It’s a longstanding NBA custom to jump to conclusions. MVP chatter begins in the first week of the season, coaches are on the hot seat by week two, and before even a month has passed, “burn it down” roster discussions emerge. Far be it from me to stray from tradition. So here, a month before the All-Star break, are my too-early NBA Season Superlatives, a selection of premature evaluations and awards plucked out of thin air.
Most pleasant surprise
Sacramento Kings. One of the most historically maligned teams in the league, it’s hard to say that the Kings haven’t earned some of the skepticism around the direction of their franchise. But the turnaround, overseen by new head coach Mike Brown, since their personnel swap with the Pacers this past offseason of Tyrese Haliburton and Buddy Hield for Domantas Sabonis, has been nothing short of miraculous. While losing a rising star like Haliburton is never ideal, Sabonis seems to have unlocked guard De’Aaron Fox’s potential. Other fringe signings (like Malik Monk) round out a fun, aggressive, and competitive team that’s making downright shocking noise in the Western Conference.
Honorable mention: Utah Jazz. Pretty much everyone had the Jazz penciled in for the Victor Wembanyama sweepstakes when they traded away their two biggest stars, Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert. But new head coach Will Hardy and his motley roster apparently missed that memo, and power forward Lauri Markkanen has made a compelling case for an All-Star appearance.
Biggest disappointment
Minnesota Timberwolves. I already waxed poetic about how much of a disaster this Timberwolves season has been, but it bears repeating that the Gobert trade is shaping up to be one of the worst front-office moves in recent memory. Questionable as the fit among Gobert, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Anthony Edwards was, it was universally agreed upon that the three-time defensive player of the year would all but guarantee them a spot in the playoffs, and maybe even get them home-court advantage in the opening round. That assumption was a gross underestimate of the level to which Gobert appears to be locker-room cancer, and also of the importance of the pieces Minnesota traded away to acquire him. The once-hyped team is now likely to end up in the play-in tournament, or maybe worse.
Honorable mention: Phoenix Suns. How the mighty have fallen. It’s hard to believe that this team is comprised of mostly the same pieces that took them to the brink of a championship less than two years ago. But life comes at you fast: Chris Paul finally seems to be feeling the impact of Father Time and the joyless, chemistry-less Suns (who, yes, desperately miss a sidelined Devin Booker) are likely to have missed their window.
Biggest ‘what if?’
Los Angeles Lakers. LeBron James is 38. If you’ve turned on even 30 seconds of a Lakers game or an ESPN talk show this season, you’ve heard that fact mentioned ad nauseum. But it’s central to what makes this particular Lakers season so frustrating for fans of the team, and for fans of James himself. The Russell Westbrook experiment has been a rollercoaster ride, to be sure, but the highs are simply not nearly high enough to justify the lows. After a disastrous season last year, most expected Westbrook and his $47m salary to be moved this past summer. But the front office stood pat, and appear to have opted to see the 2022-23 season through, retaining Westbrook (and their infamous 2027 and 2029 first-round picks). In doing so, they’re essentially punting what is, in all likelihood, one of the last James-as-a-contender years. It’s difficult not to wonder what might have been for the sub-.500 team, who has shown promising flashes, if they had made moves in the offseason, or, at the very least, when Westbrook first showed signs of life off the bench.
Honorable mention: Oklahoma City Thunder. Before the entire NBA was foaming at the mouth over Wembanyama, there was another lanky seven-footer who captured the league’s affection. But Chet Holmgren, the Thunder’s No 2 overall draft pick last year, was injured in a pro-am game this summer, which left him sidelined for the entirety of this season. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been a revelation, and Josh Giddey is progressing nicely. With the Western Conference wide open, it’s fair to wonder if the young team could have made a postseason appearance with Chet in tow.
Most likely to succeed
Boston Celtics. It feels simultaneously like just yesterday and also like 10 years ago that the Celtics were making headlines for the wrong reasons, in the wake of the sudden, shocking, “indefinite” suspension of head coach Ime Udoka and the team’s questionable (at best) handling of the situation. Even keeping in mind that the team was fresh off their first appearance in the NBA finals since 2010, not many prognosticators had them sitting comfortably atop the league-wide standings for the duration of this season after Udoka was replaced with interim head coach Joe Mazzulla just days before the start of training camp. But the Celtics weathered the storm, and Mazzulla seems to command the respect of his locker room. Jayson Tatum has rebounded from a disappointing postseason by playing at an MVP level, Jaylen Brown has also been excellent, and the signing of guard Malcolm Brogdon is proving fruitful. The team is poised for a return to the promised land.
Honorable mention: Denver Nuggets. Nikola Jokic has won league MVP the last two years running, but even then, his supporting cast wasn’t strong enough to push the Nuggets into contention. This year feels different. Jamal Murray is back from an ACL injury and starting to look like himself, Michael Porter Jr also made his return from a back injury, Aaron Gordon is starting to blossom in the Jokic system, and fringe signings like Kentavious Caldwell-Pope are rounding out the roster nicely. Sitting atop the West, the Nuggets have arrived, for real.
Most likely to repeat history
Los Angeles Clippers. The “little brother” syndrome in the NBA is far from mythical. Some teams have a stronghold on their markets – New York, for example, while now home to a Nets team that boasts one of the best players in the league, will always be a Knicks town (miserable as the franchise often is). At the crux of many of the Los Angeles Clippers’ problems is an attempt to circumvent that complex with shortcuts and marketing. The Clippers moved heaven and earth to sign Kawhi Leonard and Paul George to league-wide fanfare in 2019, and launched headfirst into a “Streetlights over Spotlights” rebrand, emphasizing the team’s alleged grittiness (and implying that the big-brother Lakers were all Hollywood, no heart).
The problem being, of course, that they forgot to actually be gritty, or develop team chemistry. This hubris resulted in a shocking Game 7 loss to the Denver Nuggets in the second-round of the 2020 playoffs, a monkey the team is still trying to get off its back. The Clippers did make it to the Western Conference finals the following year while down Kawhi Leonard, but they’ve yet to have a finals appearance, a marked disappointment considering what they gave up for Leonard and George. The team has hovered around the upper middle of the Western standings this year, but it feels like a sound wager that the Championship DNA just didn’t make it to this younger sibling.
Honorable mention: Philadelphia 76ers. It’s hyperbolic to call any NBA franchise “cursed,” but for some of them it certainly feels that way. In retrospect, the Sixers almost certainly got the better end of the Ben Simmons trade (James Harden has been excellent this year), and Joel Embiid remains one of the best players in the league. But years of precedent make it almost impossible to trust them to do anything of substance in the postseason, especially with playoff-plagued head coach Doc Rivers at the helm.
Most promising dark horse
New Orleans Pelicans. I have made my case why the Pelicans should be taken seriously as contenders. Even though they’ve stayed at or near the top of the West all season, their relative inexperience in combination with bad injury luck has made many NBA experts reluctant to back them. But the team’s response during stretches where they’ve been missing their biggest stars, Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram, anchored in huge part by an All-Star caliber showing by veteran CJ McCollum, only strengthens their case as a real threat. Willie Green has steered the ship with grace, the supporting cast have enthusiasm for their roles, and they’re second only to the Grizzlies in the West in defensive rating. They may not have any seasoned, battle-tested superstars on their roster, or even an MVP candidate, but no one should write off this Pelicans team.
Honorable mention: Brooklyn Nets. I was the first person to count out this Nets team, even though Kevin Durant is Kevin Durant, because they just couldn’t seem to escape their own penchant for drama and nonsense. From the (probably necessary) firing of Steve Nash to Kyrie Irving’s promotion of an antisemitic documentary, this season was only the latest instalment in a consistent trend of chaos for the Nets since Durant and Irving came to town. But give them credit: they really seem to have gotten it together, Jacque Vaughn appears to command more respect from the team than Nash, and never count out a Kevin Durant-led team with a competent supporting cast.
