One of the most entertaining aspects of the NBA is the push-pull tension that crops up every season as teams seek to meet the sometimes lofty expectations that have been set for them.
While a number of teams have high hopes, the reality is that only one can walk away having won the NBA championship. Raw feelings and disappointment will be on display for just about everyone else.
With that in mind, here’s a look at the four clubs facing the most pressure heading into 2023–24.
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Sixers
Some would say there’s been a pressure to win big ever since opting to plunge to the depths of the league during Sam Hinkie’s Process era years. But it’s certainly ratcheted up since the top-seeded Sixers got bounced from the conference semifinals in 2021 by a less impressive Hawks team that hasn’t done much of note since then. Philly turned Ben Simmons into James Harden, but now finds itself needing to thread the needle on what seems like yet another bad situation.
All the while, league MVP Joel Embiid is talking publicly about his desire to win a title, whether that’s in Philadelphia “or anywhere else.” It would be massive for the Sixers to land in the winner’s circle this season and quiet the noise … if only to change the 29-year-old Embiid’s mindset.
Clippers
Perhaps there isn’t a massive pressure there depending on how you look at things. After all, the Clippers are viewed as the second team in Los Angeles, and they have plenty of talent on the club—obviously something that hasn’t always been the case with this franchise.
Still, each of the Clippers’ two superstars, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, can opt out of their contracts after this coming season. The Clips could likely lock those two up without much conversation by offering them long-term max deals again. But is the club, which plans to open a new arena just ahead of the 2024–25 season, so thirsty for star power that it’d offer those sorts of deals to players who haven’t been able to stay healthy in recent years? And would it be a gamble to swing a deal for Harden, who’s made it known he prefers to go to the Clippers?
Pressure can make teams do some interesting things. We’ll see just how interesting things get for the Clips.
Celtics
Bringing back first-year coach Joe Mazzulla, who—for all the odd rotational choices and timeout flubs—got his team within one win of reaching the NBA Finals, was the right move.
But expectations remain high in Boston, and not just to make the conference or NBA Finals, either. The stakes are always higher with superstar Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown’s record-breaking contract for $304 million and now Kristaps Porziņģis on the roster. Dealing away Marcus Smart, an enormous part of the organization’s fabric, was an enormous move, too. This is a club that wants to win now, and one that realizes that failing to ever get a title with its All-Star duo—especially after coming within two wins of that—would be an undeniable failure.
Suns
After winning different Coach of the Year awards in both 2021 and ’22, Monty Williams got fired in ’23. That alone speaks to how much pressure is on this team to win under new owner Mat Ishbia. He’s pushing all the chips in, and the trade last season for Kevin Durant and last month for Bradley Beal (and moving on from Chris Paul) clearly illustrate that.
The Devin Booker–led club should get far more of a chance to jell this season as compared to last, when Durant got hurt almost immediately after being dealt. But injuries are almost always a question for teams this top-heavy, particularly given the almost 35-year-old Durant’s recent history.
If this iteration of the team can’t break through, there won’t be much left—save for moving Deandre Ayton—to alter.
