randwick on a Saturday. While the pay-off could be incredible, Philly could also find themselves $30m in the hole.

Second is Montrezl Harrell, record holder of fastest transition from Sixth Man of the Year to veteran journeyman. Now at his fourth franchise in three years since this accolade, it’s beginning to appear as if Montrezl’s pick and roll magic with Lou Williams was a beautiful meeting of two puzzle pieces that fit just right with each other and no one else.

You could say things will be different now since Harrell hasn’t had a dance partner for his pick and roll anywhere since his Clipper days and now he’s playing with Harden, who is one of the best pick and roll ball handlers in the league. Except the two played together in Houston, at a time when Harden was capable of rocking up hungover and putting up 60 points, and it didn’t seem like there was much of an on-court connection during Harrell’s two years as a Rocket.

Forgive me for glossing over the addition of De’Anthony Melton – wow, Philly got a guy who fell out of the Grizzlies rotation!

All told, Tucker and Harrell are some new flags to hang from the mast. The real difference makers for Philly are their existing starters and coach Doc Rivers, you know, the guy who hasn’t made a coaching adjustment since 2010. 

This isn’t a Brooklyn situation, the question of ‘which version of this team’ doesn’t apply, because we’ve seen so much of this team, and so little has changed. The imaginarily improved version of this team may as well be coached by Chuck Daley’s ghost. I should mention, I remain committed to the Sixers zag I made before last year’s playoffs (which proved correct). 

Detroit Pistons

IN: Bojan Bogdanovic, Jaden Ivey (pick #5), Jalen Duren (pick #13), Kevin Knox, Alec Burks, Nerlens Noel & Kemba Walker
OUT: Jerami Grant & Kelly Olynyk

The most exciting 10-seed in league history

This is purely a Cade Cunningham based take. Last years’ number 1 pick played his rookie year almost entirely in shadow after he missed all of pre-season and the first five games after turning his ankle, by which point everyone had already tuned out of Pistons games.

On the court, Cade goes about his business like a 14-year veteran, playing with a composure far beyond his experience. Cade does so much right possession after possession, keeping everyone involved in the offense and sneakily putting up numbers. He’s one of those guys that makes you go ‘wait, how does he have 25 points?’ The Pistons were a dumpster fire last season – they’re far more talented now and Cade just wins, he’ll find a way to keep their head above water.

Cade has also put on an apparent 10 pounds of muscle this off-season and looks absolutely stacked. I didn’t even make a photoshop for this section, I was just so impressed by the picture of Cade flexing. 

Meanwhile, the Knicks dumped all their problems on the Pistons in the form of Kemba, Nerlens Noel, Alec Burks and Kevin Knox. This was mostly a salary move for both teams, and it allowed the Knicks to make all the off-season extensions they did. Given Kemba is already appealing for someone to give him game time, it’s unlikely we’ll see him suit up in Detroit. Otherwise Noel and Burks are meh and Knox (who wasn’t actually traded by New York but ended up in Detroit anyway) might not actually know how to play basketball.

Detroit’s rookie pairing of Jaden Ivey and Jalen Duren have impressed in pre-season, with Ivey already showing off his impressive athleticism and defensive nous. As mentioned, Ivey comes highly touted out of college and he’ll fit comfortably alongside Cade in the backcourt.

Detroit are young, stacked with talent and looking to break out of the slump the franchise has been in for the last decade. No one is going to be happy having to come to Detroit and have to sprint up and down the court all night while these kids throw the ball around.

Ultimately, the East is still too good for the Pistons to make much of an impact, but when you have Cade plus young guys, entertaining things will happen. 

Sacramento Kings

IN: Matthew Dellavadova, Kevin Huerter, Malik Monk & Keegan Murray (#4 pick)
OUT: Donte DiVincenzo, Justin Holiday & Jeremy Lamb

The play-in counts as the playoffs and the Kings are making it!

Full disclosure: I have a soft spot for the Kings and I believe in them way too much every year. Now in the longest playoff drought of any professional team in America, the Kings have been stuck in a quagmire of incompetence the last two decades.But look at their roster: Barnes, Huerter, Sabonis, Monk, Murray, Holmes, Mitchell and Fox – that’s the best version of the Kings since they had DeMarcus Cousins, which is easy since all of Boogie’s teams sucked too.

Enter new head coach Mike Brown, who spent the last half dozen years as the Warrior’s lead assistant. Brown showed himself to be a capable coach when he was handed the reins of the greatest team of all time during the 2017 playoffs, when Steve Kerr had a broken back. Maybe anyone could have coached that team – Durant take one shot, Curry take the next, but nobody else was coach of the Warriors in those series. By all reports, Brown is one of the most likeable guys in the league, and TBC would like to formally support and congratulate him on his appointment.

This season, we may have the answer to the oft-pondered question: ‘does De’Aaron Fox suck or does he just play for the Kings?’ Starting his career off hot, Fox was a lightning quick point guard with great defensive hands, a decent playmaking eye and a shaky shot. Now in year 6 of his career, Fox is a better playmaker but otherwise pretty much the same guy, except he gets paid $30m a season.

To be fair to Fox, he’s had a new coach every season of his career and he’s only ever been on lacklustre teams. If Fox is the guy that Sacramento hope he is, they’ve given him the perfect team for his skill-set. The Kings can theoretically trot out Fox, Sabonis and 3 shooters every possession, putting together a mismatch of all their new guards. Fox can run pick and roll for days with Sabonis, or kick out to actual 3-point shooters.

Sabonis remains one of the most fun minor stars in the league. He does everything right on the offensive end, but, apart from rebounding, he’s not a defensive presence. His most elite skill is that he make the most baskets where both he and his defender both end up on the ground. When there’s a mess of rebounding around the rim, Domas is crashing in, throwing his body around, knocking dudes over and winning the ball.

As is tradition, everyone laughed at the Kings when they drafted Keegan Murray over Jaden Ivey, who was the bluechip prospect that looked to be a no-brainer for the Kings. Turns out Sacramento might have known something no one else did – Murray is legit. Murray absolutely killed it in Summer League and possesses the kind of shooting skills that are immediately transferable to the league. 

After the Warriors, the Kings have been my most-watched team on League Pass the last few years. For whatever reason, my thumb drifts towards the Kings logo when I open the app, which means I’ve seen a lot of pretty awful basketball in my time. I’m going to write this down even if I regret it later – the Kings are a good team now, and they’re going to find themselves in the play-in this season.

Unfortunately, everyone else in the West got better too, and the Kings are improving while the top of the league are finding their final form. There’s still a chance of a valiant .500 season that breathes life back into the franchise.

Miami Heat

In: Nikola Jovic (not that one) & a bunch of undrafted guys who will all probably make all-rookie
Out: PJ Tucker & Markieff Morris
Extensions: Tyler Herro (4 years, $130m),Caleb Martin (3 years, $20m), Dewayne Dedmon (2 years, $9m), Victor Oladipo (2 years, $18m) & Udonis Haslem (1 year, $3m). 

Will the power of continuity see Miami win the East? 

Do you remember how this team was one Jimmy Butler 3 away from the NBA Finals? If you’re a Heat fan, you’ve probably spent the entire summer thinking about what could have been, but I’m brave enough to admit that I had almost entirely forgotten how good Miami was last season – and I wrote about how good they were at least 4 times last year. 

So, it seems, has everyone else. Miami enter the season as a mid-tier playoff team in most people’s estimations, with predictions estimating they’ll win just under 50 games, depending on the source. Those estimates seem to forget that Miami topped the East last year, and repeatedly beat top teams over the head in the regular season. 

Apart from their involvement in some early Kyrie Irving and Donovan Mitchell trade rumours, Miami spent the off-season making sure they held onto as much of their conference-topping team as they could. The exception being the loss of PJ Tucker, who was made a Godfather offer by the Sixers, and which made the Heat front office ask themselves ‘how do we feel about paying a 37 year old $10m a year for 3 seasons? PJ, do you need a lift to the airport?’

The Heat have enough problems with their soon-to-be 37 year old Kyle Lowry. Lowry missed 6 of Miami’s 16 playoff games due to injury, and 37 year old knees don’t tend to magic themselves better. With Lowry off the court in the playoffs, the Heat lacked a true primary playmaker and weren’t able to replace that with their swathe of secondary production. 

It’s true that Butler and Adebyayo are great complementary playmakers, guys who can make great final passes in the sequence of a play to find the open man. However; when they’re the guys bringing the ball up the court every second or third possession, the offense begins to feel a bit same-y. Mind you, that’s only in the playoffs. During the regular season, Bam and Jimmy tear teams apart with their passing and will do so again this year. 

At this point in their respective careers, it’s hard to see either Bam or Jimmy taking yet another leap to become elite playmakers, but both of those guys have improved basically every part of their game throughout their time in the league, and their near-psychopathic competitiveness probably means they spent all summer becoming offensive conductors.

Tyler Herro also returns fresh with a new contract. Along with the injury cloud that follows Lowry, Herro’s role in the team is the only other real concern about this team. Tyler was a breakout star who had a horrible sophomore hangover, followed by a respectable ‘22 season. He deserves the ball in his hands and the chance to prove he’s worth all of his $130m, but he’s the number 3 guy behind Jimmy and Bam at best. 

Miami took a flier on Victor Oladipo, who had a couple of moments in the playoffs, but still looks uncomfortable pushing his body as every muscle in his legs continue to protest against being used that way. 

Add the clutch of undrafted rookies that the Heat always tend to get the best out of and the team starts to take shape. Two of the Heat’s best shooters, Duncan Robinson and Max Strus, were both undrafted rookies who made their way into the starting lineup. Miami has already converted the undrafted Jamal Cain to a two-way deal after he impressed in the pre-season, averaging 12 points, 6 rebounds and 44% from deep in his two games. If Miami finds a third undrafted deadeye shooter then someone needs to go down there and start testing the Gatorade for peptides or something.

Considering all of that, Miami’s floor hasn’t changed, as a matter of fact it’s probably risen. Miami are, at worst, a guaranteed playoff team. The team that was one shot away from making the Finals returns with all of its starters and the same coach. Everyone on this roster knows exactly what they’re supposed to do and, even if none of them are the best in their position, the Heat play some of the best team basketball in the league.  

In the East, the Bucks are the only team that sits a step above everyone else, provided Khris Middleton is healthy. Question marks surround the Sixers, Celtics and Nets, all of whom probably have more talent than Miami. What all those teams lack is the mythical ‘Heat Culture’, that intangible spirit around the team that makes every new signing drop to 4% body fat and allows players to find the best version of themselves.

Miami had a real crack at making it out of the East last season, and it’s not long since they made the Finals. They’re putting faith in the same troops that brought them there last year, but will that be enough in an improved East? 

So that covers two-thirds of the league. Part 3 to come in a few days, and I’m sure you can figure out which teams will be covered in that.