Did you miss part 1 of this extensive writeup?
Atlantic Division
Boston Celtics
Category: Actual contenders
The Celtics are the favorites to win the Eastern conference this season. They're very good and they've been very good for a long time, and in the last seven seasons, they've been to the conference finals five times, and to the finals once.
But they just haven't managed to quite get over the hump. It's always someone else's story, with the Celtics. Last year they were massively upset by the eight-seeded Miami Heat (more on then later in this post). Jayson Tatum is the prototypical young superstar: still only 25, with an oversized list of accomplishments. But the Celtics just bit the bullet on giving their second-best player, Jaylen Brown, an enormous contract. And they just realigned their roster. Out go several important supporting pieces from the last few years. In come Jrue Holiday (an aging guard fresh off a great run with Milwaukee) and Kristaps Porziņģis, a tantalizingly great center whose career has been semi-derailed by injury.
So in a sense this is a team we've seen season after season, but it's also kind of new. They're justifiably hyped, and they have an impressive combination of continuity and youth – Tatum became great very quickly, and as a result he's basically been going to the playoffs his whole career and is peaking while still fairly young.
Brooklyn Nets
Category: The Chaos Zone
A few years ago Brooklyn assembled a superteam around the core of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden. They hired Steve Nash, a legendary point guard with limited coaching experience, as a head coach. Then Kyrie did Kyrie things (fought the NY vaccine mandate and lost) and James Harden did James Harden things (forced his way to another team). Steve Nash was probably out of his depth, but he was also completely jobbed by the awful circumstances of his posting. Injuries plus the Kyrie situation meant that the big three barely got to play together. Brooklyn went from one of the most hyped contenders in the NBA, to a total disaster, to rebuilding.
At least they were able to recoup some semblance of value by trading Kevin Durant to Phoenix. But Brooklyn doesn't have their own draft pick this season, so they have no incentive to actually tank. Bear in mind, their roster is at best very mediocre. They're just in limbo, waiting for their new era to arrive but without much of anything really going on. Last season the Nets won 45 games, but they played half that season with Kyrie Irving and KD still on the roster. They made the playoffs, but by the time they got there their stars were gone and they were almost a first-round bye.
The main point of interest to watch for with Brooklyn is Ben Simmons, a player with a long and complicated history who has not really been healthy or a viable rotation player for a couple of years now – but the possibility of a comeback is there, and he's looked much closer to his old self in preseason.
New York Knicks
Category: In the middle, not necessarily stuck yet
After the Patrick Ewing glory days in the 90's, the Knicks were mediocre-to-bad for a very long time. They oscillated between abortive playoff runs and being in the lottery; in the last decade or so, they experienced a cycle of hope (that a big star might come to New York) followed by disappointment (when they went to LA instead... or worse, Brooklyn).
But last year they won a playoff series. They didn't go far, and they're not expected to – their roster has a definite ceiling – but they're basically trying to build on that moderate success by running it back this year.
Jalen Brunson a breakout season here after spending most of his career being Luka Dončić's sidekick in Dallas. Brunson is a great guard who can beat defenders with speed, finish among taller players, and manage the offense well. And the Knicks' forward Julius Randle also had a great season after some ups and downs. But this is not a team with tons of firepower; they're more waiting for a true ceiling raiser to show up. And the team has not had a great track record attracting those superstar players to New York.
They are also saddled with cursed luck and one of the worst owners in the league. So, you know, temper your expectations.
Philadelphia 76ers
Category: Chaos zo—[puts hand to earpiece] I am being told they are still contenders act—[puts other hand to other earpiece] no actually it's chaos for them
This era of Sixers ball is a sort of purgatory where every year they are expected to do well, and every year they do well, and every year they get bounced in the second round, and every year Joel Embiid has some freak injury in the playoffs, and every year there's drama. So, so much delicious drama.
Joel Embiid, the reigning regular season MVP, is to his credit not an instigator of all the drama that swirls around him. Sure, he may take some questionable dives on the court and adopt his "Troel" persona on social media, but he's a very good center with a threatening jump shot who can just as easily bulldoze everyone on the way to the basket. But every year there's something with the Sixers. This year, it's the James Harden saga.
You see, James Harden had a longstanding relationship to the team's GM, Daryl Morey. Harden and Morey worked together before in Houston, and Morey's tenure on the Sixers has been, to some extent, kind of a re-creation of the roster he had in Houston. Harden is the cornerstone of this project; he changed how the game is played in Houston, and now he's in a new, later phase in his career where he can take over occasionally but mostly act as a top-shelf initiator for Embiid's offense.
Harden has also forced his way out of both Houston (after Morey left) and Brooklyn. Harden had only one year left on his contract when he was traded to Philadelphia. For the 2022-23 season, Harden essentially agreed to take a giant pay cut on the understanding that this would help Morey build a competitive roster around him and Embiid – the NBA has a salary cap, of course. Presumably, Morey made some under-the-table promises about giving him a much bigger contract afterwards.
But something went wrong with this relationship. So, this offseason, Harden asks for a trade and opts into the second year of this contract. At this point he has done the Sixers' front office two favors: Taking a pay cut, and then sticking with this contract so that he can be traded (rather than just opting out and going into free agency). Morey waffles on whether he'll actually trade Harden; presumably the market for him (an aging superstar who has at this point forced his way out of three teams) is not great.
So, just this August, Harden is making public statements like:
Daryl Morey is a liar and I will never be a part of an organization that he’s a part of. Let me say that again: Daryl Morey is a liar and I will never be a part of an organization that he’s a part of.
It's at this point unclear how this will play out, exactly, but Harden is likely to just hold out; he hasn't been playing or training with the team so far. This could easily drag out to the trade deadline, like the Simmons situation did. In the meantime, the Sixers are looking at struggling on without their secondary star, and they're going to be in chaos again.
Toronto Raptors
Category: Stuck with a side of chaos, or perhaps chaos with a side of stuck
In 2019 the Toronto Raptors won a championship. Then Kawhi Leonard unceremoniously left for the Clippers and everyone expected them to crater. Instead they won more regular season games (accounting for the shortened season) and almost made a conference finals. That left both fans and the front office with the impression that this post-Kawhi core had more to it than it seemed.
In the 2020-21 season they played in Tampa because Canada was substantially more serious about covid than the US, and the resulting turmoil had them winning 27 games (in another shortened season). This quick little one-year stint of tanking landed them fourth pick Scottie Barnes, an versatile forward whose game is built around strength and remarkable passing. Barnes won Rookie of the Year, the Raptors made the playoffs, and Toronto seemed set to start a new era while carrying on with a lot of the great players left from that championship team. But, defying expectations once again, they... got worse last season. They were a .500 team, and they only won that much because their starters were run ragged, both in terms of minutes and in terms of the insane defense they were expected to play. They played ugly, desperate basketball predicated on forcing opponents to turn the ball over to create easy scoring opportunities, because their offense was catastrophic when faced against a set defense.
They fell in the play-in tournament, mostly to Demar DeRozen's nine year old daughter screaming at the top of her lungs from the sidelines while they bricked free throws. It was horrifying to watch. Nick Nurse, having seemingly alienated his players and probably also the front office, left – a guy who just a couple years ago, was expected to stick around for a long time. And then Fred VanVleet left in free agency, leaving the Raptors with only two players from that title-winning team.
But rather than blow the team up or swing a big trade, the Raptors' front office is just... running it back, at least for now. They owe a top-4 protected pick to the Spurs this year, meaning that they have no incentive to tank unless they can hope to truly be one of the worst teams in the league, which seems unlikely. But on the flipside, preseason look good for them. The team was looking better, Barnes looked unstoppable at times, and they won all their games.
This is probably the highest-uncertainty team in the league; they could beat all expectations, or they could completely implode, and all sorts of permutations of those different fates seem in play. The front office might pull the plug on this roster before the trade deadline. Scottie Barnes might turn into an all-star or he might continue to stagnate. Who the hell knows.
Central Division
Chicago Bulls
Category: Stuck in the middle
In a league where teams sort themselves ever more aggressively into contenders and rebuilders, the Bulls have been not-bad, not-great for a few years. This in itself makes them kind of an outlier.
This is a team with a core of good, highly watchable players – DeMar DeRozen and Zach LaVine are both fearless, entertaining scorers; Nikola Vucevic is a talented stretch big, and Alex Caruso is a longtime fan favorite and great defensive guard. But both Vuc and DeRozen are aging. LaVine hasn't been quite so great lately. And Lonzo Ball – the team's third star, a talented defender and playmaker – is expected to be out this season with a pretty grim injury.
Cleveland Cavaliers
Category: Contenders. Ish.
The Cavs have been following a pretty formulaic path to contention for the last few years. After spending some time in the lottery, they drafted Evan Mobley – a highly mobile center who is no doubt the best defender in his draft class, and who has the upside to be a great all-around player. And just last season they traded for Donovan Mitchell, one of the better scoring guards in the league. A lot of people thought last year that they were going to make a deep run, but they got bounced in the first round. They're still on the upswing, though, and they're very much in that niche of teams that have a lot of upside and are fun to watch but haven't quite established their dominance yet.
Detroit Pistons
Category: Young and sad
Detroit has made two playoff appearances in the last fourteen years, and both of those were barely-treading-water years where they poked their heads into the first round and were promptly sent home. Since 2019, they've been on a long and miserable rebuild. They won all of 17 games last year. Detroit are bad, they've been bad for a long time, and unlike some other teams on long rebuilds, they are not overflowing with high-upside young players. It is unclear what they're doing over there.
The team's main source of hope is Cade Cunningham, another 2021 draft pick who was injured for almost all of last season but has acquitted himself well in the games he did get to play in his first two years. If he's healthy and develops well he could easily be a borderline all-star this year. But Detroit is a long, long way away from even treading water.
Indiana Pacers
Category: Young.
The pacers are boring. They've always been boring. They are low drama, they don't make insane controversial trades or go overboard with tanking. They just make logical improving moves every offseason and try to get better when possible or take a mild step backwards when necessary. Right now they're in the middle of a quasi-rebuild; they traded for Tyrese Halliburton, a very good young guard, and are clearly building the team around him. They run a lot and they shoot a lot; they are, on-court, young and fun and improving.
But nothing insane is going to happen to this team; they're like a team from a different, more normal, more Godly sports league. Puts me to sleep.
Milwaukee Bucks
Category: Contenders.
Two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo has a very good claim to being the best player in the sport right now. Incredibly fast and strong, he covers huge sections of the court in seconds and is basically unstoppable going to the basket. He's been one of the best players to watch for years, and the Bucks have given him a supporting cast to match how great Giannis is – even though, in an era of historic league parity, they've only managed to wrangle one championship out of it.
But that team is aging, and it's hard to hold a championship core together year after year. They no longer have tons of depth, and a lot of their core players are well into the final phase of their careers now. Still, the Bucks have gone all-in to bring Damian Lillard to Milwaukee this offseason, in a desperate bid to keep Giannis from walking away.
Lillard is himself one of the most entertaining players in the sport. If Giannis is the best dunker in the league, Lillard can safely claim that, when he's on a heater, he's the best off-the-dribble shooter. He'll bring the ball across the half-court line, shoot from there, and make it just to put the fear of God in the other team.
But the Bucks, Lillard or no, are still old and shallow and a little wobbly relative to the glory days of just a couple seasons ago. This is a team that could easily be a championship team, or they could just as easily be one of many, many failed attempts at renewing a declining roster by bringing in an aging star.
Southeast Division
Atlanta Hawks
Category: Upper-tier-mid-lings, or lower-tier quasi-contenders.
The Hawks' floor and ceiling is Trae Young: A fearless shooter and playmaker who can just as easily finish in traffic close to the basket as stick bravura half-court shots.
Unfortunately Trae is also a truly abysmal defender, and the team hasn't coalesced around him as fast as Trae himself has become a star player. They are basically unproven as a team that can consistently make the playoffs, let alone do well in them. But they've had some impressive runs, and they're definitely a team trying to be competitive. The hope for them is that this is a rebound year after Trae had some struggles last season.
Charlotte Hornets
I have nothing fun to say about the Charlotte Hornets, whose starting power forward Miles Bridges is currently embroiled in a domestic violence scandal that the Hornets themselves and the league as a whole are not really addressing.
Miami Heat
Category: Contenders until proven otherwise
The Heat are just sneaky. They have a way of finding random dudes off the street who suddenly blossom into starter-quality role-players in the NBA. Last year they made the Finals through an improbable path that included bouncing Chicago in the Play-Int Tournament and then upsetting every single Eastern Conference opponent they faced in the playoffs. In a league where the sample sizes are enormous and the best team is all but guaranteed to win a best-of-seven playoff round, this was one of the greatest underdog runs ever.
Their secret weapon is Jimmy Butler, who's currently the poster child for coasting through the regular season. He just turns into a different animal in the playoffs, so every year everyone has to do this routine where we forget Jimmy Butler is incredible and then the playoffs roll around and we are reminded and in awe.
Does it matter that they are super old, or that two of those great role-players of theirs (Max Strus and Gabe Vincent) just dipped in free agency? Very possibly it does matter quite a lot! It is very possible that the Heat will simply be mediocre this year. But, historically, this is a disgustingly well-managed team. You can't expect them to fail until they do.
Orlando Magic
Category: Young and fun
Orlando has been in a rebuild for quite a few years, but they are still a ways off from turning the corner; they only just got a true high pick in last year's draft, Paolo Banchero, who is the reigning Rookie of the Year and new franchise cornerstone. In effect, this is the NBA's prototypical young-and-fun team; they will not do a lot of winning, but they'll produce some highlights.
Washington Wizards
Category: Sadness pit
As far as I can tell, the Wizards have never been good – the last time Washington had a good team, they were still called the Washington Bullets. They will occasionally poke their heads into the playoffs, but never truly contend. If Indiana is 'stuck in the middle' as an exercise in boring consistency, then Washington is 'stuck in the middle' as a product of unfailing mediocrity.
Last offseason, in one of the great commitment-to-the-bit moves in league history, the Wizards gave Bradley Beal – An all-star guard who is nevertheless far from a transcendent ceiling raiser – a contract that was both massive and had a no-trade clause. No-trade clauses, which give a player veto power over any trade involving him, are exceedingly rare in the NBA. The Wizards promoted this as a demonstration of their loyalty to Beal, with whom they hoped to build a lasting partnership.
Well this offseason they fired their whole front office and the new front office promptly traded Beal. Oops. Incredible punchline. Because of the no-trade clause, they got a pretty piddly return for a player of Beal's caliber (Beal's apparently decline notwithstanding). So Washington is now officially actually rebuilding, and they're in a certain degree of turmoil.
The next point of drama for this team is Jordan Poole, whom they traded for. Poole is a guard who seemed, for a while, to be the heir apparent to Steph Curry's crown in Golden State. But last season he seemed to come down to earth, and his role on the Warriors diminished. Poole is, at present, a wave function waiting to collapse; he might prove his haters wrong, or he might prove them right. Or he might keep doing what he's always been doing: alternating maddeningly between being spectacular and being terrible. This preseason he dropped 41 points on the Knicks one game, then the very next game he went 1 for 15.
Anyway – that's all 30 teams. I know some of you like motosport so, uh, sound off in the comments: Who is the Max Verstappen of basketball? (I don't know who Max Verstappen is)
